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Frances Joseph-Gaudet, an African American woman, founded Gaudet Normal and Industrial School (New Orleans, Louisiana) in 1900. Mrs. Gaudet raised the money necessary to buy land for the school and served as its first principal.

Originally called the Gaudet Boarding School for Boys, then the Colored Industrial Home and School, it grew from a home for orphaned and disadvantaged African American children to an elementary and high school for boarders and day students.

In 1921, Mrs. Gaudet turned the school over to the Diocese of Louisiana, at which time the school came under the supervision of the American Church Institute (ACI). Gaudet developed a cooperative relationship with Dillard University, an historically black university built near the Gaudet campus in 1935. The elementary portion of Gaudet’s curriculum was discontinued by 1946, and the school then became known as Gaudet Episcopal High School. ACI continued its funding until about 1955 when the school closed and the Gaudet Episcopal Home opened in the same quarters.

John Shelby Spong was born June 16, 1931 in Charlotte, North Carolina. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1952 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill he earned a Master of Divinity degree from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1955. He was ordained a deacon and a priest that year.

For two years, Spong served as rector at St. Joseph’s Church in Durham, North Carolina, before assuming the rectorship of Cavalry Church in Tarboro, North Carolina, in 1957. In a city that resisted integration, Spong ministered to the Black congregation at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church alongside the white congregation at Cavalry. He continued service as a rector at St. John’s Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, (1965) and St. Paul’s Church in Richmond, Virginia (1969) before being consecrated Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark in 1976. As bishop he continued to work tirelessly on behalf of those marginalized in the Church, ordaining a non-celibate gay deacon to the priesthood in 1989 and advocating for women clergy. Spong gained recognition among lay audiences for his many books on theology, which often challenged conventional doctrine. After retiring as bishop in 2000, he continued to speak on faith, modernity, and social justice.

John Shelby Spong died on September 12, 2021.

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.

Originally authorized by the General Convention in 1871 to coordinate the work formerly conducted by a large number of isolated women’s missionary societies, The Woman’s Auxiliary to the Board of Missions initially served in an advisory role, however, the Auxiliary evolved into a planning and promotion group. The first General Meeting of the Auxiliary was held in 1874, when the women resolved to meet concurrently with General Convention and came to be known as the Triennial Meetings of the Woman’s Auxiliary.

During the 1956-1958 triennium women’s work in the Church was reorganized. The Auxiliary transitioned into a division of National Council and was renamed the General Division of Women’s Work. Rejecting the auxiliary status, diocesan organizations began to name themselves the Episcopal Church Women. Symbolic of the turbulent social climate of the late 1960s and 1970s, the Church initiated structural reorganizations aimed at integrating women into the Church on every level. As part of these changes, the General Division of Women’s Work was dissolved in 1968.

Subsequent Triennial Meetings were organized by various ad hoc committees until the 1985 gathering, at which time bylaws were adopted forming the Episcopal Church Women (ECW) at the national level. This organization reclaimed its right as the successor body to the Woman’s Auxiliary and assumed responsibility for coordinating the women’s activities in the Church and for organizing the Triennial gatherings.

A resolution was filed at the June 1986 meeting of Executive Council confirming that the newly formed Episcopal Church Women “is the same or successor organization to the Woman’s Auxiliary, the General Division of Women’s Work, the Committee for Women, the Triennial Program and Planning Committee, and the Triennial Committee.”

In 1942, Wilbur Cochel offered his 320-acre farm, Roanridge, near Kansas City, Missouri to serve as a training and conference center for the rural mission of the Episcopal Church. In light of the Joint Commission on Rural Work’s report of 1940 calling for the promotion of rural work within the Episcopal Church, the Church accepted Mr. Cochel's offer. Other than the farm itself, programs at Roanridge were administered by the National Town and Country Church Institute (NTCCI), which held its first session on the farm in 1945.

In donating his farm and estate to the Episcopal Church, Cochel established the Roanridge Rural Training Foundation in 1947. Funding and administration of the Center was the joint responsibility of the Trustees of the Roanridge Foundation and the National Council’s Division of Town and Country. The Executive Secretary of the Division of Town and Country Work, the Rev. Clifford Samuelson, managed the Center from New York City until the appointment of the Center’s first resident director, the Rev. Norman Foote, in 1950.

In 1955, the Board of Trustees incorporated the Roanridge Rural Training Foundation as the Roanridge Rural Training Center, Inc. The corporation changed its name to the Roanridge Foundation, Inc. in 1972 with a Board of Directors constituted in the same manner as the former Board of Trustees.

Initially, Roanridge offered agricultural training, however, over time it shifted to emphasize conferences and short courses for clergy and laity. The most active of these was the Summer Parish Training Program, during which students lived and worked on the farm while serving several local rural congregations. Other noteworthy activities taking place at Roanridge included the summer Vacation Church School Program for local children, Church Army training sessions, National Episcopal Town and Country Conferences, Indian Work consultations, and meetings of the Rural Workers Fellowship and National Advisory Committee on Town and Country.

With the waning need for rural work and the financial status of the Roanridge Foundation deteriorating, the Foundation Board of Trustees voted to dissolve the Wilbur A. Cochel Trust at its meeting of August 12, 1976. Its assets were divided between the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kansas City, and St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City. With the proceeds from the sale of the land, the Executive Council established the Wilbur A. Cochel, Caroline F. Cochel, and Roanridge Trust for the training of rural ministry.

William Ives Rutter, Jr., was born in Pottstown, Pennsylvania on October 12, 1871. After graduating from St. Stephen’s College in Annandale, New York (now Bard College), he returned to Philadelphia and entered into the banking profession before joining an accounting firm in 1901.

A member of St. Mary’s Church, Hamilton Village, Philadelphia, Rutter where served as a lay leader for forty years, first on the vestry and later as warden. Rutter is best known for his contributions to church history and as a manuscript collector. In addition to being a member of the diocesan historical committee and several other local historical associations, such as the Church Club of Philadelphia and the St. Andrew’s Society of Philadelphia, Rutter was a charter member of the Church Historical Society (CHS), where he he served as secretary from its founding on May 17, 1910 until his retirement on January 18, 1951. His collection of autographed letters and other works added significantly to the special collections archives being acquired by the CHS. On June 16, 1947, he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Canon Law from Bexley Hall, Kenyon College for his work in church history.

William Ives Rutter died in Philadelphia on May 11, 1952.