In office 1972 - 1987 Consecration 1972 Ordination 1943 | Education University of Virginia Name William R. | |
Church Episcopal Church in the United States of America See Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana Predecessor Walter Conrad Klein
IV Bishop of Northern Indiana Successor Francis Campbell Gray
VI Bishop of Northern Indiana Born March 25, 1917
New York, New York County, New York ( 1917-03-25 ) Died September 24, 2005, Culver, Indiana, United States | ||
William Cockburn Russell Sheridan (1917–2005) was the fifth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana and served from 1972 to 1987. He was born in New York, New York on March 25, 1917, the son of the Rev. John Russell Fortisque Sheridan and his wife, Gertrude Magdalen Sheridan. He died September 24, 2005, at his home in Culver, Indiana and was buried in New Oakhill Cemetery, Plymouth, Indiana.
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Early life and education
Sheridan grew up in Baltimore where he attended St. Paul's School. He started college at the University of Virginia but had to drop out because of the Great Depression. Later he was able to go to Wisconsin where he attended seminary at Nashotah House while doing his undergraduate work at Carroll College (Wisconsin). He received a BA from Carroll in 1939 and an M.Div from Nashotah in 1946.
Ordination and Parish Ministry
William Sheridan was ordained to the deaconate on January 1, 1940 and to the priesthood on June 3, 1943, both in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland He assisted at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Towson, Maryland from 1942 to 1943. From 1844 to 1947, he was priest in charge of Episcopal churches in Gas City and Hartford City Indiana while serving as rector of Gethsemane Episcopal Church in Marion. In 1947 he became rector of St Thomas in Plymouth and served there until he was elected bishop in 1972.
Episcopal Ministry
William Sheridan was consecrated as bishop on June 24, 1972, in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the campus of the University of Notre Dame at the special invitation of Notre Dame's former President, Fr. Theodore M. Hesburgh. Bishop Sheridan was the first non-Roman Catholic to be so honored.
Wife and Family
William Sheridan married Rudith Treder on November 13, 1943, and they had five children. After his retirement, Bishop and Mrs. Sheridan moved to Culver where they remodeled a former church into their home. The bishop was survived by his wife, all five children, nine grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren.