The spring and summer of 1907 saw major reconstruction projects underway throughout San Francisco. A new twentieth-century city rose phoenix-like from the ashes. On the Grace Cathedral close, carpenters were busily building a deanery near the north carriage gate. Midway along the Taylor Street frontage, a modest wooden church building rose; Grace Pro-Cathedral. The size of the original 1849 Grace Chapel, it was a peak-roofed shingled building, with south-facing 'bay window' apse. Steps and a path led from Sacramento Street to the entry, with a simple wooden cross above (now in cathedral archives). A sidewalk patch now marks where the steps began.

The church had a simple dark-wood nave lit by six pointed arch windows, a small sanctuary and a three-windowed apse. Furnishings included what became the cathedral High Altar (now columbarium altar) with five marble panels made from the mensa of the ruined 1892 Grace Church Wilson memorial altar. Wording carved on the panels included (left) "Therefore I will not fear though the earth be moved and though the hills be carried into the midst of the sea." and (right) "After the earthquake a fire, after the fire a still, small voice". Other probable furnishings were the eagle lectern carved by Gutzon Borglum (of later Mt. Rushmore fame- south choir aisle) and a litany desk (Chapel of the Nativity) now lacking its resident angels (one survives in archives).

Grace Pro-Cathedral opened on Easter Day, March 31. Easter lilies and white roses filled the little church. Bishop Nichols short sermon was on the three women who came to the tomb after the resurrection earthquake, wondering who would roll away the entry stone. "That earthquake gave the holy women a wider outlook; a broader vision," Nichols noted. "Instead of finding death in the tomb they found shimmering angels' wings, the first intimation of a future life. That earthquake had to do with the boon of opening a larger view of immortality," he said, relating how the recent earthquake had also "given us an expanded vision." Dr. Evans and Rev. John Kelley led the service, which included special music by a vested choir.

Four days before Easter, George F. Bodley, noted English Gothic Revival architect, had been selected as cathedral architect, with Cecil Hare, his assistant/partner in London, and Lewis P. Hobart, local representative. In June, Bodley submitted plans for a stately Gothic cathedral (see Cathedral of the Far West web feature). Tragically, he died in October, 1907, and Hare took over, submitting a more original design in 1909. The cornerstone for this design was laid with great ceremony on January 24, 1910 and Grace parish was dissolved. In a historic coincidence, Henry J. Fisher, sexton of Grace Church beginning in 1854, collapsed at the doors of the Pro-Cathedral before the ceremony, and died the next day. An era had ended. It would not be until 1927 that work at last began on the present structure, the vision of Lewis Hobart.

Some thirty-seven years later, in 1964, Grace Cathedral would reach basic completion. Vault tile ceilings, cast stone walls and statuary would remain unfinished, a challenge to future generations. Yet Grace Cathedral would continue to grow in other ways; as a spiritual center, as a place of dialog and learning, as a sanctuary of renewal and hope, as a house of prayer for all, as a virtual spiritual resource, as a city landmark sought by tourist-pilgrims. Looking back a hundred-and one years to the opportunity-making disaster, we are be both awed and thankful for the expansion of the cathedral vision, and grateful for the enabling power of gift, indeed of many thousands of gifts, that brought Grace Cathedral from distant hope to victorious reality.

"Vision, Disaster, Gift," an exhibit relating to the 1906 disaster and the founding of Grace Cathedral is on display in the cathedral crypt corridor through 2007.

 
More Tales from the Crypt