Emmanuel Episcopal Church’s nearly 100-year-old, large west side nativity window and its 21 other stained glass windows are undergoing repair and stabilization which church leaders hope will extend their lifespan for many more years.
Willet Hauser architectural glass company of Winona, Minn., and Philadelphia, began the more than $68,000 project March 11 and expects work will continue another two weeks.
“We have noticed over the years that dirt- dust from outside- was coming in,” particularly through the nativity window at the Highland-Broadway church, “so there was a bad seal to it,” J. Mike Merrill said Monday.
Merrill, a retired U.S. Air Force officer and longtime church member who assists the Rev. Clark Shackelford, rector, in planning and conduct of services, is overseeing arrangements for the windows’ repair.
“A lot of buckling and bowing of all the stained glass windows has also been going on for years,” Merrill said, leading to concern that “if something isn’t done now, it would be much more expensive to do it later.
“Hauser had a bid in 10 years ago and there’s quite a bit of money difference between today and then.”
Bids were taken from several companies, Merrill said. “We felt Hauser’s bid and what they planned to do would suit our needs best.”
The 110-year-old firm has worked on more than 20,000 churches nationwide and in 14 foreign countries, including the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and the Church Center at the United Nations in New York, said Karl Erickson, studio representative heading the three-man repair operation here.
This is not a restoration, “which basically would be re-doing the entire window,” Erickson explained.
“Repair and stabilization” ranges from bulge reduction, additional structural bracing, frame repair and re-painting to re-cementing all the thousands of pieces in the individual stained glass panels to removing old storm windows and installing a new fLEXspan protective covering system that will also provide ventilation between it and the original glass.
“That will give an unbreakable exterior covering to withstand extreme Oklahoma weather as well as vandalism,” Erickson said.
“We’ve had our fLEXspan system go through tornadoes without any damage,” he added.
They will also replace broken or mismatched pieces in the smaller windows.
The church entry door was once a window and the lower portion of another window was also removed to create the entry from the parish hall to the nave during a 1974-76 renovation while the Rev. Martin Goller, a former architect, was rector.
The windows removed were stored in the attic. “We’re utilizing them for repair and replacement so we’re maintaining the integrity of the windows with the same glass that was original to the church,” Merrill said.
The nativity window and most of the smaller windows were installed when the present church building, the second in the Episcopal congregation’s 113 -year history here, was completed in 1909.
A two-day 100th anniversary observance is being planned for October.
The nativity window “is not a Tiffany window but it’s the same type as Tiffany glass,” Merrill said.
It was installed by Ford Glass Company, Minneapolis, Minn., at a 1909 cost of between $3,000 and $7,000, Merrill said.
“We’ve seen two different figures. We don’t know which was correct but you can add quite a few zeros after that, now. We don’t know what it’s worth in today’s market,” he added.
It was originally paid for by Emmanuel Guild, “an eager, devoted group of church women who worked long and hard preparing dinners and teas, conducting bazaars and quilt fairs and selling countless articles of handwork,” parishioner Addie M. Pretty wrote in 1949.
“As long as this window endures,” she wrote, it will be a reminder to succeeding generations to appreciate it and feel indebted to “the faithful women who made such an outstanding work of art possible.”
To pay for today’s project, “we had to get permission from the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma to get a loan from a bank and a fund drive is being conducted within the parish,” Merrill said.
Emmanuel’s vestry, its governing board, agreed Monday night to invite contributions from the community, too.
The Nativity window “overall was in a good, stable condition,” Erickson said.
It contains more than 10,000 separate pieces in its design depicting the birth of Jesus, adapted from “The Nativity,” a painting by the 19th Century German painter Bernhard Plockhorst.
All 10,000-plus pieces in the nativity window have been re-cemented, as have the thousands of intricate pieces in each of the other windows.
“Many of the windows in this church have more than 1,000 pieces,” Erickson said.
The repairmen have completed some of the bulge reduction. Some they can’t do due to advanced deterioration. Installation of bracing bars is “pretty much completed,” Erickson said.
SHAWNEE, Okla. —
