Clapham School Completes Library

Renovation in Crossings

Reflections on God’s Providence Through the Process

Danielle Everett

One of the oldest buildings on the College Church campus has a fresh new look inside following a major remodel that wrapped up in May. At the southwest corner of the Crossings sits a historic 1872 red house. A retired tion of the old red house into a library for Clapham School, an independent Pre-K –12 Christian classical school that shares space with College Church in the west end of the Crossings. On May 19, the school’s students, faculty, staff and families gathered to celebrate the library’s long-anticipated completion at a dedication ceremony. farmer and Wheaton resident of long ago, Rufus Grover, built the house that would become the site of the TomsPrice furniture store in 1955. Over the years the Price family added on to the house, eventually creating the more than 60,000 sq. ft. facility College Church now owns—the Crossings.

“Today we honor and celebrate the timeless pursuit of goodness, truth and beauty,” said Kolby Atchison, Clapham’s head of school and member of College Church, as he addressed the crowd.

Over the last several months, work has been ongoing to transform a por -

“May this library serve as a lighthouse of learning, preserving the riches of the classical tradition while preparing a new generation to carry forward the mantle for biblical truth.”

One of the many in attendance at the event was Jim Pursley, a Clapham parent and one of the contributors to the library project. “I love the old red house and the library is beautiful,” he said. “Walking through it, it’s what you would envision for a classical school that loves literature.”

Another College Church member and Clapham parent Chip Sanders was also there. “I think it really captures the spirit and the aesthetic that Clapham wants to project, both to our students and to the community,” said Sanders. “It has an elevated, scholarly feel and is functional as well.” Sanders, who has six children at Clapham School, helped oversee the completion of the library project along with Clapham parent Kelly Martin since construction began on it about one year ago.

Thousands of titles fill the dark painted shelves that line the library walls, from children’s picture books to wellknown classic novels, with many beautifully hardbound antique books included as well. A mix of natural light and newly installed decorative fixtures cast a warm glow in the room, highlighting the old 19th century rafter beams overhead. The room has a rich and luxurious feel.

“We wanted the library to mean something,” said Atchison. “We wanted it to convey that truth matters, that old things matter, that we are recipients of a great tradition. Education has always been about so much more than information or job preparation. It is about forming a particular type of human being, one marked by wisdom, virtue and a love for the Lord. This kind of education is the greatest gift we can pass on to future generations.”

On one side of the library is an old brick chimney on which a brand-new bronze plaque hangs in honor of Pursley’s great-grandmother, Ina J. Pursley, for whom the library is named. Ina Pursley’s resume was impressive—she was a Christian, wife, mother of three, librarian, Latin teacher, high school principal, lover of Shakespeare and Sunday school teacher in Farmland, Indiana.

“I didn’t know her personally, but my grandfather spoke of her often,” said Pursley. “The more I learned about her, the more I felt she would have really loved Clapham.”

Pursley recalled stories of his great-grandmother arriving home with a picnic basket full of books for her family to enjoy and of the times she went out in the evening to unlock the public library doors for a child who needed a book after hours. Pursley and his wife, Katie, agreed it would be fitting to name the library after Ina. The couple added that, through the Lord’s providence, they were blessed with the means to contribute to the school at the exact time Clapham was looking to fundraise to transform the old furniture store into a school.

The Lord’s providence was on display in countless other ways, too, as contractors and a team of parent volunteers worked to make the building transformation a reality in time for the start of the 2021–2022 school year.

The Lord Provides A Site

About seven years ago, Clapham formed a building committee whose main purpose was to find a new site for the school. At the time, the school had been meeting in the Kids’ Harbor classrooms at College Church. The space had served the school well since it first opened its doors in 2006, but by the Lord’s grace the student body was growing and soon required more room.

The committee spoke with other churches and considered an unoccupied office building, but none of the options seemed to fully suit the school’s needs.

“We really did our due diligence to look at the community and to research the market to see what other options were out there,” said Sanders, who joined the committee in 2016. Little did he and others know then that the solution they were looking for was practically a stone’s throw away. As the site search wore on, College Church was in the process of acquiring the Toms-Price building and brainstorming possible uses for the space.

“It was during that time that College Church knew Clapham was looking for a building and asked if we would like to renovate with them instead of looking elsewhere,” said Christy Truitt, College Church member and Clapham parent who volunteered to lead the committee in 2017. The rest is history as Clapham agreed to enter a space sharing agreement with College Church and occupy the west end of the Crossings facility.

“Having this building and still be in partnership with College Church is an answer to prayer and it is definitely only through God’s provision,” said Heidi Johnsen, another longtime member of College Church whose three children have all attended Clapham. “When there was no other option, God provided exactly what we needed.” continued on next page

While it was a blessing to have found a site, the older west end consisted of seven additions built between the 1950s and 1970s, plus the old Grover house. Truitt and others involved questioned how to turn the hodgepodge of spaces into a school.

“In the early days, we were working with one of the architects and he was helping us with initial layouts,” said Truitt. “He was the first one who could see the space without all the partial furniture store walls. He boiled it down to the core structure and exclaimed, ‘Wow! This already looks like a school!’”

“Each section of the building seemed purpose built by God for our use—our wish list just sprang up in plain sight,” she added.

“While a school is very different from a furniture store, there weren’t any major structural walls we had to take down or rework,” said Steve Hinchee, another longtime member of College Church and Clapham parent of three, and a member of the building committee. “We were able to utilize the structure of the building and redistribute the space with interior walls. But the expensive construction work of creating new structure, we were able to avoid those costs. We were grateful to have a space to do that.”

The Glenn H. Johnson Construction Company understood the school’s mission and helped drive down costs.

“The Lord was good in sending us to a contractor who was extraordinarily helpful and didn’t count pennies and nickel and dime us, but really cared for us,” said Sanders. “They helped us save money where we could and get the result we needed.”

Unexpected Blessings

Throughout planning and construction Truitt observed other acts of the Lord’s wonderful providence. STARS Resale Shop, also located in the Crossings, had acquired a lot of bookcases when Toms-Price and Prairie Path Books vacated the building. When the resale shop found it did not need all the shelves, Truitt was contacted to see if Clapham wanted to purchase them. Thought she appreciated the offer, Truitt knew that in order for the shelves to work in the school’s library, they would have to meet the precise measurements from the architect: 36” wide x 12” deep x 92” tall. Plus, the school would need at least 12 bookcases, if not more, to match one another exactly.

Truitt stopped at STARS Resale Shop to measure the shelves and, to her amazement, they measured exactly 36” x 12” x 92.” But how many were available? The store said it could sell 12 of them, maybe more in time. In the end, Clapham purchased enough matching bookcases to serve the entire library space.

“It felt like a miracle,” said Truitt. “And a clear sign that the Lord was blessing this project—he was walking with us, mindful of every detail, and providing more than we could ask or think! If he cares enough to provide the exact bookcases we need in the abundant quantity we need from inside the very building where we need them, what can we not trust him to provide?”

The school had bookshelves, but not nearly enough books to fill them. The shelves offered enough room for about 3,000 to 4,000. Unknown to them at the time, Nate and Melissa Peterson and Nate’s parents, Everett and Marcelyn Peterson, all longtime members of College Church, had just the solution to this problem.

Nate’s 91-year-old aunt, Barbara Peterson, had recently entered a memory care facility. Up until that time, she had been a voracious reader and book collector, collecting more than 6,000 books in the basement of her small Evanston bungalow. With his aunt in memory care, Nate assumed the responsibility of finding a new home for her books. He reached out to some places he thought might take them, but without much success. It was then he reached out to Clapham’s head of school, Kolby Atchison, to inquire if the school might be interested. Sure enough, Atchison said he was.

“Her book collection was so aligned with Clapham’s values,” Atchison said. “Everything we talk about in terms of a rich, classical curriculum was really found in her library.”

Clapham purchased about a third of the book collection at a modest price. Sadly, Barbara’s dementia was too severe for her to understand the blessing her collection was to the school before she passed away in February 2023.

“I think she would be pleased to know they ended up in a classical school,” said Everett Peterson, Barbara’s brother. “She loved to learn.”

“At the time, I didn’t really think about how the Lord was working in this,” said Nate. “My focus was just how to get 6,000 books out of this basement. But, in spite of that, it’s great God can use our efforts to care for someone’s belongings and find a new home for them.”

The books now fill the shelves in the newly finished Clapham library, waiting for students to discover the riches within.

For His Kingdom

These stories offer only a small glimpse into the ways the Lord provided for Clapham during its building project. As Truitt reflects on her time serving on the school’s building committee, she knows the work she and many others dedicated to the project served a bigger purpose.

The extra space has allowed for the ability to further its impact and equip more children than before.

“During the building project, I adopted the biblical phrase, ‘Unless God builds the house, the workers labor in vain,’” said Atchison. “It was a great reminder that ultimately what we’re trying to do is kingdom work and we really do need to trust the Lord in every aspect of this project because apart from God, we can do no good.”

While the main building project is complete, there are other projects and improvements in the works. Clapham is in the beginning stages of creating an outdoor playscape for its youngest students. There are also plans for landscape improvements and further upgrading its STEAM lab. As the school moves forward, its faculty, staff and families will continue to place their trust in the Lord every step of the way.