Mt. Pleasant Area Historical Society to debut restored window from razed Catholic church at annual festival

Mt. Pleasant Area Historical Society will unveil a window into the past on Sunday, during the community’s annual Glass and Ethnic Festival.

Visitors to the historical society’s headquarters at 422 Washington St. will be able to view a newly restored stained-glass window that hasn’t seen the light of day in more than two decades. Now housed outdoors in a wooden display case, the window is among nine that were salvaged from Transfiguration Roman Catholic Church when the local house of worship was demolished in 2003.

After traveling to Ohio and back with its eight companions, the two-pane, 800-pound window recently was hauled from society board member Jim Schmidt’s garage to its new home: a concrete foundation outside cabins the society has filled with other historical items of interest.

An historic bell saved from another church was shifted to make room for the window display, according to society Vice President Gene Kowalewski.

“It literally sits between the two cabins,” he said. “It’s 126 years old

“It would have been at mid-level at the front of the church, above the main entrance.”

Built in 1899, Transfiguration Church stood on the southeast corner of Mt. Pleasant’s Smithfield and Hitchman streets.

A parishioner at the church, Kowalewski was in his early teens when it was razed.

In September 2002, the Roman Catholic Diocese in Greensburg closed the church after engineers determined it was structurally unsafe and could collapse. After a court battle between the diocese and parish members, who felt the building could be repaired, the church was torn down the following February.

Kowalewski noted a Catholic priest from a diocese in Ohio purchased the church’s windows, reportedly with the idea of starting a related museum. In 2022, when that diocese decided to demolish a warehouse where the windows were being stored, the historical society stepped up to transport them over a 200-mile route back to Mt. Pleasant.

The windows’ next stop was in the former American Architectural Salvage operated by Westmoreland Community Action on West Main Street. But another move was in store when that operation closed in 2023 and the building was transformed into an auction house.

Schmidt agreed to restore one of the church windows in his garage, a labor of love that stretched over two years.

Schmidt is the retired owner of Electro-Glass Products, a company in Norvelt that makes glass items for the defense, medical and electronics industries.

“Some of the products we make are so small you can get them stuck under your fingernail,” he said.

He said working on the two side-by-side stained-glass window panes was a new experience.

“It’s 13 feet tall, and that was a challenge,” Schmidt said of the window, but he added, “I enjoy something like that.”

He rigged up a pulley system to move the wood-framed window panes into an upright position while he made repairs.

“The glass was bent out of position in about three different places and some wood was missing,” he said.

Each of the window panes is a jigsaw puzzle of variously colored glass pieces fitted into channels that are soldered together and held in place by a wooden frame. Central to the left pane is a floral design, while the right pane includes a sacred heart image — topped by flames and pierced by a sword.

“It’s all the original glass,” Schmidt said. “It’s very delicate.”

To restore the window to its original appearance, he had to remove putty and paint that had been applied over the years.

“I must have dug about 40 pounds of putty out of it,” he said.

Schmidt called upon carpenters, electricians and an area sign company to help him create a plexiglass-fronted wooden display case for the window that will remain visible in the dark with timed illumination.

“They came as I needed them and helped me put together the case,” he said.

The window will be rededicated with a ceremony at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday.

Since Polish immigrants were prominent among the original families in Mt. Pleasant’s past Transfiguration parish, Kowalewski has asked clergy from Transfiguration of Our Lord Polish National Catholic Church on Bridgeport Street to take part in the ceremony. The church’s choir sill sing a Polish hymn.

Following the demolition of the 1899 Transfiguration church, Kowalewski said, “There was a good core of the parishioners that joined the Polish National church.”