Detailed History

A History of St. Luke's

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Long Beach, California, 1897-202

St. Luke's is proud to be an inclusive, multicultural community pursuing spiritual and social transformation. Itshistory can be traced through its application of Christ’s teaching in programs for the liturgy, music, Christian education, and aid to people in need. More recently programs have developed for refugee assistance, Spanish services, Gay Pride, Taizé worship chant, and lessons in brass rubbing.

See our Mission statement at St. Luke’s Parish

Index of Sections:
– Early Days, 1897-1917
– Growth & Prosperity, 1917-1933
– The 1933 Earthquake
– Crisis, Lay Leadership, & Renewal, 1964-2000
– Into the 21st Century

Early Days, 1897-1917

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Long Beach, began in 1897, at the very start of modern urban settlement in the coastal region of Southern California. Whereas Spanish land grants had been established in the late eighteenth century, from 1866 parcels of land were sold for housing and commercial development, and by the year 1900 the population was only two thousand in what became the City of Long Beach. Isn’t that hard to imagine now? Ranches continued to be farmed inland from the expanding city through the 1950s; indeed, the Harnett family, which helped lead the church, had a plot at what is now Atlantic Ave and 25th Street. First called American City and then Willmore City, the settlement was incorporated as the City of Long Beach in 1888.

Coming from the East or the Middle West—some say mostly Iowa—residents tended to be white and Protestant, with many in favor of Prohibition. Indeed, at one point a company was hired to recruit only white workers for new businesses. A group of wealthy and socially prominent families emerged, many of whom attended St. Luke’s Church. The church nonetheless followed Christ’s teachings in gradually bringing together a diverse set of parishioners and helping to confront the social needs of the city.

Rev. W. E. Jacob riding from San Pedro to St. Luke’s c. 1900

The first Episcopal services were held on June 27, 1897, in the Long Beach Masonic Hall, at Pine and Ocean Avenues, then in a nearby saloon or in a meeting room called Pickles Hall. The clergy who officiated came by horse from Sierra Madre and San Pedro, as did the Rev. W. E. Jacob c. 1900 (see above). The following year there were 101 people in the congregation, and a confirmation service was held, illustrating how early the Sunday School developed. The church’s leaders didn’t dawdle, for in 1900 they built a church in the Spanish Mission style at 5th Street and Locust Avenue, for which they chose the name St. Luke’s. That a succession of clergy came and went in the early years indicates the strength of the lay leadership in the emerging parish. In 1901 the Diocese of Los Angeles sent the Rev. Charles T. Murphy as Priest-in-Charge [right], and four years later he was named Rector and the church was designated as a Parish. In 1907 he was followed by the Rev. Robert B. Gooden, who eventually became headmaster of the Harvard School in North Hollywood and served as Suffragan Bishop of the diocese from 1930 to 1947. [right]

Church organizations began appearing in this period, most notably the Women’s Auxiliary and chapters of two national orders, the Daughters of the King and the Brotherhood of Saint Andrews. As many as eight women’s guilds served the church in different ways, contributing to parish life in contrasting ways (see a picture of churchwomen below).

A choir was in place by 1902, establishing a major component of the parish’s activity in the long term. Though usually made up of men and women, boys also sang in the choir as early as 1902 [right].

Women of the Parish, c. 1900

Growth & Prosperity, 1917-1933

In 1917 the parish built a much larger church at the crossing of Atlantic Avenue and 7th Street, demonstrating the rapid expansion of the parish to 550 members. The Rev. Arnold G.H. Bode [right] served as Rector, 1912-23, as the church built its first parish hall. Concern for the surrounding community is evident in the parish’s work in the ensuing years, for in 1919 the Social Service Guild was formed to help poor people obtain food and fulfill domestic needs. Leadership of this committee seems to have come largely from working women, members of the Businesswomen’s Guild, who could not attend the day-time meetings of the seven other guilds that had emerged by that time. This program can be seen today in the program which provides showers, lunch, and an open church several times a month.

The parish was blessed with strong leadership from rectors in the long term. The Rev. Perry G. M. Austin [right], who became Rector in 1923, was raised in Oakland and educated at Harvard and at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley. “Mr. Austin can well be called a Builder,” said a parishioner at the time. He helped develop a Chapel out in East Long Beach in 1925, which became independent as All Saints’ Church three years later. Another chapel, based in Los Alamitos, did not become permanent. For ten years after 1928 the main service—Morning Communion, of course, save holy communion on the first Sunday of the month—was broadcast from the Jergins Trust Building over KFOX—the name deriving from a failed effort to merge with 20th Century Fox.

The Choristers in a 1941 film about Franz Schubert

The Choristers assembled in 1939

The choir took on a much larger and more public role beginning in 1930, when William Ripley Dorr was brought from Wilshire Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles to become Organist and Music Director. Dorr developed an ensemble of sixty men and boys called the St. Luke’s Choristers which became widely known for high-level singing. Families from outside the parish competed to get their boys into the group, where they practiced four hours a week and performed outside Long Beach. Through Dorr’s Hollywood connections, the choir appeared in some seventy-five films during the 1930s and 1940s—among them New Wine on Franz Schubert (1941, see picture), The Big Store (1941, with the Marx Brothers), and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1950). A women’s choir sang for certain services and was featured during the summer. Music can be heard by the current choir HERE.

Earthquake & Rebuilding, 1933-1964

At 5:55 PM on Friday, March 10, 1933, an earthquake on the Inglewood Fault hit Long Beach for eleven long, destructive seconds, killing 122 people and turning everybody’s life upside down for quite some time. Much of the fifteen-year-old church collapsed and services were shifted to the parish hall. That the Great Depression was well under way made the situation even more dire for the parish. Rev. Austin exercised amazing leadership in guiding a program to rebuild the church, drawing on contacts around the country. The result was that $25,000 was pledged from outside Long Beach, indeed $500 from Eleanor Roosevelt. The women’s guilds played a central role in the effort, putting on many events to raise funds. The cornerstone for the new structure was laid on March 18, 1934 and its consecration occurred on June 18, 1944, following the retirement of the debt. The main new feature of the church was the rood screen, created by the local artist Warren Sparks in 1938.

With the retirement of Rev. Austin in 1951 a quiet but intellectually vigorous rector arrived, the Rev. F.C. Benson Belliss [right], formerly at All Saints’ Church, Pasadena. Rev. Belliss led the acquisition of property near the church and the construction of the school buildings on Linden Avenue in 1963. Moreover, having been a naval chaplain, with the rank of Captain, Belliss was closely linked with officers and enlisted men at the Long Beach Naval Station, some of whom were active Episcopalians. These connections played a strong role in the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York, Andrew and Fergie, to a vespers service at St. Luke’s in 1988 [right].

The Duke and Duchess or York attend St. Luke’s in 1988

By this time, vast social and geographical changes were evolving in southern California that challenged the leaders of St. Luke’s Church to rethink its mission in local society. Upon his arrival in Long Beach, Rev. Belliss wrote that “people are establishing homes farther from the church center, some in Orange County, in Los Alamitos…To an increasing degree we must attract those who live outside our city limits by giving them the finest facilities within our power and means.” He also strengthened the programs of social service. In 1953 the Independent Press-Telegram published a story, “Saving Pennies for St. Luke’s,” about the five hundred families who were saving a penny per person for the poor at their daily table.

Crisis, Lay Leadership, & Renewal, 1964-2000

Rev. Belliss’ leadership took a political direction in 1964, for in his report to the parish in January he declared that “The Church is a part of a world in revolution.” He was among the many Episcopalians who supported the State’s Rumford Fair Housing Act against social discrimination, and he spoke out against Proposition 14, which abolished the act until a federal court declared it unconstitutional. The issue divided the Episcopal Church deeply, especially since it occurred at the same time as the movement for social integration in the South. The Rev. Morris Samuel, former Associate Rector, went to Mississippi to support the Freedom Riders and upon his return preached a sermon hailing the African-American freedom movement and the Rumford Act. His words led a few of the most wealthy and prominent families to leave the church permanently.

Yet members of the parish came to grips with the crisis effectively, recognizing how they must continue to work together despite their divergent opinions. One member of the parish recently related that, even though some parishioners never spoke to each other again, “I had friends on both sides, I didn’t want to be party to either one.” During the late 1960s, social service moved closer to the center of the parish’s life. The Rev. Samuel Hall, [right] who became rector in 1967, wrote to the vestry that “The church must change. Christians can live somehow in loving dialogue with each other,” and that “the church has to be an agent for change in our personal lives and in our life of social responsibility.”

A history of St. Luke’s written in 1972 declared that the parish had “moved into that period of transition which reflects the changes in American society generally.” That had happened because “there was an awakening of concern with problems in our community and nation. Dedicated laymen and women began to work energetically to build bridges of relationships with disadvantaged people of the community. St. Luke’s did much of the pioneering in the name of Christ, though not to the satisfaction of all its members.” Still, the construction of the three education buildings with thirty-eight rooms proved problematic since efforts to develop a school in the 1960s and early 1970s failed to attract sufficient students. At various times programs in the local community rented the rooms, bringing the church closer to important civic initiatives—Alcoholics Anonymous, and the Inter-City Ministry, for example—but for some periods of time the space was unused.

The parish was in process of expanding the diversity of its members and its leadership. A community of African Americans grew up near the downtown area, some of whom joined St. Luke’s. Eunice Collins, born in Shreveport, Louisiana, came to the parish in the late 1950s, and Jackawa Jackson, who held a managerial position in a bank, was elected to the Vestry in 1972. Winifred Carter [right above], now 102 years old, came to the parish in 1975 while working for United Airlines. St. Luke's currently sponsors the Wini Carter Community Service Scholarship, a $1,000 a year scholarship for 4 years awarded to graduating Polytechnic High School students who are working to change their communities and the world.

The roles played by Episcopal women began changing significantly. By the early 1970s the Episcopal Church Women helped coordinate activities of five remaining guilds and, most important of all, women were entering the formal leadership of the parish. In 1936 the Episcopal Church began to allow women to be appointed as non-voting members of vestries, and in 1965 the Diocese permitted women to be regular members. Several such leaders played central roles in St. Luke’s in the ensuing years. Nationally, women were first ordained to the priesthood in 1972, among whom two served in the parish: the Rev. Beryl Choi [right] as Associate Rector and the Rev. Beryl Nyre-Thomas [right], as Lay Eucharist Minister and then adjunct priest.

Renewal of leadership came in dynamic form from the sixth Rector, the Rev. A. LeRoy Young, who—always called Roy—served as associate to the Rev. Hall and became Rector in 1975. Californian by birth, Roy brought leadership on a wide variety of fronts. Despite having grown up in a Congregational church with low-church ceremonies, he encouraged the shift toward holding Holy Eucharist at the 10 AM service every Sunday, and he began wearing vestments with colors other than black or white. Our website includes booklets about liturgical aspects of the church which were written on the stained-glass windows (by Tom Sanford) and the vestments (by Thom Allen). In 1978 the Liturgical Arts Committee was formed, initially leading a campaign for bringing new stained-glass windows into the Chapel and in later years to develop studies of the treasures in the church.

Wini Carter

The Rev. Beryl Choi

The Rev. Beryl Nyre-Thomas

Father Roy Young at the baptismal font

Parishioners have found it fulfilling to participate in the renewal of historical traditions and artifacts of the Episcopal Church. A set of annual celebrations developed in this period that heralded the British origins of the church. The program of brass rubbing has lasted to the present day. Led by Barbara Newton, the church developed a program where people could rub the outlines of medieval objects through facsimiles made in the United Kingdom, thereby helping support the church financially. In 1987 the program lasted six or eight weeks in the fall, establishing a strong outreach to the community at large, bringing in students from local schools as well as adults interested in history or church traditions. An annual Medieval Feast likewise evolved in relationship with the brass-rubbing, helping raise funds for the parish. Moreover, since from early days the parish had been dedicated to St. Andrew as well as to St. Luke, a festive celebration called Kirkin ‘o’ the Tartan was held on a Saturday near St. Andrew’s Day, opened by a group of bagpipe players. People of all ages like to do brass rubbing. The annual program of Brass Rubbing has brought people from many churches and schools.

Roy also worked closely with leaders in downtown Long Beach, holding lunches on Sundays where representatives of inner-city organizations could discuss the needs for change in the city. Roy encouraged such groups to rent offices in the three buildings on Linden Avenue, bringing social programs close to the activities of St. Luke’s. Even though ideas were broached for developing a school in those units in the mid-60s and early 70s, no such program was established. The most important accomplishments from the mid-1970s were social service programs: the Mobile Soup Kitchen, now Manna Meals, led by Gail Mutke; aid to Hmong families from Laos and Cambodia; and provisions for poor people in Tijuana, Mexico, through the Diocese’s Los Niños Project. Another big project was stimulated by the Presiding Bishop’s Immigrant and Refugee Center: helping political refugees from eastern Europe to settle in Long Beach, most prominently the Mazurkiewicz family from Poland in 1982. The program whereby people take showers on Saturdays also began at that time and is still going strong today.

The church choir also underwent a period of renewal and growth with the appointment of David Koehring as full-time Organist and Music Director in 1978. The employment of a part-time director for ten years had limited the program’s activity, and the number of boy singers had declined significantly. David had distinguished himself as organist at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. and at the Episcopal Cathedral in Indianapolis, Indiana. He launched a program to rebuild the choir, finding families whose boys would become members of the parish. As the Marina News put it, the project “was like rebuilding a forgotten cathedral.” The program went well for over a decade but was limited by the growing focus on sports in the schools.

The Rev. Roy Young reshaped the Sunday School program right away, giving the playground onsite the catchy title Genesis Land. The program gave visual form to Biblical stories by which children would explore the meaning of humankind’s place in the universe and deepen their appreciation for all living things. As one teacher has recalled, it provided “hands on” lessons—an Ark to climb on and an oven to bake bread as in ancient Israel. Thus did the patch of land north of the church serve as both playground and learning center, for which families would be sent preparatory materials each week. Roy published an article which describes Genesis Land in a book called Homegrown Christian Education: Planning and Programming for Christian Education in the Local Congregation (1979). A picture of the children’s wooden hut next to the church appeared on the cover of The Living Church [right], the main Episcopal magazine, and the more left-wing publication The Witness also featured the school.

Roy also held a Blessing of the Animals every year, by which parishioners brought their pets to church. A group of parishioners is presently developing a program to make Genesis Land teach children about plants and gardening. Whereas Roy planned a Bring Your Pets Sunday, we now have Blessing of the Backpacks before children head back to school in the fall [right].

Roy Young’s unexpected announcement of his retirement in September 1990 was followed by a decade of division within the parish. The removal of his firm directing hand unleashed great tension between competing ideas about where the church should go. In the late 1980s the Academy of Music and the Arts at St. Luke’s was established to launch a program of exhibits, resident artists, and concerts by the choir in the church. At that time the east side of Long Beach was becoming the center of a thriving art world that was linked with prominent citizens from the city at large. The program developed a promising rapprochement between the church and the community, at a time when the downtown was what we now see as its low-point in urban decline. Aided by a grant from the city’s Public Corporation for the Arts, the Academy put on monthly programs in 1989-1991 that involved art exhibits, discussions about the arts, and concerts by the choir with a small orchestra. In each year a Resident Artist directed the effort. See below Heather Green’s work “Child of War”, which was exhibited in 1991 [right].

Resistance to the program arose among members of the parish who opposed seeing modernistic art works with anti-war themes displayed in the church, indeed in the Sanctuary. Frederick Frost, the first Resident Artist, had already encountered opposition to his showing a picture involving nudity in a Catholic church in Orange County. Heather Green, who succeeded him, put up a piece that the reporter of the Los Angeles Times saw as a sculpture where “a mother lies prone with her abdomen slit open, revealing tiny toy soldiers.” Differences in social class as well as taste intensified the conflict. Efforts to forge a compromise failed, and the vestry ended the project.

In the meantime the Rev. David Duncan became Rector (1992-94), [right] after working as coordinator of Episcopal Migration Ministries in Diocese of Los Angeles and as a member of its AIDS Commission. The booklet celebrating the 100th anniversary of the parish thanked Rev. Duncan for his effort to “work on the spirituality of the parish and plant new seeds for the expansion of a more inclusive membership.” The division in the parish led him to leave after two years, leading to another period of time when its leadership came almost entirely from lay people. In the meantime the budget had declined so far that the members of the choir could no longer be paid. The resignation of David Koehring led to the forming of a mixed choir, the first at the main service since the 1920s. In 1995 David York was appointed organist and choirmaster, bringing deep knowledge of the Anglican musical tradition and links with the local Organ Guild.

For all the conflict in the church, the years of lay leadership during the 1990s gradually established a strong foundation that aided the church to move in new directions on a long-term basis. A group of parishioners led by John Kagy contributed many hours to taking care of problems in the church’s buildings, at a time when there was limited money to hire workers. In January 1995 the Rev. Denis Brunelle [see left], formerly a Catholic priest, was appointed by the Diocese as Priest in Charge under Special Circumstances to help reduce division in the parish, and the vestry elected him Rector a year later. He worked with the Diocesan committee for the gay and lesbian community, yielding the church’s first formal participation in the AIDS Walk (see picture below). He also administered the rite of foot-washing and led parishioners on tours of the Holy Land. Still, differences over governance of the Sunday School brought the departure of its main leaders and the decline of that program for some time. The Rev. Mary Goshert then served as Interim Rector in 1999-2001, helping, as one parishioner put it, to pull the parish together spiritually.

Into the 21st Century

Members of the parish became more diverse in the last part of the twentieth century, involving the church in programs bringing different groups closer together. Black History Month has been celebrated at St. Luke’s, specifically by seeing a set of masks from African origin were created by Sunday School children under the leadership of Jill Cassidy. The election of the Rev. Gary Commins as Rector [right] in 2001 began a process of rethinking and rebuilding within St. Luke’s Church—Strategic Planning, as he put it. He previously served as vicar and chaplain at St. Michael’s University Church in Santa Barbara, and Rector of Holy Faith Episcopal Church in Inglewood, Gary guided the leaders of the parish in developing a broad, long-term set of goals for expanding the membership and the work of the parish in new ways, “building from the inside out,” as he put it. Within a year, a variety of community groups filled the three buildings on Linden Street, once again linking the parish closely with efforts going on in the inner city. The church began participating in the Episcopal Urban Intern Program under the auspices of the Jubilee Consortium of inner-city parishes in Inglewood, South Central Los Angeles, and Hollywood.

A milestone of the parish’s revival was its ability to hire an associate rector, a central goal in Gary’s planning, and necessary for the parish’s good works to grow. A series of dynamic young clergy have contributed to various aspects of the parish’s growth program, each of whom has gone on to be a Rector or Program Director elsewhere. The Rev. Julie Wakelee-Lynch, appointed in 2005, developed a strong, closely-knit group of Episcopalians at Cal State Long Beach and helped inaugurate Spanish-speaking services. Her successor, the Rev. Anna Olson, built up the latter program on solid ground, built up the Latino community in the church thanks to her fluent Spanish and experience in Latin America. The Rev. Ranjit Mathews—born in the U.S. to a family from southern India—continued that work and participated closely with a campaign to promote low-cost housing in the inner city. In the process the Sunday School was revived, and a youth group was built with the help of several young staff members.

The Rev. Gary Commins

Anna Olson leading the Spanish services, aided by the renowned guitarist, Victor Vento

Creation of Spanish-speaking services and social programs became the most important new parish project under Gary Commins. Originally discussed in the late 1990s, the services began on a monthly basis in 2005, heralded by the dynamic playing of the guitar by Victor Vento. The Hispanic community was originally established at St. Luke’s by its custodians, especially Hektor Rivas, who left Michoacán, Mexico, in 1986, took his position at the church in 1993, and obtained U.S. citizenship in 1998. Seeing the many needs of the church’s buildings, Gary made him as a full-time employee. In 2007 St. Luke’s joined the New Sanctuary Movement by giving an undocumented immigrant, Liliana, and her child Pablito, sanctuary in the church. The Spanish program expanded greatly when in 2013 the Rev. Ricardo Avila [right] was appointed Associate Rector, bringing an administrative career in law and a wonderfully out-going presence as pastor.

The Rev. Ricardo Avila

Ever heard of Taizé? or indeed sung it? It is one of the vital new programs in spirituality which evolved at St. Luke’s in the last ten years. Weeknight services with sung Taizé began in 2004, aided by advice from the Sisters of St. Joseph in the City of Orange and now figure centrally in the life of the church. The Women’s Spirituality Group and the Healing Prayer Ministry has fostered closer spiritual relationships among parishioners. The parish bookstore, begun in 2007, led by Kay Lindahl, offers a wide variety of books to support spiritual formation including volumes on prayer, devotion, and the history of Christianity and the Episcopal Church.

The music program went in a new direction when Johannes Müller-Stosch [right] became choirmaster and organist in 2010. As head of the student orchestra at CSULB, Johannes brought highly skilled singers to the choir and instrumentalists for ensembles in services. Born in Wittenberg, Germany—Luther’s hometown—Johannes worked with Gary to bring in diverse hymns, variously of Hispanic or African American origin, and to perform major classical choral works on Holy days, collaborating with the Associate Organist Gary Toops. The church benefits from having the talented young people among us.

Johannes Müller-Stosch

What about the interior of the church itself? The blessing of the sacrament is now accomplished in a wooden altar at the Crossing, as has been done in many churches nationally, bringing the focal-point of worship closer to the congregation. The Sacrament is also given to members of the congregation at the high altar, a space where consecration is still done on special occasions. A successful capital campaign has provided funds for future articulation of sacramental needs.

Not too many individuals now remain from the 1990s, since when the parish has changed and grown in many ways. The participation of African-Americans begun in the 1950s has continued to grow. Parishioners from the LGBT community have become central to the parish, linking the parish with efforts within the larger Long Beach community. The joining of the Spanish and English services has given a focus to the programmatic diversity Gary and Ricardo have developed among us. Difference ideas in regard to program have been worked out through careful compromise. Gary suggested that process when in a Vestry meeting in 2008 he declared that “some parishioners feel that St. Luke’s is too political, while others feel it is not political enough.”

With the departure of Gary Commins for the Church of the Incarnation in Jersey City in January 2014, the Rev. Ricardo Avila became Interim Rector and went on to become Rector of St. Luke’s Church in Los Gatos, California in the fall of 2017. The year before the Rev. Nancy Frausto began serving here as Associate Rector, arriving with distinguished academic credentials—an MA from the Claremont School of Theology and award of the Thomas Crammer Scholarship for Distinguished Achievement in Liturgical Scholarship. Having officiated at services at St. Mary’s Church and Trinity Church in Los Angeles, Nancy is the Diocese’s first Latina leader to have grown up in a Spanish speaking Episcopal Church who has gone on to pursue ordination.

In December 2017, The Rev. Jane Soyster Gould became Rector of St. Luke’s Church, after having held that title at St. Stephen’s Church in Lynn, Massachusetts since December 2000. A graduate of Stanford University and the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge Mass., Jane brings deep experience working urban, suburban, and campus ministries. Not only did she serve her diocese as head of the North Shore Deanery, she also acted as President of the Lynn Community Health Center Board and worked in diverse faith-based groups.

Our Rector wrote this in the Grunion Gazette upon her arrival:
“Working with the Continuum of Care network in the city, we hope to be part of creating solutions that are both faithful and practical. Systemic challenges — such as treatment of substance abuse disorders and mental illness, and access to affordable housing — must be addressed by advocacy groups and government. And now as always, people need food, shelter, clothing, showers and healthcare; and they need to be treated with respect.”

The Rev. Nancy Frausto

The Rev. Jane Soyster Gould

Particular thanks are due to the following people:
George Bullock, Don Carr, Jill Cassidy, Eunice Collins, Tom Gallagher, Ann Graves, Will Gray, Dick Van Horn, Joan Hutchinson, John Kagy, David and Nancy Koehring, Duane Kuster, Gail Mutke, Mike Newton, Tom Sanford, Doug Stenhouse, Sister Ann Thomas, Amy Valenzua, and Roy Young.