SCOTT CITY — It is inside St. Joseph Church in Scott City that the stained glass windows created by local resident Jo MacDonnell radiate; it is there that the sun becomes the last medium necessary to bring the windows to vibrant life.

A native of Birmingham, England, MacDonnell currently has four windows gracing the doors of the church, their colors as alive as those in the 43-year-old windows lining the sides of the church that were installed in 1961. While the older windows were created by a Minnesota stained glass company, the new additions will long be remembered as the product of a hometown girl, a soft-spoken English-woman who, long after her career-Army husband passed away, made the town her own.

Although she came to the United States in 1948, MacDonnell has retained much of her English accent and polite charm. A visit by the SKR, and soon after, by St. Joseph pastor Father David Kraus, sent her to the kitchen to prepare gourmet coffee to serve with blueberry muffins.

Less than a decade before leaving England, MacDonnell was among thousands of British citizens hiding in shelters during the bombing of Britain from 1940-1944.

"The sirens would go off and the whole family would go down to the bomb shelter," she said. "We practically lived in air-raid shelters. We were down there from six at night until morning.

"The night the Germans bombed Coventry, which was about 15 miles from Birmingham, we could see the fire."

MacDonnell went into nursing, and at "17 1/4" was the youngest nurse to serve on an ambulance train, traveling from the south coast, inland.

"I was still a student nurse when they were looking for volunteers," she said. "Before D-Day [the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944], we were transferring the wounded from the Dunkirk disaster up to the Highlands of Scotland. After D-Day, the train was in operation taking the wounded from the ships off the south coast to hospitals farther inland until hospitals were established in France."

Besides wounded allied soldiers, she said the train had carried approximately 2,000 German POWs.

After her harrowing experiences, friends in Massachusetts and a nursing scholarship for reciprocal training was more than enough to bring her to the United States, but it would take a man in uniform to keep her here.

"I used to go to the opera and the ballet with his sisters, and then he came home on leave," she said of her late husband, Thomas.

In 1952, the couple were married, and then Thomas served a tour of duty in Korea, two in Vietnam, and one in Iceland. For a total of five years (1960-63 and 1966-68) Thomas, Jo and their two sons, Richard and Todd, lived in Germany.

The family eventually settled in Falcon, Colo. [near Colorado Springs] where MacDonnell became a top-notch ice skater, winning several awards. She retired from her job as a stenographer in 1995.

The great-grandmother of three created her first stained glass window soon after the death of her husband in 1984.

"He had built on to the house, and I needed a stained glass panel," she explained. "I didn’t like what I had seen, so I took a class and did it myself."

MacDonnell also immersed herself in the Catholic Church. After taking a three-year course in "Ministry of Christian Service," she ran the RCIA program at Peterson Air Force Base. The base chapel houses five of her stained glass windows. She also studied at Benet Hill Monastery where she learned to provide Spiritual Direction.

Five years ago, MacDonnell decided to leave her home in Falcon and resettle in Scott City to be closer to her son, Todd.

She stressed more than once during the interview that making stained glass windows "is not a business, it’s a hobby. I like doing it, but I don’t want the pressure of a business."

And it’s lucky for the friends and relatives who are beneficiaries of her creativity that she doesn’t. In fact, St. Joseph Church is only being charged for the parts needed to make the windows. She recently completed the fifth window to grace the church, "The Resurrection" (pictured on the cover), which won’t be installed until the companion piece — of the Virgin Mary — also is completed.

"I think I like it best when the windows are finished," MacDonnell said. "They don’t look like much at first."