Around 1918 the family of Michael’s Bakery purchased a bicycle for their youngest son, Johnny, to be used to help deliver packages for a downtown clothing store in Roanoke. When the bike was subsequently stolen from the family residence, Johnny and his mother set out to find it in a poorer neighborhood in the Franklin Road area. What they discovered in their search was a neighborhood in need of a church.
Mrs. Margaret Michael asked a mother where she and her family went to church. The mother, a Mrs. Smith, said, “We have no clothes to attend the fine churches in town, so we just don’t go.” Her heart was touched by the children’s need for the gospel. Margaret Michael and her husband, Walter, started a Sunday School in the mother’s house and named it Franklin Road Mission. With help from the 2nd Presbyterian Church in funding, resources, and materials, the small mission survived both the influenza pandemic and the Great Depression.
As the mission grew, it moved into a grocery store, then into its own building in 1935 when it became Franklin Road Chapel. The church continued to grow and eventually land was purchased in 1953 to build a bigger building in which to meet. The church congregation raised all the funds for the materials, and amazingly, constructed the church themselves. All of the work had to be completed after regular work hours and on weekends.
