By Karen Caffarini
Post-Tribune
Standing high on a scaffold, Alfredo Reyna worked 12 hours a day for five days removing 30 years of dust and yellowed plexiglass from the windows at Hobart First United Methodist Church. His goal was to restore the panels to their original, artistic beauty.
He first applied a pungent black paint-like solution to each window, then added a powder to soak up the moisture.
Brushing off the dried solution, Reyna unveiled stunning, vivid stained glass windows that had been invisible to passers-by for years, hidden under the plexiglass that had been placed in front of the windows decades ago to preserve and protect them.
“Exquisite, just exquisite,” exclaimed the pastor, the Rev. Rebecca Smith, as she took in the brightly colored windows at the front of the church. “The color and design just pop out.
“This will allow the light of Christ’s love to come in and out of the church,” she said.
Reyna is the on-site supervisor of a two-man crew from renowned stained glass renovator Bovard Studio in Fairfield, Iowa. They’ve been hired to restore all the stained glass windows on the East Fourth Street church to their original splendor as the congregation prepares to celebrate the current church building’s 100th anniversary next year.
The project was started on Aug. 29, beginning at the front of the church. Reyna said the crew would be back in a couple of weeks and would take two more weeks to finish restoring the remaining windows, some of which portray saints.
While the congregation dates to 1871, the first building was razed. According to Rita McBride, co-chair of First United Methodist’s Coming Home Committee and president of the Hobart Historical Society, the groundbreaking for the current red brick church took place in August 1916 and the dedication was in March 2017.
The centennial celebration will take place in October 2017, with various activities taking place throughout the month, she said.
McBride said the stained glass windows were installed sometime after the building was finished.
“All the stained glass windows were donated. This is our legacy,” said committee co-chair Cyndy Plesac.
McBride said one window was dedicated to Plesac’s great-grandfather, Jarvis H. Roper. It was donated in his memory by his wife, Ella Smith Roper, McBride said.
A plaque placed under each window names the donor family.
Reyna said the stained glass was still in good shape but in need of Bovard Studio’s own patented processing method. He said the process — which included the black paint-like solution — cements the stained glass and fills in any gaps. It also rejuvenates and polishes the glass and lead.
Reyna said the windows had accumulated a lot of dust through the years. He said plexiglass was a popular cover over stained glass in the 1970s because it didn’t break. But it discolored over the years and left a film, and allowed the dust to accumulate.
“It was the top of the line thing to do,” McBride said of the plexiglass. “But it had gotten to the point that you couldn’t tell we have stained glass windows.”
The windows aren’t the only part of the century-old building being spruced up. Workers were also laying down new carpeting in the church’s walkways and by the altar on Thursday, and the original wood flooring elsewhere in the church was refinished in July.
Smith said the original Communion table, which had some water damage, was repaired and brought back, and the original curved oak railing at the front of the altar was carried across the street from the historical society, where it was being stored, and placed back in its former spot.
McBride said the railing and Communion table were removed when the church was remodeled in the 1980s. She said the Communion table is now the altar.
“(Former historical society president) Dorothy Ballantyne was very adamant about keeping the railing in case the church wanted it back,” McBride said. “We just brought it back.”
Plesac said the flooring and window work wasn’t done just for the anniversary, but was something the church needed to do. McBride said the congregation was given options and bids, and it was the congregation’s decision to have the windows restored with the Bovard method and the floors refinished.
The window work cost the church around $60,000 and the flooring about $16,500, the women said.
“This is everyone’s legacy,” Plesac said. “The whole congregation was involved.”
Karen Caffarini is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
