In-Depth History of Trinity Memorial Church
The church was founded as a service to the community—a neighborhood that was “rapidly increasing its population and was far removed from any Episcopal church.” In 1852 the “Market Street Mission” opened at the corner of Market Street and Schuylkill Second Street (now 21st Street). The founder was the Rev. John A. Vaughan, D.D., who had been Rector of the Episcopal Female Institute. Growth was rapid: in the first year nine children were baptized and four couples were married. In 1853 the mission had to move to larger quarters a block east on Market. By 1856 its records show 101 communicants and a Sunday School of 300-400, and a new building was needed.
In May of 1857 the cornerstones were laid on the same day for the Church of the Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square and what was now called Trinity Mission Chapel at 22nd and Locust Streets. The chapel moved into the new building in October of that year, and in 1858 changed its name to Cranmer Chapel to distinguish it from Holy Trinity.
The Church of the Holy Trinity bought the Chapel and its property in 1863, changed the name once more to Holy Trinity Chapel, and treated it as a mission for the “less elegant” part of town—three blocks away. All seats were free at the chapel, unlike the church, which had subscribed pews. The affairs of the chapel were directed by the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry of Holy Trinity Church and executed by a Chapel Committee of the Vicar and ten or twelve members.
For the next decade the Chapel managed with an “allowance” from Holy Trinity and gifts from some of its wealthy parishioners. In 1873, Mrs. Anna H. Wilstach, one of those donors, wrote in her will that her executors should purchase a lot of ground and cause to be built thereon a Protestant Episcopal Church “as elegant as funds appropriated, with careful management, will allow.” The building was to be a memorial to her daughter, Anna Gertrude WIlstach, who had died that year at the age of 16. Mrs. Wilstach then directed that the bequest be carried out at once, before the will would be executed. In fact, she lived till 1893; the fifth codicil to her will provided a trust fund for the care of the Chapel, with the provision that if the Chapel ever became independent of Holy Trinity the trust income was to go directly to the Chapel. In the seventh codicil, she increased the amount of the trust.
A lot at 22nd and Spruce Streets was purchased in 1874 from Lemuel Coffin (one of the generous donors from Holy Trinity) and Joseph B. Altemus for the new chapel. Mrs. Wilstach named a committee to be managers and trustees of the new church, and the ground was consecrated the following year. Philadelphia architect James P. Sims was retained to design the new building along with another building adjacent on the west for Sunday School and other activities. Holy Trinity members Lemuel Coffin and the sister of John Bohlen, who had also been a generous donor, provided the funds for this building. Construction began in 1874, and fourteen months after the cornerstone was laid the buildings were dedicated on All Saints’ Day, November 1, 1875.
The new Chapel grew and prospered. In 1895, Holy Trinity Church bought the adjoining lots at 2216 and 2218 to be used as a Guild House and Vicarage; in 1913 these two houses were remodeled as one Guild House and the next property, 2220, was bought as a Vicarage.
The “trademark” angels over the altar, copied from tiny angels in the frame of a tabernacle of the Madonna by Fra Angelico in the Convento San Marco in Florence, Italy, were painted in 1907.
The Chapel continued to thrive under a succession of vicars during the first quarter of the new century. In an interesting sidelight, a French Huguenot church in the area, which had fallen on hard times and had to sell its building, began in 1926 to meet in the Holy Trinity Chapel and continued to do so until its final service in 1953.
In 1923, the Rev. B. Janney Rudderow took over as Vicar. By 1941 and the beginning of World War II, the congregation had doubled. Sunday School is recorded as having 130 pupils and teachers. The busy Guild House hosted the Women’s Auxiliary, Junior Choir, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Girls’ Friendly Society, Men’s Club, Young People’s Fellowship, and the Church School Service League. The Sunday School building was used for community dances, motion pictures, rifle practice in the basement (!), seasonal parties, the Chapel Forum of Speakers, and the annual Rummage Sale and Christmas Bazaar. The Chapel fielded a basketball team and a badminton team.
After the War, some retrenchment was needed. The Chapel sold the Guild House and the Vicarage and bought a new Vicarage on Delancey Street. With the proceeds they made some alterations and redecorated the remaining buildings.
At the same time Parson Rudderow, with the encouragement of the Rector and Vestry of Holy Trinity, began the multiple steps—both legal and ecclesiastical—needed to transform the Chapel into a full-fledged independent church. After these steps were completed, the new Trinity Memorial Church was consecrated on All Saints’ Day 1949.
The next decade has been called by those who knew it well the Golden Years of Trinity Memorial Church. The rolls listed 925 baptized members, 637 communicants, and 116 Sunday School students. The church prided itself on its community services such as Thanksgiving baskets, Christmas baskets and stockings, and gifts of coal to those who were in need of it. Parson Rudderow was much beloved, as was his wife.
His successor, the Rev. Charles F. Penniman, Jr., arrived at the beginning of the turmoil of the sixties. The flight to the suburbs was in full cry, with a resultant enormous drop in the membership of the church. The Center City neighborhood, which had easily supported multiple Episcopal churches, changed in population to include many unchurched and Jewish residents. A 1962 parish record shows the total number of communicants as 692, but the number of pledges turned in was 152. Obviously, many of the supposed communicants were gone.
Still, it was a neighborhood full of families, and in 1969 a parishioner (Ricky Wurman) started a daycare center in the Parish House; this began as a twice-a-week cooperative for two-year-olds (as Charlie Penniman said, “too young for nursery school and old enough to drive their parents crazy”) and is to this day a thriving institution of 65 children ages toddler-5 and a bulwark of the neighborhood—Trinity Playgroup.
Charlie Penniman strove to reach out in many other ways to bring the community in, including allowing non–church groups to meet in the Parish House at a nominal fee for utilities. This was accepted in principle by the Vestry, but in 1970 they passed a resolution that required their approval of all groups. In particular, the Vestry was not pleased to learn that a group called Help, Inc., formed with private financing to help people with drug and other problems, had been using the Parish House for meetings, and that some architectural feasibility studies were under way to transform the church basement into a community center, with study, eating, and relaxation facilities open to all. It was to be called “A Feeding Place.” The Vestry submitted the proposal to the congregation: out of a total congregation of 82 the vote was 38 for and 44 against.
Largely due to this outcome, Charlie Penniman submitted his resignation in January, 1972, feeling that after ten years he did not wish to preside over a congregation where the question would always be “one of for or against Penniman’s policies and points of view.”
The Vestry accepted his decision with regret and began the search for a new Rector. After many unsatisfactory interviews, the Calling Committee found a winner in the Reverend Louis H. Temme, a native Philadelphian, graduate of the Philadelphia Divinity School, who was serving as Assistant Rector at a church on Long Island. Thus began an wonderfully fruitful relationship that lasted 33 years. He held his first service at TMC on November 19, 1973.
Lou began by establishing a first-name policy among the parishioners, who were used to more formal address. He tightened up business and monetary arrangements—a step whose necessity was made obvious after his first paycheck bounced. (The Treasurer’s report to the Vestry until then had been simply a statement that “Everything’s fine.”) A college business major, he was eminently qualified to put things in order.
To the delight of the parish, Lou met and married Kathryn Rossé in 1975, and she became an integral part of TMC. When the church finances dictated that the paid quartet of singers must go, she became one of the long-standing members of the volunteer choir that was formed to replace it.
Lou agreed with Charlie Penniman that the church must be an integral part of the neighborhood. He involved himself and parishioners in multiple volunteer efforts and increased the use of the Parish House for non-church events. Gradually the old guard of the Vestry and parish moved away or died, and the new members coming in were more inclined to embrace this principle. His open support of the ordination of women and full acceptance for gay people became part of the parish identity.
In 1984, after repeatedly bemoaning the plight of the homeless people who were more and more visible around our city, Lou, along with some church volunteers, developed a plan for a shelter for homeless men to be housed in the Parish House basement during the five coldest months of the year. The plan was presented to a packed community meeting; it was so carefully thought out that instead of hostility it was greeted with enthusiastic approval, with many neighbors volunteering to help. Wintershelter continues 30 years later, with hundreds of volunteers preparing and serving nutritious meals to the guests every night. The shelter volunteers, interested in adding other programs, became the Community OutReach Partnership, or CORP, with its own board made up of neighbors and TMC parishioners. CORP operates under the nonprofit aegis of TMC. Communicare, a visitation program for elderly people who need a friend, became a part of CORP, and then the Community Cookoff, in which volunteers prepare 200 frozen dinners for shut-ins every other month. Later on block-corner recycling twice a month drew more volunteers; the city picked up the recyclables and paid for them, adding $5000-7000 to CORP’s coffers. This ended when the City began regular recycling pickups curbside.
The church continued to struggle with its small size and inability to grow. Center City tends to be somewhat of a transient neighborhood: a gain of new parishioners always seem to be offset by the loss of long-term supporters who move away or die. It is widely known and widely admired for the social programs, but this does not translate into growth.
But its excellent reputation led to an interesting offer. In late 1993, a neighbor who is an expert in organizational development offered to hold what is called a “Future Search” for the parish; it was an offer that benefited both sides, as she wanted to train some students in this type of conference. TMC was required to provide 20 or so parishioners for a weekend as well as 20-30 “stakeholders,” people who although they were not members were involved in some way with the church and cared about it. With so many volunteers in its outreach programs, TMC had no trouble providing both groups. The parishioners were amazed that so many neighbors would be willing to give up an entire weekend—Friday night, all day Saturday, and Sunday afternoon—to discuss the future of the church. So on an icy weekend in January, about 50 people met for the first session at St. Luke and the Epiphany. One immediate result was that the neighbors, who were astonished to find out that the church was in dire financial straits, formed the Friends of Trinity Memorial, with $25-a-year dues and immediate plans for fundraising. “Trinity is the glue that holds the neighborhood together,” one neighbor said. The conference was a rousing success, filled with enthusiasm and ideas, including a Garden Tour in June.
Six months after Future Search, those ideas were needed. At shortly after midnight on July 28, 1994, lightning struck the chimney on the back roof of the church. Fire burned invisibly between the roof and the ceiling for four hours, when it burst out the opening on the front of the church. By that time the neighborhood was full of smoke. The fire went to three alarms before it was brought under control. All that was left of the roof were the great charred beams, one of which had fallen onto the pews. The clerestory windows were ruined, as were the front windows: the side aisle windows were bowed from the heat. The floor was badly damaged, the plaster cracked. Miraculously, the angels over the altar sustained only smoke damage.
Parishioners and neighbors sprang into action. The church received a grant to hire a fundraising expert. Members of nearby Holy Trinity started a fundraising drive throughout the neighborhood. Donations were pouring in: TMC members formed a thank-you-writing group to respond to the generosity. In a leap of faith, TMC asked its half-time administrative assistant, Dick Ihrig, to work full-time.
The first priority, obviously, was a new roof. While this was being put in place, the Vestry and the Rector decided not to rush the rebuilding, but to spend time thinking about how we wanted the church to work in the future. The church services grew very comfortable in the French Room of the Parish House, where they stayed for three years. Meanwhile, Lou held weekly meetings with a small group of neighbors and parishioners to discuss what the church should be. A flexible space that could be used for church services as well as concerts and meetings was the consensus: using chairs instead of pews, bringing the altar out into the center of the space, having all the elements movable.
The firm of Atkins Olshin Lawson Bell was hired as architect and the rebuilding began. Fundraising brought in about $800,000 over and above the insurance settlement. The church then held another meeting with parishioners and “stakeholders” during which the decision was made to change the Friends of TMC into Trinity Center for Urban Life, an independent nonprofit that would manage the buildings for the benefit of the community as well as the church—“to act as stewards for the historic buildings”—as its mission statement says.
On May 18, 1997, the new Trinity Memorial Church was rededicated by Bishop Franklin Turner, who had rushed to TMC on the Sunday after the fire three years earlier. The beautiful new space was open at last, with new or re-leaded windows, new chairs replacing the pews, a circular altar platform that could also be used as a small stage, and wonderful new lighting, heating, and air conditioning. The renovation won three awards: from the American Institute of Architects for Religious Design and from both the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and City of Philadelphia for Historic Preservation Achievement.
Trinity Center is now an established venue for concerts in Philadelphia, often mentioned in the newspapers in the same breath as the Perelman Theater in the Kimmel Center. Several prestigious organizations routinely present their concerts here. In addition, the Great Hall/Sanctuary is known as an attractive place for weddings, receptions, and banquets.
Lou Temme guided the new TCUL and the integration among four organizations now using the buildings: Trinity Memorial Church, Trinity Center for Urban Life, the Community OutReach Partnership, and Trinity Playgroup. It is a complicated setup, hard for many to grasp, but a healthy one. A capital campaign was undertaken by TCUL in order to complete some of the work that was not possible after the fire: chiefly, to remedy the dire need for more restrooms for both the Church building and the Parish House (including Wintershelter), and to make the buildings handicapped accessible. The new connector between the buildings, with a wheelchair lift, and new restrooms in both locations were the result.
The financial crash at the end of the 1990s hit TMC’s endowment hard. TMC has two endowments: one was set up by Mrs. Wilstach at the time the church was built; the second came from bequests to the church by parishioners. The second one lost two-thirds of its value in the crash.
Father Temme had been consulting with the Diocese about the possibility of becoming an Interim Rector after so many years of service to Trinity Memorial Church. In the spring of 2005 he announced, to the grief of the entire parish and neighborhood, his decision to resign as Rector after 33 years.
The church held another search, and in 2011 called the Rev. Donna Maree to be Rector. She has led the congregation in a number of new directions, and directs her considerable energy to accomplishing new things as well as old. In 2015 the congregation has developed a new strategic plan that calls for an intense effort to bring in young families. The parish had grown considerably during and after the renovation period. Hordes of neighbors regard it as “their church” but do not attend—some of them regard it as such even though they are or other faith traditions. Hosts of neighbors volunteer in the Wintershelter, Communicare, and Cookoff programs. Often people join but move away after becoming very much part of the church family. And family it is. The warmth of the greetings and the concern of all the members for each other makes it a very welcoming place. Friendships made at church conitinue outside into the lives of the members.
TMC is definitely a church of volunteers. Many parishioners are involved in the church services, on the Vestry, on the Board of TCUL, serving in outreach programs, in hospitality, and working at the two annual fundraising events—the Holiday Bazaar and the Jumble Sale. New members are quickly included in the work. It does not take long to be part of the family.
Based on history written by Britton Martin, AIA, based on material collected by the Rev. Charles Penniman, updated by Katharine Kriebel in 2015.
The church was founded as a service to the community—a neighborhood that was “rapidly increasing its population and was far removed from any Episcopal church.” In 1852 the “Market Street Mission” opened at the corner of Market Street and Schuylkill Second Street (now 21st Street). The founder was the Rev. John A. Vaughan, D.D., who had been Rector of the Episcopal Female Institute. Growth was rapid: in the first year nine children were baptized and four couples were married. In 1853 the mission had to move to larger quarters a block east on Market. By 1856 its records show 101 communicants and a Sunday School of 300-400, and a new building was needed.
In May of 1857 the cornerstones were laid on the same day for the Church of the Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square and what was now called Trinity Mission Chapel at 22nd and Locust Streets. The chapel moved into the new building in October of that year, and in 1858 changed its name to Cranmer Chapel to distinguish it from Holy Trinity.
The Church of the Holy Trinity bought the Chapel and its property in 1863, changed the name once more to Holy Trinity Chapel, and treated it as a mission for the “less elegant” part of town—three blocks away. All seats were free at the chapel, unlike the church, which had subscribed pews. The affairs of the chapel were directed by the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry of Holy Trinity Church and executed by a Chapel Committee of the Vicar and ten or twelve members.
For the next decade the Chapel managed with an “allowance” from Holy Trinity and gifts from some of its wealthy parishioners. In 1873, Mrs. Anna H. Wilstach, one of those donors, wrote in her will that her executors should purchase a lot of ground and cause to be built thereon a Protestant Episcopal Church “as elegant as funds appropriated, with careful management, will allow.” The building was to be a memorial to her daughter, Anna Gertrude WIlstach, who had died that year at the age of 16. Mrs. Wilstach then directed that the bequest be carried out at once, before the will would be executed. In fact, she lived till 1893; the fifth codicil to her will provided a trust fund for the care of the Chapel, with the provision that if the Chapel ever became independent of Holy Trinity the trust income was to go directly to the Chapel. In the seventh codicil, she increased the amount of the trust.
A lot at 22nd and Spruce Streets was purchased in 1874 from Lemuel Coffin (one of the generous donors from Holy Trinity) and Joseph B. Altemus for the new chapel. Mrs. Wilstach named a committee to be managers and trustees of the new church, and the ground was consecrated the following year. Philadelphia architect James P. Sims was retained to design the new building along with another building adjacent on the west for Sunday School and other activities. Holy Trinity members Lemuel Coffin and the sister of John Bohlen, who had also been a generous donor, provided the funds for this building. Construction began in 1874, and fourteen months after the cornerstone was laid the buildings were dedicated on All Saints’ Day, November 1, 1875.
The new Chapel grew and prospered. In 1895, Holy Trinity Church bought the adjoining lots at 2216 and 2218 to be used as a Guild House and Vicarage; in 1913 these two houses were remodeled as one Guild House and the next property, 2220, was bought as a Vicarage.
The “trademark” angels over the altar, copied from tiny angels in the frame of a tabernacle of the Madonna by Fra Angelico in the Convento San Marco in Florence, Italy, were painted in 1907.
The Chapel continued to thrive under a succession of vicars during the first quarter of the new century. In an interesting sidelight, a French Huguenot church in the area, which had fallen on hard times and had to sell its building, began in 1926 to meet in the Holy Trinity Chapel and continued to do so until its final service in 1953.
In 1923, the Rev. B. Janney Rudderow took over as Vicar. By 1941 and the beginning of World War II, the congregation had doubled. Sunday School is recorded as having 130 pupils and teachers. The busy Guild House hosted the Women’s Auxiliary, Junior Choir, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Girls’ Friendly Society, Men’s Club, Young People’s Fellowship, and the Church School Service League. The Sunday School building was used for community dances, motion pictures, rifle practice in the basement (!), seasonal parties, the Chapel Forum of Speakers, and the annual Rummage Sale and Christmas Bazaar. The Chapel fielded a basketball team and a badminton team.
After the War, some retrenchment was needed. The Chapel sold the Guild House and the Vicarage and bought a new Vicarage on Delancey Street. With the proceeds they made some alterations and redecorated the remaining buildings.
At the same time Parson Rudderow, with the encouragement of the Rector and Vestry of Holy Trinity, began the multiple steps—both legal and ecclesiastical—needed to transform the Chapel into a full-fledged independent church. After these steps were completed, the new Trinity Memorial Church was consecrated on All Saints’ Day 1949.
The next decade has been called by those who knew it well the Golden Years of Trinity Memorial Church. The rolls listed 925 baptized members, 637 communicants, and 116 Sunday School students. The church prided itself on its community services such as Thanksgiving baskets, Christmas baskets and stockings, and gifts of coal to those who were in need of it. Parson Rudderow was much beloved, as was his wife.
His successor, the Rev. Charles F. Penniman, Jr., arrived at the beginning of the turmoil of the sixties. The flight to the suburbs was in full cry, with a resultant enormous drop in the membership of the church. The Center City neighborhood, which had easily supported multiple Episcopal churches, changed in population to include many unchurched and Jewish residents. A 1962 parish record shows the total number of communicants as 692, but the number of pledges turned in was 152. Obviously, many of the supposed communicants were gone.
Still, it was a neighborhood full of families, and in 1969 a parishioner (Ricky Wurman) started a daycare center in the Parish House; this began as a twice-a-week cooperative for two-year-olds (as Charlie Penniman said, “too young for nursery school and old enough to drive their parents crazy”) and is to this day a thriving institution of 65 children ages toddler-5 and a bulwark of the neighborhood—Trinity Playgroup.
Charlie Penniman strove to reach out in many other ways to bring the community in, including allowing non–church groups to meet in the Parish House at a nominal fee for utilities. This was accepted in principle by the Vestry, but in 1970 they passed a resolution that required their approval of all groups. In particular, the Vestry was not pleased to learn that a group called Help, Inc., formed with private financing to help people with drug and other problems, had been using the Parish House for meetings, and that some architectural feasibility studies were under way to transform the church basement into a community center, with study, eating, and relaxation facilities open to all. It was to be called “A Feeding Place.” The Vestry submitted the proposal to the congregation: out of a total congregation of 82 the vote was 38 for and 44 against.
Largely due to this outcome, Charlie Penniman submitted his resignation in January, 1972, feeling that after ten years he did not wish to preside over a congregation where the question would always be “one of for or against Penniman’s policies and points of view.”
The Vestry accepted his decision with regret and began the search for a new Rector. After many unsatisfactory interviews, the Calling Committee found a winner in the Reverend Louis H. Temme, a native Philadelphian, graduate of the Philadelphia Divinity School, who was serving as Assistant Rector at a church on Long Island. Thus began an wonderfully fruitful relationship that lasted 33 years. He held his first service at TMC on November 19, 1973.
Lou began by establishing a first-name policy among the parishioners, who were used to more formal address. He tightened up business and monetary arrangements—a step whose necessity was made obvious after his first paycheck bounced. (The Treasurer’s report to the Vestry until then had been simply a statement that “Everything’s fine.”) A college business major, he was eminently qualified to put things in order.
To the delight of the parish, Lou met and married Kathryn Rossé in 1975, and she became an integral part of TMC. When the church finances dictated that the paid quartet of singers must go, she became one of the long-standing members of the volunteer choir that was formed to replace it.
Lou agreed with Charlie Penniman that the church must be an integral part of the neighborhood. He involved himself and parishioners in multiple volunteer efforts and increased the use of the Parish House for non-church events. Gradually the old guard of the Vestry and parish moved away or died, and the new members coming in were more inclined to embrace this principle. His open support of the ordination of women and full acceptance for gay people became part of the parish identity.
In 1984, after repeatedly bemoaning the plight of the homeless people who were more and more visible around our city, Lou, along with some church volunteers, developed a plan for a shelter for homeless men to be housed in the Parish House basement during the five coldest months of the year. The plan was presented to a packed community meeting; it was so carefully thought out that instead of hostility it was greeted with enthusiastic approval, with many neighbors volunteering to help. Wintershelter continues 30 years later, with hundreds of volunteers preparing and serving nutritious meals to the guests every night. The shelter volunteers, interested in adding other programs, became the Community OutReach Partnership, or CORP, with its own board made up of neighbors and TMC parishioners. CORP operates under the nonprofit aegis of TMC. Communicare, a visitation program for elderly people who need a friend, became a part of CORP, and then the Community Cookoff, in which volunteers prepare 200 frozen dinners for shut-ins every other month. Later on block-corner recycling twice a month drew more volunteers; the city picked up the recyclables and paid for them, adding $5000-7000 to CORP’s coffers. This ended when the City began regular recycling pickups curbside.
The church continued to struggle with its small size and inability to grow. Center City tends to be somewhat of a transient neighborhood: a gain of new parishioners always seem to be offset by the loss of long-term supporters who move away or die. It is widely known and widely admired for the social programs, but this does not translate into growth.
But its excellent reputation led to an interesting offer. In late 1993, a neighbor who is an expert in organizational development offered to hold what is called a “Future Search” for the parish; it was an offer that benefited both sides, as she wanted to train some students in this type of conference. TMC was required to provide 20 or so parishioners for a weekend as well as 20-30 “stakeholders,” people who although they were not members were involved in some way with the church and cared about it. With so many volunteers in its outreach programs, TMC had no trouble providing both groups. The parishioners were amazed that so many neighbors would be willing to give up an entire weekend—Friday night, all day Saturday, and Sunday afternoon—to discuss the future of the church. So on an icy weekend in January, about 50 people met for the first session at St. Luke and the Epiphany. One immediate result was that the neighbors, who were astonished to find out that the church was in dire financial straits, formed the Friends of Trinity Memorial, with $25-a-year dues and immediate plans for fundraising. “Trinity is the glue that holds the neighborhood together,” one neighbor said. The conference was a rousing success, filled with enthusiasm and ideas, including a Garden Tour in June.
Six months after Future Search, those ideas were needed. At shortly after midnight on July 28, 1994, lightning struck the chimney on the back roof of the church. Fire burned invisibly between the roof and the ceiling for four hours, when it burst out the opening on the front of the church. By that time the neighborhood was full of smoke. The fire went to three alarms before it was brought under control. All that was left of the roof were the great charred beams, one of which had fallen onto the pews. The clerestory windows were ruined, as were the front windows: the side aisle windows were bowed from the heat. The floor was badly damaged, the plaster cracked. Miraculously, the angels over the altar sustained only smoke damage.
Parishioners and neighbors sprang into action. The church received a grant to hire a fundraising expert. Members of nearby Holy Trinity started a fundraising drive throughout the neighborhood. Donations were pouring in: TMC members formed a thank-you-writing group to respond to the generosity. In a leap of faith, TMC asked its half-time administrative assistant, Dick Ihrig, to work full-time.
The first priority, obviously, was a new roof. While this was being put in place, the Vestry and the Rector decided not to rush the rebuilding, but to spend time thinking about how we wanted the church to work in the future. The church services grew very comfortable in the French Room of the Parish House, where they stayed for three years. Meanwhile, Lou held weekly meetings with a small group of neighbors and parishioners to discuss what the church should be. A flexible space that could be used for church services as well as concerts and meetings was the consensus: using chairs instead of pews, bringing the altar out into the center of the space, having all the elements movable.
The firm of Atkins Olshin Lawson Bell was hired as architect and the rebuilding began. Fundraising brought in about $800,000 over and above the insurance settlement. The church then held another meeting with parishioners and “stakeholders” during which the decision was made to change the Friends of TMC into Trinity Center for Urban Life, an independent nonprofit that would manage the buildings for the benefit of the community as well as the church—“to act as stewards for the historic buildings”—as its mission statement says.
On May 18, 1997, the new Trinity Memorial Church was rededicated by Bishop Franklin Turner, who had rushed to TMC on the Sunday after the fire three years earlier. The beautiful new space was open at last, with new or re-leaded windows, new chairs replacing the pews, a circular altar platform that could also be used as a small stage, and wonderful new lighting, heating, and air conditioning. The renovation won three awards: from the American Institute of Architects for Religious Design and from both the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and City of Philadelphia for Historic Preservation Achievement.
Trinity Center is now an established venue for concerts in Philadelphia, often mentioned in the newspapers in the same breath as the Perelman Theater in the Kimmel Center. Several prestigious organizations routinely present their concerts here. In addition, the Great Hall/Sanctuary is known as an attractive place for weddings, receptions, and banquets.
Lou Temme guided the new TCUL and the integration among four organizations now using the buildings: Trinity Memorial Church, Trinity Center for Urban Life, the Community OutReach Partnership, and Trinity Playgroup. It is a complicated setup, hard for many to grasp, but a healthy one. A capital campaign was undertaken by TCUL in order to complete some of the work that was not possible after the fire: chiefly, to remedy the dire need for more restrooms for both the Church building and the Parish House (including Wintershelter), and to make the buildings handicapped accessible. The new connector between the buildings, with a wheelchair lift, and new restrooms in both locations were the result.
The financial crash at the end of the 1990s hit TMC’s endowment hard. TMC has two endowments: one was set up by Mrs. Wilstach at the time the church was built; the second came from bequests to the church by parishioners. The second one lost two-thirds of its value in the crash.
Father Temme had been consulting with the Diocese about the possibility of becoming an Interim Rector after so many years of service to Trinity Memorial Church. In the spring of 2005 he announced, to the grief of the entire parish and neighborhood, his decision to resign as Rector after 33 years.
The church held another search, and in 2011 called the Rev. Donna Maree to be Rector. She has led the congregation in a number of new directions, and directs her considerable energy to accomplishing new things as well as old. In 2015 the congregation has developed a new strategic plan that calls for an intense effort to bring in young families. The parish had grown considerably during and after the renovation period. Hordes of neighbors regard it as “their church” but do not attend—some of them regard it as such even though they are or other faith traditions. Hosts of neighbors volunteer in the Wintershelter, Communicare, and Cookoff programs. Often people join but move away after becoming very much part of the church family. And family it is. The warmth of the greetings and the concern of all the members for each other makes it a very welcoming place. Friendships made at church conitinue outside into the lives of the members.
TMC is definitely a church of volunteers. Many parishioners are involved in the church services, on the Vestry, on the Board of TCUL, serving in outreach programs, in hospitality, and working at the two annual fundraising events—the Holiday Bazaar and the Jumble Sale. New members are quickly included in the work. It does not take long to be part of the family.
Based on history written by Britton Martin, AIA, based on material collected by the Rev. Charles Penniman, updated by Katharine Kriebel in 2015.