Poison oak, that dastardy plant so hazardous to human skin, thwarted St. Luke's Episcopal Church from offering the faith in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Considered from its inception in 1882 as a possible "important center" to the area, the parish helped in the formation of St. John's mission in Saratoga, which eventually became St. Andrew's Church. It also formed a mission at Patchen in the Santa Cruz Mountains, but the visiting priest got poison oak when he held services there.
Today's brief history of St. Luke's is from a press release compiled by Vestry member Anne Louise Heigho, the parish office and historical material from "History of St. Luke's" by Sara Powell Miller, a retired San Jose Mercury reporter.
The first St. Luke's Church, a wooden structure on University Avenue, was built in 1883 and destroyed in the downtown fire of 1901. The edifice shown here was started within a year after the fire.
The iron Gladys Gates--Gladys being a style of ironwork--were donated by painting contractor Jack Sullivan in memory of his granddaughter.
Today, The Pantry is the designated local distribution center for Salvation Army emergency aid. Volunteers will be ringing bells at Salvation Army kettles this Saturday and Sunday in downtown Los Gatos.
The Parish Hall, built in 1912, serves the community as a meeting place for AA meetings, as well as other recovery groups, and a county program of classes in English as a second language.
A concert series is open and free to the community on the third Sunday afternoon of each month, with tea and Evensong following.
St. Luke's was blessed with generous early parishioners. Organized in 1882 by Dr. R.M. Chapman, a retired Episcopal priest, members included Theresa (Mrs. John) Lyndon, a third-generation Californian, who donated the land; F.H. McCullaugh, who developed the residential area near Glenridge, and his wife; and her mother, a member of St. Luke's parish in Germantown, Pa., who donated cash, church furniture and service articles.
Other parishioners and founders of the town in 1887 were A.E. Place, whose funeral parlor survives as the Chart House; D.B. Kennedy (Kennedy Road), whose wife was Dr. Chapman's daughter; John Cilker, whose land became the Good Samaritan Hospital site; A.E. Wilder (area resident and street name); and N.E. Beckwith, of Beckwith Building on E. Main Street.
St. Luke's is still located in the heart of Los Gatos on University Avenue, where it began 113 years ago.
In the 1960s, the Parish added parking space after the Carnegie Library next door was demolished and moved to the current Civic Center in the 1960s.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times Wednesday, December 20, 1995.
©1995 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.