On April 3, 1918 a deed was recorded in purchase of lots five, four and the east half of lot three of Block 1 in University Additions, the corner of University Ave and Brooks Street in Madison. Three houses were on the 182 by 160-foot parcel and it sold for $46,000. (Footnote: Portage, Wisconsin Daily Register, 18 May, 1920, page 3 – article about the Rev. Dawson leaving Portage for the chaplaincy of the St. Francis’ Society. Not confirmed by deeds or purchase agreements, but given that Dawson was likely largely responsible for engineering the purchase it is likely accurate. )   (Footnote: WSJ 10 March 1922, page 11. Col 4. - A lengthy description of the property in a petition of the University Commission of the Church in Wisconsin to the Mayor, etc., of Madison. Maybe the best description of the houses, etc. on the lots mentions that one of the houses has been occupied by Cleveland and an altar installed on the second floor. https://www.newspapers.com/image/401352660/ ) It would be another ten years before a chapel and center for Episcopal Church students on the campus of the University of Wisconsin would be realized on that land. Reflecting on the purchase, Bishop Webb wrote in the February, 1919 Church Times that “A large lot on University avenue came unexpectedly on the market. It is an ideal lot.” (Footnote: “Church Work at the University of Wisconsin”, The Church Times, February, 1919, page 470. (The Church Times was the “Official Organ of the Diocese of Milwaukee” published from 1890 to 1958. Most issues from 1897 to 1926 are in the public domain and accessible at HathiTrust.org: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005947607
HathiTrust also has the 1947 History of the Diocese by Harold Ezra Wagner online in full view (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005947915) which also has some pages on St. Francis House. Hereafter “CT”. )

The History

But that was not the beginning. In May of 1915, the Rev. Morton C. Stone accepted a call to be rector at St. Andrew’s on Regent Street and serve as chaplain to students at the University. To that end he established rooms with a chapel and office in the triangular building, the Eleanor Apartments, on the corner of West Gilman, Francis, and University Ave. (Footnote: CT, September, 1916, page one and following. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89064896616?urlappend=%3Bseq=573 )

Chapel at 458 W. Gilman - Corner of University, Gilman and Francis Street - in The Eleanor Apartments.

In the spring of 1916 he resigned his rectorship at St. Andrew’s to devote his time fully to the chaplaincy. In May of that year an important and exciting meeting led by Mr. William Dawson, a former Methodist minister, Rev. Stone, and Bishop Webb of the Diocese, among others, took place at which the “University Commission of the Church in Wisconsin” was formed to raise money to purchase land and build a permanent chapel. (Footnote: CT, June 1916. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89064896616?urlappend=%3Bseq=521 ) World War I took its toll, the chapel was closed in 1918 and Rev. Stone moved on to Racine to do educational work. (Footnote: CT, June 1918, page 347. The bishop wrote, “I am very sorry to have to close the chapel at the present time, but it seems wisest to so on account of war conditions.” ) The “St. Francis’ Society”, as it was called, was not dead however, as Bishop Webb reported in the February, 1919 Church Times meeting with a number of students at Grace Church.

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Original Floor Plans courtesy of
Wisconsin Architectural Archive / Milwaukee Public Library

When it happened is unknown, but by at least 1960 the "Storage" spaces in the basement and the third floor had been converted to rooms which housed six "houseboys" upstairs and six downstairs.

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Whether installed for the opening or within the year, an organ by the prolific organ building company of M.P. Möller of Hagerstown, Maryland was installed in a loft on the second floor off the hallway to the apartment. (See the second-floor plan above.) Bill Mueller, the organist from 1963 until 1985, described the organ which accompanied services for over 30 years:

“Its stop list was reflective of the tonal design of the early 20th century. That design was characterized by pipes voiced on the mellow and warm side. There was very little upper work to give brilliance to the overall sound. It essentially contained 9 ranks of pipes which were installed in the ceiling of the chapel to the upper left of the altar. The console and choir were in a recessed area on the second floor just under the pipe chamber.” (Footnote: Bill Mueller, email 8/29/2021. The organ, with some errors in detail, is listed in the Organ Historical Society’s organ database: https://pipeorgandatabase.org/organ/32143 )
     The organ was revised and rebuilt with the 1964 addition and lost in the 2012 move. There are pictures of the organ and description of revisions in the second part of this history.

Work proceeded quickly through the winter, the House was dedicated and opened on February 22, 1930. Activity at the House was intense in the following years. With the Rev. Kimball’s tragic death a year after the House dedication the interim chaplains were replaced shortly by the Rev. Alden Kelley in June of 1931 who served for the next eight years. Announcements of tea-dances, guest speakers and other activities at the House fill the newspapers. In 1932 the “St. Francis Playmakers” participated in a church drama tournament, losing unfortunately to the players from the First Congregational church.

When the Rev. Kelley left in 1939, he was replaced by a man who after three years would leave for Puerto Rico to become, in 1943, the bishop co-adjutor there, the Rev. Charles Boynton. These war years were disruptive and while ministering to the student population was filled at times by interim and visiting pastors, the Rev. Gordon Gillett took the reigns for two years in 1942, leaving in 1944 to be replaced for just about 8 months by the Rev. Daniel Corrigan. A certain amount of stability to the chaplaincy returned with the appointment of the Rev. Carroll Simcox in March of 1945. He stayed until March of 1949. Much more stability reigned once Father Gerald White took over in November of 1949. Mrs. Yvonne Otto, the widow of a former rector of the parish in Oshkosh who died in 1946, moved into the apartment on the second floor to become housemother and hostess in March of 1951, retiring at the end of the 1964-65 academic year. (Footnote: Mrs. Otto's appointment: Neenah, Wisconsin News-Record, March 20, 1951, page 3. “A letter was received from St. Francis house, Madison, telling of the appointment of Mrs. William Otto, wife of a former rector of the Episcopal church, Oshkosh, had been name dean (sic) of St. Francis house.” ) Click for Mrs. Otto's Find-a-Grave memorial.

The combination of Fr. White and Mrs. Otto in 1950s and into the 60s saw a rather tranquil “English” flavor to the St. Francis House community. Regular services, cost dinners on Tuesdays and Thursdays, confirmation classes, evensong daily at 5 p.m., and afternoon tea at 4 p.m. instituted by Fr. White were the hallmarks of life at the House. (Footnote: WSJ, Service listings, 14 Jan 1950, page 8. ) As were annual fund-raising bridge-teas involving women of the Episcopal parishes of Madison.

Change was in the wind with the coming of the 1960s. In October of 1961 the Diocese authorized a $600,000 development fund that earmarked $150,000 for the construction of a new chapel attached to the existing House. (Footnote: "Student Center of Episcopalians Plans New Chapel," WSJ, 7 April 1962, page 24. https://www.newspapers.com/image/401197143/ )

Fr. White retired effective June 30, 1964 and contracts were let for the new addition at the same time. Fr. Abel was appointed the new chaplain, the announcement coming on the same page of the Wisconsin State Journal as the sketch of the new chapel. (Footnote: 1) Fr. White’s retirement: WSJ, 13 June 1964, page 8; 2) Contracts let: WSJ, 2 July 1964, page 8. ) Construction of the new chapel, which featured not only a dramatic mosaic illustrating the Seraphic Cross of St. Francis made in Germany, but classrooms below, proceeded quickly; the first service was held in the new chapel on December 5th, albeit without the pews, the mosaic, or the organ. (Footnote: WSJ, 5 December, 1964, page 4. The article features a picture of Fr. Abel standing in the chapel with the mosaic wall behind him and mentions that the design was by the firm of William Horne and Associates of Madison. The mosaic was installed the next year as its shipment from Germany was held up by a dock strike. )

The Chaplains

The Rev. Morton Charnley Stone (1886-1973);
Chaplain 1915-1918

Born in La Grange, Illinois the son of his namesake, rector of the Episcopal church there. By age 14 the family had moved to Taunton, Massachusetts. Educated at Yale and the General Theological Seminary he served briefly as curate at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York City. At age 29, in 1915, he accepted the call to St. Andrew’s in Madison and year later resigned to become full time chaplain to the University students as well as to get married to Miss Gwynneth Burn in New York with whom he had two children. Moving on in 1918 to Chicago, then Champaign, Illinois and then to Westchester County in New York, he died in there 1973, his wife the following year. I’ve not been able to find an obituary which might give more details of his life.

The Rev. Daniel Corrigan (1900-1994);
Chaplain 1944

Perhaps one of the shortest chaplaincies in the war years was that of the Rev. Daniel Corrigan. At age 44 he replaced Rev. Gillett in the spring of 1944 and left in December to become rector of Grace and St. Peter’s in Baltimore. His life and career were perhaps among the most controversial of all of the St. Francis House chaplains. While his biography in the Episcopal Dictionary of the Church is quite complete, it does not point out, as does his obituary in the New York Times, that he demonstrated against the war in Vietnam, marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Washington and sat with him when he delivered his “I have a dream” speech in 1963.

Fr. Corrigan’s biography as in the Episcopal Church’s online dictionary of the Church: (Oct. 25, 1900-Sept. 21, 1994): One of three bishops who first ordained women. He was born in Rochester, Minnesota, and received his B.D. from Nashotah House in 1925. He was ordained deacon on June 1, 1924, and priest on May 21, 1925. He was rector of St. John the Baptist Church, Portage, Wisconsin, 1925-1931; Zion Church, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, 1931-1944; Grace and St. Peter's Church, Baltimore; and St. Paul's Church, St. Paul, Minnesota. He was consecrated Suffragan Bishop of Colorado on May 1, 1958. He resigned on June 1, 1960, to become director of the Home Department of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, where he served until 1968. In 1969-1970 he was acting dean of Bexley Hall. Corrigan was one of three bishops who ordained eleven women to the priesthood on July 29, 1974, two years before General Convention voted to ordain women to the priesthood. He was known as an advocate for peace and human rights. He demonstrated against the Vietnam War and participated in AIDS ministry in Los Angeles. He died in Santa Barbara, California.

He returned to Madison in 1979 to preach at St. Francis House on its 50th anniversary. Married in 1926 to Elizabeth Waters, he was survived by four sons, 18 grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.

The Rev. Carroll E. Simcox (1912-2002);
Chaplain 1945-1949

Fr. Carroll Eugene Simcox was thirty-three when he accepted the call to St. Francis House in March of 1945 to become chaplain. He came from a three-year chaplaincy at the University of Illinois. Born in Lisbon, North Dakota in 1912, He had married Georgiana née Mantor in Minnesota in December of 1939. With him to Madison in August came his wife “Jessie,” a five-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter. He was educated at the University of North Dakota, Oberlin (B.D. 1936), Seabury-Western seminary, and had been working on a Ph.D. in classics at Illinois. Prior to his years at Illinois, he had served parishes in Appleton and Owatonna, both in Minnesota.

Leaving Madison in 1949, the paper says he was to take up a post at Canterbury college in Danville, an ill-fated college at that time, but rather he served Zion Episcopal church in Manchester, Vermont from 1950-1955, then assistant at St. Thomas in New York City for two years, followed by five years at St. Mary’s in Tampa, Florida, which he left to become editor of The Living Church in Milwaukee. The Episcopal Church saw major changes during the years he was editor, and he did not like them. He renounced his ministry in the Episcopal Church in 1980 writing that The position to which I have unhappily come is that I can no longer worship joyfully and serve whole-heartedly in this Church as it has become liturgically, doctrinally, and morally. I cannot believe that it is the duty, or even the right, of a Christian to remain in a church body about which, if he is honest, he must say what I have just said."

A fervent traditionalist, he continued to preach and took up an Anglican Catholic Church, St. Barnabas, in Atlanta and held the post of archdeacon of the Anglican Diocese of Eastern United States.

Always a prolific writer his Worldcat Identities lists 44 works in 108 publications. It began early with letters that appear in the Minneapolis papers arguing back and forth in the letter columns when he was a pastor in Appleton, Minnesota. Fr. Simcox sucumbed in 2002 to Parkinson's discease in St. Petersbury, Florida, survived by his two children. He is buried with his wife "Jessie" who died three years earlier.

The Rev. Gerald White (1900-1969);
Chaplain 1949-1964

Forty-nine-year-old Fr. White served as acting chaplain after Simcox left in March of 1949 and was named permanent chaplain in November of that year. A native of Newfoundland, when he was 18, in 1918, his father became the Anglican Bishop of Newfoundland. He was the middle child of the Rt. Rev William Charles White and his wife Frederica and had sisters Dorothy and Elizabeth.

On a path to follow in his father's footsteps he attended Kings College in Nova Scotia, went to Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship in 1922 and was ordained in 1927. Following three years as a pastor in Manchester, England, he went to Racine, Wisconsin to become the chaplain of the Racine Military academy, St. Luke's hospital and the Taylor orphanage in Racine. In 1934 he became the headmaster of King's-Edgehill School in Windsor, Nova Scotia. His father, the bishop, died in 1943 and Gerald became the canon residentiary the Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador that year. In 1948 he returned to Wisconsin where he became chaplain the following year after he married in Madison Miss Adalin Brown, who died in 1950. He retired in June of 1964 and died five years later at his home in Madison.

About me

For four academic years between 1963 and 1967 I lived on the top floor of St. Francis House. My brother, Jim, was there for three years before me. We were “houseboys.” Those were turbulent times. In 1967 the one-way bus lane was put down University Ave and the SDS held a rally in front of the House to protest government – whether it was in Madison or Washington. It was only the beginning. After 2 ½ years doing graduate work and beginning my draft requirement work at Goodwill, Fr. Lloyd invited me to work as a program director at SFH, a post I gladly accepted to complete my CO work.

We attended the Special Convention of the Church in South Bend in 1969 and the Houston Convention the next year. During the campus riots of May, 1970 following the invasion of Cambodia, SFH was one of two “safe houses” on campus – the WSJ reported that about 20 students at the House were treated for tear gas effects. I just remember the lounge full of kids escaping to safety. With SFH fellow, the late Charley Taylor, we operated a draft counselling office in the basement, no doubt monitored by the FBI, as were our anti-war activities at the conventions. Following my CO work, I worked for a time as a grants officer for the Church visiting anti-war and community organizations. Returning to Madison in 1973 I was involved with Broom Street theater which rehearsed and performed at SFH from 1970 to 1975. I was married in the “new” chapel in 1974. Now, in 2021 ten years after the death of my wife and retired, I research and publish online history articles. I got curious about SFH after seeing varying dates for its construction and fell down this rabbit hole. I want to thank Bill Mueller for the pictures he took of the move of the house in 2012 and Allan Deptula for encouraging me to do this research.