Helene Rother - Other Work

Other Work

She purchased a home on Chicago Boulevard, with a studio downstairs and living quarters upstairs, and continued other independent consulting work. Her clients included several tire manufacturing companies, as well as non-automotive firms. She was also responsible for designing the interiors of ambulances and hearses for Miller-Meteor.

A sterling flatware pattern called "Skylark" was designed by Rother for Samuel Kirk & Son, silver craftsmen since 1815, and the company issued from 1954 into the late-1980s. The Skylark brand and logo expired in 1997.

Rother decided she wanted to begin producing art again and she went for a visit to Europe where she saw the struggle to restore or rebuild war-damaged churches and cathedrals. She also designed stained glass for American churches and had installations in the mid-1960s, mainly in Michigan, such as the Beverly Hills United Methodist Church in Beverly Hills, and the St. Lazarus Serbian Orthodox Cathedral in northeast Detroit with all thick "chunk" faceted glass, that was fabricated in France. In 1962, the St. James United Church of Christ in Dearborn, was dedicated featuring windows and the reredos designed by Rother. The glass was selected and fabricated into small pieces by a family group of craftsmen in Buche, a suburb of Paris, before being shipped from France for final assembly during the construction.

Rother remains relatively unknown in the world of stained glass as women who designed stained glass, either independently or under a major studio name, were for the most part unrecognized at the time.

In her later years, Rother designed large stained glass windows for churches and spent time on her horse farm near Metamora, Michigan.