Paula HImmelsbach Balano - 1877-1967 - Inquirer 26 July 1967

 

Choir loft window St. Agnes R. C. Church, West Chester Pa. photo: "Travel Advisor" - created by Paula Himmelsbach Balano in her Germantown studios.

Mrs. Paula H. Balano, 

Artist, Is Dead at 90 

Mrs, Paula H. Balano, the former Paula Himmelsbach, an artist and designer of stained glass windows which adorn many churches in the Delaware Valley, died Monday in Philadelphia State Hospital Byberry. She was 90 and formerly lived at 242 Harvey at., Germantown, Mrs. Balano studied art at Drexel Institute of Technology and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she won a Cresson Scholarship to study in Paris. 

OPERATED STUDIO 

Among the numerous area churches for which she designed windows are Valley Forge Chapel, St Peter's Episcopal Church, Harvey st. and Wayne ave., Germantown, and St. Stephen's Roman Catholic Church, Broad and Butler sts. A former member of the faculty of the School of Design for Women, now the Moore College of Art, and the Springside School, Mrs. Balano operated a studio and shop for many years on Harvey st. She also did other art and portrait work, and her works were shown in galleries in New York and Washington as well as in Philadelphia. She retired eight years ago. 

SERVICES THURSDAY 

Mrs. Balano was the daugh ter of the founder of the Philadelphia Musical Academy. She is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Naiade Kleiner, and three grandchildren. The funeral service will be Thursday at 11 A. M. in St. Peter's Episcopal Church. In terment, in Fernwood Cemetery, will be private. 

~~Curiously, her largest stained glass commission, 1928, RC Ascension of Our Lord Church, Philadelphia not mentioned. Said stained glass panels salvaged from closed church and sold to new RC Raleigh Cathedral in North Carolina.