'We've always made it': Episcopal church celebrates 125 years in downtown Auburndale
AUBURNDALE — Identical twin sisters Tracy and Stacy Nelson experienced a shock when they arrived at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church on a recent Sunday morning.
They found a family sitting in “their” pew, the one the Nelson family has occupied during Sunday services for decades.
“Two Sundays ago, the people that sit two rows behind us — she went, ‘Oh my God, we're sitting in your pew!,'” Tracy Nelson recalled. “And I'm like, ‘Yes, you are.’”
The pew — fifth from the back on the right — has been the sisters’ domain for nearly six decades, since they began attending St. Alban’s as children with their parents. Impressive as that duration may be, it represents less than half of the lifespan of the church itself.
Founded in 1898, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church has held services over three distinct centuries. The church, nestled in downtown Auburndale, will commemorate its 125th anniversary on Sept. 23 with a social hour and catered dinner beginning Sept. 23 at 4 p.m.
“It’s amazing because we've had small groups of parishioners, and we've had up to 200 members in the church,” said Tracy Nelson, 62. “And even though it fluctuates and you're not always sure that you're going to make it, we've always made it. And I think it's because we're focusing on what God wants us to focus on, and that's our church, our church family, him, of course, and our community. And I believe that's what keeps us going.”
Auburndale Mayor Dorothea Taylor Bogert is scheduled to issue a proclamation at Tuesday’s City Commission meeting declaring Sept. 28 St. Alban’s Episcopal Church Day.
Dignified beginnings
The church arose from the wishes of Episcopalian residents of Auburndale, a city founded in the 1880s.
In 1898, a Rev. Samuel Hodgman of Haines City ventured to Auburndale to hold services for the town’s few Episcopalian families in Cumberland Presbyterian Church, according to an official history of St. Alban’s. Deciding that Auburndale needed its own Episcopal church, Rev. Hodgman raised money — some of it gathered in Philadelphia — and then oversaw construction of the building, crafting the altar, pews and other furnishings himself.
A Sunday school class from St. Andrew's Church in Philadelphia gave a silver communion set, and a church in New York bestowed a set of altar hangings. Relatives of original congregants also collected donations in Staten Island, New York.
“The building was of timber construction covered with siding but without plaster or sheathing on the inside, but it was dignified and churchly,” as described in a church member’s handwritten account from 1937. The first service took place on Sept. 28, 1898, as Rev. Hodgman conducted and his daughter served as organist.
The church had no name at that point, and the bishop of the Diocese of South Florida asked the 21 original congregation for recommendations. Louise Hulbert of Norwood Park, Illinois, attended the service while visiting Margaret Powell in Auburndale, as recorded in an official church history. Hulbert suggested “St. Alban’s,” the name of her church in Illinois, and the bishop promptly christened the church with that name.
St. Alban, the first documented English Christian martyr, was executed by a Roman soldier in 304 A.D. after refusing to renounce his faith, according to Christian lore.
Among the church’s most significant dates, the first wedding was recorded on May 13, 1901 (Jessie F. Bailey and Willis Samuel Irvin) and the first funeral in 1912 (Josephine Dickey). A parish hall was completed in 1920, and leaders consecrated the church as free of debt in 1939.
The church, located at 202 Pontotoc St., just off Main Street, embodies the Carpenter Gothic architectural style common to Florida churches in the early 20th century. The wooden structure has a highly peaked roof, rhymed by a lower one over the narthex. Narrow, vaulted stained glass windows line the sides of the sanctuary.
The congregation added transepts in the 1980s, expanding the seating capacity. A squared tower rises from a side entrance set at a diagonal to the original structure.
Inside, the church is relatively small but elegant, with deep red carpeting, rows of short pews and long strips of stained wood on the walls and ceilings. A portion of the original altar remains in place in the chancel, which occupies a nook with a pointed arch. A wooden fixture against the back wall holds flowers, candles and a large, gold cross.
The church currently holds two pianos. A small room that used to hold an organ is now devoted to electrical and sound equipment.
Beside the sanctuary, the Resurrection Garden is a repository for the ashes of many congregants since the 1980s. On a recent morning, a plump cat sauntered among the garden’s foliage.
Next door stands a building identified by a sign as “The Old Parish House,” a structure that in past decades hosted community parties and dances. The former stage, set into the front interior wall, has since been sealed over, though the original fireplace is still in place toward the building’s rear.
The parish house is home to the Pantry Shelf, an FDA-approved operation dating to the 1970s that provides free food on the first and third Friday of each month. On a recent morning, Bill Silvey, a retired teacher and the pantry’s coordinator, stood in a storage area with Stephen and Elaine Gumbs, two longtime volunteers.
The items being prepared for distribution included boxes of plantains, soups and other canned items, containers of cereal and a refrigerator full of microwavable meals. The operation is affiliated with the nonprofit Feeding Tampa Bay.
The St. Alban’s office is around the corner on Lake Avenue, in a former bank building. Sitting in the office, Tracy and Stacy Nelson examined archival material, including a photo of the original church with an outhouse visible in the background. Another image shows the sisters walking out of church when they were 9 years old.
Recalling church's traditions
The Nelson sisters are among the longest-attending current members of the church and serve as ambassadors for newcomers. Their grandparents, who lived in Virginia, regularly came to Florida on vacation and took in services at St. Alban’s while there.
Later, their mother, Ann Nelson, tired of the Virginia winters and convinced her husband to move to Polk County, where he found work with a citrus processing company. The family became regulars at St. Alban’s when the sisters were a year old.
The Nelsons’ late father, Walter “Bo” Nelson, served in various church offices, including senior warden, and as a lay reader during services. Their late mother directed the altar guild at St. Alban’s for 19 years, having fulfilled the same role at her previous church in Virginia.
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Tracy and Stacy, both retired principals with Polk County Public Schools, live together in their childhood home in Winter Haven. The sisters, who sometimes treat sentences as relay races, reminisced about their decades with the church. In keeping with an Episcopal custom, women typically wore head coverings, such as mantillas, until the practice faded in the 1970s.
They explained that Episcopalians genuflect upon entering the church and when approaching a cross symbol. They bow their heads at each mention of Jesus Christ.
“We were always taught you stand to praise, you kneel, to pray, you sit to get information,” Stacy said.
St. Alban’s hosted its first “old country fair,” lasting a week, in 1920 and continued the tradition for decades. The sisters showed a photo of their father munching on a corn cob while on duty to sell tickets at the fair in 1998.
By around 1920, parishioners saw the need to build a parish hall to host Sunday school classes, as well as meetings of St. Mary's Guild, a Boy Scouts troop and other groups. The congregation raised enough money to build the structure, completed in 1921.
The church still held Sunday school classes upstairs in the parish hall when the Nelson sisters were young, before the construction of a separate building for that purpose in 1964.
St. Alban’s hosted afternoon tutoring sessions for students from nearby Auburndale Central Elementary School, serving up snacks in the parish hall, the sisters said. The Nelsons also recalled the church’s long practice of holding a blessing of the animals event each year on St. Francis’ Day in October.
'Landmark of Auburndale'
Church members cherish a letter written by the late Carl A. Allen, an amateur historian, author, bluegrass enthusiast and proprietor of the now-defunct Historical Cafe in Auburndale, for the 85th anniversary in 1983.
“The St. Alban's Episcopal Church has been a landmark of Auburndale almost as long as there has been an Auburndale,” Allen wrote. “The kind hearted and gentle people that have always made up the congregation of this church will always be remembered by people like me who grew up with this little church in sight. I was born just a few blocks from the church and have spent my life under the influence of its people.”
Allen wrote of the church allowing residents to use its parish house for parties and Easter egg hunts in his childhood and weekend dances when he was grown.
“It seems like whenever anyone in town needed a place to meet, they could count on the church letting them use the parish house,” Allen wrote.
St. Alban’s, part of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida, owned a rectory on Lake Arianna for decades but eventually sold it. The church has had seven clergy leaders since 2000. Since last year, services have been conducted by Rev. Richard “Rick” Gomer, a chaplain and religion teacher at All Saints Academy in Winter Haven.
“It’s wonderful to be a part of a historic parish,” Gomer said. “It's really a rich story of many, many people who've loved each other, sacrificed for each other, enjoyed being together and creating community together over the course of 125 years, going through thick and thin, through great times and great wars. It’s just amazing to have done that, and maintained their community and handed their community off to succeeding generations. It's been an inheritance that they've handed down, I think, of what it means to be a Christian community, to love God and love each other and love their surrounding community.”
The church typically draws about 40 for its one Sunday service at 10 a.m., the sisters said. They estimated the average age of congregations as in the 40s or 50s, with members ranging from young children to advanced seniors.
At a time when church attendance nationwide is dwindling, do the Nelsons foresee a long future for the church with such an expansive past?
“I think we're always going to be here,” Tracy said. “And I think that us, as veteran people of the church, if we continue to reach out to people — it goes back to relationships. Stacy and I talk about that all the time. We build relationships with people in the community, invite people in, treat them the way we want to be treated — there's no reason why we won't sustain ourselves and even grow from that point forward.”
Anyone interested in attending the Sept. 23 gathering is asked to RSVP by Monday by calling 863-967-2130 or emailing stalbans1898@gmail.com.
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Auburndale church continues mission as it reaches 125th anniversary
