San Francisco
County
Biographies
REVEREND
ROBERT CRAIG
Reverend
Robert Craig (deceased) was, in his early life, a Methodist pastor. His
activities in Christian work extended from Massachusetts to California. He was
active in Christian youth work in Massachusetts and became general secretary to
the Y.M.C.A. at Lowell. His theological studies were at Northwestern University
in Evanston, Illinois.
Reverend Craig moved to California
and established the Glad Tidings Tabernacle and Bible Institute in 1919. In
1922 he founded the Calvary Mission, which fed and clothed destitute men. These
men, averaging five hundred a night, were given coffee, rolls, showers and
beds, their clothes were sterilized and cleaned and many were rehabilitated and
reestablished in their work. This Mission is still being run today on Howard
Street between Third and Fourth Streets, in San Francisco, and carrying on the
same work he instituted.
He graduated over fifteen hundred
students from the Bible Institute, formerly in the annex to the Glad Tidings
Tabernacle, but now at Santa Cruz, California, and established a choir in the
Tabernacle of two hundred voices. Later he acquired a radio station at the
Tabernacle, where frequent broadcasts were made of his services and activities.
This Tabernacle today is considered one of the finest on the Pacific Coast,
with a seating capacity of 1600 people. Recently the expenditure of $100,000 in
interior decorations and renovating has added materially to the beauty of this
old San Francisco landmark.
Reverend Craig married Theresa Emma
Crothers, who materially assisted him during his studies at Northwestern
University.
Transcribed By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: “Eminent Californians 1953”,
by Lee E. Johnson & C. W. Taylor. Page 231, C. W. Taylor
Publ., Palo Alto, California, 1953.
© 2014 Cecelia M. Setty.
San Francisco County Biographies