Early on, it may have seemed like just another job, but Charles W. Allen has come to realize that crafting the windows and doors for the Nauvoo Illinois Temple is a sublime labor for which the Lord has long been preparing him.

Photo by Elder Hugh Pierce

Charles W. Allen rediscovered 19th century woodworking methods that he is applying to windows of Nauvoo temple, shown below.

Photo by Elder Hugh Pierce

Charles W. Allen performs some of the meticulous hand work on temple's exterior wood features.

With his son, Marcus, and son-in-law, Michael N. Rogers, Brother Allen owns and operates Allyn Historic Sash Co., based on Barnett Street in Nauvoo, near the temple lot.

The company — Allyn is the Old English spelling of the family name — has been in business for more than 25 years and has become a recognized expert in historic restoration and reconstruction focusing on original mortise and tenon square-peg joinery in window sashes and doors. The Allen's work graces such visitors attractions as the Mark Twain boyhood home in Hannibal, Mo., the Scott Joplin Historic Site in St. Louis, Mo., and the Fulling Mill Farm at Martha's Vineyard, Mass.

In Nauvoo itself, the Allens have built or worked on a number of structures in the Church's historic district, including the Riser Boot and Shoe Shop and the Stoddard Tin Shop and Home. It was their work in Nauvoo that brought them to the attention of the Temple Construction Department as candidates to do the doors and windows for the temple.

But while Brother Allen has been crafting and shaping woodwork over the years, he feels the Lord has been crafting and shaping his soul to prepare him to work on the temple. The Allens have struggled with the challenge of having two of their six children born with cystic fibrosis. His eldest child, a son, died of the malady at age 16; his fifth child, a daughter, survived until age 19.

In 1978, Brother Allen, was then living in Cameron, Mo. He had been engaged by his friend, Graham W. Doxey, former Missouri Independence Mission president and later a member of the Seventy, to assist in gathering historic information on behalf of the Church about Adam-ondi-Ahman. This assignment resulted in his spending a day with then-President Spencer W. Kimball.

"President Kimball became a major part of who I am today," Brother Allen related. "He wanted to take me under his wing. He asked my permission to consider me as though I were one of his own sons. I guess he saw someone who needed to be cared for and tutored."

The prophet's tender tutelage transformed Brother Allen. "At that point in my life," he said, "I was not an open person. I loved my family, but I did not want to express myself emotionally because I felt like I was going to lose control of the situation. President Kimball taught me a different life, the true love of the Savior, to be able to express and receive love openly."

In 1982, Brother Allen and his wife, Sue, had experienced the death of their son and were caring for their ailing daughter, then age 6, whose condition seemed to be getting worse. "I thought, 'Well, I want to go home' " he related.

Home for the Allens was Spokane, Wash., where he was raised and where he felt people he knew could give the family the support they needed.

Stake President Dell Johnsen came to Cameron to reorganize the branch presidency. In a private meeting with Brother Allen, President Johnsen was candid. He said he thought the family's intention to move was a mistake. Brother Allen replied that he didn't agree. The stake president reminded him that he had been an asset to the Church in the area and suggested he could be of further help in Cameron by showing people how to respond to tragic situations.

Photo by Hugh Pierce

"I said, 'It hurts too much, and I'm going home,' Brother Allen remembered. "It was at that point that President Johnsen looked down and looked back up again and said, 'Sometimes we make decisions that remove us from the blessings of our foreordination.'

"That really got my attention. I asked him right back, 'Are you telling me that by the authority you hold as the stake president and as my high priests quorum president that it's the Lord's will that I not move?' And then he just quietly said, 'Yes, I am.' "

The family stayed in Cameron. Their daughter's condition improved, and she lived 13 more years. Meanwhile, Brother Allen became the branch president and, after the branch became a ward, the bishop. "We had four or five individuals who had cancer or other problems that took their lives, and I found myself in the thick of things," he said. "That's where I wanted to be, there with them, helping them make decisions and nurturing them through that process of pain."

In 1989, Brother Allen got the contract to do the reconstruction on four of the historic buildings in Nauvoo. The work necessitated his moving to the city. That proved to be a propitious event, because he was where he needed to be when President Gordon B. Hinckley announced in April 1999 that the Nauvoo Temple, so much a part of the history and legacy of the Church, would be rebuilt.

The following month, Robert T. Dewey of the Church's Temple Construction Department came to Nauvoo. While there, he met with Brother Allen. "He asked me if we could do it [make the windows and doors] and would do it.

Still it was some time before Brother Allen came to grasp the enormity of the responsibility, both from a physical and a spiritual standpoint.

Plans call for the Allens to manufacture the seven exterior doors and 126 of the the 138 windows visible to the public. (The other 12 will be on the temple's bell tower, and they will be of aluminum, not wood.)

The wood is joined with the hand-chiseled mortises and tenons according to the historic method "rediscovered" by the Allens, involving a rectangular cavity, or mortise, cut into the wood on one side of the joint to accept a projection, or tenon, carefully shaped from the wood on the other side of the joint. With the use of square wooden pegs, such joinery does not require glue or nails.

For the 1840s temple, northern white pine from Wisconsin was used. But that is impossible today, because the species has long since been used up in the sizes that would be necessary for the temple construction. Builders have turned instead to sugar pine, a species of white pine that grows in northern California and southern Oregon. Brother Allen found a company that could provide the pine, but when he told the manager that about 12,000 board feet might be needed, the man responded, "Not on this planet! You'll be lucky to get 3,000."

Brother Allen contacted Brother Dewey and presented the problem to him. He responded, "Brother Allen, let me explain it to you this way: That's really your problem, because you're the window man."

"I could see that the experiences I've had throughout my life have been honing me so I could be spiritually acceptable, that what was learned in those years is certainly needed here," he reflected. Guiding Brother Allen through the project is this incident from Church history: William Weeks, architect for the original temple, met with the Prophet Joseph Smith for instruction and was told that circular windows would be needed to light the interior of the temple. Brother Weeks responded that round windows in the broad side of a building violated all known rules of architecture, and that they should be semi-circular because the building was too low for round windows. "I wish you to carry out my designs," the prophet responded. "I have seen in vision the splendid appearance of that building illuminated, and will have it built according to the pattern shown me." (History of the Church 6:196-97.)

"The prophet's statement to William Weeks is what guides me in this whole process," Brother Allen said. " I have to go by feel. To me, the spiritual preparation is far more important than the woodworking."

In the Allens' shop is a sample window that they built last summer for the temple. "I come every day and look at it and just shake my head, because it's a miracle that such an object came from our shop. We've been blessed to have our abilities and talents extended far beyond our normal capabilities."

Yes, in the beginning he thought of it as just another windows-and-doors job. Later, he felt frustrated that with the foibles in wood and in human ability, the work could not be perfect. "I finally came to the realization that what the Lord wants is our valiant effort, and He'll make up the difference," he said. "I want us to do our best on these windows so that when the dedicatory prayer is said there won't be anything lacking in what we did and that the prayer will be effectual in prolonging the finished product and the work we put into it."