When Christ the King was founded in 1927, Grand River Avenue cut through farmland and wilderness from Redford to Brighton. Fr. Leo Gaffney celebrated the first mass on Christmas Day, in Redford High School.

About 300 families joined the new parish, and we erected a temporary multi-purpose building in 1928. A year later, the bottom fell out of the world economy and we could hardly pay the light bill, much less the bank loan. We had to take out a second loan just to pay the interest on the first.

When Fr. Joseph Marshke arrived in 1932, he uttered a prayer of desperation over the unfinished building site, surrounded by frog ponds. The people resolved to build a chapel for Sunday Mass, so that plans could go forward to establish a school. They built this second temporary church “brick by brick, with their own hands.” Those first buildings still stand, now incorporated into the school.

The school opened on September 12, 1938, but the classrooms were not finished. Classes met in the four corners of the gymnasium. Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters from Monroe rose to the challenge of teaching 134 squirming students over the noise of road crews paving Trinity Street. Sr. Ann Fix, IHM, founding principal of the school, served until 1944.

In 1947, with a new wing of the school partly constructed, Fr. Marshke died. The new pastor, Fr. Henry Koelzer led the parish as we completed the school, a convent for 16 IHM Sisters, and a third “temporary” basement church.

The permanent church was dedicated in 1962, and the basement was converted into a social hall, later named “Koelzer Hall” in memory of this very popular and busy pastor. By this time the parish had grown to nearly 3,000