James M. Raker

Raker, James Martin. (Richmond, Virginia, June 28, 1864--April 10, 1947, California [Los Angeles? San Francisco?]. He studied at the Episcopal General Seminary, New York, N.Y., and after ordination to the ministry became choirmaster at the Cathedral School in Fond-du-Lac, Wisconsin. He became a Roman Catholic convert in 1909 and studied for the priesthood at St. Charles Seminary, Overbrook, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was ordained for the diocese of La Crosse, Wisc., on December 24, 1911, where he labored until he retired in 1936. He lived in O'Fallon, Missouri (1937-1938) and then retired to California where he died. His hymnal Catholic Hymns for the People, privately printed in 1919, reached a second edition in 1923. It contained 88 hymns in all and several of the translations were his own. His "O most holy one" appears in the St. Gregory Hymnal.

--J. Vincent Higginson, DNAH Archives