SAINT RAPHAEL, PATRON SAINT OF FRENCH CANADIAN IMMIGRANTS IN WILLIAMSTOWN

In September of 2009 long-time member, Sam Edgerton, donated to the House of Local History one of the stained glass windows from Saint Raphael’s Church that he retrieved from the building when parishioners were allowed to remove anything that remained inside before its conversion to affordable apartments began.  The building was deconsecrated in 2007 and sold in 2009 to reduce costs by merging its congregation with that of St. Patrick’s Church.  At that time all the stained glass windows were removed.  All but two went into storage in Springfield, to be distributed among other still-active parishes in the diocese and elsewhere.  The stained glass image now hanging in the House of Local History was once part of a dual panel window in the façade of the Church. The other half, an image of St Raphael in his customary appearance as a winged archangel, was recognized and reinstalled in what is now the combined St. Patrick’s-St. Raphael’s church on Southworth Street.  Our panel, its companion, depicting a haloed saint holding a staff with a jar attached, was left behind in the old building because the figure couldn’t be identified, and therefore was not gathered with the named saints in the other windows and shipped to Springfield.

It is fortuitous that it was left in the church, and that Sam was the person to find it.  Williams College Amos Lawrence Professor of Art History Emeritus, and a St. Raphael’s parishioner, he had the knowledge to guess the significance of what he found and the interest to do the research to confirm his suspicions.

He tells us that, “Traditionally in Catholic ecclesiastical architecture, stained glass windows in the dominant façade location always depict images of the patron saint of the parish, alone and unaccompanied by other saints (unless they be Jesus or Mary.)”  The location of this panel in the façade makes Sam quite certain that “the figure depicted in the displayed panel is that of Saint Raphael himself, patron of the old church and particular favorite of French Canadians who made up the majority of the former congregation.”  The pilgrim’s staff that the figure holds confirms its identity as St. Raphael, since it reflects his traditional role as guardian of travelers and wanderers like the immigrant French Canadian parishioners, most of whom arrived in the late 1800s to work in the  Williamstown Manufacturing Company textile mill on Cole Avenue.  “For these nostalgic newcomers, Saint Raphael’s was more than just a conventional church.  It was the very soul of their Francophile identity…  French, not English, was the language of their pulpit, and French customs prevailed in all their parish activities.”

Sam was also able to find information about the designer and crafter of the window. All of the original Saint Raphael’s windows were commissioned during a remodeling of the church in 1948, when the French Canadian community was still prospering.  The designs were prepared by a Worcester architect named Albert J. Roy, himself descended from a family of French Canadian immigrants.  He studied at the Worcester Art Museum School, and then in France where he won several competitions and prizes at the Ecole de Beaux Arts at Fontainebleau.  Returning to Worcester, he designed a number of Catholic churches in the region, many including stained glass windows like those in Saint Raphael’s.  Besides being an architect, Roy was both an artist and a student of church history, able to portray individual saints with their traditional iconic attributes.  His drawings would then be sent to a shop specializing in stained glass.

The National Glass Works, a firm also in Worcester and still in business, was given the final task of translating Roy’s Saint Raphael designs to colored windows.   Its founder was an Italian immigrant, Sisinio Pandiani, born in Milan, who mastered the art of stained glass while working at the famous Tiffany Studio in New York and then opened his own Worcester studio in 1921.  Sam was able to speak with Alan Pandiani, current president of the company and grandson of founder Sisinio. Alan  described for him ”the traditional craft by which his grandfather and uncle Orlando with co-worker Luigi Sargentelli assembled our windows by the same techniques as were used in the Middle ages.”

The company today deals mainly in auto glass. And we think we’re making progress?

Thanks to Sam’s generosity, the window was restored and adapted to hang in its new location at the House of Local History by Todd Boulanger  of New Creations Stained Glass Studio in Dalton.