Over the past summer, Cloverdale’s Good Shepherd Episcopal Church began replacing all of the glass windows in the church with stained-glass ones — each window a reflection of the beauty surrounding Cloverdale. One window, located in the front entrance of the church, has a slightly different story — it was found in a Healdsburg antique shop and donated to the church by Gene and Carolyn Marcinkowski after they realized that it would be a perfect fit for the space.
The Marcinkowskis stumbled upon the window while they were perusing the antique shop, having stopped because Gene remembered the shop had a silver candy dish like the one they had at their wedding 65 years ago.
While the Marcinkowskis didn’t leave with the candy dish, they eventually left with their other find. After seeing the old window, Gene measured it, came back to Good Shepherd and measured the window space and found that it would be a perfect fit.
“I said ‘God intended it to be here,’” Gene, senior warden of Good Shepherd said, walking through the church on a tour of the new additions.
Before the stained-glass installation, the space the antique window now fills had been occupied by a plain window. Now it matches its newly installed counterparts. The throng of new stained-glass windows in the main chamber of the church aren’t traditional ones. Gene said that Good Shepherd didn’t want windows that depicted saints. Rather, it sought windows with some religious imagery that also depicted landscape scenes common in Sonoma County.
Though all the current stained glass windows are staying, the church, started in 1888, has had its fair share of upgrades and has seen its fair share of window-changes.
According to the Reveille archives, the church installed its “Senior Warden” window during a major renovation in the 1990s — in it, California stained glass artist Bruce St. John Maher depicted Jesus wearing blue jeans and work boots, sitting on a log in front of rolling hills of vineyards. That iconic piece is now joined by new stained-glass counterparts.
“Through the up and down years of the church, we finally this year were able to get enough money to put the windows in,” Gene said.
So, when he and Carolyn stumbled upon a window that would fit the church, the Marcinkowskis couldn’t pass up the change to welcome it into the congregation.
“We both fell in love with it and I envisioned it in our narthex right above the old organ. After some measurements of the window and then at the church, it fit perfectly. It was meant to be,” Gene wrote in an email to the Reveille, describing how the Marcinkowskis happened upon the window. “By the look of the lead and glass this window must’ve come out of an old church built around the same time as ours. We are so pleased for it to now be a welcome part of our church.”
In addition to this new round of colorful windows, the church has seen a lot. Gene recounted reading about how the church operated during the 1918 pandemic, holding little to no services. Now, over 100 years later, the church is going through the same thing — it’s closed for services, with its priest and deacon instead uploading a full service to YouTube.
