William C. Wilson
Memorial Chapel
Central
Congregational Church, UCC, Providence, RI
A Memory by William
H. Claflin
May 30, 2014
The possibility
of adding a chapel to our building plant for summer worship services and for smaller
weddings and funerals had been discussed since the 1920s. With the advent of a
church-wide building improvement campaign in 1962, including the replacement of
the church organ, the Prudential Committee appointed a special study committee
to review the chapel question. Appointed to that committee were: Mrs. William
Boardman, William Brightman, William Claflin, William Farnsworth, Lloyd Kent,
and Thomas Reed, along with the ministers, the Reverends Raymond Gibson,
Richard Shaper, and William Croft Wilson.
We first
recognized that the kind of space provided for worship indeed affects the tone
of worship services held in that space, and we were unanimous that our church
had great need of a chapel. We also agreed that this chapel should itself be a
formal sanctuary, expressing the dignity and solemnity of our present main
church; a temporary lectern in one of the existing meeting rooms would not
suffice.
The committee
considered the entire church plant, carefully thinking through various
remodeling or addition schemes, and we concluded that only the remodeling of
present space in the main sanctuary was economically feasible to construct and
maintain in that decade. We gave some thought to and rejected the somewhat
startling possibility of relocating the communion table, pulpit, and lectern
directly under the dome, thereby creating a church “in the round” and a chapel
with central door, aisle, and organ in the south part of the nave.
Turning our
attention directly to the remodeling of the west transept, the committee gave
considerable thought to possible types of temporary or permanent dividing partitions;
and we concluded that any partition would disturb the wholeness of the church
and would constantly remind parishioners that a portion of the church was
separated from the main body.
We recognized
that leaving open one wall of the chapel would detract from the intimate scale
desired for the chapel; we believed, however, that highlighting the chapel
while subduing lighting in the rest of the church would at least partially
substitute for the fourth wall. An architect, George Fraser, was requested to
draw specific plans and estimate costs. His first sketches showed pews facing
north towards the Prayer Window, making workable provisions for entrances,
narthex waiting area, ministers’ entrance, and use of a number of the pews
during services in the main sanctuary.
It was Bill
Wilson who gave the verbal report to the meeting of the congregation in May
1963, and the congregation gave its approval for inclusion of the chapel in the
capital campaign. We did not know then that his time with us was about to be
cut short, On November 2, he entered the Johns Hopkins University Hospital for
corrective heart surgery, which could no longer be put off. He was well aware
that the odds of his survival were slim.
Raymond Gibson
and Charles Baldwin reported that Bill’s final or near-final words were quoted
from St. Paul. “Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; whether we die, we die
unto the Lord; whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.”
Raymond and
Charles wrote about the impact of Bill’s death upon the congregation at
Central: “The sense of immensity of the loss grew until it underlined what was
already somehow known, that in a quiet way that never called attention to
himself he reached into, and changed for the better, the lives he touched.”
From Bill’s
final prayer that he never delivered because of going into the hospital: “… Grant us to be strong that our might may be
a bulwark to those who are weak. Grant us to be wise that our wisdom may shed a
needed light upon a darkened way. Grant us to be brave that our courage may
bring hope in a day of despair. For we would now commit to Thee both our life
and our death, and pledging Thee faith, we pledge Thee too our faithfulness.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
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| William Croft Wilson, 1931-1963 photograph courtesy of William H. Claflin |
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| Wilson Chapel, dedicated October 11, 1964 |
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