Our first church building was completed and dedicated in 1958, and the rectory was completed in the spring of 1959. Ready for occupancy, the first resident pastor was assigned in the late summer of 1959. That was Father Charles Towner. He was not only a first for St. Andrew’s, we were also a first for Fr. Towner. The 34-year old Towner had been ordained just 9 years earlier, and had been serving since that time as an assistant pastor at two diocesan parishes. We were his first pastorate.
Here, in his words, he found a wonderful parish of good families with an excellent community spirit and relationship with the military chaplains and people of Fort Huachuca. With the help of his parishioners he started a religious education program, bought and furnished an old barracks for a parish hall, started a campaign to pay off the construction debt, formed community relationships and bought an old school bus to transport parish children to St. Patrick’s parochial school in Bisbee.
Fr. Towner remembers fondly building a basketball court with the help of friends from his former Tucson parish, parish socials held at Monty Montoya’s garage and other places, annual parish barbeques, Boy Scout camps on the parish grounds, as well as more religious functions such as First Friday holy hours and Sunday rosary and benediction. Mostly, he remembers the wonderful people here at the time.
Charley, as he likes to be called, was born in 1925 in Cincinnati, OH. The family home was in Lockland, on the city’s north side. His father, a barber, had been proud of his family’s Revolutionary War heritage. It was only later that more discoveries revealed that his ancestors were on the Tory side!
For his father’s health, the Towners moved to Arizona when Charley was 10, and settled in Tucson. In Tucson, Charley attended SS. Peter and Paul parochial school and Roskruge Junior High. Recognizing his vocation, the Diocese of Tucson arranged for young Charles to attend a seminary high school and junior college in Los Angeles for 5 years. From there he went on for 6 years of philosophy and theology at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, CA. He was ordained in 1950, by Bishop Gercke of the Tucson diocese, at St. Augustine’s cathedral.
Fr. Towner’s first assignment as a priest was to Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish in Glendale (this was in the years before the Diocese of Phoenix was formed.) There he was exposed to the plight of poor migrant workers. This assignment was followed by 7 years at St. Ambrose in Tucson. There, he worked with youth, families and in communications. This stint was followed by his assignment as pastor at our parish, St. Andrew the Apostle in Sierra Vista.
Ultimately, Fr. Towner would be with us for only 2 years. His next assignment, in 1961, to be pastor at a poor parish in the south of Phoenix, made use of his earlier experience in working with the poor.
Fr. Towner has never doubted he had a vocation to the ministry, but began to feel he did not have a vocation to celibacy. For more than a decade with prayer and counseling he struggled with this dilemma. For a while he took an assignment to another diocese, but then returned to Tucson where he became the founding pastor at St. Monica’s. Wanting to do things the right way, he requested a dispensation from the Our Mother of Sorrows parish in Tucson.
Finally, in 1974, he renewed his request for dispensation through then Bishop Francis Green. It was granted on December 10. Charley then began a second career as a social worker with the state Department of Economic Security, working in Tucson and Globe, retiring in 1987. He married in 1977. He and his wife Eula Faye adopted two children and had three of their own. Charley is blessed with nine grandchildren. His wife passed away in 2001. Charley lives in an immaculate manufactured home on Tucson’s northwest side, which he and his wife purchased when they first married. He is there today, surrounded by photographs and mementos of family and career. Charley keeps active physically, enjoys reading, goes to daily Mass and spends way too much time at the computer.
Charley Towner believes that every life has a purpose. He says, God does nothing in vain nor for naught. He thanks God daily for the many wonderful lives that He allowed to touch mine, and I pray that in some way, known to Him, I may have helped someone to know and love Him more.