Featured Windows, October 1999

Dominican Life Center Window

Building: Maria Health Care Center (previously known as Dominican Life Center)

City: Adrian

State: Michigan

This opalescent window represents an archangel, very possibly the Archangel Michael, appearing to a Roman soldier. According to tradition, archangels are the "warriors of Heaven" and the militant guardians of the Church, with the Archangel Michael as their captain. Like angels, they also serve as heavenly messengers. Inscribed in the radiant circle above the archangel is a message to the kneeling soldier, "Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God."

The Dominican Life Center, operated by the Adrian Dominican Sisters, was designed by Hobbs and Black Associates of Ann Arbor. Tiffany Studios of New York created the Archangel Window in the early 1920s. After several recent years in storage, it was installed in the new wing of the Center in 1994 as a memorial to Sister Mary Richard Rea, OP, a gift from her nephew, Richard H. Driehaus, and her sister, Margaret Rea Driehaus.

The Dominican Life Center of Adrian was registered in the Michigan Stained Glass Census by Sister Patricia McCarty, OP of Adrian.

(MSGC 1994.0150)

Text by Betty MacDowell, Michigan Stained Glass Census, October , 1999.