#1: Miracle of the Five Loaves and Two Fish #5: Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock  |
Shell Beach UMC Stained Glass Windows
by Jim Alquist
In the time before (Covid), I was tasked with storing away Christmas decorations into a small storage room the other side of the McMillen room. There I discovered two flat crates, each one about three and a half feet wide and five feet long, but only four inches high. They each held a stained glass window that certainly didn't belong in a dark storage room!
But where did they come from? Patti Melsheimer directed me to Bob Underwood and he was able to shed some light on them. The stained glass came from the old Shell Beach UMC. According to Bob, the church was built in the early 1940's with eight sanctuary windows, six of which were stained glass by the famed Judson Studio in Los Angeles. Under Pastor Robert Underwood's leadership, the two remaining windows, also from the Judson Studio, were installed in 1978. The Shell Beach UMC closed in 2006, with six of the stained glass windows being returned to the donor families. The two remaining windows were sent to our church. In addition to receiving the stained glass windows from Shell Beach UMC, our church also received a number of its former members, including Margaret Coombs and Del Hollinger.
These windows needed to see the light of day and people needed to be able to see them! So I told Dave Bolterman my ideas and he jumped on board. We took the glass to Melissa Campbell of Glass Designs by Melissa, she's just around the corner on Grand Avenue, to do some repairs and cleaning. Then we needed to build frames to hold the glass, so we brought on our own Joseph the carpenter, Joseph Brown. And we also needed painters so Bob Underwood and Mark Moore volunteered.
We're not quite finished with the frames, but we wanted to unveil the stained glass for all to see before we mounted them in the transept windows. Update 12/6/2022: pictured at left are the finished pieces as installed in the transept.
We have the honor of displaying windows numbers one and five:
Window number one depicts the miracle of the five loaves and two fish and was dedicated in the honor of Henry and Myrtle Streese, 50th wedding anniversary 1-12-1971.
Window number five depicts "Behold, I stand at the door and knock" and was dedicated in memory of Jeanie Brown, 1883 - 1962.