30 Years in the Basement

For the last thirty years some of the stained glass windows from our second church (where the Steinhausen Center now stands) have been in the basement of the Parish Office (the old Rectory.) The window pictured above was once in the entry of the church.

After 30 years in a corner of the basement our experts expected to find the windows warped or broken. But they didn't know how well Don Schram and his friends crated these. Still, with two windows per crate, it was difficult to even guess what the image was.

We were reluctant to open a crate because it was so well preserved. But we decided to open just one to see the image and show it to our architect. If we had to re-create windows like this, it would be out of our budget.

Unlike the stained glass we just placed in the clerestory, these pieces of glass were individually painted then fired in a kiln. The indiviual pieces were then put together with lead. This is the way stained glass windows have been made for churches around the world.

 

This one is of the 12 year old Jesus teaching in the Temple.

 It looks very nice in the sunlight.

At the early meetings many parishioners suggested we try to incorporate some of these stained glass windows into a new Eucharistic Chapel. It's because of their comments that we went into the basement to look. The one above has been shown to our achitect and he said four panels like this one could be used in the new Chapel. Karen Conoan was able to direct us to a list of the windows so we didn't have to open any crates yet.

The two sets (four panels) that seem to make sense for a Eucharistic Chapel are Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane (The Agony in the Garden) and another of an Angel telling of the Resurrection of Jesus to Mary Magdalene and her companions by an empty tomb. Those four panels have not been opened yet, but from the looks of the crates, they should be in good shape.

It was wonderful to find such treasures in the basement.