Judy Brown, chairwoman of the congregation’s Sanctuary Renovation Group at the 92-year-old church, said the interior of the sanctuary will be painted — warm taupe on the walls, a lighter shade on the 40-foot-tall ceiling and two darker colors for decorative accents — and the 40-year-old carpeting will be replaced with burgundy with a black thread running through it. The church’s old wood floors also will get a makeover.
“Right now, the walls are green and the carpet is gold,” Brown said. “You can tell it was last redone in the 1960s.”
The project will take six to eight weeks to complete, she said. Parishioners will remove the pews and put them in storage so scaffolding can be erected throughout the sanctuary during restorative plastering and painting.
New pew pads and kneelers also will be part of the renovation, and — if the money stretches far enough — the church may invest in a video projection system for use during services.
The 200-member congregation has raised all the money it needs to finish the project, primarily from church funds, memorial contributions and personal donations. All financial donations to the project are tax-deductible.
“We did some fundraisers, but when you need money in this amount, bake sales are not going to do it,” Brown said. Once the renovation is complete, the church will hold a rededication service.
In the meantime, there will be an outdoor service Aug. 31, and the remaining Sunday services during the work will take place in the church’s large basement “because even if the weather’s nice, it’s really a lot of work to move all the chairs in and out to have services outside,” Brown said.
The church at 532 C St. opened in 1916. It was named after James Ebbert at the stipulation of his niece, Margaret Morris.
According to a church history compiled by the late Allene Bechtle, a retired educator, Morris had left her parents’ Iowa home in 1902 to come to Springfield to care for her ailing aunt, Elizabeth Ebbert. Following the older woman’s death, Morris stayed on to care for her uncle on his farm on Marcola Road until his death in 1915.
As beneficiary of his estate, she pledged $15,000 to the existing Methodist Church to replace its outgrown building at Second and B streets with a new one, with the proviso that the new church must cost at least $25,000 and be named after her uncle.
The existing brick building, which cost $40,000, was completed and dedicated in December 1916. Morris also donated two large stained-glass sanctuary windows.
The church’s 30 original stained-glass windows were removed in the 1980s and transported to Salem, where they were dipped in an acid bath to clean them, then releaded. During reinstallation, sheets of high-impact, protective plastic were placed on the outside to protect them from accidents or vandalism.