Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana Archives

Holy Family Episcopal Church, Angola

Holy Family in Angola was formed as an unorganized mission in 1951. Bishop Reginald Mallett spent Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday there that year, conferred with many students of Tri-State College as well as townspeople, and held services in the local Methodist Church. About 35 attended the original service and meeting. The ministerial work was placed initially under the care of the Rev. Robert Murphy of Howe. Once the mission was organized formally in 1953, the congregation met in various spaces, including in a fire hall and a student activity building. For a time it also worshiped in a private house, where services were conducted in the living room while the Sunday school met in the kitchen. The pump organ was powered by an Electrolux vacuum cleaner. Later, Tri-State College offered space for worship. The Rev. Leo Maxwell Brown of Coldwater, Michigan, provided early leadership between 1952 and 1957. During the mid-1960s, Holy Family's vicar, George Minnix, served as chaplain to Tri-State College, while Theron Lansford, then a psychology professor, provided early lay leadership for its Canterbury Club. He would later become ordained and serve for many years as its vicar.

Holy Family's present building, its second, was constructed over a three-month span in 1966 and was located at 909 South Darling Street. The project came about after Bishop Klein announced a matching grant if the congregation could raise $4,500. Members compiled a cookbook that helped raise the necessary funds and then poured all of its energies into constructing the building. The grounds feature a memorial garden to parishioner Robert Hanna, and its bell tower is made of steel girders. The bell is dedicated to St. Gabriel. By the 1990s, it had about 50 members, drawing from Michigan and Ohio as well as Indiana.

Clergy:

Leo Maxwell Brown, 1952-1957
Allen Alfred Nield, 1957-1958
Hugh Crichton Edsall, 1961-1963
George Myers Minnix, 1964-1969
Donald Duane Dunn, 1969-1970
Cecil Richard Phelps, 1970-1974
Theron George Lansford, 1974-1980
Leo Maxwell Brown, 1980-1985
Philip Morgan, 1985-1986
Richard Logan Matthews, 1987-1992
Jeffrey Dean Lee, 1992-1994
John Philip Carver, 1994-1998
Samuel Nsengiyumva, 2000-2003
Theron George Lansford, 2005-2006
Michael Thomas Fulk, 2007-2016
Thomas Adamson, 2017-

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