Artist Left her mark through the story her windows tell
In 1952, Jessie (Whitney) Scott, who became a member of the Haxtun Church Of The Brethren as a young girl, painted a life-sized picture of Christ knocking at “Heart’s Door” and gave it to her congregation. The oil painting continues to hang at the front of the sanctuary. Jessie later crafted a stain-glass back for a worship center and, in 1989 the Switzer family began a tradition of commissioning Jessie’s stain-glass windows when they ask her to create four panes in memory of Merle and Ola Switzer to set above the door at the east entry of the church.
That tradition continued with Jessie creating eight windows depicting what she saw as the important moments in the life of Christ. These stain-glass windows “cast a colorful yet holy light on the interior,” wrote Jean Gray in a December, 16, 1998 profile published in the Haxtun-Fleming Herald.
Jessie’s self-designed stain-glass windows include six that run along the west wall of the sanctuary and a seventh that is located in the southeast corner of the sanctuary.
Ruby Heaston and family commissioned the first window, shown at right, which was completed in 1995 in memory of Ruby’s husband Fred who died on Good Friday in 1994. The window depicts the women at the tomb witnessing Christ’s resurrection.
The eighth and final window, shown below, which is located in the vestibule was created in 1999 in memory of the John and Della Whitney and Arch and Sophie Scott families. It depicts Christ’s Ascent into Heaven.
The six windows along the west wall include:
• Jesus with children (1995) commissioned by the Kinzie family in memory of Otis and Nora Dinsmore and Virgil Mathew Kinzie;
• Christ at Gethsemane (1995), in memory of Ernie and Mabel Stryker;
• Jesus as the Good Shepherd (1996), commissioned by the Kipp family in memory of their loved ones;
• Jesus with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well (1997), commissioned by Helene Yost in memory of her husband Harold
• The Birth of Christ (1998), in memory of Della Jean Hart.
• The Baptism of Christ by John the Baptist (1997), commissioned by August and Earlene Krehmeyer and dedicated to the Lord and His families;
Jessie Scott was born at Portis, Kansas on April 11, 1912. A short time later while still an infant, she moved with her parents, John and Delia Whitney, to Dailey, Colorado. She began sketching at age four after seeing Pike’s Peak from the window of a train during a trip with her father.
Jessie married Lyle Scott in 1931 and moved onto the Scott family farm northwest of Haxtun, where she and Lyle lived until 1948 when they moved one mile east to another farm where their son Wayne was born. Jessie and Lyle lived on this farm in the main house until Lyle’s death in 1962. Wayne and his wife Doris later moved into the main house and Jessie then moved into an apartment connected to the house. She lived in her small apartment until failing health required her to move into the Regent Park Living Center in Holyoke, Colorado, where she died on February 10, 2009.
Haxtun Church Of The Brethren 