Saturday, January 10, 1998

City's memories captured in churches' stained glass

By SHIRLEY DOWNING / Scripps Howard News Service

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- As a child, Rosa Murrell remembers how sunlight filtered through the candy-colored glass and shimmered like jewels on wooden pews.

"It was beautiful, and it's still pretty to me because they have always been here in my lifetime," said the 85-year-old historian of First Baptist Church-Lauderdale.

The artisan who made First Baptist's stained-glass windows in 1907 is lost to history, but to church members, the windows are a reminder of the past and of endurance. "It tells me we can survive if we persevere," said Murrell.

For years, downtown Memphis churches have stood like sentinels surrounded by neighborhoods in decline, or office buildings that empty at sundown. But the churches have survived -- many with stained-glass windows intact.

Attendance is rising at some churches for the first time in years, said Rev. Bradley Gabriel, president of the Downtown Churches Association.

That's because more people live downtown, and there is reawakened interest in the history of the city's oldest churches, he said.

First United Methodist Church at Poplar and Second has seen average Sunday attendance rise from about 80 to 120 in the past two years. "We have had our first confirmation class since 1981 this year," said Gabriel, the church's pastor. Attendance is also rising at First Presbyterian Church next door, St. Peter's Catholic Church nearby and St. Mary's Catholic Church at Third and Market.

Memphis's most historic downtown churches are in buildings that date from the mid- to late 1800s. The Gothic-style structures, old organs, age-darkened pews and leaded glass windows reflect another era.

"I love them," said Delores Munn, 62, of the three dozen or so windows that have adorned Martin Memorial Temple CME Church since 1946. "They are the most precious thing I have ever seen."

Many of the colorful windows were installed between the 1880s and the mid-1950s. It was a practice common in Europe for centuries: the glass allowed sunlight to enter dark sanctuaries, and windows told Biblical stories before literacy was widespread.

The arrival of immigrant glassmakers to the United States in the 1800s meant the spread of church art in this country.

"Memphis has a history of stained glass going back to the 1850s," said Dan Oppenheimer, president of Rainbow Studios, a contemporary stained-glass firm. "All the cities along the river had European craftsmen."

Most often, the stained-glass windows illustrate Christ's birth, His life, and the Resurrection, while others tell of the Yellow Fever epidemic and about young men who marched off to world wars. More modern windows depict the history of the blues and cotton industry. Many have survived with little damage; some have been replaced or repaired.

Perhaps the most famous windows in Memphis are at Grace-St. Luke's Episcopal Church at Peabody and Belvedere, which has seven Tiffany windows.

Another Tiffany window -- a cross with Easter lilies -- is at St. John's Episcopal Church in Helena, Ark. Six Tiffany windows were installed in 1897, but five were destroyed by fire in 1914, said Rev. Duane Saba, church pastor.

In Memphis, some of the oldest and most elaborate windows can be found at First United Methodist; First Presbyterian, Calvary Episcopal; St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral; and St. Peter's, St. Mary's and St. Patrick's Catholic churches.

Calvary Episcopal's oldest windows date to 1885, said church historian Cordelia Logan. First United Methodist's windows date to 1892, and First Presbyterian's to just before 1900.

At St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral at 692 Poplar, the ornate windows around the sanctuary were installed between 1926 and 1950 by an artist in Kent, Conn., said Annabelle Paine Whittemore, church parishioner. More recent glass from the 1980s depicts the history of Memphis and is located in the ambulatory behind the sanctuary.

Windows at St. Peter's Catholic Church at 190 Adams, installed between 1899 and 1923, were made by German artisans in Chicago, said Jane Scharding, church historian.

"Many come to see the windows," she said. "That is one of the main points I focus on when I give tours to various groups . . .

"I compare them to the great cathedrals in Europe where in former centuries the average churchgoer could not read or write, so the windows are like a picture book to learn about your faith."

Within a mile or two of downtown are historically black churches where marbled-glass panels overlook balconied sanctuaries. Many of the windows have simple geometric panels and floral designs.

At Mt. Nebo Baptist Church at 555 Vance, peach, green and rose glass windows overlook the pastel-colored sanctuary. Some of the glass apparently dates to the early years of this century when the building was owned by Grace Episcopal Church.

Among the most ornate windows are those at Clayborn-Ball Temple, strategy headquarters for the 1968 sanitation strike and the gathering site from which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a march on downtown Memphis.

Glass lilies, fleurs-de-lis and other intricate patterns adorn the north, west and south sanctuary walls.

Some of the windows apparently date to 1891, when the building was Second Presbyterian Church. Clayborn Temple bought the building in 1949, and replaced some of the windows that had gone with the Presbyterians' move.

The church was damaged during the sanitation strike, and by 1974 had fallen into complete disrepair. Some windows had been stolen and others heavily damaged by vandals.

Renovations were made in the early 1980s with about $300,000 in donated and borrowed funds, said Rev. John E. Madison, presiding elder of the South Memphis district of the AME church. Still, he said additional repairs are needed.

Several blocks away, fires destroyed some of the original stained glass at First Baptist Beale and Collins Chapel CME Church, but church leaders salvaged some windows and added new ones.

Windows overlooking the sanctuary at First Baptist Church-Lauderdale date to 1907 when the church was on St. Paul. But that building was razed in 1939 to make way for a public housing development, and the congregation rebuilt several blocks to the south. The lancet-shaped windows, designed to swing inward at the top to allow for air circulation on hot summer nights, were taken to the new location.

The stained glass at Metropolitan Baptist Church at 767 Walker dates to 1950 when the sanctuary was completed, said Henrene A. Jenkins, church historian. Several old windows recovered from Metropolitan's original church, which once stood at Fourth and Vance, are upstairs in meeting rooms.

Hopes are high for growth at Metropolitan, Jenkins said. The church, much like the community around it, is undergoing a major renovation.

Neighboring public housing developments are being demolished to make way for townhomes and middle-class housing. "I think lots of people will come to us then," she said.

Metropolitan, like other area churches, has preserved its windows with protective covering that saves energy and guards against rocks and stones.

So the real beauty of the windows can be seen best from the inside, from a pew, said Jenkins. "They are gorgeous," she said. "They remind you of iridescence when the sun comes through."

(Shirley Downing is a reporter at The Commercial Appeal in Memphis.)