Riverside church tour

Six churches in Riverside were open for tours yesterday as part of the village's 150th anniversary. That's Allison town and she was working at her church, St. Paul's Episcopal, so I met her there at 1:30 p.m. when her shift ended. This is the sanctuary.

This is the stained glass in the back of the church. The church, completed in 1888, was designated a local landmark in 1994.

From there we walked to Woodside Methodist Church that we pass when we go to Allison's house.

Sanctuary.

This window is from a church in Cicero whose congregation merged with theirs. They're working to fix the back-lighting.

Then we hopped in the car to get to St. Mary's Catholic Church. Dedicated in 1926, the church was designed by parishioner Harry F. Robinson who was once a principal architect in Frank Lloyd Wright's studio.

Pretty modern for a Catholic church.

I liked the hanging lights ...

and the baptismal font. The water is all the way to the top and slightly spills over the edges onto those rocks.

The church's Mother Mary statue is supposed to be her as a young woman. Our guide said it's been controversial because it's not the traditional Mary statue, but she said, it gives people something to talk about.

Our next stop was Riverside Presbyterian Church, built as a nondenominational church in 1871. Seven years later, the Presbyterians bought it and the following year it was destroyed by fire. The original stone was used to reconstruct the church as it appears today.

Kind a neat "in the round" sanctuary.

Then to Sts. Peter and Paul Lutheran Church, another church we pass on the way to Allison's house.

The sanctuary. The church was dedicated in 1957.

A close-up of that beautiful window.

Our last stop was Ascension Lutheran Church. We got there just around 3 p.m. as the tours were ending, but they had the doors open so we went in and they were still giving tours.

Another interesting baptismal font.

Very interesting 3-D sort of cross.

There's a hidden door by the organ pipes (where the people are standing in the precious picture) and they let us go inside to see the workings of the organ. It was a very tight space.

Looking toward the back of the church. I liked the chandeliers and the origami art.

An up-close view of one of their windows.

How fancy is this? A stand for the acolyte's lighter? Growing up we tossed that thing under the pew and set it on a carpet remnant so we wouldn't get wax on the "real" carpet. It was kind of fun that we had a guidebook and were given a sticker for each church we visited. We got all of the stamps!