Mar 5, 2018 By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 4 min read

A sales agreement dated May 11, 1894, lists the cost of three stained-glass windows as $360.

That would be the equivalent of more than $10,000 today. But regardless, the Mt. Lebanon-based Baptist Homes Society would consider the value to be priceless.

The windows, built by renowned Pittsburgh glass artists the Rudy Brothers, now serve as the centerpiece of the new chapel at the society’s Providence Point community in Scott Township.

Erin Engel, director of development for the Baptist Homes Foundation – that’s the fundraising arm of the society – explained the windows’ origins.

“Their original home was in Mansfield Baptist Church in Carnegie,” she said. “Then they were taken to Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church on Washington Road. They were there until they were set into an auction, where Larry and Mardi Jackley purchased them in the hopes that we might be able to do something with them for the Baptist Homes Society.”

Larry, who serves on the executive committee of the society’s board of directors as treasurer, decided with his wife to donate the historic pieces to Providence Point, where they now live.

“When we first got these, they were not in the best condition,” Engel said about the windows, which went to Kelly Art Glass Co. studio in Millvale for restoration by John Kelly, who has been in business since 1976.

He also was tasked with assembling six new windows for the chapel.

“When we were starting to do plans for this, we decided we wanted the contemporary windows to be reflective of those historic windows, so that there is a continuity between the past and the present,” Engel explained.

The result is windows that for most visitors are practically indistinguishable from the Rudy Brothers originals.

“Mr. Kelly worked really hard to try to get a lot of similarities,” Engel said.

Three of the new windows represent scenes from the Old Testament and three from the New Testament, in keeping with the theme of the depictions on the older examples.

“On one of these historic windows we have, ‘Let us not be weary in well-doing,'” said Ashley Miller, Baptist Homes Foundation development coordinator. “And that actually became the slogan for our campaign.

The capital campaign toward Providence Chapel has brought in more than $2 million in private contributions, with work continuing on raising an additional $1.5 million to endow a Baptist Homes Society chaplaincy program.

Providence Chapel opened with a dedication ceremony on Jan. 20, and its inaugural Mass on Feb. 10 featured Bishop David Zubik of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, who served as principal celebrant and homilist. The chapel, which is nondenominational, has seating for about 100.

Providence Point opened in 2009 on the site of the former John J. Kane Hospital, which operated in Scott from 1958 to 1983, as the Baptist Homes Society’s second senior living community. The Mt. Lebanon location is on Castle Shannon Boulevard.

For more information, visit www.baptisthomessociety.org.

About the Rudys

When Henry J. Heinz sought to decorate his North Side factory and Point Breeze home with stained-glass windows, he looked to Central Pennsylvania.

Brothers Frank, J. Horace, Jesse and Isaiah Rudy, who had established a solid window-making reputation to the east, came to Pittsburgh a Heinz’s invitation in 1893, setting up shop in East Liberty with glazer Valdemar F. Reich as their partner.

Reich eventually departed, but historians weren’t sure when until the purchase documents related to the Rudys’ sale of three windows to Mansfield Baptist Church in Carnegie surfaced.

A “Rudy Bros. & Reich” ledger page dated March 11, 1894, lists the price of the windows, $360, and subsequent payments through April. Another page, dated Aug. 18, has “Reich” crossed out, which means he apparently left the brothers that spring or early summer.

Al Tannler, Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation historical collections director, called the Mansfield windows “an extraordinary find and perhaps the first example of a privately commissioned Rudy work.”

The company remained in business in Pittsburgh until 1932, and the affiliated Rudy Glass Co. in York survived into the 1960s. Isaiah Rudy, who served as art director of the firm, died in 1966.