For Mommy, there was no place like Mt. Zion in Cleveland. When we lived in Nashville, we found another Congregational Church, way across town. It took an hour to get to church on Sundays. And Mommy still missed Mt. Zion. The good thing about Kalamazoo was that it was closer to Cleveland than we’d ever lived. In Nashville, we could see Grandmommy Una Bell, (who lived in Arkansas), more often; in Kalamazoo, it was Grandmommy Alma, and Zo, Lang, and Lewis in the other direction—Chicago.

We tried the Congregational Church in Kalamazoo. Nobody looked at us, or spoke to us. It felt cold and unwelcoming. Daddy was Methodist, so we tried First Methodist Church downtown. Same reception. Odd. I wondered why we didn’t try Mt. Zion Church in Kalamazoo. I found out it was Baptist, and we WERE NOT Baptists, no matter what!

We tried Allen Chapel, the AME church. Daddy liked it, but it reminded Mommy of the Baptist church they attended in West Virginia—her grandmother’s church. Allen Chapel was across the railroad tracks, past downtown on the North Side, a poor neighborhood. Mommy didn’t like the church, so we looked for a different church.

We noticed that most of our neighbors stayed home on Sunday. The Averetts were Catholic—they sent Nell and Mack to Catholic school when they got older. I don’t remember them on Sunday. I don’t think they went to church. The Urbans did, sometimes. They invited the whole alley to their church, People’s Church. This church was way across town. We had to drive past Western, where Mommy and Daddy taught, and then down West Main to the country. It was way down 10th street, off West Main. It was like going to the Nature Center to get there.

The people there were friendly, or at least some of them were. The speaker—he wasn’t a minister, Roger Greeley, was very nice and smart. He lived down Westnedge from us. This church had children’s church during the sermon. I was in class with kids I’d never met before. Zeke was in class with Sam Urban.

Mommy really liked this church—it made her think. They respected her ideas; she felt accepted. Daddy liked Roger and what he was talking about, but he didn’t like the people there—he didn’t feel accepted, and neither did I. Zeke liked that you didn’t have to dress up, or sit in church—his class was always on the playground!

We had lots of workshops. I remember learning to make candles one time. It was in the fall. They taught us to make jack-o-lantern shaped candles for Halloween, dipped candles, and sand candles. I thought this was a boring class; I hated the way my candles looked, but Mommy loved this class. We did a unit on Chinese New Year another time. Mommy made this huge papier mâche dragon head for my class to hide under. The dragon body was made of fabric.

It wasn’t until I was in High School that I realized People’s Church wasn’t Christian. We had a class on world religions, and Christianity was presented as one of the religions. All of the kids in the class except me rejected Christianity in that unit. People’s Church was Unitarian—they didn’t believe that Jesus died for our sins. They thought He was a man that lived long ago and was a good guy. They rejected miracles, healings, death and resurrection.

I believed in all that stuff. So did Mommy, but she liked the culture of the place. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the music those other kids listened to. I liked disco, funk and R&B; they liked Heavy Metal. I didn’t drink or party; they all did. And I couldn’t believe that no one else was a Christian in my Youth Group. I went to two retreats with them; one was at our church. I felt alienated and alone.

Once our youth group spent the night at the church making orgami paper cranes to send to our sister church in Japan—some peace gesture. They were big on fighting world hunger, too—all beyond UNICEF. I grew more and more resentful of this place the older I got. Besides the cultural differences, I longed to learn more about Jesus. That little unit on religion—where we studied all religion—left me hungry for more on Christianity. We had a written test on it, and I’d gotten it all right.

We went to Allen Chapel during People’s summer vacation, and I liked it there. They had better music, more Jesus. Daddy wanted to go there too. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the Beatles. My senior High school class picked music for the Valentine’s Day service. The music played in the sanctuary for the adults. It was supposed to be a love song, and they chose All you Need is Love, by the Beatles. That made daddy so mad! What are they doing playing the Beatles in church? he thought. I knew my class had played much worse, like Love Stinks, and I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Another one Bites the Dust, etc., but Daddy was just now hearing what I always had to put up with. He asked me if I wanted to leave as much as he did. Of course I did! Mommy wanted to stay, and she was mad at me for agreeing with daddy. I hated that place.
I had lied to people when they asked me what church I went to.

Most people I hung out with at school talked about what church they went to—it was a social thing. “What church do you go to?”—meant “I haven’t seen you at mine. Where do you go?” I would answer, “We’re visiting churches,” meaning, “We don’t have a church home. We’re shopping around. You might see us at yours soon.” Mommy said she wouldn’t break up the family by staying at People’s, so we all left to go to Allen Chapel.

I was 16 when we started going there full-time. I had been going into 6th grade the first time we went to their summer vacation Bible School. When I joined the church, my friends Wyndi and Monique joined, too. I was SO relieved to be at a real church! I stayed there from 1983-1997, when I started going to Christian Life Center with my husband and children.

I was in the choir at both churches. At Peoples, we sang a variety of songs. It was kind of like singing in a school choir—the songs usually didn’t have anything to do with God. My favorite was Morning has Broken, which was almost religious. People’s had a lot of families with one Jewish and one Christian parent, and several folks who really fumed if we sang Joy to the World at Christmastime. Christmastime was when Roger would dress as Santa and give each child a present their parents had brought in for the special program.

Allen Chapel didn’t do that, but the choir sang about Jesus. I learned They that Wait upon the Lord Shall Renew Their Strength from the Allen Chapel Inspirational (Youth) choir. I also learned The Lord is my Light, I Have never seen the Righteous Forsaken, and whatever other scripture lurked in Gospel songs.

Our first director, Lee, played the organ, and made up his own songs sometimes. He was pimply faced, funky, and although was probably in his 20s, he was rumored to date young (13 yr old) girls. He was replaced by Sheila, a Western student. She played piano very well. She taught us Marvelous. Then I graduated and went to college. When I got back, Mrs. Hampton, our YPD (Young People’s Division) leader, was the choir director. She liked simple anthems, like I Have Never Seen the Righteous Forsaken, and lots of instruments. I played my bass with her a lot.

And then, in 1992, I took over as choir director! I directed the Inspirational choir, even after all the teenagers left it and I had younger children in the choir. My younger peers came back to form the Young Adult Choir my last year as Choir Director. They didn’t take to me well as their director, and I eventually left the church after a dispute involving the Young Adult Choir and the Pastor.

Char’s family didn’t do church, although Jim eventually became a pastor. When Mrs. Aldag was tragically killed in a car wreck, I went to the memorial service at First Presbyterian Church downtown. That was a big, popular church in town. It was the first time I had been in church with all my alley friends. It was odd, and very sad.