Little Chapel on the Hill
Mount Oread's place for solace and celebration turns 60
by Steven Hill
The brides of Danforth have braved ice storms and record cold, blistering winds and triple-digit heat. They’ve dressed for their big day in hotel rooms or rooming houses or the Kansas Union, then dodged buses and flirted with frostbite to cross Jayhawk Boulevard as “The Bridal Chorus” began. They’ve arrived at the appointed hour to find a total stranger grooving “The Godfather” theme on the chapel organ, and to find no organist at all—in which case the bridesmaids hummed “Here Comes the Bride.”
But of the estimated 5,000 brides who’ve married 5,000 grooms in this tiny chapel’s first 60 years, only one—as far as we know—has done so with the whiff of gunpowder in the air.
Jeannette Bonjour, f’89, g’97, and Tom Hoyt, c’82, were already observing Oct. 15 as their anniversary, so when time came to set a wedding date, in fall 1994, there was no debate. They checked Danforth’s schedule. The chapel was available Oct. 15—but only at 8 a.m. or 9 p.m.
Bonjour snapped up the morning slot, and exactly at the stroke of eight the organist pounded out the first notes of Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.” “I put one foot forward to start my walk down the aisle,” Bonjour recalls, “when a gunshot rang out.”
She and her soon-to-be husband looked at each other and wondered what to do. Hoyt tiptoed to the doorway and looked outside. Hordes of people were running down the boulevard.
“Surprise, surprise: There was a 10k race through campus that started at the same time as our wedding,” Bonjour says. “We’re still getting ribbed about our ‘shotgun wedding,’ and that moment is etched in our memories.”
That’s Danforth. Originally built as a quiet Christian retreat where students might pray or meditate in peace, over the years it has evolved into a place for celebration and remembrance for the Jayhawk family, a nondenominational site for baptisms, memorial services and, especially, weddings. It’s a meeting spot for campus religious groups and a site for clandestine fraternity and sorority rites. Surprises are part of its charm.
No one knows that better than Nancy Paul Nance, c’81, g’97, who worked in scheduling at Strong Hall as a student. Her favorite duty was booking the chapel for special events.
“After reserving the chapel many times for future brides, you can imagine my delight the day I reserved Danforth for my own wedding,” recalls Nance, who married Paul Nance, b’80, g’82, on July 25, 1981. “You might also imagine my surprise shortly before my wedding when Danforth’s beautiful stained glass windows were replaced by old sheets of plywood.”
The windows were to be removed for much needed repairs, but with the busy summer wedding season stretching ahead, workers were supposed to take one at a time. Instead they removed them all. A wedding party conducted a morning rehearsal in an intact chapel, then returned that afternoon to find the windows boarded up.
“It just so happened that the next wedding was mine,” Nance says. “I remember walking over from Strong Hall thinking, ‘Well, how bad can it be?’ And then I walked in and it was horrible.”
Her boss, Gil Dyck, EdD’67, director of admissions and records, arranged a fix. Down came the plywood and up went plexiglass.
Blue plexiglass.
As she walked down the aisle, Nance recalls, light flooded in the unadorned windows, brightening the usually dim chapel. As it happened, her florist couldn’t find the peach-colored roses she’d requested for her bouquet; she had to settle for a more traditional color: red.
“So I was married bathed in the glow of KU blue and crimson,” Nance says, laughing. The complications only made the blessed event more blessed. “We had our hearts set on marrying on campus at Danforth, and we just felt really happy that we were able to do that. We just felt ‘Rock, Chalk,’ all the way through.” Read more.
