The Good News • November 2008

Mission Work in the City

St. John's history of outreach in the city is as almost long as the history of the parish. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as Youngstown was spreading northwards and across the river and the population was growing, St. John's established several mission chapels to reach people who could not conveniently come to church on Wood Street. In addition to St. James in the area known variously as Bottle Hill, Springdale or Smoky Hollow, there were St. Mary's, St. Andrew's and St. Paul's. Some of these were more successful than others. St. John's also assisted St. Augustine's and St. Rocco's Churches in their beginnings.

Our histories give very little information about St. Mary's, which was built in 1887 on lower Mahoning Avenue, on a lot given by Mrs. Mary Howard. The building was purchased from an Episcopal parish in Tiffin, Ohio and moved to Youngstown. The Youngstown City Directory for 1889 lists services there at 7:30 p.m. Sundays, with Sunday School at 3 p.m. , but by 1908, according to the 1934 Church History, there was no Sunday School at St. Mary's. In 1889 one of St. John's curates, Edwin S. Hoffman, lived next door to St. Mary's and was presumably responsible for it in addition to his duties at St. John's.

Early in 1908 a group of St. John's parishioners from the south side asked the rector and vestry to establish a mission in that part of this city. Members of the St. John's branch of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew were very interested in this mission, hence St. Andrew's became its name. According to our 1934 History, it grew rapidly, with a large Sunday school (possibly attracting families from St. Mary's), and before long the Rev. Alfred Izon, one of St. John's curates, was put in charge. With more than $7,000 in pledges and gifts, St. Andrew's was able to purchase land and a rectory on Oak Hill Avenue and to build a church, and in1917 they were officially received as a parish at the Diocesan Convention. Mr. Izon became their first rector, and went on to assist St. Rocco's in their reception into the Episcopal Church in 1918.

Less information is given about St. Paul's, Struthers, which met first in a schoolhouse and then in a building on Bridge Street near the town center. Church School took place in the undercroft and "the interior of the room above it was made into a properly appointed chapel. Here for a number of years this mission was maintained with varying success." (1934 History). Apparently, only a few families attended, and eventually they were advised to join St. John's or St. Andrews's, and the building was sold to another church. The proceeds of this transaction were invested in a lot at the corner of Erie Street and Midlothian Boulevard, but whatever plans there may have been for that property came to nothing.

Many members of St. John's played an active part in establishing these missions and teaching in the Sunday Schools. It's likely that in the poorer parts of Youngstown they met more than spiritual needs. Here's what the Rev. F. B. Avery, an early rector, said about Henry O. Bonnell, a businessman, vestry member and member of the Diocesan Standing Committee, who yet found time for the work at St. James Chapel in Smoky Hollow: "Although we could not persuade him to teach a Sunday School class, he used to assist in any humble way possible, whether it was to wash the hands and faces of little children and then to place them in some class, or to assist in amusing them in his own winsome ways. He was devoted to the Mission of St. James."

— Liz Wrona

More about St. John's history

Correction: Last month I wrote that Rev. Abner L. Frazer died in 1921, shortly after retirement. In fact he died in 1928, in Tryon, NC.