Photograph from collection of Los Gatan Scott Rose, treasurer and host of San Jose Postcard Club.

St. Luke's Episcopal Church as it looked in the Los Gatos of the late 19th century.

Best of Picture from the Past

St. Luke's has deep roots in the town of Los Gatos

By John S. Baggerly

Today's photograph shows St. Luke's Episcopal Church as it appeared on the east side of University Avenue near the Carnegie Library, seen partly at right before it was torn down and moved to E. Main Street. It was then that St. Luke's Parish purchased the empty lot and turned it into church parking.

Thanks to a 1995 press release by historian Sarah Millar, there are details of the organization of St. Luke's as a mission on May 21, 1882, by Dr. R.M. Chapman, a retired Episcopal priest, and a group of local citizens.

Considered from its inception as a possible "important missionary center" to the area, the parish helped in the formation of St. John's Mission in Saratoga, which later became St. Andrew's Church. It also started a mission at Patchen in the Santa Cruz mountains--although the visiting priest got poison oak every time he went there.

In organizing St. Luke's, Chapman gathered a group of citizens who included Mrs. John Lyndon (who gave the property) and Mr. and Mrs. F.H. McCullagh. Mrs. McCullagh's mother's parish--also called St. Luke's-- in Germantown, Pa., donated cash, church furniture and service articles.

Other founding fathers were the Place family morticians; B.D. Kennedy, whose wife was Dr. Chapman's daughter; John Cilker, whose orchard land was gifted as the location of Good Samaritan Hospital; A.E. Wilder and N.E. Beckwith, builder of the Beckwith building; and paint contractor Jack Sullivan, who donated the iron "Gladys Gates," now in the church porch, in memory of his granddaughter.

The mission became a parish in 1886, and remained the only Episcopal parish between San Jose and Santa Cruz until the 1950s.

Sidney Hillyard, an Englishman with a wicked sense of humor, sang in St. Luke's choir, and a Rev. Long, a U.S. Navy Episcopal chaplain, substituted for the Rev. David Starr Gillmore in the 1930s. Long, a Floridian, brought his family, including daughter Audrey, to Los Gatos in the 1930s. Audrey acted in Saratoga with the John Breeden Players and in 1940 graduated from Los Gatos High School. She immediately started a film career as leading lady and supporting player. In 1947 she married and returned to Florida.

Hillyard had been studying at Stanford for a high school teaching degree when he met Marjory Robertson, already a member of the LGHS faculty, who opined that he might enjoy seeing this little village.

Hillyard disdained rail transport and walked here from Stanford. At the top of Saratoga Avenue, Hillyard paused to "take in" the hills horseshoeing the little town. Having fallen in love with the village, he and his wife, Grace, became residents of Bella Vista Avenue. He joined the LGHS faculty, and both joined St. Luke's. He also joined the choir in the 1930s, when Gillmore was parish priest.

A woman parishioner said to Hillyard that she could not see him in the choir. He replied, "From where you are sitting, you can't see me unless you can see through the pulpit and Gillmore." Then he added, "Anyone should be able to see through Gillmore."

If this dig reached the priest's ears it is likely he laughed, for he was a man's man and a state-appointed boxing commissioner in charge of prizefighting at Foreman's Arena in San Jose. Gillmore was also an army chaplain at the front during World War I. Millar recalls that when Gillmore brought his regimental band to play at St. Luke's, "the sound in such small quarters almost blew the roof off."

When World War II started, Gillmore became a chaplain again, this time as a lieutenant colonel. Today, the Rev. David Breuer is in his fourth year as pastor of St. Luke's.

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John Baggerly is now semi-retired. This column is from the Los Gatos Weekly- Times archives.

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