Editor’s note: The banner image above, showing Byemoor, Alberta in 1932, is courtesy of the Glenbow Library and Archives Collection, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.
Related: St. Edmund’s heritage marker
The founder of the Epiphany Mission, Rev. H.E. Scallon, was born in England in 1886. He was educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge, and ordained in the Church of England in 1909. He immigrated to Canada in 1912 and settled in Innisfail where he ministered at St. Mark’s Church. Rev. Scallon then moved east and began his missionary work in eastern Alberta, establishing a mission at Gough Lake in 1913 before establishing the Epiphany Mission at Hartshorn in 1914.
One of the most notable features of Rev. Scallon’s work was its geographic scope. He ministered to families and communities over a huge range of territory, travelling as far south as Pollockville over one hundred kilometres southeast of Hartshorn. He delivered services in churches but also school houses, community halls and even individual homesteads. When Rev. Scallon retired in 1932, Archdeacon John William Tims described him as, “one of the most travelled clergymen of the Calgary diocese.” The map below shows some of the communities served by Rev. Scallon from 1914 to his retirement in 1932.
Rev. Scallon’s obituary noted that he would, “be remembered as the tireless missionary who wandered from place to place bringing the ministrations of the church to school house and farm.” His story is a reminder of the remarkable work done by clergymen in isolated parts of Alberta in the early twentieth century.
Sources
Byemoor History Book Committee, Still God’s Country: The Early History of Byemoor and Area (1975)
Calgary Herald, 21 January 1953 (Scallon’s Obituary)
Drumheller Review, 14 April 1932 (Coverage of Scallon’s Retirement)
Hanna Herald, 8 August 1940 and 19 June 1952.
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