The Roy Stinson Smyres Collection documents the life of a person and his family whose multifaceted ministerial career exemplifies a dedication to United Methodist Church work in the twentieth century. This dedication is well documented through a variety of record types within the collection. Smyres kept an ongoing journal (1914-1990) and date books (1913-1990) that reveal his intimate experiences as a missionary, minister, and family member. The journals from his missionary days discuss the ongoing work of the mission as well as documenting Smyres' trek across West Africa in 1919, as well as other related trips. Additional entries record interviews with missionaries and indigenous people alike. Also included are discourses and reflections on sociology, anthropology, theology, politics, and life in general.

The date books list mundane things such as financial expenditures, appointments, etc. Some of the entries are in shorthand. The correspondence between Roy Smyres and his family, friends, and colleagues are just as illuminating as the journals, date books, and images. Most of these letters were collected by Nell Smyres and were given to Roy after her death.

While in Africa, Smyres made it a point to write home at least once a week whenever possible. Roy saved copies of letters that he wrote home while serving as a missionary to Africa, which is the reason for some duplication from Nell's files. A few letters were written on the back of older ones for economy. His early pen name to his family was Bud. Record types include correspondence, Christmas letters, and postcards. There are a few letters between Roy and Esther's children with each other which due to the lack of volume were incorporated into Roy's sub-series. Roy's earlier letters (1914-1929) contain personal observations on student life at Northwestern, mission work, missionaries, cannibalism, and "frontier justice" in Africa. These letters also document formal and casual reports from the mission field, photography, and hand-drawn diagrams of architectural features of mission buildings in the Congo.

The African travel accounts tell of the dangers of living in the jungle. Family matters are sprinkled throughout the correspondence. Most of the letters are addressed to Smyres' immediate family. Correspondence from 1930 to 1949 focuses on teaching, church work in Ithaca, and the beginning of a cooperative store in Ithaca - the first of its kind in that city. Roy was greatly interested in politics and peace issues.

Smyres' early work for the mission board is discussed here as well. The letters dating from the 1950's and early 1960's revolve around his continued work for the mission board, trips, publishers, and family. Included in the mission board correspondence was his involvement with the Advance Program.

After Smyres' retirement, the correspondence documents voluntary mission work in India, the Vietnam War, and other peace issues. Subjects found in correspondence from 1970 to 1992 document articles that Smyres published, speaking engagements, ministerial activities, work for the Religious News Service, and global trips. Also during this time period family issues are recorded which include the death of his first wife, Esther, and his second marriage to Mary Fraley, and extended family events. There are social and political remarks about Vietnam, peace, The Human Needs and Security Bill of 1984, El Salvador, the Lebanon conflict, opposition to the United States government appointing an ambassador to the Vatican, and the Persian Gulf War. Most of these letters were written to government officials who had a direct influence in these issues. Another aspect of this correspondence involves his photographic commissions and subsequent loans of images to publishers and missionaries.

Esther Smyres' correspondence ranges from 1920 to 1968 with the bulk of the letters dated from 1920 to 1937. Though not as voluminous as Roy's, they do illustrate in some detail the domestic work in a missionary home as well as documenting a spouse's missionary work in the Belgian Congo. There are casual references to African geography and society. Later correspondence documents Esther's work as a school teacher, her various travels, local church work, and family. Another value of Esther's correspondence is that they often fill in points of information that Roy leaves out of his correspondence of the same time. This is especially true during their years on the mission field and ministry in the local church. Most of the correspondence is directed to Mary Hannah Brown Smyres and Nell Smyres. Mary Fraley Smyres correspondence dates from 1972 to 1980 with bulk dates of 1973 to 1975. Most of these letters relate to family events and friends. Nell Smyres incoming and outgoing correspondence documents her early childhood, college life, family news, trips, and theology.

Some of the letters are from Roy and Esther's children and grandchildren, who express their embracing of Pentecostalism and faith healing. The last group of letters is from Roy's parents. Recipients of these letters include their children as well as extended family. Topics include family news, missionary work, spirituality in the church, and theology in general.

Mary's correspondence ranges from 1911 to 1947, with the bulk of the correspondence from 1919. Luther's correspondence dates from 1916 to 1920, with the bulk of the letters from 1919-1920. Family records are general in nature and revolve around four people: Roy, Esther, Nell, and Joan Smyres. Joan was Roy and Esther's daughter-in-law who died of cancer at an early age. Joan's sub-series documents her funeral.

The rest of the material reflects the childhood, marriage, and careers of Esther and Roy. Nell's records contain her Master's Thesis written at Ohio Wesleyan on the expansion of Christianity in Russia. Nell also collected reports written by her nephew, Eugene Stockwell, a missionary in Africa.

The Writings Series contains manuscripts (1917-1990), sermons (1929-1966), prayers (1937-1988), and publications (1939-1987) authored by Roy Smyres. Included in this section are two books that Roy wrote: Thoughts of Chairman Smyres, and his autobiography. Both these volumes were published in the late 1980s. Other publications include articles and photographs. The sermons (1929-1966) illuminate a variety of topics including missions, politics, theology, liturgy, world communion, cooperatives, and stewardship. Formats include radio and children sermons as well as pulpit sermons. Some of the sermons are in shorthand. The prayers relate to the various aspects of Smyres' ministry within the church. Smyres' professional life in the ministry of the church revolved around three sub-series: local church, annual conference, and the General Board of Global Ministries. Local church records contain worship bulletins and miscellaneous church papers. Annual conference records contain reports and ephemera.

The General Board of Global Ministries sub-series documents Smyres' work in DOM Committee material, reports, gift programs, IDOC International records, Advance Program Support Funds, Central America, financial records and journals, treasurer codes, notebooks, and newsletters. Roy created and collected maps that attest to geographic areas that he served or visited. The African maps are of special interest to those researchers whose historical focus is either missions or the Belgian Congo political boundaries during his years as a missionary. The hand-drawn maps are especially enlightening. The largest series in the collection contains Smyres' photographic images. These images are the spotlight of the collection. His photographic abilities and style were sought out by a number of religious organizations. Record types include glass lantern slides, 35 mm slides, negatives, photographs, and contact sheets. Geographic areas include countries from each of the populated continents as well as Oceania.

The images cover a vast array of topics too numerous to list. In some instance's Roy kept log books that identify certain images with corresponding narrative via his unique cataloging system. It should come as no surprise that family images are in abundance as well.

This collection contains records of the Ministry Study Committee. Record types include: minutes, correspondence, working papers, reports, notes, and printed matter. The records cover the entire life of the committee, from 1980 through 1984.

This collection contains sermons, manuscripts, correspondence, and biographical material on Elmer Edwin Burtner. The largest part of this collection is sermons which document his ministerial career as a Congregationalist and a Church of the United Brethren in Christ pastor. There are approximately 375 sermons. Most are not dated. The sermons have been grouped by text reference, topic, title, and fragments. Topics that Burtner addressed in his sermons included the Bible, Christians in the world, church work and the nature and criticisms of, communion and Christmas, evangelism, missions, education, youth, interchurch relations, the ministry, pastoral subjects, temperance and prohibition, and World War I. The sermons on the Bible were preached at the College Church in Westerville, Ohio, during the fundamentalist controversy of 1921-1922. They attracted widespread attention in the church.

There are five manuscripts written by Burtner on religious topics. "The Immanence of God" is 112 handwritten pages. "The Problem of Evil" is seventy-one typed pages. Both papers may have been written by Burtner while he was attending school. He also took continuing education classes with N. E. Cornetet at Otterbein College. Burtner wrote three papers for these classes. The topics of these papers are Gideon, Nehemiah, and Hebrews.

The correspondence contains a single letter written in 1914 on prohibition. It is addressed to the "Congregationalist" and discusses the prohibition views of Dr. Washington Gladden. This letter is decidedly for prohibition and against liquor trafficking.

The biographical materials include a marriage certificate, a memorial tribute, and a family photograph. The marriage certificate is from his 1910 marriage to Maude Truxall. The memorial tribute entitled, "Memorial to a Man of God," is sixty pages and contains biographical information, testimonials to his life and work, and sermons by Burtner. It was prepared by a committee of the Wagoner Memorial Bible Class of the United Brethren Church in Westerville, Ohio. Finally, there is a black and white photograph of Burtner and his three brothers, Otto, Weldon, and Luther.

This collection primarily documents the work and ministry of the Evangelical Church's annual conferences and local churches from the middle nineteenth century to the middle twentieth century. To a lesser degree there are records that reflect the ministry of the general church as well. There are other records that pertain to filial denominations such as the Evangelical Association, United Evangelical Church, Church of the United Brethren in Christ (United Brethren Church), and the Evangelical United Brethren Churches are also found in this collection. Leedy was an avid collector of church related information so that the topical landscape of this collection is broad enough to cover information ranging from local church ministries and histories to denominational theological beliefs and social concerns. Most of the paper records center on church work in the Ohio region though not to the exclusion of other geographic areas within the continental United States and Germany. All in all this collection provides a nice overview of the diversified life within the Evangelical tradition and is an excellent resource for those who wish to understand more fully the Evangelical Church's historical influence within the ongoing traditions of United Methodism.

This collection includes the sermons, teachings, addresses, writings, notebooks, and accounting records of United Brethren Bishop Cyrus J. Kephart. The bulk of the collection are his sermons, that while undated, may have come from during the period when he served as pastor in Iowa and Ohio, 1878-1913.. His teachings and addresses, due to the subjects and audiences being addressed, appear to have been written while serving as Bishop of the United Brethren Church's Southwestern District from 1913 to 1925. Other writings include his studies and possible drafts of his publications.

This collection contains information pertaining to the personal and professional life of Winslow Wilson. This file contains several autobiographies, his meditations and personal diary from prison which express his religious and conscientious objector views, personal and professional correspondence pertaining to his sentencing and beliefs, newspapers clippings, publications from his imprisonment, as well as Bible study notes during and after his sentence.

The diaries of Rev. Frederick Krecker cover a span of almost fifty years (1838-1888). There are twenty-five (25) individual volumes. The reveal in a very personal manner the lifetime experiences of an itinerant evangelical preacher in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. Among the topics discussed are the conversion numbers of prospective new members to his congregations; a highly detailed record of the seasonal weather paterns; a recounting of the challenges in traveling from one samll town to another on very basic roads in the worst of weather conditions, as well as a heartfelt description of the uttler loneliness he must cope with in his service to God.

The earliest volumes in these journals were written in German, but Krecker switched to English when his wife, Isabella, complained to him that she could not read German, their native language, well enough to comprehend his writings. The English use started in the sixth volume in 1848.

The diaries of Krecker record the ordinary work of an itinerant preacher who pastors to his congregations and the experiences of life in mid 19th century Pennsylvania in a way not too dissimilar to many of his contemporaries.

The material contains correspondence of the Commission for the Study of Ministry, minutes, news releases, records of jurisdictional and conference meetings, the final report of the Commission and various study papers used by the Commission.

Record types include: correspondence, photocopies, handwritten transcripts, publications, photographs, financial records and contracts. This is the only known extent collection of Bishop Otterbein' s papers in the Western Hemisphere. The collection contains autographs and his ministerial credentials.

The collection contains Thomas C. Nixon's journals beginning from 1815 to 1872. The journals reflect Nixon's daily activities including personal and business relationships, preaching, and his plantation activity among other topics. Here we see how Nixon's character develops over time and details related to his ministry, especially preaching, and his emotional reactions regarding suspension from the annual conference and the issue of slavery. The early journals discuss a great deal about his dedicated circuit-riding days whereas the later journals reflect on his life as a plantation owner. The collection also contains notebooks, loose journal pages, sermon notes, financial records, and clippings. There is also a photocopied collection of material related to the Nixon Family’s history which contains correspondences, copies of photographs, journals, notebooks, and sermons material along with additional family records.