Chapel Transitions to Thornton Park Historic District

It was a very interesting community back then because you had some retired Air Force people, a lot of active duty Air Force people, and you had a lot of people that were in transit. The Vietnam War was going on so you had young men, women getting married often prior to deployment. You had the Baptisms, the First Holy Communions, the church gatherings. There were a lot of picnics, a lot of things like that. There was a large group of altar boys. I was one of them. We also unfortunately had the funerals for some of these when they came back from Vietnam....

David Black recalls the chapel of the old Orlando Air Force Base where his family attended church in this conversation with his good friend John Moore.

The Black family came to Orlando in 1965 when David's father, a colonel in the Air Force, was transferred here from Scott Air Force Base. David's mother, Delores Black, served as sacristan at the chapel for over 30 years from 1966 to 1997 and David served as an altar server. David Black's friend, John Moore salvaged the chapel steeple and cupola from the Naval Training Center demolition as John shares in this excerpt   from an oral history interview at his home on May 10, 2012.
 

The Stephen L. Rusk Memorial Chapel on the WWII Army Air Base, which later became the Orlando Naval Training Center, served the spiritual needs of generations of military personnel and their families of all religious faiths.

Community engages as WWII chapel steeple is moved from its historic location on the old army air base, later the Naval Training Center, to downtown Orlando.

Read the Orlando Sentinel articles detailing John Moore's effort to relocate the chapel steeple to his home in Thornton Park.   

Listen to an excerpt (below) from an oral history interview with John Moore on May 12, 2012 in which he shares how people from the community read the articles in the paper and contacted him to tell about their memories of the chapel.

John Moore preserves the Stephen L. Rusk Memorial Chapel steeple and cupola from the Naval Training Center. Read more. 

Moore explains the transition of the chapel from NTC to his home  in this excerpt  from an oral history interview on May 10, 2012. 

In its new home in Thornton Park Historic District the chapel is remembered as the steeple holds its place in Orlando's memory.

When David Black stuck a prayer card in the chapel wall at the last service in the Stephen L. Rusk Memorial Chapel, he didn't expect his old friend John Moore to find it.

The attached card   was left in the chapel wall in memory of the many years spent at the chapel where his family attended church together on the military base.  He served as an altar server there, and his mother, Delores Black, served as sacristan for over 30 years.

When John Moore arrived with his crew to remove the chapel cupola and steeple before the bulldozers demolished the building, they found David Black's card  in the wall. It turns out John and David knew each other years ago and reconnected through the prayer card.

John Moore salvaged the original cupola and steeple from the WWII Army Air Base chapel and moved it to his home in Thornton Park Historic District. The chapel at the Orlando Naval Training Center was bulldozed to make way for the Baldwin Park residential community.

According to David Black: The chapel meant an awful lot to a lot of people and if it hadn't been for John's efforts - and John has minimized, I think, the time and money and the effort that he invested. But had he not done so there'd be no tangible reminder of what that chapel actually is. So I've always appreciated what John did.

Learn more about the meaning the chapel had as the center for community life on base  in  this excerpt  from an oral history interview with David Black and John Moore on May 10, 2012.