How a Supreme Court decision led to ‘new’ stained-glass windows for a rural Minnesota church

Bishop Patrick Neary blessed six newly installed stained-glass windows at St. Anthony Church in Browns Valley Aug. 31. The originals had needed replacement for nearly 90 years.

On Easter Sunday in 1934, fire almost destroyed the rural church. The wooden interior was gutted, but the external brick wall structure was salvaged. The building was repaired, but the damaged stained-glass windows were left as they were, cloudy and brown from smoke damage. The cost to repair them was just too high.

Fast forward to 2022, on the morning after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Someone in the community was not happy with that decision and had taken a rock to one of the lower windows of the church.

Father John Paul Knopik, pastor of St. Anthony Parish, called in an expert from a studio in Avon to repair the damage. Marty Stone, owner of Stonehouse Stained Glass Studio, showed up to do the job.

Stonehouse Studio had installed a window at the front of the church in the mid-1990’s and Stone knew the building well. Father Knopik took a chance and asked him what it would cost to replace the six remaining windows, not imagining that it could actually be done.

“He said, ‘Funny you should ask that, Father, because next week I’m going to the convent in Little Falls. The sisters are praying that a church takes their windows, and I think I can make them work,’” Father Knopik said.

Stone gave him a price — $12,000 for each window — which included $8,000 to restore and re-lead the window and install it and $4,000 for exterior protective glass.

Father Knopik said he wasn’t sure where he would get the $72,000 for the project and was surprised when seven or eight families came forward to fund the project.

“I love restoration,” said Stone. “To be able to reuse these windows was great.”

The windows came from Hurrle Hall, the original convent at St. Francis Monastery in Little Falls, built in 1891. The building had served many purposes, but as the number of sisters declined, the community decided it was no longer needed.

“Over the years [that building] served as a hospital, a school of nursing, a residence for the sisters, a nursing home, a holistic growth program for religious from across the world, and a junior college,” said Franciscan Sister Charlene Grossman during the Mass and blessing of the windows. “But eventually, as the number of sisters decreased, we began to realize we did not need the use of that building anymore.”

In 2016, they began to say goodbye to Hurrle Hall with a decommissioning ceremony, and in 2022, the building was “carefully deconstructed,” and the stained-glass windows were put into storage.

“We knew that the windows would be safe and that we would put them somewhere in storage,” Sister Charlene said. “At that time, we didn’t know where they were going.”

The sisters prayed for someone to come forward that could repurpose the nearly 11-foot-tall windows.

The sisters were thrilled to learn the windows would be installed at St. Anthony Church, where Franciscan sisters had served from 1938 to 1968. Father Knopik was originally from Little Falls, which added another layer of connection.

Sister Charlene said she has a personal connection to the area as well. A native of Chokio — about 35 miles from Browns Valley — she recalled how the Franciscan sisters serving at St. Anthony Church would travel to her hometown on Saturdays to teach religion classes. Inspired by their example, she entered the convent in Little Falls in 1966.

“It’s very rare that something like this works out as well as this did,” Stone said. “Everything fell into place. It was a lot of fun to work with the sisters and with Father John Paul.”

Pictured above: Bishop Patrick Neary blesses the newly-installed windows at St. Anthony Church in Browns Valley Aug. 31. (Dianne Towalski / The Central Minnesota Catholic)