Featured Windows, July 1998

Christ Church, Detroit, MI

Building: Christ Church Detroit

City: Detroit

State: Michigan

The Lyster Window at Christ Church depicts ten members of the Lyster family, which gave the window in memory of Dr. Henry F. Lyster, a Detroit physician. The central panel shows Christ with a woman and child of the Lyster family.

The left panel includes Dr. Lyster, the brown-bearded man at the rear; his white-bearded father, the Rev. William N. Lyster, first rector of Christ Church and founder of several Episcopal missions in Michigan; and another woman with a child.

The right panel pictures a third woman with three more Lyster children. An inscription across the base of the window reads, "1837 - In memory of Henry Francis Le Hunte Lyster, the beloved Physician and first Friend of many little children. While I sojourned with you I sought light rather than darkness - 1894."

The Lyster Window was created in 1905 by Franz Mayer and Company of Munich, Germany. The recognizable faces of the figures in the window were based on photographs of the Lyster family sent to the Mayer Company. Detroit architect Gordon W. Lloyd designed the Gothic Revival church, which was completed in 1863.

Christ Church of Detroit was registered in the Michigan Stained Glass Census by Josephine Zedan of Grosse Pointe Woods.

(MSGC 1993.0109)

Text by Betty MacDowell, Michigan Stained Glass Census, July , 1998.