The Good News • February 2009

The Blue History, 1898-1934

The second volume of St. John's history begins after the dedication of the new church on Wick Avenue and continues through the first third of the 20th century. It covers the rectorships of Abner Lord Fraser and Leonard W. S. Stryker, both imposing figures, and the lay leadership of men who served lifelong terms on vestry and as wardens, treasurers and the like. The book contains much information about the various groups active in the parish, and also the work of assisting in the beginnings of St. Andrew's, St. Augustine's and St. Rocco's parishes. It also contains photographs and tributes to vestry members and benefactors.

People were proud of the new and beautiful building, and of the speed with which financial obligations were met and it could be consecrated. The consecration, commemorated by a recently rediscovered certificate which now hangs in the office, took place on June 14, 1900.

The list of benefactors includes with Edward Ford who in 1914 presented the bells, in memory of his wife, and upon his death in 1927 left a "munificent" bequest for the building of the present parish house, an amount which was supplemented by a large gift from his children, Josephine Ford Agler and John Willard Ford, "in order that the completed structure, in all the beauty of its ecclesiastical architecture and the perfection of detail, may be such that their father and their mother would have admired and approved."

Many people gave gifts, large and small, some of which we still use today. Among them are the three Tiffany windows, the oak tablet in the south transept in memory of servicemen who died in World War One, alms basins, candlesticks and communion ware.

When James M. Reno died in 1920, after serving as a vestryman from 1864 to 1920, junior warden from 1865 to 1881 and senior warden till 1920, also as church school superintendent and lay reader, a memorial window was suggested and a committee formed to devise "General Rules" for stained glass windows. They concluded that, in order to allow as much light as possible to enter the church, "the windows should be made of only mosaic glass in brilliant colors to produce a bejeweled effect as much as possible." Figures were to be avoided, along with dark glass, and warm colors used, "as the church with its blue-gray is cold." Yellows, they continued, should be the main color on the north and west sides, and warm reds on the south and east. They went into great detail on the subject of avoiding cool colors, asserted that "oranges and orange-reds should predominate" and that a "hodge-podge of different colors" must be avoided. To sum up, "The ideal of your committee is that expressed in the windows of the Ste. Chapelle in Paris" — a lofty goal indeed, and one to which no attention was paid. There is no memorial window to Mr. Reno in the church, but we are still using communion silver given in memory of the family, a fitting tribute, since James Reno lost his eyebrows while rescuing the chalice from the fire of 1896. As for the windows, should the rules have been followed? Too late now!

Liz Wrona

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