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.
Orrie Orland Arnold (1884-1959) was a minister and editor who also had a long, prolific speaking and writing career.
On July 24th, 1884 he was born in Darke County, Ohio, but his family soon moved to Oregon. There he received his call to ministry, and was licensed by the Oregon Conference of the United Brethren Church in 1906. In 1909, he was received into the Ohio Miami Conference, in which he served several pastorates, remaining in Ohio for the rest of his life.
From 1917 through 1957, in addition to his pastoral duties, Arnold wrote for Sunday school publications. In 1941, he became an associate editor of his denomination's Sunday school press, and was subsequently elected editor of the Evangelical United Brethren Sunday school publications at the time of church union in November 1946. He retired from this position on December 31, 1958, only a few days before his death.
Arnold also served his denomination as chairman of the Rural Life Commission, a member of the General Board of Christian Education, the Commission on Christian Social Action, the Inter-Board Education Committee, and the General Board of Evangelism. He was active interdenominationally as a member of the Committee on Adult Work, the Committee on Administration and Leadership, the Committee on Uniform Lessons, and the Committee on the National Christian Teaching Mission of the National Council of Churches.
He participated in community organizations, helped to organize the Community Chest in Germantown, Ohio, and also was an active member of the Rotary Clubs in Germantown and Greenville. He was thrilled when the Germantown Press named him Father of the Year in 1956.
Arnold married his wife, Bessie, in 1911. They had three sons and three daughters. Arnold died on January 2, 1959.
Daniel Asbury (1762-1825) was born in Fairfax County, Virginia, on February 18, 1762. Though not directly related to Bishop Francis Asbury, he served with Bishop Asbury for many years, and was a close friend
Daniel Asbury went to Kentucky when he was about sixteen years old (1778). He was captured by the Indians and then handed over to the British who jailed him in Detroit. Escaping, he made his way back to Virginia around 1783. He was converted and received into the Methodist Conference in Virginia. His first circuit was Amelia in Virginia. In the year following his admission, he was sent to North Carolina, where he spent most of his later life. In 1794 Daniel Asbury held the first camp meeting in the North Carolina area. In 1824, he retired and settled near the present Terrell in Catawba County, North Carolina. There he married Nancy Morris. Asbury died in 1825, and was buried in the Rehoboth Methodist Episcopal Church.
Edward W. Bauman (1927-2021), United Methodist minister, writer, producer and educator, earned his Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Boston University Graduate School. Bauman began his church career in 1951 as a probationary minister with the North East Ohio Annual Conference. By 1952, he was appointed beyond the local church to attend school. In the following year, North East Ohio ordained him as an elder in full connection. The Utica church became Bauman's first pastoral appointment from 1954 to 1956. The next year saw Bauman appointed as a chaplain to American University in Washington, D.C., a post he would keep until 1960 when he started teaching at Wesley Theological Seminary. He continue to teach full time at Wesley until 1965. During this time period Bauman moved his clergy credentials from North East Ohio to the Washington Annual Conference in 1958. In the Spring of 1965, the Washington area bishop appointed him to Foundry Church where he served as senior pastor until his retirement in 1991.
Bauman was an excellent communicator and in 1979 Time magazine recognized this fact by naming him as one of the most outstanding ministers in the United States. Part of this recognition by time centered on his weekly Sunday morning WMAL-AM radio broadcasts which spanned more than thirty years. Radio, however, was not the only medium by which the public could listen to Bauman’s sermons. His career in television and film lasted thirty-five years (1958-1992). Televison stations across the United States broadcasted his shows from WMAL-TV studios. The films, which were based on the televison shows, were shown by military chaplains on bases or ships around the world.
Audiovisuals were not the only medium by which Bauman reached out to the public. He wrote eight books. The titles are The Life and Teaching of Jesus, An Introduction to the New Testament, God’s Presence in My Life, We’re Spreading the Good News, John’s Gospels in the Modern World, Beyond Belief, Intercessory Prayer, The Bible and New Life for the Church and God of Our Fathers and A Study Guide for the Film and TV Course. Other forms of ministries outside the local parish and after retirement included a variety of retreats and church renewal seminars.
In 1993, Bauman headed to Calcutta, India, to spend time working with Mother Teresa with a focus on her Home for the Dying located in Khaligat. The experience made such a lasting impression that Bauman started to work with hospices in the Washington, D.C. area upon his return.
Later Bauman would serve as an associate minister at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. The Washington National Cathedral named him a member of the Associate Faculty of The College of Preachers.
Samuel H. Baumgartner (1860-1936), an Evangelical Association minister of the Indiana Conference, was born March 2nd, 1860, near Vera Cruz, Indiana and died in 1936. He married Kessie Keipper in 1886.
Baumgartner was licensed as a preacher on probation in April 1887 at Rochester, Indiana, ordained as a deacon in 1889, and an elder in 1891. He served for twelve years in six fields, namely, West Point (Bipus), two; Rochester City, one; Kendallville and Avilla, two; Ft. Wayne First, four; and Wabash, two. Baumgartner was appointed Secretary of Conference by Bishop J. J. Esher in 1891 and consecutively for the following nine times.
In 1899 the conference elected him presiding elder, an office in which he served eight years on the Elkhart and Ft. Wayne districts. In 1907 and 1908 he served First Church in Indianapolis. From 1909 to 1922, he again served as presiding elder on all presiding elder districts of the conference. In 1923, Baumgartner resigned as presiding elder to become solicitor of funds for the liquidation of the debt on the Old Peoples Home, and in 1927, completed forty years of active service to the Evangelical Church.
Richard Heber Bennett (1866-1945) was a pastor, moral reform leader, and author. He attended private schools in Richmond and Ashland, Virginia. He received a B.A. in 1883 and am M.A. in 1885 from Randolph- Macon College. From 1883 to 1885 he was an assistant professor at Randolph- Macon. Hebrew was his field of post graduate work. In 1895 he married Mamie Bruce. They had four children.
Bennett was the principal of Woodbourne Academy in Louisa, Virginia from 1885 to 1888. During 1889, he was principal of Spring City, Tennessee, High School. Later that year he was licensed to preach. In November 1889, he joined the Virginia Conference and was assigned to Washington Street in Richmond.
Between 1892 and 1893 Bennett attended Princeton Theological Seminary. He returned to Virginia in the summer of 1893 and worked in the West Mathews Circuit. He was then assigned to Trinity Church in Richmond. After a brief time in the Baltimore Conference, Bennett returned to Richmond in 1894. Later that year he was transferred to Farmville and Norfolk.
Bennett pastored the McKendree Church in Norfolk from 1894 to 1899 and the St. James Church in Richmond from 1900 to 1901. In 1901 he was re-assigned to Norfolk. At the Conference of 1902, he was appointed presiding elder of the Richmond District. Bennett held this position for a year, and then went to Randolph-Macon College to become professor of moral philosophy. During his four years at Randolph- Macon, Bennett became the Virginia State Superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League.
In 1907, he left his administrative post and returned to the pastorate at the Court Street Church in Lynchburg. After four years he left that church and became the conference's missionary secretary for three years.
During his time at Lynchburg the donated $20,000 to their missionary offering which went to the construction of a building at Soochow University in China.
In 1914, the General Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, elected Bennett secretary of ministerial supply and training. During this time, he also oversaw the correspondence school at Emory University in Atlanta.
In 1926, he was elected field agent for the southern states of the Anti- Saloon League of America. A year later he was elected president of Lander College in Greenwood, South Carolina, a position he held for five years. He returned to his pastoral duties in 1932 at Portsmouth, Virginia. This was followed by appointments at Norfolk and Lawrenceville, Virginia. He retired in 1936.
Ira Franklin Bergstresser (1872-1942) was an Evangelical Church pastor in the East Pennsylvania Conference.
He was born December 1, 1872 in Lower Saucon Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania. to Abrahm T. and Susannah L. Bergstresser.
In 1900, he married Carrie Grace Newhart. They had four children. Carrie Bergstresser died in 1926, and Franklin married Katie B. Marxen in 1928.
His education was first in the public schools and later at the Academy at Springtown. He attended the Normal School in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, after which he taught school. Later, he received a B.S. from Illinois Wesleyan University, and in 1941 received the doctor of divinity degree from Albright College.
Bergstresser was licensed to preach in 1896 by the East Pennsylvania Conference. In 1898 he was ordained Deacon and later Elder by Bishop Thomas Bowman, and served the following appointments: Berlinsville Circuit, Hegins and Reiner City, Pottsville, Slatington, Allentown (Ebenezer), Bangor, Lebanon, Pen Argyl, Allentown (Salem), Bethlehem (St. John), and Mohnton.
He also served the conference in various other capacities. He was a member of the Board of Examiners; served as assistant secretary of the conference; and later as its secretary. He was president of the Conference Missionary Society for eight years, and served as a member of the Conference Church Extension Society. He was secretary of the Forward Movement in his conference. In 1933 he was elected District Superintendent and stationed on the Eastern district. In 1935, his conference elected him to membership on the Board of Trustees of Albright College, and in this connection he served as member of the Committee on Administration for the Evangelical School of Theology.
From 1920 to 1928 he was the delegate from his conference to the General Board of Missions. He was a delegate to the General Conferences of 1919, 1922, 1926, 1930, 1934, and 1938. For twelve years he was a member of the executive committee of the Board of Church Extension. In 1926, he was appointed to the Commission on Church Merger, and served as secretary of the Commission. In 1934 and 1938 he was elected secretary of the General Conference of the Evangelical Church. His writings include a series of articles on "The Great Religions of the World," which appeared in the Sunday school publications. He also wrote Expositions of the Sunday School Lessons for Teachers' and pupils' materials. He died February 26, 1942.
Charles Samuel Braden (1878-1970) was a Methodist Episcopal Church missionary and educator. He received his B.A. (1909) and Doctor of Divinity (1943) degree from Baker University in Kansas. In 1912, Braden earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1926. He also studied at Columbia from 1911-1912. In 1911 he married Grace Eleanor McMurray.
Braden was appointed a missionary in July 1912 and a month later arrived in Cochabamba, Bolivia. In 1914 he was ordained into the ministry. Braden left Bolivia in 1915 and went to Santiago, Chile, where he was a professor and president of the Union Theological Seminary. In addition, he managed the Union Book Store and was the editor of El Heraldo Christiano. While Braden was in Chile (1916-1922), he pastored several churches including First Church in Santiago.
Upon his return to the United States, he became the assistant secretary of the Methodist Episcopal Church Board of Foreign Missions and the secretary of the Methodist Life Service Commission. He taught in the department of religion and literature of religions at Northwestern University from 1926 until his retirement in 1954. Braden was active in several professional organizations and the author of numerous articles and books.
Grace McMurray Braden (1888-1951) was a Methodist Episcopal Church missionary to Bolivia and Chile with her husband, Charles S. Braden. Grace Braden received a B.A. from Baker University in Kansas in 1909 and taught high school in Cheney, Kansas, from 1909 to 1911 before her missionary appointment.
Commodore Ira Berton Brane (1848-1920), a United Brethren clergyman, was born December 25, 1848 at Frederick, Maryland. He was the son of Henry Brane, born 1808, and Margaret Lauman, born 1800 in Lancaster. Pennsylvania.
C.I.B. Brane - his first name really was Commodore - was largely self-educated. He was converted on November 24, 1870, and joined the Maryland Conference. In 1872 he was licensed to preach in the Virginia Conference, and in 1876 he was ordained. He served as pastor in Pennsylvania and had a large part in building up a congregation in Washington, D.C. For a long time, he was Washington correspondent for the Religious Telescope under the non de plume of Moc Enarb. Brane itinerated for 24 years. In 1885 he married Clara M. Harp, and together they had four children, Brane was elected a presiding elder in 1885, and also was elected a Delegate to the General Conference. He died in 1920.
Charles Warren Brewbaker (1869-1960) was born October 18, 1869 at State Line, Pennsylvania. On August 30, 1899 he married Nellie M. Stokes. Two daughters were born of their marriage. He was educated at the West Virginia Normal Academy in Buckhannon, the Western College in Toledo, Iowa and the Union BIblical seminary. He also earned the STM and PH.D degrees from the Illinois Wesleyan University. Brewbaker was ordained by the Iowa Conference of the United Brethren Church in 1893. His pastoral appointments included United Brethren Churches in Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In 1913, he was elected by the General Conference of his denomination to serve as General Secretary of the Sunday School and Brotherhood work. From 1929 until 1933 he served as Secretary of Evangelism. After this assignment he was appointed pastor of the United Brethren Church in Dayton, Ohio. He served there until his retirement in 1939. Brewbaker was a prolific writer, authoring twelve books and many articles in the areas of Christian Education, Evangelism, and Churchmanship. He traveled nationally and internationally representing the church in the interest of Christian Education. Brewbaker died on May 11, 1960 at the age of 91.