Bishops Stokes, King Mourned In Dioceses

Episcopal News Service. December 4, 1986 [86262]

NEW YORK (DPS, Dec. 4) -- Bishops Hanford L. King, Jr. and Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr., retired from the Dioceses of Idaho and Massachusetts, respectively, both died this fall.

Stokes, who would have been 82 on Jan. 11, died Nov. 7. Born in New Haven to the Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, Sr. and Caroline Green Mitchell, Stokes attended Cambridge University, 1922-23, and received a B.A. from Yale in 1927. He went on to receive a B.D. from the Episcopal Theological School in 1932, and was ordained to the diaconate in May of that year and to the priesthood in March 1933.

St. Mark's, Shreveport, La., was the first parish in which Stokes served -- first as assistant, 1932-33, then as associate, 1933-36. From there, he moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he was rector of Trinity from 1937-45. Also during that time, he was deputy to General Convention (1940-43) and married Hope Procter (1943); they had two children. Moving on to Honolulu, he served as rector and canon of St. Andrew's Cathedral there until 1950, when he became rector of St. Bartholomew's, New York City. It was from the latter that he was elected Bishop Coadjutor of Massachusetts in 1954; he became diocesan in 1956 and retired in 1970. During the years 1965-70, he was also part of the Overseas Department of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church. Stokes was the recipient of a number of honorary doctorates and served as visiting bishop for the Society of St. Margaret.

King, a native of Worcester, Mass. was born on Sept. 18, 1921 and died Oct. 11 of this year. The son of Hanford Langdon King and Hephzibah Vernon Hopkins, he was educated at Clark University, where he took a B.A. in 1943, continuing at the Episcopal Theological School, where he obtained an S.T.B. in 1946, and Columbia University, which awarded him his Ph.D. in 1950. He was a Fellow of the College of Preachers in 1958 and Proctor Fellow at Boston Theological Institute in 1969. A member of the Order of St. Luke, he was ordained deacon in July 1946 and priest in March of the following year. Also in 1947, he was married to Helen Rosendahl Knospe; they had three children.

Assistant at St. James, New York City, 1946-47, King then became rector of the Church of the Mediator there, where he served until 1950. From 1951-60 he was rector of St. James, Bozeman, Mont. The years from 1960-72 saw him as rector of Emmanuel, Rapid City, S.D. He was elected Bishop of Idaho in 1972, a post he held until his retirement in 1982. A deputy to General Convention 1958-64 and 1970, he also served on a number of committees and commissions in both the Dioceses of Montana and South Dakota and, following his elevation to the episcopate, in the House of Bishops.