Tim DeFrange is the second of five children born to Nick and Elender DeFrange of St. Patrick Parish in Kent. His parents, along with Father Allen Simpson, founded the parish’s Legion of Mary Praesidium in the 1950’s, so DeFrange grew up watching his mother and father visit fallen-away Catholics and become godparents to 42 individuals who became Catholic.
Throughout his youth at Saint Patrick Elementary school and Hoban High School, DeFrange thought he was meant to be a priest, so he prepared to become one, spending three years in the seminary in Cincinnati. But his feelings for a girl over the summer led him to leave the seminary and study at Kent State to become a teacher. Graduating in 1970, DeFrange taught English and then library skills in the K- through eighth- grades of the Aurora City Schools, while serving with his wife Linda as a presenting team couple for Worldwide Marriage Encounter. Despite this rewarding couple ministry and serving in Marriage Encounter Leadership with two different priests, DeFrange’s call to Holy Orders persisted. Finally, after 20 years of teaching, 18 years of marriage and four children, he entered the formation program for the permanent diaconate. DeFrange and his wife attended many of his formation weekends together, even though it required a sitter for kids.
In DeFrange’s final year of formation in 1997, permanent diaconate director Father Robert Sabatino asked DeFrange to plan to devote his diaconal ministry to creating a Catholic presence in the penal institutions in Portage County.
Weeks after his ordination in 1998, DeFrange began going into the Portage County Justice Center and the Portage-Geauga Juvenile Facility with an Evangelical Protestant team on Thursday nights. The interfaith team brought scripture, prayer and song to the incarcerated.
Several years later, both facilities granted the diocese’s Catholic Prison Ministry their own Friday night evening slot to bring in Catholic Mass and the sacraments. Twenty-six years later, DeFrange’s ministry at the Portage County Jail has continued uninterrupted with the exception of a year and half during COVID lockdowns.
After his retirement from the Aurora Schools, DeFrange served for nine years as the Campus Media Specialist at Our Lady of the Elms School in Akron, Ohio.
In the decade since leaving that position, DeFrange has been preparing the students of St. Patrick School to lead the singing at their school Masses. Deacon Tim currently serves as a permanent Deacon at both St. Patrick Parish and The University Newman Center Parish in Kent.
