One of the stained-glass windows in the Saints Peter and Paul Church in Clear Creek Township. Photo courtesy of the Clear Creek Heritage Association.

A centuries-old church found a second life in southeast Iowa.

The Saints Peter and Paul Church in Clear Creek Township was built in 1898. In 2006, a shortage of catholic priests caused the church to close, which met some resistance from the members of the parish and in 2009, the Davenport Archdiocese sold the church to the Clear Creek Heritage Association. Association board member Sheila Horras describes how the church has stayed alive, “It’s more of a community center. We have 14 or 15 weddings a year, we have funerals out there. There’s a lot of family reunions. The fourth Saturday of every June we have a big barbecue cookoff. Annually we have a symphony there from the Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra.”

Renovation that was done on the roof and steeple of the Saints Peter and Paul Church in 2010. Photo courtesy of the Clear Creek Heritage Association.

The church has gone under a lot of renovation over the past eight years. Horras says the church was dilapidated when they received it. Their first renovation project was to restore the foundation of the church, and bring the electricity and other components up to code. In 2010, their second project was restoring the steeple, and replacing the roof. The next phase in the church’s renovation is a restoration of 22 stained glass windows, which is funded in part by a Washington County Riverboat Foundation grant of $30,000. This is just one of several grants the church has received from organizations around the state, as Horras says supporters are passionate about its historic preservation. Horras talks about visitors’ connection to the church, “We get a lot of interest because of genealogy, because there’s a cemetery right next to it that the original immigrants are buried in. And they know that their ancestors went there to church. There’s a lot of people there that maybe the fifth generation wedding is there, or sixth generation wedding is there.”

Horras says one of the things she’s most excited for the stained glass renovation is to hopefully find out more about the history of the glass. Horras says perhaps they will discover who originally painted these windows. The last time work was done on the windows was in 1961 when they installed storm protection glass, which actually did more harm than good. The Clear Creek Heritage Association has hired Bovard Studio in Fairfield to restore the paint and repair the cracks.