Six Mile Run Reformed Church Dedicates New Roof

The Rev. Osy Nüesch holds a piece of the original slate roof during the June 11 dedication.

Six Mile Run Reformed Church congregants dedicated the church’s new slate roof June 11 and honored those who made it happen.

The $165,000 roof was largely made possible by a gift from the Suydams, a long-standing congregation family, said the Rev. Osy Nüesch, the church’s pastor.

“We were very fortunate to have received that major gift,” he said. “That was the motivation to start a campaign. The congregation only needed to raise about $30,000, which we did in about eight weeks.”

The original slate roof in January.

The scaffolding was erected around Thanksgiving, Nüesch said, “and the whole project was done by February.”

The project entailed replacing thousands of slate shingles that had been up there for about 137 years.

“It was guaranteed for 100 years and it gave us 137 years,” he said. “We had holes up there, and the water was just pouring in at one point.”

“We could have gone with a cheaper roof, but the roof committee felt that the four generations ago, they put the best possible roof on, so we should do the same,” he said.

Following the 10 a.m. service, a reception was held at the church to thank the major donors to the project.

“A roof is not the most important part of the building, until the roof falls apart,” Nüesch told the congregation. “Then you realize that as the roof goes, so goes the building.”

Nüesch also thanked the members of the church’s roof committee: Mary Schmidt, Jim Patko, Dee Pollard, Laura Waddell, and Robin Suydam.

Nüesch said that a special presentation was made to the Suydam family at the end of the reception.

Robin Suydam talked about the impact of the church on her family and how a fund raising effort to build the Fellowship Hall in the 1950s was the catalyst event that launched her father into the insurance business, he said.

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