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Frederic Whitney Fitts was born in Lowell, Massachusetts on April 11, 1872. He graduated in 1893 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned his B.D. from the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, in 1901 before completing his education with a degree from Harvard University in 1902.

From 1902 to 1907, Fitts served as an associate priest of St. Stephen’s Church, Boston, and as an associate rector of St. John’s Church in nearby Roxbury. Both parishes, which served primarily poor and minority communities, were among the leading Anglo-Catholic congregations of the otherwise low and broad churches in the Diocese of Massachusetts at that time.

He became rector of St. John’s Church in 1908, a position he held for 37 years, where he was known for his instructional classes. He mentored Massey Shepherd, who was an assistant at St. John’s Church in the early 1940s. Fitts was a lecturer of interest on Church symbolism; well-known for using the Sarum ritual and scheme of liturgical colors, which was rarely practiced in the United States; and he maintained a close relationship with the Order of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge.

Frederic Fitts died in 1945.

Henry Forrester was ordained to the diaconate in 1870 and to the priesthood in 1872. He served as a missionary in the Missionary District of New Mexico and Arizona beginning in 1874. Together with the new bishop of the district, William Forbes Adams, he performed the first Episcopal worship service at the Exchange Hotel on the Plaza in Albuquerque on March 4, 1875. After Bishop Adams’s retirement several months later, Forrester took on ecclesiastical oversight of the Missionary District and established St. Paul’s in Las Vegas as the ecclesiastical center. He continued to travel widely around the territory, establishing missionary outposts in 15 towns.

In 1880, George Kelly Dunlop was elected to fill the vacancy left by Adams’ retirement. That same year, the first convention of the Missionary District was held. Dunlop appointed Forrester priest to the congregation in Albuquerque. Forrester continued to travel across the territory, encouraging the missions he had established in the district. He reported in 1882 that “land has been purchased at 4th and Silver” for $5,000 and in November the first service in St. John’s Church was attended by 33 people.

At the General Convention of 1892 the Board of Missions appointed Forrester to succeed the Rev. W. B. Gordon as the Presiding Bishop’s resident representative to the Mexican Episcopal Church, a position he held until his death in 1904.

Elizabeth Griffin was born on January 23, 1890 in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Prior to becoming a missionary, she attended Atlantic Collegiate Institute, graduating with a business degree in 1907, and worked as a secretary and bookkeeper.

From 1931 to 1955, she served as the treasurer of the Missionary Diocese of the Philippines. In 1942, she was captured and placed in a Japanese-run internment camp at Los Baños Agricultural College where she remained until her rescue in 1945. After a year’s rest in New Bern, North Carolina, she returned to the Philippines and continued her missionary duties, which lasted another twenty-five years.

Ms. Griffin retired on August 1, 1955 and returned to New Bern, where she was active in the Episcopal Church Women (ECW) at Christ Church.

Elizabeth Griffin died on September 25, 1968.

English by birth, the Rev. Augustus Reginald Hoare went to Alaska during the Klondike gold rush of 1898. He began working as a missionary for the Rt. Rev. Peter T. Rowe in 1902 and was ordained to the diaconate. In 1903 he was ordained to the priesthood and, by 1904, was simultaneously directing four missionary stations in Alaska due to a shortage of missionaries in the area. He assumed rectorship of the Point Hope Mission in Alaska in 1907, but left ten years later as a result of illness. After a period of convalescence in California, he returned in 1920 only to be murdered by the man whom he had taken on as an assistant.

Everett Jones was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1902 and graduated from the University of Texas in 1922 before taking courses at Columbia University, General Theological Seminary, and Union Theological Seminary. After a one-year enrollment at Union, Jones transferred to Virginia Theological Seminary.

Jones was ordained deacon at St. Mark’s Church in San Antonio in 1926 and, in 1927, received his Master of Divinity degree from VTS and ordained into the priesthood. Called to Grace Church in Cuero, Texas he developed his ministry by focusing on community outreach. In 1930 Jones was called as rector of St. Paul’s Church in Waco, Texas. In 1938 Jones took a brief stint as canon chancellor at Washington National Cathedral, but returned home to San Antonio later that year to become rector at St. Mark’s Church.

Jones was consecrated as fourth Bishop of the Diocese of West Texas on September 24, 1943. As bishop he was an integral part of the establishment and growth of two projects that were very important to him and his ministry: the San Antonio Chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1945 and the Ecumenical Center for Religion and Health in 1967, both of which still serve the San Antonio community.

Jones retired in 1969, but continued his work with Alcoholics Anonymous as well as the Ecumenical Center in addition to giving sermons and addresses on various occasions and attending speaking engagements.

Everett Holland Jones died on November 18, 1995.

Daisuke Kitagawa was born on October 23, 1910 in Taihoku, Japan. Prior to emigrating to the United States in 1937, he attended St. Paul’s University (Rikkyo) and the Central Theological College in Tokyo.

In the United States, he received his Bachelor of Sacred Theology degree from the General Theological Seminary in New York. Kitagawa was ordained a deacon in 1939, a priest in 1940, and served from 1939 to 1942 as Priest-in-Charge at St. Peter’s Mission in Seattle and St. Paul’s Mission in Kent, Washington. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he was interned with other Japanese Americans at the Tule Lake relocation center in Newell, California. There he served as the Minister at the Tule Lake Union Church and as the Field Secretary for the Federal Council of Churches’ Committee on Japanese-American Resettlement.

After the war, Kitagawa moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota where he continued his work with Japanese Americans in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area. Additionally, he ministered to other minorities, founding the Rainbow Club in 1947 to encourage social interaction, friendship and understanding among the different racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds of the city.

In 1956 he began working with the World Council of Churches (WCC), first as Associate Secretary to the Department of Church and Society and then, in 1960, as the Secretary for the first Programme on Race Relations. After leaving in 1962 to serve on the Episcopal Church’s National Council and then on the Executive Council (1965), he returned to the WCC in 1968 to join the Division of World Mission and Evangelism, where he was in charge of a program for Urban and Industrial Mission in 48 countries.

Daisuke Kitagawa died on a Good Friday, March 27, 1970.

Born in 1909, the Rev. Leslie John Alden Lang was ordained to the diaconate in 1933 and to the priesthood in 1934. He served as Assistant Rector of St. Peter's Church in Westchester, New York from 1934 to 1943 and as rector from 1943 to1963. During this time he received a Bachelor of Sacred Theology degree from General Theological Seminary (1959). Lang continued to be active in Church affairs in the New York area until his retirement in 1974 when he became an honorary assistant at St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Leslie John Alden Lang died on April 26, 1991.

Born (circa 1858) and raised in New York City, Agnes P. Mahony graduated from the New York City Training School for Nurses in 1881. For the next twenty years, Mahony served in various nursing positions throughout New York.

Mahony entered missionary work upon her appointment to Liberia on March 12, 1901. She served as a nurse/missionary in the Episcopal mission in Liberia from 1901 to 1902 and from 1904 to1906. Mahony resigned from the mission in 1902 because of failing health, but she returned to the United States in 1904 only to retire for the same reasons in 1906. During her work in Liberia, Mahony founded the House of Bethany at Cape Mount.

The Rt. Rev. William T. Manning was born in Northampton, England in 1866. He received his theological training at the University of the South in Sewanee, where he served as a professor of dogmatic theology from 1893 to 1895. Manning became rector of St. Agnes Chapel in New York in 1908. He became the fifth Bishop of New York in 1921.

A staunch theological conservative, Manning prevented the Rev. Percy S. Grant from marrying a divorcee in 1921 and became embroiled in a bitter battle of recriminations with Judge Ben B. Lindsey on the issue of "companionate marriage" in 1930; however, on other issues he took a more liberal stance, particularly regarding integrated congregational worship. Bishop Manning retired in ill health in 1946.

William T. Manning died in 1949.

Leonel Lake Mitchell was born on July 23, 1930 in New York. He earned his undergraduate degree in sacred theology from Berkeley Divinity School and his master’s degree from the General Theological Seminary. In 1954 he was ordained as a deacon and a priest of The Episcopal Church. In 1964, Mitchell received a doctorate in liturgics from General Theological Seminary, the first ever awarded by an Episcopal seminary.

In 1971, after eighteen years serving as a parish priest in the dioceses of Albany and New York, Mitchell pursued a full-time teaching career as an assistant professor of liturgics at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He went on to become professor of liturgics, as well as a lecturer in Church history and liturgy at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary (1978) and remained on the faculty until his retirement in 2005. An expert in his field, Mitchell not only authored multiple books on liturgy but was also instrumental in revising the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.

Leonel Lake Mitchell died on May 23, 2012 in South Bend, Indiana.

Clifford P. Morehouse was born on April 18, 1904 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He graduated from Harvard in 1925 and received a master’s degree from Marquette in 1937. Some thirty years later he earned his doctorate from General Theological Seminary.

After graduating from Harvard, Clifford joined his father at the recently renamed Morehouse Publishing Company. He would go on to serve many roles in the company over the years, including taking over as editor of The Living Church after his father’s death in 1932, a position he held until 1952. It was at that time that Morehouse moved his family from Milwaukee to New York to assume a larger role in the company, which was then known as Morehouse-Gorham Co., first as vice president (1952-1964) then as president (1964-1970). After his retirement in 1970, he accepted the position of Chairman and remained involved with the company for several more years.

During his life he remained a steadfast and dedicated member of The Episcopal Church, being elected President of the House of Deputies by unanimous vote at the 1961 General Convention in Detroit and again in St. Louis in 1964. At the time he was only the second lay person to serve in that role. After he declined to run for re-election in 1967, he was elected to membership on the Church’s Executive Council where he served until 1973.

Clifford P. Morehouse died on February 17, 1977. In its obituary, the New York Times described Morehouse as “one of the best-known laymen in the Episcopal Church.”

Lyman Cunningham Ogilby was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1922. After receiving his B.D. from the Episcopal Theological School in 1949, Ogilby became a teacher and chaplain at the Brent School, a position he held until 1952. From 1953 to 1967, he served as a bishop in the Philippines, first as Suffragan Bishop of the Philippines (1953-1957) and then as Missionary Bishop of the Philippines (1957-1967).

In spite of his attachment to the Brent School and to the Philippines, Ogilby saw his true ministry as a missionary bishop, whose calling was, in part, to prepare missionary dioceses of the Church for self-support. In 1967, Ogilby resigned as Bishop of the Philippines in order to give the leadership role to Benito Cabanban, a native Filipino who had served as Suffragan Bishop since 1959. Upon his return to the United States in 1967, Ogilby served as Bishop Coadjutor in South Dakota, which was then still a Missionary District. His address to the diocesan convention in that year shows that he expected to assist briefly and then take over the diocese. In January of 1970 he did briefly became Bishop in-charge of South Dakota upon the retirement of Bishop Conrad Gesner, but he served only long enough to guide the election of a new Bishop Diocesan before resigning in March of 1970. From 1971 to 1973, he served as Assistant Bishop of Pennsylvania, supervising missions and aiding parishes under Bishop Robert DeWitt. He became Bishop Coadjutor in 1973, and upon DeWitt’s resignation in 1974, Ogilby became Bishop of Pennsylvania. He held that position until his retirement in 1987. After retirement, he continued to carry out Episcopal duties in the dioceses of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Washington DC.

Lyman Cunningham Ogilby died on November 3 1990.

Katharine Putnam was born on September 10, 1889, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Upon completing her studies at the Philadelphia Church Training and Deaconess House in 1917, the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society appointed her to the Shanghai District. Putnam arrived in China on August 18, 1917 and taught English at St. Faith’s School and Mahan Boys School in Yangchow. She was set apart as a deaconess on May 23, 1920 and continued teaching until a furlough in 1928.

Upon her return, she was appointed Diocesan Religious Education Director and made supervisor of the women’s work in Shanghai. As part of these duties, Putnam prepared educational religious material, held short-term school appointments at country stations, and helped to train women evangelists. After another furlough in 1934, Putnam returned to St. Faith’s School in Yangchow. From 1937 until 1939, she served as secretary to Bishop Graves. After the Bishop’s retirement Putnam worked in the diocesan office and at St. Elizabeth Hospital until the Japanese placed the missionaries under house arrest in 1942. On February 25, 1943, Katharine Putnam joined other missionaries who had been placed in an internment camp until her release as part of a prisoner exchange on September 20, 1943.

After going back and forth between the United States and China several more times over the next seven years, she returned to the U.S. permanently in 1950 where she worked in various roles within the Church, supporting the training and education of women. After 41 years of service, Katharine Putnam retired from the Episcopal Church in 1958.

One of the formative bishops of the Diocese of Texas, Clinton S. Quin was born September 28, 1883 in Louisville, Kentucky. He studied law at the University of Louisville and was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1904.

Quin graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1908 and was ordained to the diaconate and to the priesthood that same year. After serving in five Kentucky churches, he was called in 1917 to the rectorship of Trinity Church in Houston, Texas. A year later he became Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of Texas. In 1928, he became the third Bishop of the Diocese of Texas on the death of Bishop Kinsolving. Bishop Quin retired in 1955.

Clinton S. Quin died on Thanksgiving Day in 1956.

Walter Righter was born on October 23, 1923 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After serving in the Army during World War II, he earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1948 and a Bachelor of Sacred Theology degree from Berkeley Divinity School in 1951. He was ordained in 1951 and served at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, where he led the racial integration of the parish, effectively doubling the size of the congregation. Several years later, he took a call to be rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Nashua, New Hampshire, where he was active in interfaith and ecumenical work.

In 1972 he was elected Bishop of the Diocese of Iowa. At his first General Convention, that same year, Righter cast the deciding vote in favor of ordaining women to the priesthood and the episcopate. The resolution was passed in 1976 and in December of that year, he ordained the first woman in Iowa, the Rev. S. Suzanne Peterson. Righter retired as Bishop of Iowa in 1988.

From 1988 to 1991, Righter served as the assistant bishop to John Shelby Spong in the Diocese of Newark. In 1990, at the behest of Bishop Spong, he ordained an openly gay priest, Barry Stopfel. Six years later, just before the statue of limitations expired, ten bishops brought a presentment against Righter, charging him with heresy for violating a doctrine of the church and his own ordination vows. After a short hearing in May 1996, all charges against Righter were dismissed, thus opening the door for partnered gay clergy to be accepted into The Episcopal Church.

Walter C. Righter died in Pittsburgh on September 11, 2011.