The Hillsdale Church of the Nazarene will host a homecoming celebration Oct. 12 and 13, marking its 75th anniversary.
Saturday will feature a concert by The Olivetians, a 12-person group from Olivet Nazarene University in Illinois, followed by an ice cream social. The church will hold a celebration service Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. with keynote speaker John Seaman, Southwestern Michigan’s superintendent. State Rep. Ken Kurtz and State Sen. Bruce Caswell will both attend the festivities, as well as former pastors and their families. After the service, a country lunch of pulled pork, coleslaw, macaroni and cheese, and Texas sheet cake will be served.
Church members preparing for the festivities expressed their excitement about the approaching weekend and urged college students and community members to celebrate with them.
The church has journeyed far in the past 75 year, changing locations several times and increasing its membership dramatically. According to Darlene Copp, Hillsdale Church of the Nazarene member and researcher, the church was founded in 1938 by Gerald and Beulah Cook, who ventured from Jackson, Mich. They came to complete what they said was their “God-given assignment” to found a church in Hillsdale.
The church began with nine members in the front parlor of the Cook’s house on Reading Avenue. Soon after, it was moved to a hall next to the post office building, which was rented from the Salvation Army. After a few years at its Dickerson Street location, the church moved the approximately 50-member congregation to its current location at 208 N. West Street, but not without Hillsdale College’s help.
In 1943, the college loaned $2,500 to the church for purchasing the N. West Street property. After paying back its debt in 1947, the church took another loan of $6,000 from the college in 1948, which it used to build a cement block building. That loan was paid back in 1955.
“It wasn’t unusual to take loans from the college,” Copp said. “Common, ordinary people—like my mother-in-law—received loans. She went to the college and got a loan to buy a house. Back in those days, they gave loans to local people to buy property.”
According to Linda Moore, Hillsdale College public services librarian, the college frequently gave out loans to local organizations and individuals to purchase property, and it even organized a committee to handle the loan process.
Moore pulled a book from the archives which shows a collection of loans just from 1881. It appeared as if the loan-approval committee met in regular sessions twice a month, though there is no definitive documentation about the committee.
“This practice may have started as early as when the college first came here,” Moore said. “I suspect it was probably not unusual. Apart from donations and gifts, this was one way they paid the bills.”
The applications required specifics, such as how many buildings were on the land, how much of it was fenced, and if there were any fruit trees. Land investments were safer for the college than investing in the stock market.
“If you had money, this was one of the things that you did—people as well as institutions would give out loans,” Moore said. “It was difficult to get bank loans, and many people went outside the banking system.”
Runs on the bank were also common, Moore said, and money wasn’t as safe as it is today. She imagined that Hillsdale was probably not the only educational institution giving loans at the time.
“The college was kind of a bank,” Moore said.
Former Vice President of Administration F. LaMar “Tony” Fowler said that these practices were definitely over by the time he came to Hillsdale College in the 1960s. The Hillsdale Church of the Nazarene loans was probably one of the last to partake in this practice.
