In 1973, Barry and I moved back to Anderson with our son, Daniel, to take permanent residence here. From the very beginning, my goal was, not only to attend Temple here, but also to make the Temple building a more beautiful place for our members to worship. 

Every year, we would have a large garage sale in our basement. Most years we would make around $1200, and with that, we would choose a project to enhance our building. We did everything from changing the light fixtures to adding new carpet, updating the kitchen, fixing the bathrooms, replacing the front walkways, and everything in between. 

Our last large project was our stained glass windows. In early 1999, my friend, Ellie, and I thought if we could get one window done on either side of the stage, that would be marvelous. All of our original windows had been painted shut over the years and had metal window enhancements.  The first window we chose was the one on the right, facing the stage. We decided that it would be appropriate to start with “The Tree of Life”.   After that one, the Slann family asked to have a window done for their family. Since they had a family member who was from Israel , and a child who came to live there for several years, they chose The City of Jerusalem with The Dove of Peace”.  We thought that would probably be the only windows we would get because of the expense and designs being out of reach for most Temple families. Boy, were we wrong.  After that, everyone wanted a window. In most cases, I would sit down with the family member and ask what they would like to see in their window. Then I would draw up a suggested design and show it to the person to either make changes or accept the drawing. In several cases, the person would design their own window and, if it was feasible to do, we would go ahead with it; however, in some cases, minor changes would be necessary. 

In the end, we had more families who wanted to purchase a window than we had windows in our Sanctuary, so we expanded into our social hall and a couple of small windows that face the street on the front of the building. The two small windows were donated by Glen Davis. 

In recent years, we also replaced our wooden Ark doors with stained glass ones. I chose the design for the doors, and Alvin Fleishman’s family purchased them in his memory. The window project started in 2001, and was completed about five years later, in 2005.