George W. Andrew (1896-?), American minister and educator, served in the Methodist Protestant Church. He was originally from Indiana, received his education at High Point College in North Carolina where, prior to entering the ministry, he studied to be an engineer. He was licensed to preach in the Methodist Protestant Church in 1928 in the Indiana Conference. He did not serve in the Indiana Conference, but was loaned to the Board of Missions. He and his wife were asked to teach at the Alvan Drew School in Kentucky. While teaching, he established preaching points and held services in the mountain country. They taught at the school for four years, from 1922 to 1926. Andrew left the school to complete his A.B. degree and was later ordained by the Methodist Protestant Church in the North Carolina Conference in 1928. After some illness, he accepted the pastorate of the College Church at Tehuaca, Texas and served from 1930 until 1934. He was then asked to return to the Alvan Drew School as superintendent but left in 1939 due to failing health and moved to Texas. Information about them after that date is incomplete.
Ivy Myers (?-?) was a Methodist Episcopal Church Deaconess in the Northwest Indiana Conference from 1928 to 1961. She was born on May 2 in Tioga, Illinois, where she was raised on a farm along with her two sisters and three brothers. Following grade and high school, she attended the Chicago Training School for Missions in Illinois and graduated in 1922. Also in 1922, Myers became a probationary member of the Methodist Deaconess Association as a Deaconess, listed in records as being on a “leave of absence”. She later returned to the Chicago Training School and graduated in 1925 as a preparatory senior from the same institution. Afterwards she received her A.B. degree in Sociology from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1928. Myers also received a Master's Degree in Christian Education from the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Upon graduating from Hamline University in 1928, Ms. Meyers returned to the Chicago Training School as a teacher of History and Latin, where she stayed for six years. In 1928, she was also accepted as a full member of the Methodist Deaconess Association (Serial No. 645). She served as a Deaconess for thirty-seven years, teaching in schools for children from broken homes, the Deaconess School at Helena, Montana and Monnett School for Girls at Renesselaer, Indiana. Other opportunities of service included directorship of Christian Education at First Church, Madison and at Euclid Avenue Church, Oak Park, Illinois. Meyers was hired in 1945 by former Publishing Agent Fred D. Stone as Literature Counselor to do the work of interpreting and promoting church school literature in both Chicago and Nashville for sixteen years. She was an Alumni Representative on the Board of Trustees for the Chicago Training School from 1954 to 1956. Ms. Myers never married, nor had children, and retired from all work in 1961.
Upon retirement, the Broadway Methodist Church elected her to the Committee on Good Literature, the Commission on Education, and Administrative Board. After retiring, she continued her interest and activities in the Northwest Indiana Annual Conference Deaconess Board, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the American Friends Service Committee.
Herbert Cookman Withey (1873-1937) was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, on June 8, 1873. At twelve, he went with his parents, Amos E. and Irene Withey, to the interior of Angola, with the original Bishop William Taylor party in 1885. From his early youth he, like his parents, was devoted to mission work. Withey combined evangelistic, educational, and industrial service in his Christian ministry to the Angolans. He learned the local languages and translated Pilgrims Progress, the catechism, the Discipline, the Psalms, and the New Testament into those languages. At the time of his death on February 9, 1937, he was working on a translation of the New Testament.
Darrell L. Reeck (1939- ), American ethics scholar, university administrator and ordained United Methodist minister, was born in Tacoma, Washington, in 1939. In 1962, the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference, Methodist Church, accepted him as candidate for ordination. He was later ordained an elder by the same annual conference in 1965. After completing his doctoral studies in Religious Studies with a focus on Ethics from Boston University he joined the faculty at University of Puget Sound and would become an assistant dean during his tenure. Reeck also worked as a money manager for the United Methodist Development Fund as well as other financial institutions. He finished his career in United Methodist ministry and retired in 2006.
Quentin Charles Lansman (1920-1969) was a minister and educational administer in the Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) Church and later the United Methodist church. He served as both a pastor and later as a General Officer in the Board of Christian Education for the EUB Church and following its merger, as the Associate Director in the Department of Campus Ministry of the Division of Higher Education of the United Methodist Church.
Born in Shelby County, Iowa on September 6, 1920, he was the son of Charles and Johanna Lansman. He was educated in Audubon, Iowa and attended Westmar College at Lemars, Iowa, receiving his B.A in 1943. Lansman subsequently attended Evangelical Theological Seminary in Naperville, Illinois and received his Bachelor of Divinity in 1946. Lansman served two congregations in the Iowa Conference of the EUB Church: at Noble Center EUB in Griswold, Iowa and at Waterloo First EUB Church. Lansman enrolled in the Northwestern University PhD program and lived in Naperville Illinois during his resident work, serving as Associate Minister at Naperville First EUB Church. From 1959 to 1968 Lansman was a General Officer in the Board of Christian Education of the Evangelical United Brethren Church, based in Dayton, Ohio. Following its merger with the Methodist Church in 1968, Lansman became the Associate Director in the Department of Campus Ministry of the Division of Higher Education of the newly formed United Methodist Church, in Nashville, Tennessee. Lansman completed his doctorate at Northwestern in June, 1969 with his dissertation entitled, An Historical Study of the Development of Higher Education and Related Theological and Educational Assumptions in the Evangelical United Brethren Church: 1800-1954.
Lansman died unexpectedly on December 28, 1969 at the Lloyd Geweke ranch near Ord, Nebraska. Sections of his dissertation were posthumously published as a book with the title Higher Education in the Evangelical United Brethren Church, 1800-1954 in 1972 by the Board of Education of The United Methodist Church.
Lewis Davis (1814-1890) was considered the "Father of Higher Education" in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. At eighteen, he came under the influence of Methodist itinerants, who encouraged him to enroll in the academy at New Castle, Virginia. For two years, Davis taught at a local school in western Virginia, where he joined the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. He was licensed to preach in 1838, and spent the next eight years as an itinerant in Scioto Conference, where he became a champion of higher education in the church. Davis became a presiding elder in 1845. In 1841 he married Rebecca Bartles.
Davis was the first financial agent for Otterbein University, the new institution projected by the Scioto Conference. In 1850, Davis became president of Otterbein, a position he held until 1871. He was elected bishop in 1853 and held that office until 1860. Davis left Otterbein in 1871 and became senior professor at Union Biblical Seminary (now United Theological Seminary) in Dayton, Ohio. He retired to emeritus status in 1886. His wife survived him by five years.
David Edwards (1816-1876) was a United Brethren bishop and editor. His family immigrated to Ohio when he was five. When he was eighteen, Edwards converted and became a member of the United Brethren Church.
In 1836, he was ordained in the Scioto Conference. In 1845, he was elected editor of the Religious Telescope. He held that position for four years and refused reelection in 1849. Instead, the General Conference elected him bishop, a position he held for six successive terms.
Edwards was instrumental in founding Otterbein University and in establishing the foreign mission work of the church.
Wayne Clymer (1917-2013), minister, bishop, educator, and psychologist, was born in Napoleon, Ohio, on September 24, 1917, son of Grace Susan Hulvey and George A. Clymer, a minister in the Evangelical Church. Clymer attended Asbury College, receiving his B. A. in 1939. In the fall of that year he entered Columbia University, and while attending there he became pastor of Immanuel Evangelical Church in Ozone Park, New York, and then St. Paul's Evangelical Church in Forest Hills. He completed his M.A. in 1942. Clymer went on to receive a B.D. from Union Theological Seminary in 1944.
In 1946, Clymer was appointed to the faculty of Evangelical Theological Seminary (ETS) as professor of pastoral theology. While there, he continued his graduate studies toward a Ph.D. at New York University, receiving his degree in 1950.
Clymer was ordained by Evangelical United Brethren Bishop John S. Stamm, and was a member of the Atlantic Conference. He went on to post-doctoral work at the New School for Social Research, Columbia University, the William Alanson White School for Psychiatry, and took clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Saint Luke's Hospital in New York City. In 1957 Clymer was elected dean of ETS, succeeding Paul Eller. In 1967 he was he was chosen as President.
Clymer was ordained by Evangelical United Brethren Bishop John S. Stamm, and was a member of the Atlantic Conference. He went on to post-doctoral work at the New School for Social Research, Columbia University, the William Alanson White School for Psychiatry, and took clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Saint Luke's Hospital in New York City. In 1957 Clymer was elected dean of ETS, succeeding Paul Eller. In 1967 he was he was chosen as President. The year prior, 1966-1967, Clymer and his wife lived overseas where he served as consultant to the United Church of Christ in the Philippines on ministerial training, and taught at both Saint Andrew's Theological Seminary in Manila and at Trinity College in Singapore.
The North Central Jurisdictional Conference of the United Methodist Church elected Wayne Clymer to the episcopacy in 1972, and he was assigned to the Minnesota Area, where he served for eight years before being assigned to the Iowa Area in 1980. In 1976, Clymer was appointed president of the United Methodist Committee on Relief. Clymer traveled extensively during his tenure as bishop, visiting countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Clymer and his wife retired to Minnesota in 1984. Bishop Clymer died from a stroke on November 25, 2013, while delivering a eulogy at Brooklyn Center United Methodist Church in Minnesota.
Joshua York (1794-1884) was a lay preacher in the Methodist Episcopal and Wesleyan (Great Britain) churches. As a young teen he became a local preacher in the British Wesleyan Conference. He was also a Sunday School teacher, trustee, and steward in his local church.
York married Elizabeth Parker shortly before immigrating to the United States in 1841. They had one daughter, Mary Jane (? - 1903).
Joshua York continued as a local preacher once he arrived in the U. S. and was actively involved in the planning of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Madison Avenue and East 126th Street. He was also instrumental with the ministry of the Harlem.
Besides being a local preacher York was also a farmer and involved in real estate. He moved to Staten Island in 1846, New York City in 1850, and Harlem in 1853. York, his wife, and daughter are buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York.
Robert Thomas Parsons (1904-?) was a Church of the United Brethren in Christ missionary, pastor, and academic. Parsons was born on September 27, 1094 to J.B. Parsons, D.D. and Ada Parsons in Dayton, Ohio.
Parsons received the Bachelor of Arts degree from Indiana Central College in 1926, and a Bachelor of Divinity from Bonebrake Theological Seminary in 1929. He was ordained, and in 1929 went to serve as a missionary under the Foreign Missions Board of the United Brethren in Christ to the Kono tribe in Sierra Leone, West Africa.
Parsons would return to the United States on his first furlough in 1933 to enroll as a Ph.D. candidate in the Kennedy School of Missions at Hartford Theological Seminary. During his second furlough in 1937, alongside his Ph.D. work, he received a Master of Arts from Cornell University. Parsons then returned to Sierra Leone for two years and taught at Union College in Bunumbu.
Parsons completed his dissertation in 1940, and went on to serve Fifth Ave Church in Columbus, Ohio. Parsons would join the faculty at Hartford in 1947 as a Professor of African Studies, and would later become Dean of the Kennedy School of Missions. Parsons would make a handful of other trips back to Africa for research. He also went on to serve on committees of the Division of Foreign Missions of the National Council of Churches. His dissertation was published in book form as "Religion in an African society: A Study of the Religion of the Kono People of Sierra Leone in its Social Environment With Special Reference to the Function of Religion in that Society" by Brill in 1964.
Robert Cowden (1833-1922), United Brethren Church minister and educator, was born May 24, 1833, in Ohio.
Cowden began his church career by assuming leadership in his local church's Sunday School. Beginning in 1877, Colonel Cowden, as he was known throughout the church because of his military service during the Civil War, served as executive secretary of the Sunday School Association for thirty-six.
During his years of service, two significant developments occurred: First, following the example of the Chautauqua camp meeting organization and the New York Normal Union, a school for training teachers and leaders, the United Brethren Church organized the Bible Normal Union in 1886. It issued diplomas to those who completed a prescribed course of study. Second, the Home Reading Circle was organized in 1887, and provided a three-year reading course of study. In 1889, the United Brethren Church Sabbath School was managed by Cowden as its secretary.
Cowden was charged with organizing and maintaining the Sunday School which replaced the Sabbath School in 1905. The General Conference of 1909 decreed that there should be a unified denominational program for the Sunday School, the Youth Society, and Men's work. As a result the Departments of Sunday School, Brotherhood, and Young Peoples work were created. Cowden assumed leadership of the Sunday School Department. He continued in this work until his retirement in 1919. Cowden died in 1922.