The Churches
Before we get into the windows we have done, I want to discuss Church windows in general. You need to have someone who knows stained glass check out the windows in your church, if you don't know anyone to do this, you can find someone under Glass-Stained and Leaded in your local phone book. There are so many windows that are on the way to falling apart that we see just in our travels, if they are buckling they are going to keep on getting worse. The sheer weight of the glass and leading is pushing down and making it buckle and nothing will fix this except restoration, they can't just be pushed back into shape. If you can move the window in and out if you push on it gently they need attention, if they are solid when you push gently they should be fine. One other thing that is very important is having Lexan over them on the outside. If you don't have it already or some other storm windows you can get it from your local glass store. It comes in huge sheets and it is something that can be installed by the people in your church if you have some one who is handy with buildings. It can be cut with a saber saw in any shape that you need. There has been more damage done in the last century due to the acid rain, smoke, etc., than was done in all of the time since the 1400's when some of the first stained glass windows were installed. When we reconstruct windows we see this damage, a lot of it can be taken care of in the restoration process, when the windows are done and installed there is a very big difference in the colors, with the cleaning process we put them through the grime is gone and the glass looks like new.
Please take care of your precious windows so they can be enjoyed by generations to come.
Below are some of the church windows we have made or restored. A lot of the time we repair some windows and forget to take pictures of them and never seem to get back to take them later, so this is a partial list of our work on the churches.
Presbyterian Church, Cochranton, PA
The two windows below are in the Presbyterian Church here in Cochranton. I didn't get to design the windows, they had a graphic artist in the church that did that, but the idea of using the two church buildings was mine, the two buildings were formerly the United Presbyterian and Presbyterian churches when they joined. The white one was sold and is now the Christian Missionary Alliance Church and the brick one was torn down and the new building built. I thought it would be nice if we used the churches in the windows so they would be remembered as part of the history of the church. One nice thing about the window shown here in the background is that we got to dedicate it to honor my parents, Glen and Marion Hamilton who taught Sunday School there for years. This is something that just doesn't happen that you get to do windows in a church that you attended. They are also going to do some additional windows, probably this year. The window with the white church was dedicated by the Anderson Family in memory of their mother.
Five more windows have been made for the church. They are one scene, but still are five individual scenes. The center one with the water is dedicated to good friends of ours, Ruth and Gene Wagner.
The way the church curves it is impossible to get a picture on the inside with all five windows showing, they are in a room that is used as a nursery during services and it has a picture window which cuts down the area that you can photograph. There are five more windows on the other side of the church that will be done next and possibly in the future the windows around the top of the sanctuary will be done. You can see the reflection of one of them in the photo above.
The five windows on the east side of the church are done and installed. The covered bridge in the center one is one of the covered bridges that connected Cochranton to the rest of the world on the south side of town. It was never painted so it isn't the usual red color.
We just installed the window over the front door. It is a depiction of the first church of this . It was built in 1853 and closed in 1950, it was torn down in 1972 and a house stands on the site now.
United Methodist Church, Jamestown, PA
The window shown below is a restoration a a large three panel window in the United Methodist Church in Jamestown, PA. The children of the church gathered pennies to help pay for the restoration. As they get the money to pay for a window they have another one done. This is a good way for a small church with not a lot of money to get the restoration done. We start with the window that is in the worst condition and work down from there.
Before the window was restored Cleaning the storm windows
Final Cleaning One More Nail and it's done
St. John's Community Church, Meadville, PA
This is the bottom of the front window, they had done some remodeling and had the floor for a new second floor going right through the center of these beautiful medallions. Jerry lowered them so they could be seen from inside the church.
These two windows are in the actual sanctuary of the church, in 1924 there was a tornado that took out part of the church, the one above is one of the newer ones to replace the ones that were ruined. don't know why they didn't make them the same, but the colors are totally different, but the design is the same.
Other pictures of the windows, not the best but the design is clearer here.
Watson Run United Church of Christ, Meadville, PA
A view of the church from Brown Hill Road
The windows behind the altar.
One of six side windows One of three foyer windows
The big back window
This window is the big window in the back of the sanctuary that faces the road, some of the most beautiful glass we have seen. It is blue/green when seen without back light, with sunlight coming through it it is blue, cream, pink and green and when seen at night from outside with the lights lit it is gold. The pictures above are of the bearded one installing the window, it was literally falling apart and had to be taken out piece by piece. At some time in the past someone had replaced a large part of the bright red border with purple glass, I guess no one was supposed to notice that. The three pictures of Jerry were part of a newspaper article done on Bauer and Bauer Stained Glass Studio. This is a little church out in the country with some of the most beautiful windows around.
First Baptist Church, Reynoldsville, PA
There are twelve windows in this church that we restored. It is interesting that even though the pattern is the same throughout the church, different color combinations make each window different from the others.
This is the condition of one of the windows before we restored them. This is the damage done to the windows as a result of 100 years of service to the church. The leading is very bad, these panels should be perfectly flat.
Presbyterian Church, Port Allegany, PA
This church is near Port Allegany, PA. The church had Queen Anne Windows, with the colored glass around the outsides and plain glass in the center. The gentleman who had us make the windows designed them and did them in the "shake 'n bake" plastic "stained glass", after the second time they peeled off and bubbled he called us to do them in real stained glass. We followed his designs and he made the statement that they were all going to be done if he had to pay for them himself. When they were done each one of them was paid for by a member of the church. The four windows at the back of the church were done with painted and fired panels showing scenes from the life of Jesus Christ. Some of the windows have a room behind them so the lighting on them isn't as good as the ones with the outside light coming through them.
Presbyterian Church, Utica, PA
Only the bottoms of these windows needed to be redone, the tops were fine, the bottoms opened out and evidently had some rough closings.
St. Columbkille's R. C. Church, Stoneboro, PA
The rose window was a restoration, the others were all new work.
These windows were commissioned by a member of the church.
There were a lot of jewels used in these windows, great with the sun shining through them.
Sorry about the pictures, this was before digital cameras and these were taken with a 35mm camera, so you didn't get a chance to see if the pictures were good before you got them. When we were talking about some of the restoration work and new construction, Father Bungo asked us if we knew anyone who would paint designs on the glass block windows, what was there was flaking off. At one time part of the church burned and the windows were replaced with the six glass block ones, they had Christian designs on them. I did some figuring and gave him a price for stained glass windows for over the blocks. Needless to say he took my up on it and I designed the windows that are in place now. The smaller ones have the symbols for the four Gospels and the two large ones have crowns, one a gold crown for the King of Heaven and the other the Crown of Thorns. We dedicated the window with the Crown of Heaven to Jerry's parents, George and Delsie Bauer.
High Street Community Church
Conneaut Lake, PA
This church just finished building a new church, they are going to use the original church building as a youth center. They removed the windows from the sanctuary and had Jerry restore and resize them for the new church. Jerry cut the windows down about two feet so they would fit into the new insulated windows they put in the church.
United Methodist Church, Clarks Mills, PA.
These are two memorial windows, one for the husband/father and the other for the daughter/granddaughter. We did things a little different on these windows, they aren't the usual design and way of doing things.
Deer Creek Methodist Church, Cochranton, PA
There are eight of these windows, four of each design in the church.
Gulf Coast of Mississippi
Last January, 1 1/2 years after hurricane Katrina, we took a trip to Mississippi Gulf Coast. Our idea was to find a little church that had been rebuilt and donate some stained glass windows to them. Did we ever get a shock, there are none, very little rebuilding has been done. The casinos are up and running in very luxurious settings, of course with them being self contained they are putting people to work in the hotels and restaurants. There are blocks and blocks of houses that are empty, abandoned, the owners can't afford to gut them down to the studs and rebuild from there, they have lost their homes and a lot of them their jobs. We went back down in April and delivered some panels to three small churches. In our travels in Pass Christian we had been in one section that was on a small "hill" and the houses had water in them but were still standing. We decided to go down to see where the bridge was out over a bay, all that was down there was a large area that was all grown up in weeds, after saying, "There's nothing down here", it hit me. We were in the down town area of Pass Christian, it was GONE!!!! These people are wonderful, really nice to us, and they still need help. They are living in those famous FEMA trailers after all this time, two years in a camper. I really give the ones credit who stayed and faced the mess. If you would like to see pictures of what happened go into a search engine and put in Mississippi, Katrina, there are also some devastating pictures of Pass Christian if you put that in. The problem is you just see some pictures, when you are there you see that it goes on for 110 miles of devastation. Only the rich are rebuilding, the poor can't afford to, insurance doesn't pay for flood damage blocks in from the coast, the flood water went in 10 miles in some places and at the coast there was a storm surge of up to 45 feet and waves of 50 feet. One group that is doing fantastic work is The Back Bay Mission, they are doing about 20 homes a year. Contact your church and see how you can help.
First Methodist Church, Pass Christian, MS
We have a church picked out that we are going to donate a window to this winter. One that lost their church building and had to rebuild.