"The Helen Hughes Chapel"

"Helen Hughes grew into her father’s ideal of womanhood, dedicated to the service of others. She shared her father’s work ethic, but unfortunately she was not gifted with his constitution. While working in Boston in the fall of 1918, she fell ill with influenza, which was followed in the spring by pneumonia. Back at the family home in Glens Falls, she struggled to get well. In July of 1919 she felt well enough to attend a Vassar reunion, but became ill again and was brought home where the doctor informed her parents that Helen had advanced tuberculosis.

Sleeping through the hot nights of July and August, she dreamed of being at Silver Bay, walking across the green lawns, easily breathing the fresh air. After such dreams, she felt that she had actually been there. She desperately wanted to go back to Silver Bay, but could not travel as far as the front porch without triggering a crippling fit of coughing.

On January 11, 1920, Helen turned 28 years old. She was too weak to blow out her birthday candles. The end came on April 18, 1920. She was buried in a family plot in Woodlawn Cemetery, in the Bronx, New York. Her father, so cool, self-contained and aloof in public life, could never again speak of her without his voice quavering.

By August of 1920, Vassar alumnae and co-workers in the YWCA had raised more than $2,000 for a chapel at Silver Bay to be dedicated in her name. By March of 1921, the amount had grown to $20,000. Among those who contributed were President Warren G. Harding and John D. Rockefeller.

The site chosen was said to be one of Helen Hughes’ favorite resting places. The chapel was designed by the firm of Allen and Collens of Boston, to be built of granite taken from nearby hillsides. On June 19, 1921, at the laying of the cornerstone, Vassar women in white dresses sang, and Helen’s mother, Antoinette Carter Hughes, set the stone. The chapel was dedicated on June 25, 1922, with Charles and Antoinette Hughes present; a choir from Vassar again sang.

The stained glass windows, gifts of the Welsh people of the United States, symbolized the three virtues of steadfast Faith, eternal Hope and unselfish Love. The windows’ central figure, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, served the poor and died at the age of 24; she is flanked by angels. The altar, the Lord’s Table, was contributed by the young women who dined at Helen’s table at Vassar. Altar hangings were donated by the Calvary Baptist Church of Washington, D.C., and others were made in New York City by blind workers at Lighthouse No. 1.

It has been said that the dedication tablet — “This chapel is erected in loving memory of Helen Hughes, 1892-1920″ — should include the phrase, “by the 32,000 friends who in the stones of this building count a few of the kind deeds that made her life an ideal for them to follow.”

In August of 1933, Chief Justice Hughes and his wife, while vacationing at the Sagamore resort in Bolton Landing, came to Silver Bay one more time to visit the Chapel dedicated to their daughter."

Source:

Winship, Kihm; "The Helen Hughes Chapel," Silver Bay Blog, February 26, 2014; http://kihm4.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/the-helen-hughes-chapel