The Chapel at Fort de Chartres, 1946
In 1944, Fred and Betty Turner took a summer road trip and viewed numerous historic sites in southern Illinois along their journey. They toured some of Illinois oldest settlements including the Cahokia mounds, Kaskaskia, and Fort de Chartres near Prairie Du Rocher. At the time, Fort de Chartres was a slowly growing historic site with a few of the structures rehabilitated or rebuilt. The most recently rebuilt parts during the Turners’ visit were the main gate and guard house. The chapel inside the guardhouse was particularly memorable for Fred. According to notes from a speech he gave in 1970, Fred saw a “possibility for woodblock and Christmas greeting”, as he gazed at the arched window of the chapel.
Fred’s vision came to fruition in 1946 when he and Betty created their first wood-block print Christmas card honoring the chapel at Fort de Chartres. Using the Japanese wood-carving method he learned from his brother, Fred carved the first of his twenty-nine Christmas cards using the yellow poplar bookshelves he acquired from the Board of Trustees room at University Hall. Based on the coloration of the card, it seems there were two blocks carved for the front of the card and a third was carved for the interior.
Fred later claimed that his inaugural card was a “crude effort” but it offered some features that were uncommon or not found in any of his other cards. Other than his 1972 print of the St. Anne Church and Shrine in St. Anne, IL, the Fort de Chartres chapel print is the only other one that offered an inside view of a building. In addition to the interior view, the reflection effect created by Fred for the Fort de Chartres chapel prints are very unique. He showed how sunlight through the chapel window illuminated the stone walls and floor of the room by using a lighter grey for the stone wall and that same light color for the grout in the stone floor. This style was not repeated in any of his future efforts.
Aside from the design and execution of the wood-block carving, there were issues with consistency in the printing. A sample of different prints taken from the Turners’ 1946 card show how the execution of the image changed from card to card. It is unclear whether this became worse with the higher numbered cards, or if it was an issue throughout the process, but perhaps this was what Turner specifically meant when he referred to the chapel print as a “crude effort”.