Two Mysteries That Were Solved By A Miracle
By Randal J. Loy
|
Read Article 2: My Visit With Patrick Hogan |
In
fact, the only information I could find in the Cathedral Archives on
that window was that it was a memorial to Caroline Dudley Pratt
(1835-1902), who was the second wife of Wallace Pratt, Sr.
(right; 1831-1907), an extremely important Missouri railroad attorney. The
file did tell me that "Dudley" was Caroline's first husband's
surname. The only remaining bit of information was a notation that
the window had been installed (not dedicated) in 1902.
My first action was to try to find an obituary for Caroline
Pratt. There exists in the Cathedral Archives file boxes which
contain the biographies of many of the important members of this
Parish down through the years. There was a large file there on
Wallace Pratt, Sr., so I did not need to hunt for information on
him. But Caroline was not even mentioned in that file. The first
Mrs. Pratt, Adaline Amanda Russell Pratt (1834-1874), was mentioned,
but briefly! I went to the library and searched through the
microfilm records for the local newspapers of the period, and found
two obituaries for Caroline Pratt, one in The Kansas City Star,
and one in The Kansas City Journal. These small,
two-paragraph items would more properly be termed death notices.
These articles told me practically nothing about Caroline Pratt, but
they went on and on about where Mrs. Pratt was when she died and who
was there with her at her death. Actually, this was a blessing in
disguise, as I shall relate shortly.
For all my efforts, the sum total of the information I possessed on Caroline Dudley Pratt was that "she was renowned for her charitable and philanthropic work." It was extremely frustrating! Because of the short deadline I had for the note cards, there was no way I could expend any further efforts at that time to find information on Caroline. But I knew I would be looking into the matter further, when I had the time.
As to finding information on the identity of the maker and designer of that window, well, it was a hopeless cause! There were absolutely no markings of any kind in the window to give me any clue as to what stained glass firm might have made the window. I did notice what I felt was a strong similarity in the dedicatory lettering at the bottom of this window and the lettering in the St. Cecelia window, in the South wall of the Nave, which had been dedicated on Easter Sunday morning in 1902. That window had been made by a local firm, Campbell Glass and Paint Company of Kansas City, and was designed by Thomas John Bowyer Pain (1849-1936), an Englishman who had come to Kansas City in 1869. Mr. Pain was the Senior Warden at St. Mary's Church for many years, and had designed all of their painted glass windows.
So, for the history on the note card, I could only hypothesize that perhaps Wallace Pratt had asked Campbell Glass and Paint to make Caroline's window as well. After all, since she had died on August 21, 1902, that didn't leave much time for a window to be designed, fabricated, shipped, and installed before the end of 1902! If a local company had made the window, that would have provided ample time to accomplish the feat. I convinced myself that Wallace Pratt might have felt that if the company was good enough to do the memorial window for the wife of the Senior Warden, James C. Horton (1837-1907), it was good enough to do Caroline's window. While I did not feel satisfied with the history I had been able to put together for the Christ Preaching window, I could only console myself with the knowledge that I would be able to do further research later.
As I began the in-depth research of all the windows in the early part of 2006, I discovered a fabulous website, Rootsweb.com, which contains the genealogical information of thousands of families in the United States and foreign countries. It is a free website, and it allows one to enter the given name and surname of any individual, and it then displays all the information it has in its database on individuals with those names. The caveat here, of course, is that a researcher can only find individuals who have been entered in the database by other genealogical researchers. But the genealogical craze has been in existence long enough that there are a great many families and individuals listed in the database. Also, for the most part, the entries have attained a fairly scholarly level, and most researchers who post their family's information there also list their source materials.
But there is another small problem. Women are only listed in the database with their maiden name. This meant I could not use the database to find information about Caroline Dudley Pratt, because I only knew her two married surnames! I was very depressed about that, and I often thought about it, because I had this uncanny feeling that there was a great deal of information on Caroline just waiting there for me to find.
One day, as I was researching other individuals on that website, I had a sudden flash of memory. One of the death notices had listed Caroline's daughter as being with her when she died. And I realized that they had listed her as "Mrs.", with her married surname. My hands trembled as I went through the files looking for the copy of that death notice. If it listed her husband's given name and surname, I had a chance of finding all of them!
I found the death notice and hurriedly glanced down to the name of Caroline's daughter. Bless The Kansas City Journal, they had listed her as "Mrs. Cyrus Eidlitz of New York City." Now, I could search for "Cyrus Eidlitz" in the database and see what I could find.
The Holy Spirit was with me. Not only did I find Cyrus Eidlitz and his wife, Jenny Turner Dudley Eidlitz, but I also found her parents, Caroline Felthousen Dudley and Joseph Dana Dudley, and all their life dates! I then found Caroline's parents and their life dates, as well! It was a fabulous day! Now I could use the Federal Census to locate even more information about them! I found that Mr. Felthousen was a grocer. An interesting historical note is the fact that Cyrus Lazelle Warner Eidlitz (1853-1921) was the architect responsible for designing The New York Times Building in New York City in 1904, around which was created the world-famous Times Square! It was extremely rewarding!
Of course, there was still the lack of information on the identity of the firm that had created the window. Late in the fall of 2005, I had made a survey of all the windows, to see if there were any similarities/differences which might assist me in finding the maker of the Christ Preaching window. I did notice two striking differences between that window and every other window in the Nave of the Cathedral.
The Christ Preaching window is the only window in the entire Nave that lacks a decorative border around the outside edge. The image of Christ on the Porch of Solomon's Temple reaches the surrounding casement. Also, the iron support bars across the front of this window are flat and wide; in fact, they are wide enough that a prescription pill bottle could be set on them. These "rebars", short for "reinforcing bars", in all the other windows are small, half-rounded pieces of metal, which set up close against the window. While I didn't fully understand the significance of these differences at the time, I filed this all away for future reference.
In the early spring of 2006, while I was conducting online research on stained glass windows in general, I came across a guide that was intended to assist churches in identifying makers of stained glass windows, by maker's marks inscribed on the windows. While there was nothing there which gave me any clues to a specific glassmaker for the Christ Preaching window, the two unusual attributes of our window were listed in a guide on this site which was intended to assist a researcher in determining the age of a stained glass window. According to the information listed there, the lack of a decorative border in a window is usually an indication that the window was made before 1890. Now, this was extremely interesting, because I knew that our window was made at least twelve years later than that, after August of 1902, when Caroline Pratt died! The flat rebars were usually an indication of a window made before 1892. From this, I began to understand that it was possible that the Christ Preaching window had been made by a stained glass company that was older than any other stained glass firm represented by windows in our Nave.
Again, I filed away this information for future reference. In the meantime, I continued to search for information on Caroline and Wallace Pratt. I was not satisfied with just the information I had found, and I began looking at every piece of information I could find in the Missouri Valley Room of the Central Branch of the Kansas City Public Library. This yielded some information, but I then went to the Historical Society of Canton, New York, where I located information on Adaline Amanda Russell and her family, and on Wallace Pratt's family. I searched through a special collection on "women of society" at the Library of the University of Missouri at Kansas City. This yielded more information on the two wives of Wallace Pratt. Finally, I felt I had exhausted the resources available to me.
In late September of 2006, I was involved in online research for biographical and career information on the great German glassmaker, Gottfried Heinersdorff (1883-1941), who made the "Munich" window, which is located next to the Baptismal Font in the Nave (look for more information on him in the next article in this series!), when I stumbled upon a fascinating article which had appeared in The New York Times. It concerned a substantial stained glass window, 8 feet wide by 12 feet tall, which had disappeared from the Brooklyn Museum!
This
window was entitled Religion Enthroned (left), and it had been
commissioned in 1899 by the United States government as an entry for
the stained glass competition at the 1900 Paris Exposition. The man
who designed this window was Frederick Stymetz Lamb (1863-1928) and
the window had been fabricated by the firm founded in New York City
in 1857 by Frederick's father, Joseph Lamb (1833-1898) and uncle,
Richard Lamb (1836-1909), known as J & R Lamb Studios of New York
City. The article was extremely informative about this firm. It was
the oldest stained glass firm in the United States, and they were
still business! It was explained that up until the late 1880s, J & R
Lamb Studios was the preeminent supplier of church furnishings in
this country, until the firm was eclipsed by the company founded by
Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933). At one time, J & R Lamb Studios
had been a household name! But the most important piece of
information I read in that article was the next sentence: The
company had all of the records of the windows it had created over
the years.
As soon as I read that, I heard a small voice in my head, which said: "You need to write to them and find out if they made the Christ Preaching window!" I hurriedly scrolled back to the beginning of the article so that I could see when it had appeared in The New York Times.
When I read the date, my heart sank. The article had originally run on January 6, 1985. It was more than 21 years old! I knew that most of the large, important stained glass firms had closed up in the 1970s and 1980s. But, with a small glimmer of hope in my heart, I searched for a website for J & R Lamb Studios.
I found them -- they had a website! And they provided a contact e-mail address. So, I hurriedly sent them an e-mail, asking them if they would search their records to see if they had made our window in the early 1900s. I gave them all the information that they might require: Wallace Pratt's name and life dates as donor; Caroline Pratt's name and life dates; the name of the church at that time, Grace Church; the street address; the name of the Rector and the name of the Senior Warden. Then I attached the digital photograph of the window we had used to produce the note card. I sent the e-mail, and waited.
On Monday, October 9, 2006, I received my answer in the form of a reply e-mail: "Good Morning, Mr. Loy," it read. "I researched my files and find that window was made by J & R Lamb Studios [on] December 16, 1902." It was almost too good to be true! Need anyone require any further proof of the involvement of the Holy Spirit in this project? What an amazing thing, I thought! I immediately telephoned J & R Lamb Studios to thank them for this incredible information. Later, the President of J & R Lamb Studios, Mr. Donald Samick, called me. He wanted to congratulate me on my fine detective work, and I told him frankly that I had done very little to deserve any credit. When I told him the whole story, he was very quiet for a while, and then he said: "We don't have too many things that can be called miracles these days. But I certainly think this qualifies."
We talked for a while. I asked him for a formal certificate from his firm to place in the Cathedral Archives so that future generations would have authenticating proof of the maker of the window. He was very gracious, and said he would send something. He asked me if I would send him a copy of the photograph of the window on a CD-Rom disc, and I told him I would. Just as we were about to terminate our telephone conversation he said, "I almost forgot! That window was designed by Frederick Stymetz Lamb, you know." I think I dropped the telephone, I was so amazed to hear that! When I tell you the remainder of the story, you may find it hard to believe, but it is all true!
In the afternoon of Sunday, October 15, 2006, six days after receiving the amazing information from the J & R Lamb Studios, I was in the Cathedral Archives. I was searching through all the files on the memorial gifts to be certain that no documents regarding gifts made in the last 15 years had inadvertently been misfiled there. After about an hour, I came to a file simply labeled "Memorial Cross". I opened the file and began reading the information contained there.
This Memorial Cross was the very first memorial gift donated to the Parish of Grace Church. It was dedicated on Christmas Day, 1881. As I read the description of the cross, I came to the name of the maker. I nearly fainted. That cross, which has adorned the front of our worship space (in two locations) continuously since 1881, was made by J & R Lamb Studios! As I read further, I found that in 1882, an altar desk, also made by J & R Lamb Studios, had been given to the church.
I knew where the Holy Spirit was leading me in all this. The Baptismal Font had been a gift of the Sunday School in 1886. Like the cross and the altar desk, it had been given while the Parish was located in the small wooden church building at Tenth and Central Streets. Like the Christ Preaching window, the maker of the Baptismal Font was unknown. As soon as I got home, I sent off an e mail to J & R Lamb Studios inquiring if they had made the Baptismal Font for us in 1886.
Their prompt reply was a little disappointing. It seems that two
years earlier, in an attempt to ensure the preservation of their
records, J & R Lamb Studios had donated all records regarding items
other than stained glass windows to the Library of Congress. Mr.
Samick advised in his e mail that the Library of Congress had not
yet completed the cataloguing of those records, and that the
collection would not be accessible to the public for another two
years.
Well, those of you who know me well understand that warning didn't
stop me from writing to the Library of Congress! I asked them if
they would allow me to send them a photograph of the Baptismal Font
to compare with any J & R Lamb Studios catalogues they might have
from 1885 through 1890. They responded that I could send the
photograph, and they provided a special e mail address for me to
send the photograph for comparison.
On November 6, 2006, I finally received their response. In a long e-mail, they recounted every detail of their research in the J & R Lamb Studios Archive to attempt to locate a record that our Baptismal Font had been made by that firm. The e-mail was less than enthusiastic at the beginning, and with each sentence, I became less and less hopeful that they had found evidence that J & R Lamb Studios had manufactured the Baptismal Font. In the first paragraph, they explained that the earliest catalogue they had from J & R Lamb Studios was dated 1887. They told me that all the baptismal fonts in the catalogue were much smaller than our Baptismal Font, and that they were mostly octagonal in shape, rather than round. They also advised that all the fonts were made of Irish, rather than Vermont, marble. But they gave me a small bit of hope by advising that these facts did not rule out a custom design for Grace Church. They went into further detail, explaining in what files they had searched, and what names and identifiers they had used to try to locate any document concerning this Baptismal Font. Of course, each time, they also advised that nothing had been found.
At last, they began to describe an index of all the items the firm had made, which had been catalogued by the geographic location of the church that had commissioned those items. They surmised that the index had been compiled in the 1950s or 1960s by an employee of J & R Lamb Studios. The Library of Congress researcher then advised that they had found a listing for "Grace Church, Kansas City, Missouri." Under that listing, they found the following:
M-9523, 1881; S-651, 1886; G-3167, 1902
They explained that each of these was a coded term for an item produced. The "M-9523" referred to an item made of metal, which had been produced in 1881. They advised that the catalogue showed that the production number, "9523", referred to a cross. The "G-3167, 1902" referred to a stained glass window made in 1902, (The Christ Preaching window!)
But the "S-651, 1886" was the most important of all. "S" indicated an item made of stone or marble. "651" was a production number right in the middle of the baptismal font production numbers contained in the 1887 J & R Lamb Studios catalogue. And, of course, "1886" referred to the year the item was produced. The researcher concluded, "We can state therefore, that J & R Lamb Studios indeed made a font for Grace Church in Kansas City, Missouri. We regret that there is no visual confirmation, but the written evidence is conclusive." The researcher went on to advise that it was possible that J & R Lamb Studios had made our Font of Vermont marble to prevent the expense of shipping such a large piece of marble from Ireland.
What a miracle!
J & R Lamb Studios celebrates its 150th Anniversary this year. As a tribute to the thousands of stained glass windows this firm has produced during that time, The Stained Glass Quarterly, the official publication of The Stained Glass Association of America, has published two of four articles on J & R Lamb Studios by Mr. David Adams, a stained glass historian. Mr. Adams very graciously has provided to me a copy of the third article, which will be published after the first of the year, which deals solely with the life and career of Frederick Stymetz Lamb, who designed some 2,000 stained glass windows during his career. It is fascinating reading, I assure you.
In turn, The Stained Glass Association of America has graciously donated to this Parish a one year subscription to the magazine for those four articles, so that the information may be included in the Cathedral's Archives.
Oh -- If you're wondering what happened to the stained glass window in the Brooklyn Museum, it was eventually found. In the 1950s, the area where it was displayed had been totally remodeled. Evidently, someone in a position of authority decided the artistic merit of the window did not warrant the amount of display space it required. So, the window was totally dismantled, with all its leading removed, like a giant jigsaw puzzle, and the pieces of glass had been stored in cloth bags in the janitor's cleaning supplies closet in the basement of the museum.
When the museum officials learned the condition of the window, they were very concerned that it had been damaged by an accident of some sort, and that the pieces had been hidden in the basement so that the public was not aware of the demise of the window. However, the glass pieces were all intact, and only one small panel was missing. J & R Lamb Studios restored the window, using the original cartoon. It took five years to clean, reassemble, and re-lead the glass. The window may be seen in the fourth floor elevator lobby of the Brooklyn Museum, if you are ever in Brooklyn!
We are close to reaching our goal for the projected cost of printing this book for the Parish. However, we would welcome donations in any amount that might be made in honor of, or in memory of, a family member or a member of this Parish. Many have chosen to remember Dean Cavanaugh in this manner. Please contact Randal J. Loy at (816) 452-5055 if you are interested in making such a donation.