Tiny chapel in Vernon built for family matriarch in 1968

Nestled among the trees overlooking the city sits a labour of love.

The smallest church in Vernon started out as a chicken coop, but has now been standing for decades in honour of a lost loved one.

Gwyn Evans, with the Greater Vernon Museum and Archives, said the “cute little chapel was built by Mary and Claude McKim on their property.”

It was built in a Greek Orthodox style as a nod to Mary's Romanian ancestry.

The church was built in honour of Mary's mother, Dominica, who died in 1968.

“Mary had wanted to create a religious memorial for her mother, who was a devout Christian, and asked to have the last thing her father had built for his wife - a chicken coop – be refurbished for this purpose,” said Evans on the Community & Area Facebook page.

An article in the 1989 edition of the Okanagan Sunday, said when Nicholas was appalled at the thought of a chicken coop standing in honour of his beloved wife, so in 1969 he set out to construct the church.

While building the chapel, Nicholas had a stroke and could not finish the project, so Mary and her husband took over the construction.

Mary's father saw the finished chapel two days before he died.