Showing 216 results

Malcolm Riker was born on February 12, 1925, in Austin, Texas. At the age of 18 he enlisted in the Navy and was sent to the South Pacific during World War II. After returning home in February of 1946, he enrolled at the University of Texas, graduating three years later with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. From there he attended seminary in New York City and Berkeley, California where he graduated in the top of his class in 1951.

Upon being ordained, Riker became the first priest at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in La Marque, TX. During his time in the Galveston area he started several more missions. After moving back to Austin in 1958, he revived St. George’s Episcopal Church and proceeded to initiate or take a leading role in the founding of a series of parishes in the Austin area, including missions established at St. Paul’s of Pflugerville and St. Richard’s of Round Rock during his retirement. While at St. Luke’s on the Lake, Riker presented several of the largest Confirmation classes ever confirmed in the history of the Diocese of Texas. In total, Riker founded eleven Episcopal churches in Texas, all of which are thriving today.

Malcolm Riker died on November 17, 2002.

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.

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.

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.