Wilfred Joseph Theodore Sheffield
Minister, teacher, veteran. Born on Oct. 9, 1918, in Collingwood, Ont.; died on Dec. 24, 2014, in Collingwood, of natural causes, aged 96.
In his quiet, determined way, Wilfred was a symbol of courage and commitment in working to break down the racial barriers he faced.
He was the eldest of five children born to Ildia and Wilfrid Sheffield, whose families had lived in Collingwood, Ont., for several generations. His parents worked on ships plying the Great Lakes, with his father earning $35 a month as a chef. To help provide fuel for their home, the children would cut willows from ponds and gather coal along the railway tracks.
Wilfred wanted to be a minister "from as far back as I can remember," he would later recall. He sang in the choir at the Heritage Community Church, which the town's black residents helped to establish in the 1800s. As a young adult, he sometimes took the service when there was no regular preacher.
In high school, he played several sports and was a leader on the student council and school newspaper. He graduated with honours, only to realize there were few opportunities for young black men in his town. So he went to Windsor, Ont., and landed a job in a foundry. When the Second World War began, he joined the army and served in Eastern Canada, using radar to look for German submarines.
At war's end, armed with a veteran's allowance, he attended Queen's University, enrolling in a pre-divinity course at a United Church college. When it came time for the students' summer preaching assignments, Wilfred doubted that he would receive one (he knew of an ordained black preacher who had not been assigned to a church). When his doubts were confirmed, he jokingly countered that his summer plan was to do missionary work in Collingwood; his friends laughed when that appeared in the local paper along with the church assignments.
Wilfred earned his bachelor of theology at the Baptist Church College at McMaster University in Hamilton and, after being ordained in 1952, was thrilled to be appointed to a parish in Burk's Falls, Ont. One newspaper reported that, for the first time, a black minister had been hired to preach in a white church. Instead of simply being Reverend Wilfred Sheffield, he noted, he was known as "the first black minister of an all-white church."
His tenure in Burk's Falls was not without incident. One day, as he walked along a street, a police car pulled up and the officer called out, "Come over here." Wilfred got into the car while the officer contacted his department. "Make sure you haven't got the Baptist minister," came the response, and Wilfred spoke up, saying: "I am he." He and the officer later became friends and often had coffee together.
After his term in Burk's Falls ended, Wilfred worked as an English teacher and librarian at what is now Almaguin Highlands Secondary School in South River. But he continued as a visiting pastor in several parishes. Meanwhile, his brother Howard and sister Yvonne had started a local black history museum, of which Wilfred was a proud supporter. In 1990, he spoke at the dedication ceremony of a restored cemetery honouring black settlers in Priceville, with Lincoln Alexander, Ontario's then lieutenant-governor, in attendance.
For years, Wilfred lived on his own in Sundridge but returned often to Collingwood to visit relatives and participate in Heritage church services (Easter was his favourite). When he was 90, he moved back to his home town and spent his final years in the church and community that meant so much to him, respected and loved by his family and many friends.
Judy Plaxton is a friend of members of Wilfred's family.