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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

William Chauncey Emhardt was born in Philadelphia on January 29, 1874 and educated at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Divinity School, Columbia University, and General Theological before being ordained as a priest in 1898. After serving in various schools and parishes in Kansas, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, he was rector of St. Luke's, Newtown, Pennsylvania from 1907-1920.

In 1920, Emhardt resigned from the parish of St. Luke’s to become Field Director for Church Work Among Foreign-Born Americans, a position he held for ten years. During that time, he also served as Secretary-in-Charge of the Near East Chaplaincies and became a trustee of Near East Relief (formerly the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief).

In addition to his involvement in several other charitable organizations, Emhardt was a member of the Eastern Orthodox Relations Committee of the Federal Council of Churches, and the Commission to Confer with the Orthodox and Old Catholic Churches of the General Convention. He was American Chairman of the Russian Orthodox Seminary in Paris, France (1928-1934) and Chairman of the Hill School in Athens, Greece (1931-1936). From 1936 until 1943 he was vicar of the Pro-Cathedral of St. Mary, Philadelphia.

Ermhardt died in Oceanville, New Jersey, on August 4, 1950.

In 1871, Mary Abbott Emery was appointed secretary of the newly formed Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions and was chiefly responsible for its early development. Though she resigned as secretary in 1876 to marry the Rev. Dr. Alvi T. Twing, she continued to be actively involved. After her husband died in 1882, she was appointed honorary secretary of the Woman's Auxiliary. One of her greatest achievements was assisting in the passage by the 1889 General Convention of the canon that recognized and set standards and qualifications for Deaconesses. In addition, Emery taught a course on church missions at the newly created New York Training School for Deaconesses and visited missionaries around the world, later reporting on their work in articles that she assembled in the book, Twice Around the World (1898).

Mary Abbott Emery’s sister, Julia Chester Emery, was heavily involved with the Woman’s Auxiliary, taking over as secretary when Mary resigned in 1876. In addition, their sisters–Susan Lavinia Emery (1846-1914) and Margaret Theresa Emery (1849-1925)–were involved with The Episcopal Church and the Woman’s Auxiliary, although to a much lesser degree.

Julia Chester Emery was appointed secretary of the Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions in 1876, after her sister Mary Abbott Emery resigned the position. During her forty-year tenure she directed the expansion of the Woman’s Auxiliary into every domestic and missionary diocese of The Episcopal Church and was key to the founding and growth of the United Offering (now the United Thank Offering). She traveled overseas extensively to promote the Auxiliary by addressing the woman’s missionary congress in London in 1897, representing the Diocese of New York at the Pan-Anglican Congress in 1908, and visiting mission stations throughout Europe and Asia. In addition, she authored several books, including “A Century of Endeavor” (1921), the centennial history of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. Julia Emery is commemorated in the Episcopal Calendar of the Church Year on January 9th.

In addition to Mary Abbott and Julia Chester, their sisters, Susan Lavinia Emery (1846-1914) and Margaret Theresa Emery (1849-1925) were involved with The Episcopal Church and the Woman’s Auxiliary, although to a much lesser degree.

Daniel Corrigan was born October 25, 1900 in Rochester, Michigan. He received his Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1925 from Nashotah House in Wisconsin, and in May of 1925 he was ordained a priest. Subsequently, Corrigan received a Master of Sacred Theology degree in 1943 and a Doctor of Divinity degree in 1955, also from Nashotah House.

Upon his ordination in 1925, Corrigan served as rector of various churches until 1958, when he made history in the Episcopal Church for simultaneously being elected Bishop of Quincy (Illinois) and Suffragan Bishop of Colorado. He accepted the latter appointment and was consecrated on May 1, 1958. Just two years later, in 1960, he resigned the Colorado ministry and began employment as director of the Home Department of the National (Executive) Council. As a result of his professional involvement in issues of social justice, he became active in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

Upon his resignation from the Home Department in 1968 Corrigan became first a minister to Amherst College in Massachusetts and then dean of Bexley Hall in Rochester, New York. While at Bexley Hall, Corrigan became active in the anti-Vietnam War movement. The culmination of this activity came during the interfaith Mass for Peace held on the steps of the Pentagon where many participants in this service, including Corrigan, were arrested.

In 1974, during his retirement, Corrigan participated in the irregular ordination of 11 women to the priesthood in Philadelphia. Along with four other bishops, Corrigan ordained these women, an act which broke with the tradition and interpretation of the Canons of the Church at that time.

Corrigan died on September 21, 1994.

John Rowan Claypool, IV was born on December 15, 1930 in Franklin, Kentucky. In 1952 he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Baylor University and ordained a Baptist minister in 1953. He subsequently went on to earn two degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville: a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1955, and a Doctor of Theology degree in 1959. His first ministry assignment after receiving his doctoral degree was as associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia. In 1960 he became pastor of Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. For eleven years he held this position and, under his leadership, Crescent Hill was one of the first congregations in the area to integrate.

Over time, Claypool found himself increasingly disenchanted with the Baptist Convention. In 1985 he sought admission to the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas, where he completed a Certificate of Individual Theological Studies in 1986. He was ordained deacon and priest in 1986 in the Diocese of West Texas and began his first job as an Episcopal priest as Associate Rector of Christ Episcopal Church in San Antonio, where he had served as Theologian-in-Residence while completing his certificate program. Claypool’s next assignment took him to Birmingham, Alabama, where he served as rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church from 1987 until his retirement from full-time ministry in 2000. While at St. Luke’s, Claypool took the riskier path of hiring the first two female priests in Birmingham to work with him.

In the years following his semi-retirement, Claypool served as Theologian-in-Residence at Trinity Episcopal Church in New Orleans, Louisiana; a Priest Associate at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Atlanta, Georgia; and as Professor of Homiletics at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta. Claypool died on September 3, 2005.

A fourth-generation minister, Samuel Orr Capers was born August 2, 1899 in Anderson, South Carolina. He attended the University of Texas and then the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, where he was ordained to the diaconate in 1926 and to the priesthood in 1927. He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee in 1959.

His first pastoral assignment was Trinity Episcopal Church in Pharr, in the Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas, where he served during 1927 and 1928. After working briefly as rector at Saint Mark’s Church in San Marcos, Texas, Capers transferred to Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in San Antonio, where he served from the end of 1928 until 1930. He then became the rector of Christ Episcopal Church, also in San Antonio, where he remained for the next thirty-seven years. He retired as rector emeritus in 1967. During and after his career he was active in numerous service organizations such as the Salvation Army and the San Antonio Association of the Blind, as well as working on behalf of the San Antonio military community. Capers died on June 17, 1984.

The Office of the Suffragan Bishop for the Armed Forces grew out of the Army and Navy Commission established by General Convention in 1919 "to press upon the attention of Congress the need for Army and Navy Chaplains." For the next 25 years the Commission raised money to aid churches near military camps, provided portable altars and communion sets to chaplains, distributed A Prayer Book for Soldiers and Sailors, paid the pension premiums of chaplains when needed, and contributed to chaplains' discretionary funds to help them respond to emergencies among service men.

In September 1945, the Commission decided to dissolve the existing body and on January 1, 1946, the Army and Navy Commission became the Army and Navy Division of the National Council, reporting to the Presiding Bishop. Since WWII had ended there was no longer an immediate need for chaplains, allowing the focus of the work to shift from wartime ministrations to reintegrating the soldiers into a peacetime society.

In 1946, General Convention determined that a position of Suffragan Bishop for the Armed Forces was required. However, the call for a bishop was not made until 1964 with the election of Arnold M. Lewis, which was due in part to the Unites States becoming fully involved in the Vietnam War. In 1988, the office expanded its scope, and was renamed under the umbrella of Federal Ministries.