History page 8

THE HISTORY OF ST. JOHN’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH
PAGE 8

colors to dramatize the role Tiffany Window in Guild Room

with which He is most often depicted. This now hangs in the place of the former reredos, all the heavy wood paneling of that area was removed to afford a sense of loftiness and simplicity. The arches containing the organ pipes were covered with a rich blue damask and the dark and cumbersome chancel rail is supplanted by hand-crafted iron with shining brass caps. The communion rails were moved to sides so that they no longer separated the people visually from the holy space. All this was done to create a feeling of closeness to the Lord’s table.

Also 1971, a shrine of the Blessed Mother housed in the west wall of the church directly beneath our Rose Window. It is a warm and lovely representation of Our Lady, standing serenely with the Christ Child in her arms. Again, it is sculptured in wood by craftsmen from Germany, with a light oak triptych-like background. It was given by a man as a memorial to his mother, Anna L. Kuhel. It was later moved to its present location just over the Altar in the Chapel.

The need for adequate meeting spaces and classrooms continued to be unmet and to address this need in a small way the large room which adjoined the main floor of the church, known for many years as the memorial room (no one seems to know just when this flat roofed addition to the Church was built nor to whom it was designed to be in memory of!) was divided in 1974, with the larger section being paneled in wood, carpeted, and graced by two magnificent brass and crystal chandeliers imported from Spain. One of these fell a few years later and was placed in storage in the boiler room until it could be repaired. It is still there! The other however was moved to the center of the room and provides lovely and adequate lighting. The newly decorated and furnished room was blessed during the Solemn Mass of Palm Sunday in 1975 and named the William S. Limond, Jr. Guild Room. In 1989 a beautiful Tiffany Stained Glass window was donated to the Church by Mrs. Jill Reintjes. Funds were donated to restore this window and place it into a light box in the inner wall of the Guild Room by Mrs. Ivy Latchman. In 2008 one of our oldest stained glass windows was restored and placed in the one exterior window of the room in loving memory of Father Powers’ parents. This beautiful room still serves the parish as a much needed meeting area and is now an attractive walk through to the staircase connecting the Church floor to the Undercroft.

As can be seen, a great deal of energy was expended in the mid years of the 20th century to repair our aging buildings and to renovate them for ministry in the modern world. All of this took place in spite continued financial difficulties which faced the parish. Church attendance always drops after a war, and consequently, income does too. The ethnic composition of the Slope was changing radically, and with it, religious affiliations and fiscal circumstances. The depression and this consequent change put the church in a precarious situation. A very modest endowment fund accumulated during the first part of the 60s, amounting to roughly $13,000, which was invested in the diocesan mutual fund. In the summer of 1963 a lady, Mrs. Palen B. Nelson, who was born two blocks away on Park Place eighty-seven years before, died, leaving half her fortune to Saint John’s Church, and half to Saint John’s Home for the Aged. Her will was written in 1960. After the estate was settled, St. John’s received its portion of the legacy in the amount of over $400,000. This was the seed long prayed for from which Saint John’s current Endowment Fund has grown. After a few years of expensive investment counseling service, the vestry elected to handle the account, exercising the right of the Rector and a Financial Advisor to buy and sell investments with vestry approval. Today the Rector, Wardens and Treasurer share investment responsibility with the Financial Advisor with the approval of Vestry as a whole.

The History Book of 1976 states that “It was the stubborn determination of the rector with the absolute concurrence of the vestry that this money should be placed in an inviolable endowment fund, the principal of which could be expended on1y if the survival of the parish itself were at stake.” Alas, this never seems to have been practiced at St. John’s. By the time the current Rector, Father Powers, was called to the parish in February of 1987 fully one half of the regular expenses of the parish were paid from Endowment Funds. Within a couple of years of his call to the parish the floor of the Church itself had to be shored up with steel beams to ensure the integrity of the building at a cost $35,000. Within another few years another $35,000 or so had to be expended to repair the old drainage system of the Church which was causing frequent severe flooding in the Undercroft. Sometimes down, sometimes up due to extraordinary expenses and the vagaries of the market place, over the years the Endowment Fund has grown due to solid investment practices and the addition of further bequests received from members of the parish. It continues to provide a cushion in emergencies and the bit extra which is usually needed each year to pay for the daily upkeep of the buildings and for the overall ministry of the Parish.

Korea, Civil Rights, Vietnam, Stonewall, The Women’s Movement

Parish History books are often silent on the great issues and struggles which forge the society in which the church lives and works. Hopefully the parishes whose history is being recounted were not so silent on the issues of the day. The Gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ freely offered to peoples of all times and places and received by them within the context of their struggles and their joys. Parish History books however, are based upon the available records maintained within Church offices and this usually consists of Vestry Minutes augmented perhaps by a few old newsletters and other documents which some secretary or rector decided were worth sticking away in a file cabinet somewhere. Saint John’s Church history is no exception. Although research continues, most of the information available to form the basis of this history comes from Vestry Minutes and the Vestry is primarily responsible for the Finances of the parish and the upkeep of its Building and Grounds.

The period of time from the end of World War II through the 1970’s included major sociological struggles within American society which resulted in the most dramatic changes in the history of that society – and in the Church which lives and operates within the social structure. From the sources currently available to us, we know nothing about the sacrifices of the people in this parish during the Korean War and the subsequent communist fears of the McCarthy Era. In the mid 1960’s the war in Vietnam began to escalate as did the anti-war movement within the nation as a whole. Though it is assumed that members of the parish served in Vietnam during this era, the war and its devastating cost to the people of the United States and to St. John’s is not mentioned in previous history books of the parish and little can be gleaned from Vestry Minutes on this topic. The Civil Rights struggle which transformed our nation and society and the Stonewall riot here in our own New York City which led to the struggle for the rights of Gay and Lesbian Americans are never mentioned within those pages. Those minutes also are silent on the struggle of women for equal rights in society and for ordination within the Church.

Surely sermons were offered which addressed all of these issues and struggles. There were no doubt deep discussions within Bible Study classes and with the Rectors of the parish as people sought to help each other understand and deal with war, civil liberties and change. But little of that oral history remains. Further research will be conducted which may lead to later revisions of this History of Saint John’s as, hopefully, more resources become available.

Preparing for the New Millennium