The West Side United Methodist Church (Ann Arbor, Mich.) record group contains all extant records of the West Side United Methodist Church of Ann Arbor from its founding as the Erste Deutsche Methodisten Kirche in 1847 up to the 1990s. All records dating prior to World War I are in German, those from later time periods are in English.
Records from the German period are not complete, but do include quarterly conference meeting minutes (1847-1867 and 1883-1916), official board minutes (1897-1908), Sunday School board meeting minutes (1876-1915), Sunday School attendance and contribution records (1901-1918), a record of baptisms (1857-1901), minutes of meetings of the leaders (1901-1908), Epworth League minutes (1900-1917), and records on receipts and expenditures (1879-1893).
Records from the years since World War I vary in completeness depending on the time period. Records from the years prior to the move to the church on Seventh Street in 1952 are less complete than those for the most recent decades. For the period from World War I to 1952, the collection contains quarterly conference reports for most years; official board minutes (1922-1931 and 1944-1952); Board of Christian Education minutes and correspondence (1943-1952); Ladies Aid/Women's Society for Christian Service records (1935-1952); Sunday School board minutes and records on attendance, contributions, and expenditures (1923-1952 - incomplete); letters from former pastors and their wives upon celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Jefferson Street church (1934); photographs of the church building and activities of the congregation, yearbooks (1946-1952), and correspondence concerning the sale of the Jefferson Street church and the construction of the Seventh Street church (1949-1952).
The records for the years since 1952 are relatively complete and quite extensive. Included are quarterly (more recently annual) conference reports, minutes and correspondence of major boards and commissions (Administrative Council, Board of Trustees, Education, Evangelism, Finance, Memorials, Council on Ministries, Missions, Nominations, Outreach, Staff-Parish Relations, United Methodist Women, and Worship) plus various short-lived temporary committees and task forces, correspondence chronological files, subject files on special projects and events, church newsletters, Sunday bulletins, directories, and photographs of the church building and activities of the congregation.
The record group is arranged in six series: Quarterly and Annual Reports, Boards and Commissions File, Sunday School File, Topical File, Publications File, Photographs File, and Audiotapes, Films and Video.
Researchers interested in baptismal and marriage records should contact West Side United Methodist Church.
German immigrant families founded the Erste Deutsche Methodisten Kirche in 1847 and built a church at the corner of East Liberty and South Division. Over the next half century the congregation gradually outgrew this building, so in 1895 they purchased a new site in the heart of the German section of Ann Arbor, now known as the Old West Side. The new church, completed in 1896, was located at the corner of West Jefferson and Fourth Streets.
For many years, the church membership continued to be drawn from the German families of Ann Arbor, but over time, the church began holding both German-language services and English services. Like most German-American institutions, the church came under suspicion of disloyalty during and just after World War I. In 1919, the church was forced to close for a few months. Upon reopening, the congregation gave up German language services and changed its name to West Side Methodist Episcopal Church.
The church did not grow significantly in size until just after World War II. Soon after the arrival of Rev. Edwin Weiss in 1948, membership began surging, almost doubling in the next three years. The congregation outgrew its old church and in 1950 purchased a site on South Seventh Street to build a new one. They moved into the new church in 1952.
In 1955, the congregation purchased a small home to the north of the church to expand its site. Two years later they began a fund raising campaign to eliminate the balance owed on the church building and provide money to build an education building. This campaign was so successful that they not only completed the education building, but also added a Moeller Pipe Organ and purchased a small piece of land south of the sanctuary for the addition of a driveway.
Over the following fifteen years, the church made significant additions to the pipe organ, installed the stained glass windows, paved the driveways and parking lot, and added additional land north of the education building. In 1988, the congregation completed a renovation of the education building and the construction of a connecting wing between it and the church.
