Quake-proofing the Welsh Presbyterian Church requires : raising the roof and letting the angels set it down firmly

I went to the Welsh Presbyterian Church last Sunday afternoon for the annual spring Gymanfa Ganu, a gathering of Welsh people for singing in unison.

The festival was especially poignant this year, because the ancient little church at 12th and Valencia Streets, in downtown Los Angeles just two blocks west of the Harbor Freeway, is imperiled.

The church’s members, who number only 161, must raise $100,000 to have it earthquake-proofed within the next few months or it will be torn down.

The church is small but exquisite, of red brick with a Greek revival facade whose two massive columns support a classic pediment. Inside it is furnished with rich woods, an organ loft with pipe organ, and many stained glass windows.

The church was built in 1909 as the first home of Temple Sinai, and to this day the largest of the stained glass windows on either side of the nave is a Star of David.

In 1926, when the temple’s congregation grew too large for the building, the site was taken over by the Welsh Presbyterians. Although most of its congregation have left the deteriorating neighborhood, the church serves as a center for the Welsh community, and its 161 members are augmented by Welsh people who come from all over Southern California for the sings.

Couples are immediately divided as they enter the little vestibule. Signs crayoned on cardboard direct basses and sopranos to take the right aisle, tenors and altos to take the left. The Welsh sing in parts, without rehearsing. Singing is their national trait. A non-singing Welsh person is unimaginable.

The nave holds perhaps 300 people, in pressed plywood row seats. It was full. There is no air conditioning, and the stained glass sash windows had been opened to catch what air there was. The threadbare carpet that I first walked on when I started going to the church years ago had been replaced by the faithful. I climbed wooden steps to join the stragglers in the balcony.

The guest organist, Stanley Hughes, was up in the loft at his console. He had gray hair and a gray suit and watched the congregation in his tilted mirror.

At the lectern, David Huw Howells, director of the sing, raised his baton and began the singing of the first of 16 hymns. He wore a jacket and tie and soon began to perspire in the hot afternoon. As they sang, the congregation also began to perspire, and used paper fans or programs to fan their faces.

They sang some of the verses in English, some in Welsh. “Welsh is God’s language,” Howells told them. “It is the language closest to the heart. To get the full spiritual feeling of the Gymanfa Ganu,” he assured us, “we must try to sing in Welsh; try to absorb the language.”

I couldn’t do it. Welsh is not a dialect of English. It is a foreign language, derived from the Celtic branch of the Indo-European root, while English is derived from the Germanic branch.

The singing was inspired. I heard no false notes in the harmony as husbands and wives, separated by the necessity of singing parts, raised their chins and belted out the praise to God.

Now and then Howells asked them to hum “quietly.” He said, “You may hum in Welsh.”

The humming was unearthly, angelic. But Howells was not satisfied. He rapped his baton on the rack and told them: “I said quietly. But there are two kinds of quiet. There is quiet quiet, and there is intense quiet. I want intense quiet.”

They gave him intense quiet.

Between the hymns a collection was taken and the minister, the Rev. Roy O’Shaughnessy, who will soon be leaving the congregation, asked God’s blessing. (The late Rev. Thomas Megahey, O’Shaughnessy’s predecessor, had once told me that the church employed Irish ministers because it couldn’t afford Welshmen.)

The fund-raising chairman said that $14,000 had been raised so far, but they must have architectural plans for the earthquake-proofing by July, and actually begin work by next April, “or the bulldozers will take it down.”

He said, “It will take a lot of work and a few miracles.”

After the break, Howells wiped his forehead, removed his coat, to cheers, then removed his necktie and rolled up his shirt-sleeves.

The next hymn was a Welsh version of the familiar “Onward Christian Soldiers!”

“Maybe this afternoon we can raise this roof a little bit,” Howells said, “and have the angels set it down firmly.”

Despite the heat, the Christian soldiers were sent marching off to war with fervor.

“We are fortunate, some of us,” Howells said, “to have been born in Wales. We are very fortunate, all of us, to be allowed to live in America.”

The congregation stood to sing “God Bless America.” They looked like a painting by Norman Rockwell.

They closed with “God Be With You,” and Howells told them: “Let’s hope that a year from now, two years from now, 10 years from now, we will be able to meet again.”

Afterward I met the new minister who will be taking over from O’Shaughnessy in this critical time. She is the Rev. Elisabeth Steele: petite, dark-haired, dark eyes, pony tail.

“Are you Irish too?” I asked.

“No, I’m Welsh,” she said.

I hope they can afford her.

Driving home I passed the downtown skyline. New towers were going up at a cost, I guessed, of hundreds of millions.

One hundred thousand didn’t seem too much to ask to save a spiritual landmark.