A History of St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church
Blanco, Texas
1953-2024
By
Henrietta Smith and Mike Patterson
April 20, 2024
Beginnings
St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church began as an idea in 1953 when Col. and Mrs. Dwight Horton, Mr. and Mrs. Allen Pearson, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Nelson and Mrs. Mae Lear met at the Horton’s home and discussed planting an Episcopal mission in Blanco, Texas. After several meetings, they submitted a petition to start the mission to the Rt. Rev. Everett H Jones, then bishop of the Diocese of West Texas, who quickly accepted their request and assigned the Rev. Wilson D. Rowland as priest-in-charge.
An interim Bishop’s Committee met Oct.18, 1953 at the Nelson’s ranch. Father Rowland explained the charge of the Bishop’s Committee and other business, which included deciding on a name, purchase of land and location of the new church, and construction and cost of building. Plans were also made for an every member canvas to raise operating funds. The first budget approved for the year 1954 was $200.00.
That fall, the membership voted on a name for their new church. St. Michael and All Angels won with 12 votes, St. Francis was second with 5 votes and St. Mary’s received 3 votes. Bishop Jones granted their request on Nov. 20, 1953, stating, “It’s a splendid name.”
He also appointed the first official Bishop’s Committee, consisting of Nelson, Horton, Lear, H.K. Brill and M.C. Bierman. Nelson was named St. Michael’s first bishop’s warden.
At its beginning, services were held at 3 p.m. Sunday, or at the convenience of the priest, in the Blanco Public Library, then a Quonset hut behind today’s City Hall. Mary Forsythe, a member of the new mission, also happened to be chairwoman of the library board and was instrumental in enabling the fledgling mission to hold its services there. The church paid the library board $100 per year and half the fuel cost as a contribution for its use.
During those early services at the library, red velvet drapes covered bookcases and a table covered with a white linen tablecloth served as an altar. A wooden cross and candlesticks were donated by another church and later passed to another mission. Mr. and Mrs. Sauls made blue kneelers and the hymnal board that hung in the library and is still used today. Those original blue kneelers are under the front pews today.
A committee was appointed to investigate possibilities for a building site, despite opposition in the community. A local bank director told a parishioner that “There is no room for another church in Blanco.”
St. Michael’s was not deterred. As there was no land available near the other churches, the committee looked at the gentle hillside on the south side of the Blanco River, spotted the beautiful oak trees and found vacate property for sale in the old Pittsburg town site which was once the location of a CCC camp for workers constructing Blanco State Park. The Pittsburg town site had been incorporated into the city limits of Blanco in 1948.
The property, consisting of approximately .85 acres with 300 feet frontage and a depth of 140 feet, was purchased in early in 1954 for $1,250. Although today, St. Michael’s sits back from U.S. 281, when it was acquired, the main highway through town was Chandler Street. In other words, the existing churches in Blanco were blocks from the main highway and St. Michael’s was a block east of the highway; today those positions are reversed.
In October 1955, Vernon Helmke, a 25-year-old recent graduate of the University of Texas School of Architecture, drafted initial architectural plans for the new church -- his first significant project. Bids brought the estimated cost at $20,000. Since they were higher than expected, it was decided to hold off till the following year when there would be a possibility of grants from the diocese.
By 1956, the fledgling church had 20 communicants and a meager annual budget of $574.
In February 1956, another architectural plan was presented to the church. A $7,000 gift was approved by the Board of Trustees of the Diocese, and Horton arranged for a loan of $5,000. A construction bid of $18,250 was submitted by Marcus Burg of the Burg Lumber Co. in Johnson City. Construction was scheduled to begin on April 15 and be completed in 120 days. Since the church was a mission, the title was to be held by the Trustees of the Diocese of West Texas.
On Sunday, April 29, 1956, at 4:30 pm, the congregation held a ground breaking ceremony and the church was completed on the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, Sept. 29, 1956.
Big problems, however. Initially funding only allowed the church to extend from the west door to the area of today’s altar rail. The church women would not stand for that. They wanted an actual nave. They raised an extra $2,000 to extend the church eastward to its current size by raising funds through silver teas, rummage sales, bazars, and luncheons. Local legends say that many women brought gathered limestone rocks on their ranches and donated them to the construction efforts to save money.
The mortgage and construction costs were paid off in six years.
St. Boniface in Comfort, which was obtaining a new organ, donated its old pump organ. The pews were donated by St. Marks in San Antonio as it was purchasing new pews for itself. The two bishop and priest chairs were given by Mrs. Jones, the bishop’s wife. The altar was given by Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Brooks.
In April 1957, Rev. Rowland announced that he could no longer serve St. Michael and three other churches. A priest was sent from San Antonio once a month for Holy Communion and lay readers held evening prayer on other Sundays.
1950s – 1980s
In November 1957, the bishop agreed to send Douglas Mould, a senior seminarian from Austin, to Blanco each Saturday to do calling and hold a service on Sunday afternoon. He was paid $20 a month. A priest was paid $10 one Sunday a month for Communion service.
In June 1958, Rev. Marvin Bond was appointed to serve St. Michael and the Episcopal churches in Llano and Cypress Mill. In 1961, the Rev. Joseph Sheldon was appointed to serve Blanco’s mission and in Boerne. He served St. Michael until 1962, when in May 1963, Eddie Thayer was approved as vicar in charge, though he was not ordained. The Rev. James C. “Jake” Billingsley, serving St. Luke’s in Cypress Mills, provided communion for Blanco on the third Sunday.
Children’s Sunday School began in 1963 with Henrietta Bourland (now Henrietta Smith) as teacher. The children left the church after the processional hymn, met at the back of the parish hall and returned to church after the sermon.
In July 1965, the Bishop’s Committee carpeted the chancel and kneeling rail at a cost of $497. By November 1964, the annual budget had increased to $2,720. And the committee voted to carpet the remaining church floor.
In October 1965, Woerner Maenius of Johnson City painted the exterior of the church at a cost $165.51. In February 1966, the committee decided to set aside $580 as a start on the building fund.
In October, Thayer announced that in the following year one woman would be elected to the Bishop’s Committee and a new secretary would be selected among the members. This first woman was Susie Murphy.
In February 1968, Allan Richards, a member, was licensed as a lay reader and served the mission faithfully. Thayer was ordained and was assigned to Grace Episcopal Church in Llano. Rev. Billingsley began serving St. Michael’s after his service at Cypress Mills. Service was set at 10:30 a.m. In 1987, the service was moved to 11 a.m.
During his term of office, President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had his ranch outside of Johnson City, made three visits to St. Michael’s – Easter Sunday, April 18, 1965, Feb. 25, 1968 and June 1, 1969.
Around the early 1970s, Henrietta Smith’s mother, Jessie Bourland, planted a palm on the south side of the church. The fronds from this plant were used to decorate the altar on Palm Sunday until it was removed in 2021 and replaced with a columbarium. Prior to her planting this, Henrietta and her mother drove to the San Antonio airport area with a pickup truck and ladder to gather a few palm fronds. The airport eventually closed that road and fenced it off.
During this period, the Bishop’s Committee also engaged Twosy Hathaway to make cushions for the pews for $1,020. They also paid $50 for a drawing of the front of the church by Jack Kent to be used on brochures and stationary.
Rev. Billingsley served to 1973, Rev. Rowland returned for a year, and then in 1975, the Rev. Loy David England was assigned as vicar at St. Michael. He served until June 1988, when he announced that he had accepted a position at Texas A&M University and would be resigning. The Rev. David Erskine then served as priest-in-charge from 1989-1990.
St. Michael’s began 1989 with 41 members and 36 communicants. Irene Richards, who had been the only organist, resigned April 1988. In 1989, Kathi Jones was hired to play three services a month. She served many years until her husband passed away and she relocated to Alaska. She has since returned to Texas and plays an organ in Stonewall.
In July 1989, parishioners Peggy Welch and her husband Dick saw an ad in the local newspaper for a house that the National Park Service wanted to sell in the Lyndon Johnson National Historic Park. They thought having such a house would be a way to give St. Michael additional space for a nursery and Sunday school. At the time, there was limited room for either of these. The parish hall was half its current length and there was no Sunday House.
The minimum bid was $50. Peggy and Dick bid $51 and got the house. They donated it to St. Michael, which paid $2,500 to move it to the church grounds.
Volunteers cleaned and painted the interior. The church hired a contractor for $4,500 to renovate the exterior and a mason for $10 an hour to install rock around the foundation. Peggy and her husband stapled batts of insulation beneath the flooring, then tacked on a covering of chicken wire to prevent animals from pulling the insulation down.
The building was named the Sunday House by a unanimous vote of the Bishop’s Committee on Nov. 12, 1989.
1990s
In July 1990, the Rev. Brice Cox was hired to serve St. Michael’s two Sundays a month and one day doing pastoral care, from July through December. He was replaced by the Rev. John B. Austin, who served 1992-1994.
1992 saw the introduction of the Godly Play curriculum, which continues to this day.
When St. Michael and All Angels was built in 1956, the massive stone altar was originally installed against the east wall, directly under the large stained glass window.
As the Episcopal Church updated the Book of Common Prayer and instituted other changes in the service starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s, churches began shifting celebrants from standing in front of altars with their backs to the congregation to the opposite side where they faced the congregation.
Father Austin wanted the altar moved from the wall. But until that job could be accomplished, he decided to have a temporary wooden table built, placed just behind the communion rail. The make-shift table served as the altar and enabled him to stand behind it to face the congregation. “We had two altars,” one church member said. “The big one and that one in the front. It was dreadful.”
There was one advantage to the set-up. The congregation got used to having the altar away from the wall. They finally got tired of seeing two altars and decided in the late 1990s that it was time to remove the table and move the big altar from the wall.
But finding a way to relocate the massively heavy altar was a problem in itself. The late Peggy Welch, who was serving as the bishop’s warden at the time, called around until she reached Sweeney Marble Company in Stonewall, which recommended a crew who could do the job.
“Five men came,” Peggy recalled. “They put plastic between the nave and the sacristy. They chiseled the mortar out around the stone and ground the old mortar off.”
But where to move the altar was cause for further discussion. One church member wanted it placed farther out from the wall while another didn’t think it should come out too far.
The farther out voice won out. The men picked the altar up, took a few steps forward and placed it on the floor. And this is where it stands today.
One other addition was made to the area: In 1999, a wooden ledge was installed beneath the stained glass window to allow the placement of altar and floral arrangements.
In the early 1990s, Winifred Ready, who served many years as treasurer, donated the wood that was made into the cross that hangs above the altar. The cross is a unique feature that is rich with history and a symbol of how Christ overcame the wages of great sin. The wood came from a slave cabin that had been on her father’s plantation in Louisiana. Betsy Dudley, an artist who was a member of the congregation at the time, designed and made the cross. She donated her services and actually hung the cross. It’s unclear where the idea originated of hanging the cross above the altar but at the time several women from the congregation were involved in efforts to enhance the altar, including altar coverings, stole, chasuble, etc. The cross was part of this larger endeavor.
In 1994, the Rev. Dr. Royce Calhoun was named vicar. Initially, he served St. Luke’s in Cypress Mills at the 9 a.m. service, drove to Blanco and conducted an 11 a.m. Communion service. When St. Luke’s obtained its own priest, the Bishop’s Committee agreed to move service times back one hour to 10 a.m. to accommodate Calhoun’s schedule.
2000s
This era kicked off with the construction of a labyrinth in 2002 and the expansion of the Parish Hall in 2004 in order to accommodate a growing congregation and more needs.
In 2005-06, a committee of Bishop’s Committee members and parishioners met to write a mission statement for St. Michael’s. After several meetings and discussions, it was agreed on:
St. Michael’s is a spiritual sanctuary and caring community with traditional Anglican roots and a vision for the future dedicated to seek and serve Christ in all persons.
By now the Sunday House had deteriorated to the extent that it was closed in 2008. The carpet was worn, the kitchen and bathroom were eyesores, there was no air conditioning and a sickening odor from years of natural gas heating permeated the inside.
Acknowledging the need of a suitable space for Sunday school and a nursery, in early 2009 the Bishop’s Committee voted to renovate the Sunday House. Parishioners and contractors Paul Sumrall and Michael Orsak proposed to renovate the building, including installing a new roof and central heat and air conditioning, for $40,000.
While planning for the renovation of the Sunday House was under way, the occupant of a white, wood frame house adjacent to St. Michael’s passed away. The heirs approached the congregation about possibly purchasing the property. An appraisal and environmental impact report were completed and a price negotiated for $60,000 for the house and vacant land. The appeal of the property was that it would enable St. Michael’s to control all the property south of the building and hold it for future use. Ideas included renovating the white house as office space, using the property for eventual expansion or having land for an expanded parking lot, if ever needed.
If the church wanted to purchase the property, the expected cost to both renovate and buy the white house ballooned virtually overnight from $40,000 to $100,000. The Bishop’s Committee decided to use $20,000 from its building fund and ask the diocese for a loan of $80,000 to both renovate the Sunday House and purchase the white house and surrounding lot.
The church conducted a capital campaign among its members and raised more than $120,000 in five-year pledges for the project. With this in hand, the church applied to the diocese for a loan of $80,000. The loan was approved and paid off in five years.
The first step in the renovation happened on a Saturday when the congregation turned out to gut the Sunday House to the studs. Those that couldn’t do the manual work, cheered others on or brought food and refreshments.
During its years of service, the white house served as extra storage and a site for a twice-annual rummage sale to benefit the church and a source of donations to community organizations.
St. Michael’s also acquired a new organ, paid for by private donations and dedicated in memory of Jim Jones and Bill Nabers. A notable feature of the organ is that it can be operated by trained volunteers to play pre-recorded hymns when an organist is absent. During this period, a tabernacle and sanctuary lamp was donated by Carl and Carla Chandler and installed behind the altar to hold consecrated sacraments.
In 2011, Rev. Calhoun retired from St. Michael’s. The Rt. Rev. Gary Lillibridge, then bishop of the Diocese of West Texas, assigned the Rev. Fred Brown to serve as vicar. During his tenure, the roof on the sanctuary was replaced. Eddy and Pat Rogers also donated a new stained glass window in memory of their daughter-in-law, Malaya Paz Forman Rogers, behind the altar. Two stained glass windows with a wildflower motif were installed on either side of the front door in memory of the late Peggy Welch. Her family paid for one window and the church the other.
Rogers served as bishop’s warden and appointed a site plan committee to recommend long-range land use for the church campus. Among the proposals under consideration was a memorial garden and columbarium. This was being discussed at the end of 2020 as well as plans to raise funds for construction and landscaping.
Two organists followed Kathi Jones. First, Elizabeth Hodges served in this capacity. Trained as a pianist, a piano donated by Sumrall and Orsak was moved into the sanctuary to enable her to provide a variety of musical performances. When Hodges and her husband relocated to South Texas, Tal Tanwen was hired in 2017 as the new organist and served until 2023.
In 2019, the white house, which had served as the commander’s quarters during the CCCs days, was removed to clear the space for a possible parking lot and other uses. The white house was moved about one mile away to Democrat Street and renovated, with plans to use as a bed and breakfast.
St. Michael’s Today
March 2020 saw the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Upon the direction of the bishop, St. Michael’s and all Episcopal churches in the diocese closed. This entailed St. Michael’s reverting to remote Zoom services. In June, the church reopened, but followed strict requirements issued by the diocese.
Rev. Brown retired in June 2020. In July 2020, the Rt. Rev. David Reed, bishop of the Diocese of West Texas, appointed the Rev. Bryn Caddell to serve as vicar at St. Michael’s three days a week. Previously a high school teacher, she had recently graduated with a MDiv degree from the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin and was considered initially as a transitional deacon. In December 2020, she was ordained to the priesthood and continued to serve at St. Michael’s.
In November 2021, the Diocese of West Texas approved funding to enable the diocese to partner with St. Michael’s in moving Mtr. Caddell to a full-time position starting in July 2022.
November 2021 saw another milestone at St. Michael’s – the completion of a columbarium and prayer garden on the south side of the sanctuary. In 2022, the area previously occupied by the white house on the south side of the church, was graveled and converted to a parking lot to accommodate ever growingr attendance.
Along with the prayer garden, columbarium and parking lot, the church invested in landscaping the church grounds. This has resulted in giving the church “curb appeal” and remarks from visitors who say that if the St. Michael’s is so nice, cared for, and loved on the outside, it must be even better inside.
From its initial Zoom broadcasts during Covid, St. Michael’s audio-visual capability has expanded to state-of-the-art cameras and microphones to enable remote services to be presented on YouTube for those unable to attend in person and on a wide-screen television mounted in the Parish Hall to accommodate overflow attendance.
All the goings-on at St. Michael’s today are too numerous to count but suffice to say, things are very busy.
Following the demise of the Covid pandemic and re-opening of the church, St. Michael’s enjoyed strong growth. In 2023 alone, it added 22 new members, bringing the total membership as of Jan. 1, 2024 to 113. Due to the higher attendance, St. Michael’s decided to hold two services instead of one on Sunday. The traditional 10 a.m. service was moved to 10:30 a.m. and an 8:30 a.m. service was added. The traditional later service continued to draw an average of 50 each Sunday, with the earlier service drawing about 25. However, without the two services, the sanctuary would have been unable to handle the attendance on many Sundays.
More than 72 members play active roles in various ministries at the church.
Today, it’s not unusual for St. Michael’s to enjoy a few baptisms a year, a marriage or two and several new confirmands.
Members remain in touch with each other at St. Michael’s traditional potluck luncheons continue to follow the 10:30 a.m. service on the first Sunday of each month. In addition, once each month, a breakfast is held between the services to encourage church members to remain in touch with each other.
Sunday school for young people and adult fellowship and Bible studies are conducted throughout the year.
A St. Michael’s Day celebration was launched in 2021 to salute to first responders and military veterans and to mark the anniversary of St. Michael’s dedication. Church members also volunteer for various mission and community outreach activities throughout the year.
The church also hired Jey Ping as organist twice monthly, with his mother, Menger Ping, filling in many other Sundays to provide joyful and spirit-filled music.
Visitors are especially made to feel welcome with handshakes and “hellos” from parishioners and the handing out of visitor bags to officially welcome them. Annual new members’ dinners are also held to allow those new to St. Michael’s to make new friends and meet members of the Bishop’s Committee.
Youth programs also increased, with a team of young adults from St. Michael’s going on a mission trip in 2023 to the Cheyenne River Reservation.
Financial donations to community and other organizations jumped to a total of $11,585 from operating income and special contributions.
With the increase in members comes an increased need in communications. Mtr. Caddell distributes a weekly emailed update and a monthly emailed newsletter that focuses on upcoming events, news and stories about members.
Pledges and revenues have also increased dramatically from $59,104 in 2020 when Mtr. Caddell arrived to $156,190 in pledges for 2024 and investment assets of $146,697. With plate and other offerings, the 2024 revenue projection was $208,053 – definitely light years away from church’s first budget of $200.
As some churches face a declining membership, St. Michael’s is fortunate to have seen steady growth over the last decade as the area enjoys more retirees moving to the area. The 8:30 and 10:30 Easter services in 2024 saw the largest total attendance – more than 160 – in St. Michael’s history.
The future continues to be bright for St. Michael’s, with initial discussions to expand the Parish Hall AGAIN to accommodate more members, an ever increasing number of new members and financial contributions that enable St. Michael’s to remain a vibrant parish community and in the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas.
Information for this history is based on Bishop’s Committee minutes, archives, oral histories and personal recollections.