HOUCK, GEORGE FRANCIS

Diocesan chancellor, author; b. Tiffin, Ohio, July 9, 1847; d. Lakewood, Ohio, March 26, 1916. He was the son of John and Odile (Fischer) Houck, both natives of Germany. He was educated in Ohio at Heidelberg College, Tiffin; Mount St. Mary's Seminary, Cincinnati; and St. Mary's Seminary, Cleveland. After his ordination on July 4, 1875, he was pastor of St. Joseph Church, Crestline, Ohio, until 1877, when he was appointed first chancellor of the Diocese of Cleveland and secretary to the bishop. While holding these offices under Bps. Richard Gilmour, Ignatius F. Horstmann, and John P. Farrelly, he also served (1877–94) as the first Catholic chaplain to the Cleveland Workhouse and as chaplain at St. Vincent Charity Hospital. He organized the diocesan system of burials in Catholic cemeteries and purchased the property for Calvary Cemetery, the largest in the diocese in 1900. Under Gilmour, he acted as spokesman for the diocese in refuting the violent anti-Catholic attacks that appeared in the Cleveland Leader. In 1905 he was made a domestic prelate, and in 1909 he resigned as chancellor and retired as chaplain to the convent of the Sisters of Charity of st. augustine.

Houck devoted much of his time in his early years to the organizational task of bringing order to a rapidly growing diocese. This work brought him into close contact with individual parish administrations and led to his exhaustive History of the Catholic Church in Northern Ohio and the Diocese of Cleveland (2 v. 1903).

[n. j. callahan]