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• 1 media/Church of the Good Shepherd East Chicago exterior 25 Jan 2015.jpg 2019-07-13T12:07:16-07:00 Church of the Good Shepherd, East Chicago, Indiana 34 image_header 2020-07-30T17:59:49-07:00
  The first Episcopal services in East Chicago were held on 18 November 1888 by the Rev. Robert C. Wall, who preached and opened a Sunday school. The mission of Good Shepherd was formed in 1892 out of that congregation which had been St. Mary's, New Carlisle. East Chicago was then a tangle of competing and divergent ethnic groups, including Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, Poles, Canadians, Welsh, African Americans, and Hispanics. The former St. Mary's edifice, a small frame structure, was moved to East Chicago by barge, together with suitcases full of Books of Common Prayer. Bishop White noted in his annual address of 1903 that he had placed the Rev. V. C. Lacey at Indiana Harbor, and through his efforts, "a number of devout church families were found at East Chicago, lying between Indiana Harbor and Hammond, and a most interesting work begun there." In 1907, the bishop formally organized Good Shepherd as a diocesan mission after receiving a petition from a number of residents.
  
  The congregation was initially comprised mostly of Welsh and Canadians who had arrived in East Chicago to work in the steel mills. A more suitable church edifice was built at 4525 Baring Avenue in 1911 for $3,600. After World War II in 1945, Bishop Mallett attempted to persuade the congregations of Good Shepherd and St. Alban the Martyr, Indiana Harbor, to merge. One suggestion was that the Indiana Harbor building be retained and shared with East Chicago, while another was to sell both churches and built a new one at a different site. Dom Leo Patterson, a Benedictine monk based in Valparaiso, was asked to take charge of St. Alban's, but in spite of his leadership, it did not survive after World War II. St. Luke's Whiting, another area church that never had its own building, folded into Good Shepherd
  
  After many years as a diocesan mission, Good Shepherd was admitted as a parish under Bishop Mallett in 1956, the first new parish added since 1908. A 1958 article described the parish's industrial location with its ever-present soot and smoke. Nine railroads carried off steel to other parts of the country, and one out of four people were foreign-born. Membership in the church at that time was 233.
  
  For many years Good Shepherd was served by the Rev. Canon C. Richard Phelps, who labored to reach out to the poor of the surrounding community. He celebrated daily Mass, which became the "backbone" of the parish, as well as the full rite of Holy Week. Seven stained glass windows gave witness to the seven sacraments.
  
  In the 1980s East Chicago had the highest population density of any town in the state. Life was regulated by shifts in the steel mills. However, by the 1990s, Good Shepherd was located in the most economically-challenged part of the diocese, where it remained a beacon. When Father Phelps retired, and after years of declining membership, the parish closed its doors in 2018. The records, as well as those of St. Luke's Whiting, are now in the diocesan archives and have been digitized.
  
  Clergy:
  
  Robert C. Wall, 1888
  Henry B. Collin, 1892
  George Moore, 1896-1897
  Vincent C. Lacey, 1903
  Charles Albert Smith, 1901-1909
  Thomas Hines, 1914-1925
  Frederick Murray Clayton, 1925-1927
  William Edward Hoppenbacker, 1927
  Alexander E. Pflaum, 1929-1930
  William Edward Hoppenbacker, 1936-1945
  Gail Colyer Brittain, 1945-1952
  Horace L. Varian, 1952-1954
  Jay Handsbury, 1954-1960
  Charles Sutton, 1960-1961
  William E. Smith, 1961-1962
  Donald L. Bell, 1963-1967
  Michael Grant, 1967-1975
  Cecil Richard Phelps, 1980-2017
  
  Parish Register, 1892-1940
  
  Parish Register, 1941-1971