The Osceola United Methodist Church, near U.S. 33 between Elkhart and South Bend, was founded in 1836. The first minister was Rev. J. S. Harrison. The present building is notable for its set of fourteen “Connick” stained glass windows, perhaps the only such windows in Indiana United Methodism.
Charles Jay Connick was an art glass designer of world repute. He opened his studio in Boston in 1913 and was soon honored for his "antique glass" creations in preeminent churches and chapels in Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Paris, France.
Connick died in 1945 but his associates continued his work. So how did a small congregation in northern Indiana manage to obtain a full set of windows by this firm which had designed such reknowned university chapels as Boston, Princeton, and Pittsburgh?
Rev. Edwin Green, the pastor when the Osceola Methodist Church was planning its new building in the 1960s, was able to contact the Connick studios through his former roommate at Boston University, Rev. Robert S. Chaffee, a friend of Connick. The two men persuaded Connick Associates to design and provide these windows within the budget of the congregation! By 1964 the windows had taken their place in the sanctuary, crowned by the richly detailed Rose Window which depicts the Gospel story.
GPS: 41 40 08.91, -86 04 50.84