Built of Vision, Built of Faith
The Story of the Williams Chapel
The Story of the Williams Chapel
"It just didn't seem churchy . . . inspirational," fretted M. Graham Clark, Jr., about the Green Auditorium in which students at the School of the Ozarks attended weekly chapel. So the newly-appointed school president set about to build a Gothic-style chapel in the middle of a private Ozark high school near Branson, Mo. The year was 1956.
Some say that the "school's administration envisioned it;" others say that "it was the plan all along." Regardless, it was Clark who brought this vision to reality.
"I had the idea that since the Presbyterian Church had started the school that it would be really appropriate and proper and right by many accounts that they go ahead and build a place of worship," recounted Clark. "I asked Dr. Janie McGaughey, secretary of the Board of Women's Work to visit and speak on the campus." The strategy was to convince her and her organization to give their annual birthday offering for the cause of building the chapel. (The offering was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.)
"Dr. McGaughey thought it was a splendid idea and proposed it to her board and they approved it," Clark said. Unfortunately, the Stewardship and Budget Committee of the General Assembly disagreed and turned away the chapel proposal.
Years earlier, Clark and his wife, Elizabeth, had traveled abroad throughout Europe and had fallen in love with the splendor of the Gothic chapels and their bejeweled stained glass windows. "The vision, goal, desire, whatever you want to call it was ever-present in my mind," said Clark. "I hadn't given up."
A few weeks later, the door opened for an exciting contribution. Clark was about to speak in St. Joseph, Mo., at the First Presbyterian Church when a telegram was delivered advising the busy man that Jacob Lashley wanted to be met at the airport in Springfield, Mo., the next morning. Following the meeting, Clark drove through the night back to the campus. The next morning, weary and sleepless, he met the prominent St. Louis attorney who proved to be president of the American Bar Association (Godsey 466).
Lashley also proved to be an elder in his Presbyterian church and said he had known of the private school for years. He shared that a friend desired to make a substantial contribution to the school and wanted to know what project might be offered him.
"I got excited and told him I thought God had sent him because of the chapel," Clark said. He asked the amount Lashley's friend wanted to give. Unwittingly, Lashley named to the exact dollar what the school had received as an estimate to build the chapel.
Lashley was suspicious and inquired, "If I had named another figure would there be another estimate in that desk drawer?" He riffled through Clark's desk and finding no other estimate, called his friend, former Missouri Senator George Williams.
Clark remembered Lashley calling the senator to say, "Clark says our coming is providential and that we've been sent, and he is very enthusiastic about the idea of a gift. I recommend that we go forward with it. He wants to build a chapel and says he'll put your name on it. There's a bell tower to be built by an anonymous donor and I'd say we ought to do it!" (Godsey 467)
The dream was dreamed, the funds were in place and Clark readied the school's construction department for the new project. However, a near-disaster threatened to paralyze the plan again.
Clark was in Washington, D.C., speaking at a Rotary luncheon when he received a panicked message that Lashley wanted him in St. Louis. The contribution was being contested by Williams' son. Clark hurried back to St. Louis to meet with Lashley, Williams and his son Howard to discuss the contribution. Howard felt too much money was being taken out of his father's estate at one time and desired the contribution to be spread out over several years.
"God leads you in what to say sometimes," marveled Clark. "I'm no tax expert but I suggested that if Williams' estate would guarantee it, we could borrow the money and the estate could pay it back over a period of time." Both father and son agreed to guarantee the funding for the addition to the School of the Ozarks.
The National Council of Churches had reported that Edward Jannson of Chicago was the nation's best authority on Gothic architecture. Clark convinced the architect to donate plans for a chapel he had designed, but never built. The structure would seat just over 1,000. There were less than 300 members of the entire student body when construction began.
"Some thought it was crazy to build it so large," said Clark. Even Dr. Robert M. Good, president emeritus and chairman of the board, and others suggested the size might be an overkill. "I didn't resent that," said Clark. "Dr. Good had carried this school on his bare back during the hard years of the depression, trying to feed the students, educate them. I know it seemed much too lavish at the time, but I knew our student body would grow and I wanted to be ready for that time." Today, the student body numbers more than 1,500.
The board of trustees wasn't totally confident in the skills of campus construction staff and student laborers and asked that William Johnson of Springfield, MO, supervise the program. Ralph Bates supervised cutting the "cottonrock" from the school's quarry which forms the chapel exterior. Stonemasons Hardy (Slim) Wyman, Elwood Wyman, Uncle Jimmy Wheeler, Leo Bush, "Pop" Collins and Silas Jones laid the stone in a broken Ashler pattern.
Later, when Johnson returned to Springfield, Clark turned to Slim Wyman to move the work forward. Wyman was born and raised near Forsyth and had never seen, let alone worked on such an ornate building. How could he rise to the task? "Dr. Clark 'a told me to do it and I done it," said Wyman with a simple shrug of his shoulders.
Silas Jones, a Ridgedale native, well remembers working on the chapel. "I thought it was mighty, mighty pretty. I hadn't seen anything like it," he chuckled. "Of course, I hadn't ever gone very far from home." He pointed proudly to the four stones atop the bell tower and said, "I laid three of them myself."
Student labor and local craftsmanship were combined in the school's furniture factory to create the ornate woodwork. The woodwork of native white oak was seasoned, bleached and shaped into the desired pieces; smoothed and coated with no pigment added (Godsey 470). For months a sample pew stood in Clark's office and all visitors -- tall, short, fat or thin -- were asked to try it. When dimensions that suited everyone were found, a pattern was made for the new pews (Lyon 4).
Clark also captured the interest of stained glass artisans Hilgart and Gianinni in Chicago. Together the three tackled the challenge of creating works of art with bits of glass imported from Austria. Clark admits his ideas were "not one bit original" but delights in the Biblical meaning behind the windows he helped bring into the light.
Each stained glass segment glows with jewel--like brilliance -- amethyst, topaz, emerald and ruby. The morning sun colors the sanctuary with rich purples and reds through the window above the chancel, known as the Sacrament Window. In the afternoon, the great window in the west above the entrance door glows like a sunset (Lyon 5).
On the exciting day when the windows were delivered to the campus, Slim Wyman remembered, "We thought they were mighty pretty." But, alas, the installation instructions were provided in German! Clark scrambled to find someone to read the instructions. "Then our boys, with Slim's supervision, placed those windows without an error," he proclaimed.
In his mind, 86-year-old Clark can still clearly see the windows. He recited, "On the north wall it is all the Old Testament, the south wall is all New Testament. The transept on the north side is the Creation and the transept on the south side is mostly the Book of Revelation. To the east is Christ with the cup and the four evangels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John surrounding him." It is here that Clark wanted the "magnificent Tiffany blues to catch the light of the rising sun."
The sermon that emanates from the windows changed the life of at least one young student on the campus. "One of the orneriest lads in this place was working on installing one of the windows," said Clark. "He got so interested in what it meant that he got to reading his Bible and found Christ his Savior. He was baptized and became a wonderful Christian man."
From the hands of teenaged high school boys and the work-worn hands of Ozarks craftsmen, nourished by the vision of M. Graham Clark, and funded by generous hearts, the chapel came to life. The bell tower also grew rapidly and on May 1, 1958, the bells chimed across the hills to announce the completion of the Williams Chapel and Hyer Bell Tower and to beckon the campus and community to its dedication.
A sense of elation and completion settled over the crowd as the dedication ceremony began. "The building was truly beyond our imaginations," said long-time business professor Dr. Beulah Winfrey. Wyman marveled, "I was just proud to do the work." M. Graham Clark, quiet and still, said, "You can't imagine how much of this place is an answer to prayer."
Chapel Facts
1. In 1906, the School of the Ozarks was formed as an eighth through 12th grade school for Ozark children "found worthy but without sufficient means to get a Christian education." Students are assigned work stations throughout the campus and earn their room, board and tuition.
2. In 1956, the junior college program was started. In 1966, the junior college became a four-year, liberal arts college.
3. The chapel is 150 feet long and 80 feet wide with a vaulted ceiling of 80 feet. The bell tower extends 120 feet into the air.
4. Funding for the woodwork was furnished by a Baptist preacher and his deacon; the chapel was funded by an Episcopalian, and the bell tower was funded by a Methodist to realize a dream by a Presbyterian.
5. Ninety-six tubular cast bells weigh a total of 55,000 pounds and comprise three sets of 32 bells each. The largest bell is 12 feet long and hangs 70 feet above the ground.
6. There are 21 stained glass windows in the Williams Chapel.
Works Cited
Godsey, Townsend. The Flight of the Phoenix. Pt. Lookout, MO: The School of the Ozarks P, 1984.
Lyon, Marge. "The School that Was Built on Faith." The Ozarks Visitor April 1958: 4.
Photograph of chapel, full view, courtesy College of the Ozarks
Photographs of Williams Memorial Chapel stained glass by Gene Ketchka, courtesy of Gaye Lisby, Branson Living magazine
