Memories of Chalmers
UPDATE: Douglas Hastie had some information to share regarding the man identified only as “Brian”. His name was Brian Gibson and he lived on 5th Avenue taking care of his mother Marge or Madge. He may not have been an official caretaker but the family were definitely members at First Pres and Brian helped out in many ways there, and also at Chalmers. Sadly, Doug reports that Brian died quite young of a heart attack. I have not been able to locate an obituary, but it seems he collapsed on the steps of First Presbyterian in 1998 or 1999. He would have been in his mid-fifties. His mother’s obit indicates that she moved to London Ontario in 1999, and passed away there in 2008 at the age of 99. Read that obituary here.
“Chalmers and First Pres used to have a pulpit exchange in the summer,” Douglas recalls. “When our minister was off the Chalmers minister would conduct the service at First Pres and when he was off we would all go to Chalmers.”
Click here to see another post about these two historic buildings.
ORIGINAL POST:
It will be 25 years in June since Chalmers United Church closed its doors. The building still stands at 177 de l’Eglise and is now the Montreal Korean United Church. Members of the congregation dispersed to other churches, including Verdun and Crawford, and we are lucky to still count a few of them among our SouthWest congregation. Donna Davis, who was involved with the Kairos group at Chalmers, shared the photos below - from the reception following the closing in 1997 and a few other events from the later years - and we thought it would be fun for people to see some of these faces.
Chalmers began in 1899 as a mission of St. Matthews Presbyterian in Point St. Charles. It was originally known as Verdun Presbyterian Mission. They built their first church in 1911, and adopted the name Chalmers Presbyterian in 1918. The building became too small by 1919 and that’s when they commissioned a second one to be built on the same lot. The building completed in 1922 is the one that still stands on de l’Eglise. The name Chalmers United was adopted following the joining of Methodists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists into the United Church of Canada in 1925.
Like many churches all over the world, Chalmers was named after Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), a Scottish clergyman, writer and teacher.
Donna has identified most of the people in these pictures but, as she writes, “there are gaps in my memory and knowledge so both my information and occasionally spelling of names may need correction. Mea culpa if anything slips through, but then such mistakes are always great conversation starters.”
We would be delighted to hear from you if you have pictures, stories or anything else to add about Chalmers.
