Photos uncovered of Fostoria's old St. Wendelin church

The carpet in the old St. Wendelin church was bright red, like the kind they lay out for celebrities. The drapes matched. Tall, vaulted ceilings curved towards a massive stained glass window shaped like a flower. Statues in front of the drapes matched the paint color on the walls: a simple, warm beige. The walls weren't always that color. In 1960, a World War II veteran named Donald Boyd started his own painting company: D. Kramer Co. He had gotten into painting 14 years earlier, after the war ended, by working for a friend's house-painting company. The church project began in 1968. Boyd was an amateur photographer just like his father, and he documented the painting of the church in photos. The film sat in the negatives in his father's basement darkroom, untouched, for half a century. Boyd's son, Matthew, discovered the photos after his grandparents passed away. There were thousands of negatives in that basement — some dating all the way back to 1940. The St. Wendelin cassette was labeled "1968 — Fostoria Church." Matthew found an app on his phone that takes backlit pictures of film negatives to process them into digital images, which is how he got the church photos in full color. He was only six years old when his father was painting the chapel. "I don't remember anything specific," Boyd said. "What I do remember is him telling us he was painting a big beautiful church in Fostoria." He remembers his dad leaving for work earlier and coming home later to account for the commute from Toledo to Fostoria. Boyd was born and raised in West Toledo. He moved to Swanton in 1992, a year before his father retired from painting. A year after that, the St. Wendelin Church was torn down. Boyd never got to step foot in the church that his father brought color to. "Off and on in the '80s, I would help remove hardware from larger jobs," Boyd said. "Rarely would I actually paint." Donald Boyd passed away on August 31, 2020. He was 95 years old. In the military, he was a staff sergeant and tank commander in the 32nd infantry division, serving in New Guinea and the Philippines. He was awarded a Bronze Star for valor during an encounter on the Villa Verde Trail on the island of Luzon. Though Boyd dedicated his life to color throughout his painting career, he lost 100% of his eyesight in 2012 from glaucoma. Matthew and his wife pushed his father's wheelchair all though an Armed Forces Day 5k walk. "He was smiling the whole time," Boyd said. "Even blind from glaucoma." At the finish line, Donald got up and walked across. With the passing of his father, Matthew has now outlived both his parents; his mother passed in 2008, after 59 years of marriage to Donald. Although Boyd himself never set foot in the old St. Wendelin Catholic Church, the photos he found and shared have illuminated the memories of dozens of Fostoria residents. The post he made on Facebook has nearly 40 comments as of Friday afternoon, many from people who spent their childhood Sundays in the very chapel the photos show. "So many memories are in these [photos]," Boyd said. "Blessing others with my newly-found hobby has been very rewarding."