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Window for opportunity

By SKEETER TOWER

Behold! Here is one of the more spectacular 19th century residential stained glass windows in Dunkirk. It is housed in its original Queen Ann style home at 418 Eagle St.

The setting is spectacular, with the approximately 25-square-foot piece adorning the landing of the magnificent oak staircase. Visitors to Dunkirk’s Historical House Tour of 2014 would have had the opportunity to see it in place where it has graced the house since 1879.

The window has been part of an interesting and significant slice of Dunkirk history. The window now is about to find a new home. It is slated to be moved for safekeeping. Repaired and, restored it will become part of an exhibit at the Dunkirk Historical Museum.

Seth Hamilton, who worked in the thriving coal and lumber business, was the first to live in the house at 418 Eagle St. and remained until 1900. The property then passed on to John Madigan of the Madigan Lumber and Building Material Co. Madigan served as mayor of Dunkirk in 1906.

During the years from 1912 to 1931 the Eagles Club, later known as FOE, the Fraternal Order of the Eagles, met here, according to tradition known as the Aerie, or eagles nest. The International fraternal organization FOE was founded in 1898 in Seattle and was originally made up of those engaged in the performing arts.

Its success may have been associated with funeral benefits offered and the provision of a physician, according to their literature. The organization is associated with the advocacy of a day to honor mothers and in 1914 Mother’s Day was established. They also pressed for social security since Theodore Roosevelt was a lifetime member of FOE. They subsequently worked to end age discrimination in the workplace. Today FOE is more associated with raising funds for medical centers fighting cancer and heart disease as well as distributing over 10,000 Ten Commandment plaques. It is not clear when the organization left Dunkirk.

During the mid 1930s Andrew Dotterweich, Sr. of Dotterweich Brewery fame, moved his family to 418 Eagle St. At the time he was the president of Lake City Ice and Fuel Co., a business formed when prohibition brought the successful brewery on Crooked Brook at Dove Street to an end. After Andrew, Sr. died in 1941, Andrew Dotterweich, Jr. remained in the home with his widowed mother, Johanna, as did his brother, Francis. Andrew worked at Merchants National Bank and after 1945 was vice president of Lake City Ice and Fuel Co. He also operated a gas station which the family owned. Francis became president of the Ice Co. Later, both Andrew and Francis were involved with a retail liquor store on Main Street.

From the mid 1960s until the 1980s the family of Joseph SanGeorge who operated Joe’s Radio and TV service at 433 Main St., later at 200 Central Ave. lived here. It is during this time that legend has it that Joe’s children used the attic space to build a real airplane from a kit and the roof had to be raised to remove the airplane.

Today the house serves as a group residence for The Resource Center, and while many of the lovely features of the house have been maintained, regulations and special needs of the residents have demanded alterations. The Eagle Street window, now encased in glass and Plexiglas for protection, has deteriorated with time and the excessive heat captured by the encasement.

When Academy Heights Neighborhood volunteers inventoried as many of the leaded and stained glass windows as possible in the neighborhood three years ago, this was one of the windows chosen to be replicated on greeting cards and magnets and sold as a fundraiser for the Dunkirk Historical Society.

Diane Andrasik, director of the Dunkirk Historical Society and museum took all the photos for the inventory. The OBSERVER ran an extensive article at the time with the headline “Dunkirk sparkles.” When selecting this house for the house tour, alarming deterioration of this spectacular window was noted. Discussions with The Resource Center led to a decision to replace the window with a more functional heat saving glass for the home and donate the stained glass window to the Dunkirk Historical Society for repair, restoration and preservation. This will be a major and delicate operation.

Home Base of Fredonia has stepped up to tackle the job with the arrival of warmer weather. Tammy Petz, co-owner of Home Base explains how this window will be carefully packed, crated and removed in vertical position from its home of 136 years. Historical Museum volunteers will video the procedure to save as part one of the restoration record for the museum. Future generations will want to see the exquisite setting where it originated.

John Sheffer, glass artist of Glass Factor in West Springfield, Pa., will be on hand to receive the crated window and transport it to his studio. Here it will be carefully disassembled piece by piece, removing old lead, cleaning and labeling each piece, identifying broken pieces that will have to be matched and replaced.

Antique glass is often difficult to match with color and texture requiring the skills of an experienced craftsperson. Local glass artists were approached first, but most were not equipped to handle a piece this size and weight with complicated repairs. Some had other obligations. We even hoped to assist a local artist make use of the SUNY Tech Incubator for a workspace, intern training and development of business acumen but the more experienced artists already seem to have business and workspaces set up. This still might be an avenue to pursue for a budding entrepreneur.

We did identify a need and a niche. The Wall Street Journal on Dec. 23 quoted the Stained Glass Association of America, an industry trade group, saying” membership has dwindled to around half its peak size of 900 during the 1970s.”

In communities such as ours with 19th century ornate windows, there are few resources for skilled repair and these resources are getting even slimmer. At the same time, contemporary glass art is turning more secular and many prefer to refer to it as “architectural glass.” This part of glass art is growing in popularity. Our local 19th century windows will continue to add value as this trend continues. The life expectancy of the leaded cams on these beautiful windows is about 100 years, however, according to those in the trade.

Most windows in our region are at risk, dating well beyond this time frame, and should be re-leaded to preserve them before they bow and collapse. Several of the glass artists in our area work with copper foil instead of lead which is not strong enough to hold these heavy and larger antique glass pieces. The look is also quite different. The work is labor intensive and very expensive, some quoting up to $260 per square foot. The cost of repairing this Eagle Street window may reach $5,000.

The Historical Society has gratefully accepted the window on faith that individuals and groups in the community will help support its preservation and the documentation of each step of the restoration as a learning tool and exhibit in the museum. When finished, the window will be on display at the Historical Museum.

Donations can be sent to the Dunkirk Historical Museum at 513 Washington Ave., specifying the Eagle Street Window fund. Tax deductible donations will be acknowledged on the exhibit itself and in the press. Individuals and groups can also purchase individual or packets of greeting cards showing this and other outstanding windows of our historic districts. In a time of searching for points of pride in our city, this is a clear winner.

The museum is always interested in knowing about other windows which have not yet been captured in our inventory of 19th century windows. Please call the museum if you are willing to list your window, and have it professionally photographed for posterity.

Skeeter Tower is a Dunkirk resident.

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