Today I wanted to add a couple more pictures, one of the exterior with some of the surrounding buildings (courtesy of Les) and one of the interior (courtesy of Sarj, who was the groom in the photo). You can see the Taiwan and U.S. flagpoles toward the center of the top picture. They were located directly in front of the chapel.
Sarj says he thinks that about half of the structure was offices with a reception area in the front with the sanctuary taking up the other half. In the photo you can see the raised platform where the chaplain is standing and part of the wooden rail in front of it. Lithographer 1st Class Don Moak and his wife are the other two people in this picture.If anyone else has any interior shots of the chapel, or remembers more details about it, please let me know. Of course I'm always on the lookout for photos and/or descriptions of most anything in or around the East or West Compounds -- especially the USTDC building itself.
3 comments:
Do you know the date of this picture with the chaplain in it? I have reason to believe that it's my father, Chaplain Bill Willson USN. We were stationed in Taipei from the summer of '70 to the summer of '74. I was looking for pictures of the chapel for something that we're putting together as my father just passed away last night. My email address is delajesha@live.com if you could let me know.
Many thanks,
Kay Willson
This photo was taken early Nov '62 and I'm sorry I can't remember the chaplains name. This of course is me and my first wife Ray-Fong getting married. The best man is Donald Moak and his wife. Interesting enough the first chaplain tried to talk me out of marrying and said some awful things about Chinese so I asked for another Chaplain and got this guy who was a very very nice man. I guess it wasn't your dad because of the date. Sorry for your loss.
Kay
I just dug out some of the old papers that we had to fill out for permission to marry and found that the chaplain that counseled us and married us on 16 Nor 62 was James W. Paul. We never got a certificate from the chapel only from the embassy and from the Chinese Courthouse.
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