EVERETT — Ed Coon didn’t plan to write a history book while serving as the pastor of Everett First Presbyterian Church.
But when others could no longer fulfill the position of church historian in 1990, the church board asked if he would compile the church’s history for a centennial celebration.
That gave him just two years to finish before the church’s 100th anniversary.
“Try to be a full-time minister and try to do all that research,” said Coon, who led the church from 1983 to 1996. “It’s not possible.”
The centennial came and went but Coon, 75, never gave up on the task, even after he retired. His perseverance, hours of personal interviews with members of the congregation and time spent researching at the church and the Everett Public Library paid off in 2008, when “Steeple on the Hill,” was published.
The goal was to tell the story of Everett’s oldest church, he said, but the project also took on a personal twist when in telling that story, he was faced with writing about his own ministry.
A friend asked how he could be objective about his time at the church.
“I told him nobody writing history ever is objective and even the people writing the Bible were not objective,” Coon said. “I look at it from a subjective point of view. I know somebody else would have written it totally differently because they would have seen things as being more important.”
He’s been “a little outspoken over the years,” he admits.
In 1963, church elders in New York froze his salary after he decided to join the March on Washington, the civil rights rally where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream Speech.”
Another time in the early 1990s, a man stood up during a service and accused him of being “soft on the communists” because of a remark Coon made in his sermon. Some in Everett also questioned Coon’s decision in 1986 to invite a Jewish congregation in the midst of reorganizing to use First Presbyterian Church during their fall High Holy Days.
Another particular challenge at Everett First Presbyterian Church occurred only months after the centennial, he said, when signs of wear in the 1910 church building became obvious.
Moisture from the building’s bricks was causing the wooden trusses to rot, he said. New steel structures had to be installed to keep the building’s roof from collapsing.
The church was already financially limping into its centennial year, Coon said in his book. The bill for the repair work came to $102,586 and conflict arose when the church’s rainy-day fund had to be used to fix the building. Attendance had been falling since 1988 and members of the congregation began to question if Coon could rebuild the fund.
“I think that was probably the lowest time for me,” he said.
Writing the history was part of a healing process, Coon added. Now he is hopeful the material can lead to conversations about the role of churches and religion in the lives of others. He met with a small group on Aug. 25 at A Gathering Grove in Everett to read passages from the book.
“We’re not proud of everything in it, but we’re proud to have that book and tell the story,” said Shirley Solberg, a member of the church congregation for the past 30 years. She remembered the conflicting opinions after the replacement of the church structure.
“I was there and I knew some of the stresses at the time,” Solberg said, “but I truly did not understand the depth of (Coon’s) pain and I’m glad (he) expressed that.”
Amy Daybert: 425-339-3491, adaybert@heraldnet.com.
Buy the book
“Steeple on the Hill” is available at Pilchuck Books, 2207 Everett Ave., Suite 101, Everett.
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