If you drive by our school, you will see that most of the windows in the north wing have been replaced. We have several more smaller ones yet to do. We are waiting to do the south wing for a while yet, as we aren’t planning to use it right away, unless God has other plans!
We had always assumed that the building was originally built with the large areas at the top of each group being glass, and later owners removed the top glass after the school closed. With the top section being closed in, the rooms are really dark. But I recently found PTO records going back to 1953, and over the first few years after the school was built, buying shades to darken the rooms happened several times. We figured that they soon found, as we did, that the rooms are just too bright on the east side in the morning to be without shades. But on the other hand, showing films in class was just becoming common, so it may be that they were just needing to close off even the smaller windows.
As a further complication, we have talked to some former students who say they never remember those large top sections having glass in them. What we really need is to see very early photos of the building, but for some reason, they are really hard to find. We have been too busy renovating to do much research, but maybe I will get to it once school opens. If anyone has any old photos of the outside or inside, we would really appreciate the chance to scan them for our archives.
Of course, being older windows, the efficiency is not what you can get out of windows today, and many of them were either cracked or had lost the seals and were frosted inside. The decision was made to purchase new windows.
I personally wasn’t there on the delivery day, so I wasn’t witness to the first large unit off the truck being dropped, and shattering into bits. Being novices at glass moving, they didn’t realize that the suction cups wouldn’t stick well on glass that was wet from the rain. I always thought dampness helped suction cups work better, but I guess not.
The windows were stored in one of the book rooms until installation, which kind of went by small steps for a while. We wanted to put in at least one room before the ice cream social/open house, so that happened, and some other smaller ones got installed as people had time. But at the end of March, a workday was planned to pretty much get all of them in, at least the big ones. Those took a team of six or seven guys to put in safely. Four or more to lift them up on a carpeted platform, and at least two more to hold them in place and secure them.
I wasn’t sure my nerves would be able to stand watching them do this, but I showed up anyway. All went well except for one instant where the two guys holding a window in place each thought the other was holding it and turned to pick up something. It was very windy that day, and the glass immediately started falling inward. Several people yelled and to their credit, they both realized what was going on and turned around in time to catch it before it got too far.
This was also a fun day for the younger boys, and there were a lot of them there, helping wherever they could. This is one benefit of having the work days on the weekend, so the dads can work with their boys. And we don’t want to forget the girls! They have also been a great help, specially on painting day.
The new windows do make the building look more alive and useful. And you wouldn’t believe the amount of light in the rooms. But as I mentioned earlier, I was there one morning as the sun was coming in full strength, and standing at the back of the room, I could barely see the front. So I guess shades will be in our near future.
That’s about all I have for now. If you would like to help us get window shades or anything else, or would just like to donate funds or time helping out, please contact us. You can go on our website, www.uccs.school, there is a Donate button there, or you can contact us for more information. If you would like to make a totally anonymous donation, there is a button on our website to go through the Anabaptist Financial group. You can direct them to send your money to us, and your identity remains private.
