On a very hot August day, a dozen volunteers from the OHS turned back time.  Wearing facemasks and gloves, wielding crowbars and hammers, strapping tool belts to hips that may have been replaced, they came to the Union Church to work.  During the next three days, at an age polite folks won’t mention, I was the second longest-term resident of the area, but often the youngest on the crew.

Thursday morning I arrived as told to, wearing long sleeves and long pants, at 10:00.  I dropped off a dolly and two garbage cans and parked at the Elizabeth Street parking lot.  I could feel the heat index rising as I walked the short blocks to the church.  I had forgotten that those beautiful stained glass windows don’t open.  Rain was expected later in the day.  That interior was sure to be a steam bath even for those wearing short sleeves and short pants.  I knew I was in for it and wanted to get cracking before the heat of the day brought on any fainting spells.

After signing a waiver and checking in, I noticed an idle crew.  It seemed that only a few people were actually working.  After making a few rudish comments, I inquired of chair Chuck Viers about the lack of action.  Come to find out, only three of the actual crew were on an enforced break, the rest of the idlers were reporters and cameramen there to record the event.  Poor Alice Young had been on the job since 8:15.  While we feared that all that records of her presence would portray her seated, she revived in time for the photographers.

I had not been in the church for a few decades – not since I was a small child.  Of course, everything I remembered seemed smaller.  Some significant time points for me during the project occurred at 11:30 Thursday, and at 9:30 and just before 2:00 on Friday.  Thursday morning, despite my late start and the infestation of observers, we filled the first of three dumpster loads – drum roll, please – one half hour before schedule.  That lowered a few degrees off the heat index as we realized we were looking at a free Sunday.  We were sure to be finished on Saturday at the latest.

Just before the rain came in earnest, a familiar figure rode up on a bicycle.  She was certainly in context as this was my ‘bestest’ friend from kindergarten and a lifelong member of the Baptist church.  We were also Pioneer girls together and had shared at least one VBS (Vacation Bible School) week in that very church.  As the upper area of the stage moved outside, lost sheet music and other church memorabilia were uncovered.  A church program from May of 1953 revealed the name of my friend’s father and several other last names that I recognized.

On that note, we broke for lunch.  The first day we were treated to pizza and salads in the Senior Center.  For some reason, Senior Center Director Lisa Sokal had asked us to sit at a separate table from the lunching regulars.  This reason became clear as soon as I walked into the room.  Despite the absence of masks, it was easy to identify the work crew.  You see, the regulars were CLEAN; my new friends were FILTHY!

Lunch over, the dumpster had returned empty and by the end of our energy it was almost full again.  Leader Chuck declared us to be losing strength and becoming possibly careless so we broke ranks and locked up at 3:00.

I arrived a cooler hour earlier on Friday.  At about 9:30 I took a load out to the dumpster.  I re-entered the church to see it looking the way I remembered it from the mid to late sixties.  If I had had my friend’s phone number, I would have called her to share the moment.  On my next trip back inside, the moment was lost.  We continued moving back in time.

On Thursday, I had begun prying apart the stage area on the left.  I finished before the windows were revealed – another grand moment – and it was too dark to see under the remaining stage.  On Friday, at a little before 2:00, Burke Cooney finished the right hand side and moved on.  I came over to finish the little jobs there (nails in the carpet, etc.) and could see a bit under the remaining stage.  I was reaching in with a broom to gather any artifacts and remove the slippery dust when I realized that the shadowy and extra dark area on the floor was actually the original flooring.  A crowd gathered and Chuck pronounced stage demolition complete until further notice.

We left Friday when the dumpster was again full and the delivery service was unable to get to us until longer than we wanted to wait.  We had a huge pile ready on the church porch, in the aisles, on the remaining stage area, and lots of other nooks were full, too.  Chuck had called the service twice and everyone on the site had asked him if he had called (at least five times each).  There wasn’t much else we could do, so, we signed out until the morning.  If you have never removed non-historical material from an old church, I tell you this: keeping ahead of the dumpster company feels pretty darn good.

Saturday found us with badly needed fresh blood and an empty dumpster.  In a reverse of my impressions from Thursday (when things seemed smaller than I remembered), the pile we’d left on the stage seemed much bigger than I remembered it.  Crew members formed a dumpster brigade of sorts while Leslie Pielack and Sara Van Portfliet began taking out the clips that had held the fiberboard to the stenciled walls.

As our local expert (now Project Manager for the restoration effort), Leslie had made the decision to remove more of the stage.  The crew soon uncovered a huge I beam.  When I say huge, I mean huge.  This is one heavy piece of metal.  It’s enough to make Van Halen look like Pat Boone.  It’s enough to make the faint of heart quit.  However, we weren’t faint of heart – plus our team was almost finished anyway.

Teamwork came easily.  As Chuck said, “The flow was good.”  We managed to stay out of each other’s way – most of the time.  People found their natural talents and took over tasks that favored them.  Those of us who didn’t know facts about the underlying structures that were being preserved left tasks requiring work close to them to the crewmembers that knew what they were doing.  People who don’t care for heights stayed on the floor and helped the trapeze wannabes with the ladders.  Especially in the rear of the church, care was taken to keep the beautiful walls and the windows intact

We were as respectful as possible concerning the church’s spiritual history as well.  As we took off layers of remodels, we got down to the initial base of the building.  Here were the walls that welcomed the joyful voices of the area’s first Christians.  Here denominations came together, sharing a building despite differences in ritual and interpretation of their common faith.  I felt most badly about the baptismal font.  That one piece seemed to hold the sacred feeling of lives dedicated there to a Power much greater than ours.  The thought that those lives are still dedicated, that this removal didn’t put back any sins and couldn’t redirect any behavior is comforting.  Rather than let the building be razed and the land reused for whatever purpose a developer might think up, this church will be preserved.