Pastor's Father Helped Build the Arch
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A California pastor takes special interest in the signature monument dominating the St. Louis skyline and reaching twice as high as the Statue of Liberty. |
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Penny Shell, an Adventist pastor whose father, also an Adventist, helped construct the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, site of the 2005 General Conference Session. [Photo by Richard Dower/ANN]
A California pastor takes special interest in the signature monument dominating the St. Louis skyline and reaching twice as high as the Statue of Liberty.
Her father played a major role in construction of the Gateway Arch on the Mississippi waterfront, a mere 10 blocks from where 2,000 delegates shared fellowship and discussed church business this week at the Edward Jones Dome.
"During the time of construction, it was a lot of fun for us," recalls Dr. Penny Shell, a guest at the 58th General Conference Session. "I remember how Dad would have the plans on his desk at home and he'd tell us about them."
Construction of the 630-foot arch began Feb. 12, 1963, and was completed on Oct. 28, 1965. That was the same year Shell completed graduate school at Andrews University, in Michigan. But she remembers an unusual event that her sister, Vicki, experienced: she was allowed to go up in the temporary elevator car devised to transport workmen up and down the outer side of the arch during the project. The north tram within the arch didn't open to the public until 1967 and the south tram was ready the following year.
Norman Shell, Penny's father, was the president of Donco Steel and Erection. This subdivision of MacDonald Construction Company, general contractor for the project, was responsible for the inner steel structure of the magnificent and complex Arch, which is a part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.
"They'd bring in sections of the huge double-walled triangles of stainless steel by train then weld them in place. Up to the 300-foot level, there's concrete reinforcement between the two walls. Above that point are the steel stiffeners my father and his crew fabricated," recounts Penny.
Norman's father was also a steelworker by trade prior to his death in a tragic construction accident. Norman picked up the mantle and from his teenage years he worked hard in the steel construction industry. Though he and Penny's mother met at Maplewood Academy in Minnesota and she remained a devoted Adventist, Penny remembers her sense of mystery as a young person.
"I used to say to him, 'What religion are you?' He'd say, 'If I were good enough to be anything, I'd be an Adventist.'"
The moment of truth came after Penny's mother, Ethyle Shell, succumbed to cancer in 1976. That's when Vicki said to their father, "Dad, you miss mother. You want to see her again. What if it is all true?"
At that point, Norman returned to his Seventh-day Adventist roots. Richard Hallock, a world church Session delegate and president of the church in the Kentucky-Tennessee region, was the pastor at the St. Louis Central Church at the time. "I remember the joy of seeing Norman Shell rejoin our church family. It's a blessing to the entire family when someone reestablishes their walk with Christ," commented Hallock. Norman died less than a year later -- but not without hope in Jesus.
Now as pastor for visitation for the La Sierra University Church and as full-time director of the Women's Resource Center located on that campus, Penny cherishes memories of her childhood in St. Louis. She shared some family history in a recent sermon titled "God Wants to Resurrect the Living." She explained: "God wishes the alive were alive."
"My parents, both sets of grandparents, and my sister are all buried in Laurel Hills Cemetery here [in St. Louis]," she said, "and probably some day I will be, too.
"I get lonely for these people. It will be marvelous to see them again and to be with them again. But I think God's message to me right now is that He wants to resurrect me to be a living person, to be full of life and joy and hope in Christ."
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