The Milan News-Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Baptist church has deep roots in Milan
Martha Churchill
PUBLISHED: April 5, 2007
Members of Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church were having a regular Sunday evening worship service when someone took a photograph (see at right). The newly formed congregation had just completed a building for its worship services at 233 Elm St. in Milan in a neighborhood dominated by the American Foundry.
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The church got its start during the first few days of February 1949, when the Rev. Eddie Wilson of Ypsilanti met with Deacon Eli Longstreet at his home on Ash Street in Milan. Longstreet's wife, Ophella, was present, as was Wilson's wife, Alberta.
No minutes of the meeting have been passed down, but a significant group of committed individuals got together that evening and made Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church a reality.
Wilson and Longstreet knew each other from work, as both of them were employed at the Ford Motor Co. plant in Ypsilanti. Wilson took on the position of pastor for the new church. The first service was held Feb. 13, 1949, at the Longstreet home. Soon, the church held services on Cherry Street in the same neighborhood.
In 1951, Pilgrim Rest members found a vacant lot and purchased it for a new church building. Soon, the church members were dressing in work clothes and constructing a house of worship with their own hands. Some members lived in town near the church, while others lived in the surrounding rural areas.
That fall, someone apparently stood up during the worship service and captured the scene as Pilgrim Rest members participated in their typical Sunday evening worship service. The cinderblock construction was still visible inside the building. Later, the walls were refined with wood paneling. Some children are pictured in the front, seated in iron chairs that came from an unknown movie theater.
Wilson was 38 when this picture was taken. He led Pilgrim's Rest Baptist Church with assistance over the years from his son Roy, also an ordained pastor; from his son Edward, an ordained deacon; and his son David, who at that time was an ordained deacon.
Born in Alabama in 1913, Wilson was one of 10 children in a sharecropper's family. Sharecropping was almost comparable to slavery because the landowner rented the land and provided tools and seed to the farmer. The wealthy owner kept track of the books and charged interest for every loan. Farmers even bought their food on credit from the owner. At the end of the year, using the owner's calculations, the farmer was always broke or deeper in debt.
Wilson turned his back on the sharecropper system and came to Michigan when he was 20. The Depression was at its worst. Wilson settled in Ypsilanti, not far from his uncle, Garther Roberson Sr. Roberson was the pastor of the Second Baptist Church in Ypsilanti at that time, and eventually ordained his nephew as both a minister and a pastor.
Ypsilanti turned out to be a good place to live for Wilson, as he married his wife, Alberta, there and found his job at Ford.
The couple had seven children altogether. Two of them died in childhood. His daughter Marion is still living, as well as his son Kenneth in Copenhagen, Denmark, and his son David Wilson, 50, the current pastor at Pilgrim Rest.
Following his father's example, David Wilson has a regular job and ministers to the church in addition to his employment. He and his wife, Angela, both work for the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, commuting from their home in Inkster. The two were married July 19, 1997, at Pilgrim Rest, with the groom's father performing the nuptials.
It's a good thing they took advantage of the elder Wilson by having him officiate at the wedding because, just one year later, the father died.
Gradually, David Wilson felt himself called to the clergy. He was ordained a deacon at Pilgrim Rest by the Rev. A.J. Lightfoot in 1987. In 1999, Wilson went a step further and was ordained a pastor by Lightfoot.
Today, Pilgrim Rest is rather low-key. You won't see a traffic jam there on Sunday mornings. Many of the worshippers, who live in Ypsilanti, Belleville and Inkster, are friends and relatives, so they carpool. The church belongs to National Baptist USA Inc.
"We are open to everyone here; everyone is welcome," Wilson said. "Come as you are."
In February, Wilson led a service at Pilgrim Rest celebrating the church's 58th year since its founding at the Longstreet home on Ash Street. He's looking forward to the 60th birthday bash, "and then another 60 years," he said.
Martha Churchill is a member of the Milan Area Historical Society. She can be reached at 439-4055 or Martha@marthachurchill. com.
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