Parishioner Bob Schaper knew it had to be there somewhere, in what was left of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, and there wasn’t much.
“That is what’s left,” Schaper says as he points to a blackened entryway that now opens to a charred field of destruction. “The church burned down through the floors to the subsequent [kindergarten] school rooms below. Organ, pews, the beams, roof, everything is just gone, simply gone.”
An elementary school serving some 300 students, renovated just a few years ago, was also immolated, along with a two-story suite of parish offices and a day care center.
But none of the destruction deterred Schaeper from his mission.
“I just went in and started looking, and we knew where it had to fall because it was at least 300 pounds. … It was an Indiana Jones moment for a guy of my generation,” he laughs.
“I was in there with full gear, a sledgehammer, saws and stuff, and cutting away pipe and chicken wire, and finally through a hole about as big as a dinner plate, I look in and there’s the words ‘To the Glory of God,’” he says.
“And it’s just like, oh! There’s the bell!”
Schaper found what he was looking for: the church’s brass bell. It was a gift from the family of Dean Howe, a young parishioner who died from cancer at age 15. For nearly 60 years, it rang out at the start of Sunday services.
For Matt Wright, another parishioner who helped lift the bell from the ashes, its discovery signaled hope for the church’s uncertain future.
“The bell will make its return when Saint Mark’s makes its return to Altadena Drive,” says Wright. “The bell will be a centerpiece of the new church sanctuary.”
Altadena lost more than a dozen places of worship in the Eaton Fire, including large campuses like Saint Mark’s and Altadena United Methodist, and storefront churches like Abounding Faith Ministries. Most have publicly expressed determination to rebuild.
But if rebuilding a home is challenging, rebuilding a faith community and its sanctuary is even harder, involving shared commitment, fundraising, and a re-evaluation of priorities — all while maintaining a community that’s been scattered like embers blown by Santa Ana winds.
Charlie Cutler has seen it before, as president of ChurchWest, which provides property and other insurance to ministries across California, Nevada, and Arizona — including two other churches destroyed in the Eaton Fire, one directly across the street from Saint Mark’s.
Cutler says that before any blueprints are drawn up or any concrete is poured, each church community should ask itself some difficult questions. While most do pledge to rebuild, is that the best idea? Or even possible?
He points to a ChurchWest client that lost its sanctuary in the 2018 Camp Fire, which largely destroyed the town of Paradise. For that church, survival meant not rebuilding at all.
“Because there’s no people, because all the people have been displaced, and the members of the congregation had gone to Chico or moved out of the area completely, so they saw a decline in attendance,” Cutler says.
“Meanwhile, there was a church down the street with similar beliefs and (the churches) consolidated,” he continues. “I think they created a very healthy church, they are now one congregation that’s come together.”
The Saint Mark’s bell rescue crew, parishioners Matt Wright, Anton Sobota, Tom Horner, and Bob Schafer, display their find. Courtesy of Matt Wright.
At Saint Mark’s, the extent of the loss and the costs of rebuilding are coming into focus. But the grief is lessened somewhat by the excitement of reimagining what a new St. Mark’s parish could look like.
“We didn’t have the perfect campus,” says Saint Mark’s pastor Carri Grindon. “It’s beloved, but now that it’s gone, what would we do differently? We know that it’ll cost a lot to rebuild the church and school, and those costs are only going to go up. But we want to get back there.”
Grindon says even with the insurance check in the bank, she envisions a 20-year reconstruction and a roughly $20 million shortfall. She imagines fundraising over time, in phases.
“There’s no way we, just in a straight capital campaign within the community, are we going to get there,” she says, “unless some major angels show up.”
Bob Schaper, who located Saint Mark’s church bell, cautions that the arduous process of rebuilding should not consume the spirit of the people who still fill the pews every Sunday at its temporary location at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, a roughly 20-minute drive from the Altadena campus.
“We’re at church now, we’re doing church now,” says Schaper. “Saint Mark’s is going to continue to be a church.”
Now in his 60s, Schaper doesn’t know if he’ll be around when the new Saint Mark’s rises again. But it’s not something he’s given much thought, instead focusing on helping to shoulder the loss and carry on day by day.
“We must protect and keep our arms around the people themselves. We must maintain that as number one and then put a building around that,” he explains. “We have to keep going because this is going to take longer than anyone thinks.”
When Schaper uncovered the church’s bronze bell, three other parishioners helped him dislodge it. Once free, they attached it to a pair of iron bars, to carefully carry it from the ruins, “like Cleopatra” in a chair, said parishioner Tom Horner.
The bell was carefully washed, the crew lifted it once more, and then they struck it, for the first time since January 5, the Sunday before the Eaton Fire took almost everything.