Area woman makes banners for church
ANDREW LEIBENGUTH/TIMES NEWS Alma Fisher looks down over one of the many banners she has made for her church.
Alma Fisher of Tamaqua doesn't consider herself a skilled seamstress, but her large colorful array of expressive church banners show otherwise.
Fisher, a lifelong member of the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tamaqua, started making banners for her church in 1994 after an earlier pastor, the Rev. Crawford, asked her if she could do something for the church to better display the holy seasons.
She gladly took on the task and gained her creative ideas from a number of craft books and library literature.
Fisher has created just over 30 banners of varying sizes and materials, such as heavy cotton, burlap, felt, tassels and so on.
Some banners are as thin as 2 feet and as long as 9 feet, and vary in purpose or holy season, such as marriage, baptism, confirmation, Lent, Pentecost, Holy Trinity, communion, Advent, Easter, Christmas and special events.
Fisher said she even made a 125th Anniversary banner for the church in 2001, as well as a Martin Luther King banner.
Fisher, whose grandparents were carpenters, also gave credit to her husband, Robert. The couple have been married since 1958.
"Alma's gifts are a wonderful and memorable trade mark to our church," said the Rev. Jeffrey Kistler, current 15-year interim pastor.
Fisher learned a little about arts and crafts via her elementary degree at Kutztown College.
She said that each of the banners' colors reflect parts of the holy seasons, such as violet for Advent and Lent, white for Christmas, Epiphany and Easter; red for days commemorating the Apostles, Reformation Day, church anniversaries and national holidays; and green for church growth and the Trinity season.
Generally, the year divides itself into two equal parts the Half Year of the Lord and the Half Year of the Church which is represented in color.
