Bill Roberts

ABOUT ST. GREGORY'S: We invite you to experience our lively and life-giving Worship, Fellowship, Pastoral Care, Education, and Service with and for those in need.Our parishioners reflect the diversity of the communities from which we come, including Lincolnshire, Buffalo Grove, Vernon Hills, Northbrook, Highland Park, and Riverwoods, as well as Deerfield.We find our unity in the Holy Spirit, who calls us together to the One Body of Jesus Christ.We invite you not only to join us, but to strengthen our life in Christ through your own gifts and ministries.Faithfully yours, Bill+

St. Gregory’s is Deerfield’s second Episcopal Church. In 1925 Father George S. Keller, the Rector of Trinity Church in Highland Park, began holding services for a small group of Deerfield families. Unfortunately he died in 1926, and the effort to establish a parish was abandoned the following year. We have a notable reminder of that first parish: our Baptismal Font. Around its octagonal top these words are chiseled: “Betsy Jean Gooder was the first person to be baptized in the original Episcopal Mission of Deerfield 1925.”

Father Christoph Keller, who followed his brother as the Rector of Trinity Church, conducted Bible studies in Deerfield from 1927 to 1946, but many of the Deerfield Episcopalians preferred attending other churches in the Village on Sundays rather than making the trip to Highland Park.

Deerfield grew rapidly after the Second World War. On the Feast of St. Gregory the Great, March 12, 1951, the Vestry of Trinity Church passed a resolution to call a meeting of the twenty-eight Deerfield and Bannockburn families to consider establishing a mission in Deerfield. That meeting was held on May 21 at Hubert and Lorraine Kelley’s summer home. Thirty-five people attended, including Bishop Conkling and Father Charles U. Harris, Trinity’s Rector.

The Rector and Vestry formed a “Chapel Committee” of Edwin (Ted) White, Chairman; George Stanwood, Treasurer; Richard Dexter, Secretary; and Hubert Kelley. Bishop Conkling appointed Father Dargan Butt, a faculty member at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, as priest-in-charge of the new congregation. St. Gregory’s first service was held on Sunday, October 7, 1951, in Deerfield’s Masonic Temple; by December 4th there were 47 families, with 42 children in Sunday School.

On April 19, 1952, Father Jack D. Parker, the Curate (assistant) at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Lake Forest, accepted a call from the Rector and Vestry of Trinity Church to become the first Vicar of St. Gregory’s. In the spring of 1952 five acres at the corner of Deerfield and Wilmot Roads were purchased for $12,500. A Chicago architect, Bertram A. Weber, drew up plans for the Church and Vicarage.8 In October 1952 construction of the Vicarage began; the following October construction of the Church began.

When Bishop Burrill consecrated the new Church on September 26, 1954, St. Gregory’s had 250 members, with 120 children in Sunday School. Our annual budget was $9,600 and its mission budget was $960— 10%, or a tithe, of parish income. Today at St. Gregory’s we continue that Biblical tradition of giving 10% for needs and ministries beyond our parish.

Father Parker retired in 1982. His home, just north of the Church building, was named Marian House in honor of his wife. His curate at the time of his retirement was Albert Holland, and the parish called him to be its second Rector. The parish built a new Rectory north of Marian House for his family. Father Holland left St. Gregory’s in the fall of 1986, and one of the priests who helped take care of the parish until the next Recotr arrived was Canon Carlson Gerdau. He and his ministry are remembered with such affection that we consider him our Interim Rector Emeritus.

Father Parker died in 2002, and he is buried in our Churchyard under the St. Luke stained glass window. As a cute joke, Father Parker had a little worm added to the window when it was designed and built! If you have read this far, you may ask the Rector to show it to you.

On May 16, 1988, the Very Rev. William D. Roberts began his ministry as the third Rector of St. Gregory’s. From 1990 to 1993, Mother Cathleen Chittenden-Bascom served as our first woman priest. In 1996 two of our parishioners, Dennis Lietz and Geof Smith (who has since moved away), were ordained as Deacons to serve in our Parish. Today Mother Meredith Potter serves as our Vicar.