Unionville Woman Rediscovers Model Church, Gifts It To Avon Congregational

In the late 1960s, Unionville resident Dorothea Howard began a statewide tour of Connecticut churches.

It started in 1966, with the First Congregational Church in Litchfield.

After seeing a total of 169 churches in all corners of the state, Howard, who is now 91 years old and still living in Unionville, constructed a model church inspired by the many congregational churches she saw.

“Church is a very important part of my life,” said Howard, a member of Bethany Lutheran Church in West Hartford, about her motivation to tour churches across the state. “That first church impressed me so much. Looking at the alter, it was magnificent. And you get a different experiences and feelings from each church.”

While the outside of the church doesn’t resemble a specific church, the inside clearly does. It’s the spitting image of the Avon Congregational Church, even to this day.

Up until recently, the model had been sitting in her basement until it was rediscovered by her and Betty Anderson, a volunteer with Services for the Elderly of Farmington who does Howard’s shopping.

“I was so impressed,” Anderson said. “Just looking at the scale of it was beautiful. It looks like it’s perfectly scaled. It’s perfectly detailed. When you take the roof off, she had every pew. It’s all upholstered. There are hymnals in the back of the pews. There are sconces on the wall between the beautiful windows. It’s lovely and it needed to come out into the light.”

Her attention for detail shows, with the inside of the church closely matching the inside of the Avon Congregational Church, right down to a wooden table that sits in front of the altar. Her humor shows too, as Howard even included a tiny church mouse at the entrance.

Her research for this project is expansive. When she wasn’t touring churches, she took out books from local libraries. And Howard still has both a list of the 169 churches and three shoe boxes full of the photos she took of the churches she saw. Neatly organized – a skill from her days as a secretary – it all represents the inspiration she put into the model.

They wanted to find a new home for the model, which brought them to the Avon Congregational Church, as it inspired the inside of the model. They brought the model there on Sept. 16, which was Howard’s birthday.

“It was overwhelming,” Howard said. “All the members sang ‘Happy birthday’ to me. My birthday was quiet at home. When they sang to me in church, it was overwhelming.”

The model now remains at the church, which thrills Howard, because it means someone else finds beauty in something so important to her.

“Never in my life did I think that this church was going to be going anywhere,” Howard said. “It was in the cellar since 1984, just sitting there. This brought me joy.”