Grace Episcopal Church

Cather was raised Baptist. In 1922 she wrote to the rector here, the Reverend John Bates, asking for instruction, and on December 27 that year she and her parents were confirmed by Bishop George A. Beecher of Western Nebraska. In the 1930s the church received painted glass windows, two given by Cather, one for each parent; her father's shows the Good Shepherd because Charles Cather had raised sheep in Virginia. The Foundation credits them to the Emil Frei Company of St. Louis. The altar rail remembers her brother Douglass.

What the plaque says

Grace Episcopal Church Built in 1884 on the corner of Second and Walnut, the Grace Protestant Episcopal Church was moved to its present location in 1891. The brick veneer was added sometime after 1922. Willa Cather joined this church in 1922 and remained a loyal member until her death in 1947. The stained glass window "The Good Shepherd" on the north wall was given by Cather in memory of her father. Restored and donated by the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation. Administered by the Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• National Willa Cather Center — steps away
  The restored Moon Block on Red Cloud's Webster Street, home of the Willa Cather Foundation, with the town she grew up in and wrote about laid out around it.
• Willa Cather Memorial Prairie — 6.0 mi
  Six hundred and twelve acres of never-plowed mixed-grass prairie south of Red Cloud, once Kitkehahki Pawnee country, named for the writer who said the grass was the country.
• Home on the Range Cabin — 27 mi
  Dr. Brewster Higley's 1872 homestead cabin on West Beaver Creek in Smith County, where he wrote the poem that became Home on the Range, kept on its ground by a farm couple who would not sell it.

More markers nearby

• Webster County, 1871-1971 — steps away
• Cather Childhood Home — 0.2 mi
• Red Cloud, 1871-1971 — 0.2 mi
• St. Juliana Falconieri Catholic Church — 0.7 mi