When St. Paul’s United Church was rebuilt in 1964, after a fire gutted the Emma and Devine streets building a year earlier, it was one of four churches within a block or two of each other, remembers Shirley Martin.
With the density of churches in the area – including Devine Street, St. John’s and St. Joseph’s – there was some pushback in the community at the time about building back St. Paul’s, said Martin, chair of trustees with the church.
But the congregation was strong and included prominent members of the community, so the reconstruction was completed, including preserving a stained glass window from the original structure, she said.
Among those four churches, 58 years later, just St. Joseph’s is still operating, she said, after St. Paul’s held its last service June 26.
An aging and dwindling congregation at St. Paul’s, numbering just a few dozen by the end, decided early this year to close the 132-year-old church, said board chairperson Diane Slack, who recalled Sunday schools, social clubs, and gatherings and celebrations during her more than 60 years with the church.
“I got married there. My siblings got married there. My mother got remarried there,” Slack said, noting her daughter, married there last October, was the last to be wed in that church.
“It’s a lot of history in our family,” she said.
The church that opened in 1890 on what’s now Vidal Street, and moved in the early 1900s, is being returned to the United Church of Canada, and there are plans to eventually replace it with affordable housing, Slack and Martin said.
That won’t be a fast process, and others may rent the building in the interim, Martin said.
Bookkeeping is being finalized and the property is expected to be vacated by the end of the month, she said.
That includes Sarnia-Lambton Rebound’s 1,400 Cinderella Project dresses that were taken to the church last fall for storage, said Rebound spokesperson Nicole McLean.
The agency has put out a community call asking for anyone else with 1,000 square feet of climate-controlled and secure storage space to help provide a new home for the dresses – given to youngsters in need to help with prom and graduation costs.
People can get in touch by phoning Rebound at 519-344-2841, she said.
Members of St. Paul’s remaining congregation, meanwhile, are making their own decisions about whether to join other churches, Slack said, who noted the last service about two weeks ago was emotional.
Decisions are also being made about where church assets will be sold, and about what to keep and potentially incorporate into the potential future housing project, Martin said.
Both women said the church was known for its meals when it was thriving.
St. Paul’s, which erected its gym in honor of locals fighting in the Second World War, also funded the building of The Sandpiper apartment building in Sarnia, on Wellington Street, about 40 years ago, Marin said.
“That was one of our biggest, major projects.”