Seventy-five years! It sounds like a long time to be a member of one church, yet Dr. Branscombe achieved that milestone on April 7 2004. On that date in 1929, he became a member of Bloor St. Baptist Church. Since that time he has taught in the Sunday School, ushered at both morning and evening services, and served as a Deacon. He first became a deacon of the church around 1955. He is now a Life Deacon of the church, an honour bestowed on only a few.
Dr. Branscombe began his Christian life in the First Baptist Church of Moncton N.B., where he was baptized. As do so many from the Atlantic Provinces, he moved to “Upper Canada” as a young man to seek, if not a “better” life, at least one with more opportunities for growth. He tells me that his grandmother gave him her blessing, conditional on the fact that he not forget “his own country.”
In coming to Yorkminster Park, he came from a place of rich history to a church that had also developed a rich history. The Bond St. Baptist Church, whose most famous minister was undoubtedly the Reverend Robert A. Fyfe, was the ancestor of both the Yorkminster and the Park Rd. branches of our present church. It had itself grown out of very early efforts to found Baptist work in this city. One of these church plantings had even borne the name “Yonge St. Baptist Church”, a name that was many years later to be proposed for the church at Yonge and Heath.
Since Dr. Branscombe is so interested in history, it was no problem for him to trace the flow of events from Bond St. to the Yorkville Mission, and from there to Bloor St. and to Yorkminster, the first church in the line that would not need to change its name if it were to move! In an incidental note, Dr. Branscombe points out that the naming of this church went through a process of soliciting suggestions from various members, the result of which turned out to be, not “Yonge Street,” (as originally proposed) but “Yorkminster”. Another line can be traced from Bond St. to Central Baptist to Park Rd. The resulting union of Yorkminster and Park Rd. has produced the church we are today.
In recent years, Dr. Branscombe’s interest has lain in the stained glass windows of the church. In the upper windows, we find an orderly arrangement of pictures in which the “mighty works” of the Lord alternate with parables and stories illustrative of the Gospel. The lower windows illustrate other aspects of the Christian story. The windows have all been donated as memorials to deceased members of the church, and range in size from those under the north and south galleries to the large ones above the same galleries.
One of the outstanding influences in Dr. Branscombe‚s life, apart from his early childhood experiences, was the Rev. W. A. Cameron, minister of Bloor St. and Yorkminster Baptist Churches for so many years. A man of firm opinions yet with a heart that was open to need wherever he found it, Mr. Cameron left his mark on many a young life. Dr. Branscombe is grateful for his influence. Seventy-five years! Congratulations, Fred!
