(Enlarge) Sharon Norton has been researching the names of congregation members who are memorialized in the seven stained glass windows at Stabler’s United Methodist Church, in Parkton. Once she gets pictures of those she has researched, she frames them and places the framed pictures on the window sill. () (Staff photo by Matt Roth)

Sharon Norton has been a member of Stabler's United Methodist Church in Parkton for more than 30 years. She has played the organ during services, counted money in the weekly collection and played piano for Sunday school children.

But recently, she took on another duty on behalf of the 194-year-old church. Norton has turned into a detective.

She is trying to dig up information and photos on families whose names appear on seven stained-glass windows installed sometime in the 1930s. So far, she has details on five of the seven.

Each time she finds a photo of a family member mentioned in the window, she frames it, labels it and places it on the appropriate windowsill. Some sills are filled with old photos of women with high-necked dresses, their hair pulled into buns, and of mustachioed men staring straight into the camera. Other windowsills are empty.

Norton is hoping former church members and ministers who come to the annual homecoming service Sept. 28 will give her clues that help her solve the remaining family puzzles.

"We didn't even know what year the windows went in until my cousin found a newspaper article in her father's papers about a funeral," said Norton, a nanny who also works on her family farm. "In it, it talks about the new memorial windows. I was sure excited to get that."

It seems that record-keeping has never been the small church's strong suit.

A church history written in 1965 noted, "During the one hundred and fifty years of the existence of Stablers, records have been lost. The manner in which the records have been kept gives to historians a nightmare, and we who have worked on the project found ourselves gathering information anyplace we could find it."

Norton is doing the same. She doesn't own a computer, so she contacts families in the area with ties to the church family.

She has gotten genealogies and pictures from people such as Margaret Cameron, of White Hall, who is a sixth-generation Almony.

Cameron was able to give Norton photos of Harry Almony, born in 1867, who donated an undated Bible to the church that now sits in a glass-topped case.

Norton also received many photos from Charlotte Smyth, who was a Stabler. Smyth died recently.

"The first Christian Stabler made it as far as Shrewsbury (Pa.). The second Christian gave land for the church and cemetery. The third Christian was Charlotte's great-grandfather," said Don Smyth, her husband who lives in Broadmead in Cockeysville. "If there's a Stabler, we have a photo."

Smyth said he frequently attends the annual homecoming service and plans to go this year.

Norton said she isn't having much luck with two families, the Eatons and the Pearces.

"I can't tell you the time I've spent on the Eatons," she said. "But I just can't find anything."

Longtime Parkton resident, Lynne Jones, gave Norton a one-page biography of Thomas Pearce that she printed from the "Genealogy and Biography of Leading Families of the City of Baltimore and Baltimore County, Maryland, 1897."

He married Katie M. Stabler, who was the daughter of Henry and Carrie Stabler.

Norton has framed the biography and hopes to add photos to the windowsill on which it sits.

"I think it's a good thing that Sharon is checking into the windows," said Stabler's pastor, Roger Griest. "When Stabler's was being built, the War of 1812 was occurring. We are tied to the past."

Griest said the church has about 50 members and Sunday attendance ranges from 20 to 40.

While the surrounding woods have become farm fields, the stone church looks pretty much the way it was described in an 1871 booklet about Sunday schools:

"Stabler's Church stands at the edge of a woods, and is invested with all the poetic charms generally ascribed to country churches... There is an air of comfort and coziness about it that cannot be passed by unnoticed."

The homecoming service begins at 11 a.m. on Sept. 28. Guest speaker is retired minister the Rev. McCarl Roberts. Special gospel music will be provided by Shepherd's Fold, a group from Pennsylvania. Refreshments in the church hall will follow the service, which is free and open to the public. The church is located at the intersection of Stabler's Church and Stablersville roads in Parkton.

Anyone with information on the families listed on the stained-glass windows is asked to call Norton at 410-343-1297 or send information to the church at P.O. Box 403, Parkton, MD 21120.

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