<p>In addition to the new art barn and pottery studio, a small chapel will soon make its way to the Featherstone Campus.</p>
In addition to the new art barn and pottery studio, a small chapel will soon make its way to the Featherstone Campus. The chapel is a gift from Rev. Dr. John D. Schule, the retired pastor of the Federated Church in Edgartown.
In addition to serving the Federated Church congregation for 20 years (he retired in 1998), Reverend Schule was the co-founder of Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard.
At 86 years old, Reverend Schule’s health is declining. He has a rare form of cancer, but on Monday he was in good spirits at his home in Edgartown. In his backyard, not far from a writer’s cottage where he wrote his sermons for so many years, stood the small chapel, about 12 by 14 feet, with double red doors and a four-foot steeple.
“It started when I was at the University of Edinburgh doing graduate studies,” he remembered. “I had the chance to travel to different countries. The thing that stood out to me was all the little family chapels I saw, some big, some very small.”
He described how the extended family and surrounding community would gather in the chapels. On the Vineyard, he told a friend that he wanted to build his own. The friend handed him a check for $10,000 dollars and the next day the lumber was in his yard.
Reverend Schule hoisted the first set of rafters up himself.
“Being the stubborn Dutchman I am, I had to get the second one up too,” he said, of what should have been at least a two-person job. “It came down and almost took me out.”
The highlight of the year for him is the Christmas season, when up to 30 people crowd into the small space to sing carols, with others spilling out of the entryway and still more singing in the yard.
“It was wonderful to be in here,” said Steve Ewing who has attended the event for many years. Mr. Ewing is the owner of Aquamarine Dockbuilders, and has volunteered his services to move the chapel to the Featherstone campus. An endowment has been established for upkeep of the chapel.
The timing of the move is still up for debate. Mr. Ewing doesn’t want to remove the chapel before Christmas in case Reverend Schule will feel well enough to hold another round of carols.
“Don’t worry about me,” Reverend Schule said.
But when the time comes, he does have one wish.
“See if it can’t end up on the knoll,” Reverend Schule said.
Comments
Just when I thought the
BeBop4000 New YorkJust when I thought the gentrification (read: demise) of The Vineyard was complete, or at least would continue unimpeded, a tale like this appears before my eyes. There is something about the Vineyard, something I felt virtually the moment I first stepped off "The Boat" over fifty years ago, visiting for the first time. The last several years living there, were spent depressed and dejected focusing far too much on things lost on the island, like the fabulous colors of the clay in the cliffs of Aquinnah or some of the things still remaining, like the perpetual saga of affordable housing for the "average joe". Then a story like this appears before my eyes, a tale reminding me that Martha's Vineyard truly is, and always will be, an extraordinary place. Perhaps it was the combination of this story about a small chapel in Edgartown juxtaposed with the story of Cully and his family's unfortunate circumstance. There may not be a family on that island with deeper, and more meaningful roots than the Vanderhoops. Perhaps the blend of the chapel on the move to a new home in Oak Bluffs, and a beloved "shop" cum restaurant cum landmark has served to remind me that the island truly is, and always will be an extraordinary and unique place, bordering on sacred. Let me tell you, if I thought I "felt something" just as soon as I stepped off the boat on my first ferry ride over, it pales in comparison to what I felt walking through Menemsha Hills one autumn afternoon a year or two after moving from New York to live full time on The Vineyard. Very simply, I will tell you that I walked on hallowed ground that day, and I felt the earth under my feet deep and rich with the souls of many who had walked that path before me, WAY before me. I don't know what further changes are in store for The Vineyard. But after today, I know, that no matter what comes down the road, , nothing will ever change the fact that under any and all new construction, beyond the reach of the martinis now served in restaurants in Tisbury or West Tisbury, lies a spirit enmeshed in that good earth, blanketed by air scented with the salty spray of the ocean mixed with pine and oak. And beyond the borders of the island, in this country that has been turned upside down and twisted with one horror after another, even all of that is not shaking the foundation of an island whose essayist of this years graduation ceremony is a Brazilian immigrant, I have been blessed with a moment of pure peace, knowing now, for sure, that it was my soul that I was feeling with that first step off the boat, and all subsequent steps I took from that point on. And it is the soul that lives at Featherstone and and in the Vanderhoops place up on the cliffs of Aquinnah. For me, I was reminded today, that the island is...well....holy.
Rev. Dr. John D. Schule, a
Allouise Morgan EdgartownRev. Dr. John D. Schule, a man among men, the "finest kind".
Thank you for all the years of your great,inspirational service, your words stay with me daily. You have been a true and abiding gift to our Island community.
And, thank you too, Steve Ewing, for always being there.
Rev. Schule, I loved your
Arlene Paris Delray BeachRev. Schule, I loved your little Chapel the from the first moment I saw it. Just wanted to say thanks again for the beautiful ceremony you provided to us. Hope you are doing well.
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