North Jackson Historical Society Vice President Fred Schrock of Ellsworth, left, and Rick Hedrick, right, of North Jackson unveil the township’s first historical marker at Sunday’s dedication ceremony at the First Federated Church. The marker commemorates how the church applied principles of the cooperative movement to affect community change throughout the 1930s. Correspondent photos / Brandon Cantwell

NORTH JACKSON — While Jack Acri never met James Wyker, Acri said he felt as if he was continuing the progress that Wyker and his wife made during their time in North Jackson over a century ago.

“Rev. Wyker and his wife, they were social justice champions before that was even a term, and I feel I’m on pretty firm ground on it. In some ways, I really, honestly do feel like I’m standing on their shoulders,” Acri, pastor at First Federated Church, said. “Because that many years ago, they could see where we should be going as a people of faith.”

Nearly a century later, Wyker, who was the pastor of the First Federated Church for just one decade is being remembered.

Members of North Jackson’s Historical Society and residents gathered in front of the church Sunday to unveil the historical society’s first historical marker, which tells the story of how Wyker, a Cooperative Movement thinker and minister and his wife, Mossie, came to North Jackson to bring it back from poverty during the Great Depression.

Fred Schrock, vice president of North Jackson’s Historical Society, explained the First Federated Church was dedicated to the town, noting a struggle would come 40 years later.

“In the 1920s, the small town of North Jackson had five churches near the center of town and could not support them,” Schrock said. “The Presbyterian, Disciple, Reformed, Lutheran and Methodist churches were struggling with low attendance, and no denomination had a full-time pastor.”

Jeannie Sudimak, another member of the historical society, said at the time, Wyker was anxious to put Cooperative Movement ideas to work as someone who recently graduated from a seminary in New York. He could not find a place that was interested in cooperation over competition at the time, though.

Hearing about First Federated’s cooperation, Wyker came to North Jackson a decade later.

Sudimak explained that by applying the movement’s principles, Wyker established leadership training at the church. Those trained leaders went on to establish a credit union, a cooperative locker plant and a buyer’s union, where community resources were pooled to benefit the community.

By the time Wyker left in 1943, Sharon Common of Lordstown said the church had greatly engaged the community and its surrounding areas and had a major impact on it as well.

Cyndi Wofton thanked everyone who helped make the marker possible. Wofton said it was donated by an anonymous former resident who expressed fond memories of growing up in the town. Wofton said the anonymous resident contacted them again recently, conveying his interest in being a part of future markers.

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