In between, we are given snapshots of a vanished America where religion and culture still played a vital role in public life, as well as odd and unexpected little tidbits: a craze for church bell towers in the 1920s; Cram's
home life with his beloved wife, Bess, and their children; the messy business breakup with Goodhue; Cram's mildly embarrassing foray into the horror genre, Black Spirits and White; his strange proposal for an island to be raised ex nihilo in Boston's Charles River; the problems inherent when working with rich Swedenborgians; and a Japanese Christian university he
designed on a mix of
Oriental and Dutch Modernist themes.