Ted Hilles and the Tiffany Windows | Written by: Alan Lahue

A few weeks ago a couple named Ted Hilles and Jane Osgood visited SUM from out of town and attended the 10:30 service.  After the service they approached Sue Lemke, who was ushering that day, and asked about the history of the building.  They were especially interested in the Tiffany stained glass windows.  Sue quickly recruited Mel Kawakami to talk about the windows and explain the Ensign family’s connection to them.

It turned out that our visitors had their own connection to the church and the windows.  Ted Hilles is an Ensign descendant.  In fact, he’s the great-grandson of Ralph and Susan Ensign, the couple who were so instrumental in making the sanctuary what it is today. 

Ralph Ensign funded its construction in 1908, and in 1914 donated the small, brilliant window on the south wall to his parents, Moses and Martha.

In 1909 Susan Ensign, along with her sisters, memorialized their father, Joseph Toy, with the window in the west wall above the choir.

And in 1918 Ralph and Susan’s children (including Ted’s grandmother) honored the memory of their parents with the grand, six panel window on the east wall facing Hopmeadow Street.

Ted lives in New Hampshire.  I don’t know if he ever visited Simsbury before to see the church or its windows.  His visit gave him the opportunity to view and reflect on his family’s legacy and to make a connection with his past.

It reminded me that we all have a shared connection with this past – and not just to that of the Ensigns but to many others as well.  It’s here for us to see every week, though maybe it’s so familiar that we don’t think about it much. 

The stained glass windows, the Tiffany pieces and all the others, aren’t just works of art.  Nearly all were placed in memory and in honor of men and women who were an important part of the life of this church.

They surround us like that great “cloud of witnesses” we read of in the book of Hebrews.  Maybe we didn’t know them personally; maybe we never met any of them.  But the windows testify that in their time they were an important part of this community.  They graced it with their prayers, presence, gifts, service, witness, and with a faith that kept them going even at difficult moments.  If, from time to time, we can remember that, their examples might help inspire us to “run with perseverance that race that is set before us”.