Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana Archives

Rev. Archie Ira Drake

The Rev. Archie I. Drake, whose formal name seems to have been Archie and not Archibald, was born in Buffalo, New York, on 5 July 1898. He was a son of Dr. Archie and Hannah Jane Drake. He attended Seabury Divinity School, graduating in 1924 and becoming a priest in 1925. He began his work at the Church of Our Saviour in Du Bois, Pennsylvania, from 1925 to 1927, and then moved to Milwaukee, serving at first as an assistant at All Saints Cathedral. In 1930, he became its dean and remained there until 1934, when he was called to be dean of St Paul's Pro-Cathedral in Mishawaka, Indiana. That same year he married Elizabeth Bruce Evans in the Little Church around the Corner in New York City. They would later divorce, and he did not remarry. He was considered a "dramatic personage" by the congregation, but his problems with alcohol led to his resignation in 1937. From 1942 to 1943, he was rector of St. Margaret's Church in Margaretville, New York. He eventually entered Holy Cross Monastery, serving as its business manager and co-editing, with Rev. Loren Gavitt, St. Augustine's Prayerbook, an Anglo-Catholic book of devotional worship. He later became the national chaplain of Alcoholics Anonymous. He died in Kingston, New York, on 7 August 1955 and was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo.