OUR FIRST RECTOR

CANON REV. W. EDWARD HAYES

RECTOR 1903 - 1911

As the assistant at St. Luke's Parish, Canon Rev. W. Edward. Hayes was associated from very beginning of the birth of All Saints Church, which began as early as 1898.  When the decision was made to form a new church in the then new neighborhood, known as the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park, initial responsibilities fell to The Rev. Edgar J. Lyons, rector of the now non-extant St. Stephan's Church, also a former mission of St. Luke's Church.  Upon the death of Fr. Lyons in 1903, the All Saints' parishioners decided to move the responsibility of the mission church to St. Luke's Parish.   

Canon Hayes gave the first sermon at the new church building on March 1, 1904.  It was dedicated the next month on Easter Day, April 3, 1904.   Canon Hayes served from 1903 until  l911.  In the first year of All Saints,  the very well connected and prosperous  parishioners  were anxious to become independent of St. Luke's and St. Stephan's.  They became a full Parish in 1905.  During Canon Hayes' first years he was occupied with building and paying for the church building.   Prior to 1904, the parishioners met in a small building on Oak Street. 

Upon the dedication of new edifice, the San Francisco News Call Bulletin said,  " The passengers on the Haight Street cars were surprised to see a beautiful little church on Masonic Avenue, when less than a month before was a vacant lot.  In spite of the weather, which made it necessary for work to cease for days at a time, the people of All Saints' had attained their hearts' desires."  Because of noisy trolley outside their front door, the church was moved and enlarged with side aisles in 1905 to its present location on Waller Street.

Concerns for building and paying for the church structure occupied Rev. Hayes almost immediately.  In a letter to the parish dated September 1904 he urged, "The success of mission assures us that the blessings of God rest upon it but the continuance of that blessing depends on the faithfulness and generosity of all its recipients.  'He that soweth little shall reap little, and he that soweth plenteously shall reap plenteously.  Let every man do according as he is disposed in his heart, not grudgingly, or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver.' "  (II Corinthians 9--re-worded slightly by Canon Hayes)  

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