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Bishop William Sheridan, Rev. C. Richard Phelps, and Confirmands, Church of the Good Shepherd, East Chicago, 1980s
12019-07-14T14:18:53-07:00John David Beatty85388be94808daa88b6f1a0c89beb70cd0fac252327161Bishop William Sheridan, Rev. C. Richard Phelps, and Confirmands, Church of the Good Shepherd, East Chicago, 1980splain2019-07-14T14:18:53-07:00John David Beatty85388be94808daa88b6f1a0c89beb70cd0fac252
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1media/Church of the Good Shepherd East Chicago exterior 25 Jan 2015.jpg2019-07-13T12:07:16-07:00Church of the Good Shepherd, East Chicago, Indiana34image_header2020-07-30T17:59:49-07:00 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