The United Orphanage and Mission

Early EMCC personnel played a significant role relieving destitute Armenians after each wave of persecution in Turkey in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

Max Haines, a member and former pastor of the Missionary Church in Berne, Indiana, has researched and finally published on his own, a rich account of a couple, John and Kate Sprunger, and the cluster of institutions they helped start which included the United Orphanage and Mission Society/Board.¹ This adds greatly to the basic summaries in Mennonite Brethren in Christ and United Missionary Church histories by Jasper A Huffman and Everek R Storms.² Nearly all the staff of the UOMS/B were members of the MBiC, perhaps all but four. Storms identified 11 Canadian MBiC members out of 25 staff who served under the UOMS/B from 1898 to 1939. Here are the Canadians in order as they joined the mission:

1 1899: Ada (Moyer) Barker (1875-1982) from Vineland, ON—lived to 106, 15 years’ service in Turkey,³

2 1899: Fredericka Honk (d 1909) from New Dundee, ON—died of typhoid contracted in Turkey, after 10 years there,

3 1901: Thomas Ford Barker (b 1874) originally from New Brunswick—died in 1944 of complications after years of poor health gained in Turkey, 15 years’ service in Turkey, several more with Armenian immigrants in Ontario, and attempted in Cleveland, Ohio, from 1924,

4 1909: Ethel (Nelson) Savides (1887-1949) from Owen Sound, ON—served 3 years in Turkey,

5 1910: Daniel Clemens Eby (1885-1981) of Owen Sound, Ontario, and Didsbury, Alberta—served over the course of 28 years in Turkey and Syria,

6 1910: and Blanche (Remington) Eby (1885-1925), his wife, from Owen Sound, ON—15 years,

7, 8 1913: Dorwin J (1883-1948) (Vineland) and his wife Nancy (Good) Storms (1880-1965) (Waterloo Co)—driven from Turkey by war after 1½ years. Everek Storms never tired of telling people that his name commemorated the town in Turkey where he was born to Dorwin and Nancy.

9 1925: Bertha (Fidler) Hoover (1897-1974) from Ontario—served in Syria 5 years,⁴

10 1926: the second Mrs Eby (Elizabeth Remington) (1898-1985)–served 12 years in Syria,

11 1938: and Edma (Fusee) Brubacher (1911-2008) from Stratford, ON—served less than two years in Syria (Lebanon).⁵ Technically, Edma Fusee served the United Missionary Society, after the UOMB merged with the UMS in 1928/ 1932, but she was still serving Armenians in Lebanon, under Dan C Eby.

In addition, Canadian Henry Schlichter (“H S”) Hallman was an early promoter of the mission, serving as vice-chairman and also a president of early Armenian Relief committees when he was editor of the MBiC magazine, the Gospel Banner in Berlin, (Kitchener) Ontario.⁶ Bertha Fidler’s parents, Joshua and Elizabeth (Rittenhouse) Fidler, served in Turkey 1900-1903, sent from the MBiC Pennsylvania Conference. Back in Pennsylvania, Joshua Fidler was accused of abandoning his post out of a lack of faith. Not feeling supported, he moved his family to Ontario, and became a pastor there, so although they are remembered as Canadians ever since, they worked as Americans in Turkish Armenia.⁷

John Sprunger urged the formation of the UOMS but he did not dominate it. Sprunger proposed a board be formed, and prominent people, mostly from the MBiC and church leaders from the Berne, IN, area were elected. The UOMS was an inter-denominational mission, with the board members coming from the MBiC, Missionary Church Association and other Mennonite Churches.⁸ Support for orphans came from many countries in Europe besides North America, because of the first missionaries’ contacts, mainly Sprunger’s and Marianna Gerber’s.⁹ H S Hallman boosted the mission in camp-meetings and in the Gospel Banner. Helen Penner from Ohio was also a traveler through Europe raising funds. Together Gerber and Penner by 1911 secured supporters from England, Germany, Russia, and six other countries besides the USA and Canada. I do not know if Gerber continued raising funds for the UOMS after she resigned in 1903, and before she started her own orphanage in 1907.

In 1905 Sprunger was the Mission secretary, and apart from John Horsch of Cleveland, OH, who had worked with the Sprungers, all the other board members were from the MBiC at that time.¹⁰ Horsch became a prominent Mennonite historian. Later, for many years, Abraham B Yoder from the MBiC Indiana-Ohio Conference was the Secretary-treasurer. He was a long-serving Presiding Elder and later editor of the Gospel Banner himself.

A Brief Expansion

In 1910, the United Orphanage and Mission in Adana Province in Turkey felt ready, with a few new missionaries, to establish a presence in a second Turkish city with numerous Armenians. They chose Everek (now Develi),¹¹ and transferred the Boys Orphanage from Hadjin to the new site, and started a school. The Gospel Banner published letters from the mission staff, and from it one may get a feel for their hopes and fears for the future of the mission.¹² Dorwin and Nancy Storms arrived in Everek in 1913 from Ontario.¹³ The Balkan War of 1913 put the Ottoman Empire (which lost the war) in a threatening mood.¹⁴ Then, late in 1914, the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the world war scattered the mission and the orphans. All their buildings except the staff house in Hadjin were burned. Thousands and eventually, possibly one and a half million Armenians were killed. European consuls had advised all foreigners to leave, which the Mennonite missionaries at first refused to do. Then the UOM Board instructed their staff to pack up and leave. They had 24 hours.

No comprehensive history of the UOMS/B has ever been written. An excellent summary by Rosemary Russell detailing the Hadjin years is available.¹⁵

Banner: Katharina and John A Sprunger (nd), Credit: Max Haines, Light and Hope: The Story of …John A. Sprunger and Katharina Sprunger…(Berne, IN: 2021) cover photograph.

1Max Haines, Light and Hope: The Story of the Rev. John A. Sprunger and Katharina Sprunger and their Heritage (Berne, IN: By the Author, 2021). He also wrote “J. A. Sprunger: Light and Hope,” Reflections Vol 2 no 1 (1984) p 16-21, and (2020) contributed articles to the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online (GAMEO), https://gameo.org/index.php?title=United_Orphanage_and_Mission_Society,_The

2Jasper Abraham Huffman, ed, History of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church (New Carlisle, OH: Bethel Publishing, 1920) p 193-198; Everek R Storms, What God Hath Wrought: the Foreign Mission Efforts of the United Missionary Church (New Carlisle, OH: United Missionary Society, 1948) p 83-94. See also articles by Katherine Bredemus, Oliver B Snyder and Abraham B Yoder, Daniel C Eby, Dorinda Bowman and Bertha Fidler in A B Yoder, ed, United Missionary Society Yearbook 1928 (UMS, 1928) 27-49, and “Minutes of the First Annual Session of the UMS in Syria, April 28 1928,” published in the same UMS Yearbook 1928, p 24, and articles by Daniel C Eby, Dorinda Bowman and Bertha Fidler in A B Yoder, ed, United Missionary Society Yearbook 1930 (UMS, 1930) p 32-39. The Gospel Banner printed many letters from the missionaries.

3GAMEO article by Clare Fuller on Ada and T Ford Barker: https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Barker,_Ada_Moyer_(1875-1982)

4Storms, p 85.

5Storms, p 137-142.

6Haines (2021) p 74, 79, 80.

7Haines (2021) p 208.

8Haines (2021) p 79, 80.

9Storms, p 89. Also, Haines (2021), p 73, reproduces an historical article from an early issue of Our Monthly Letter (1914) which credits a Pastor Lehman from Germany pledging to find support for 100 orphans in 1899.

10Rose Lambert, “A Brief History of Our Orphanage and Mission Work in Hadjin, Turkey,” (Hadjin, Turkey: UOMS, 1905), p [13].

11Modern maps indicate another Everek farther north and east. The UOMS Everek was near Kayseri, two to three days’ journey from Hadjin, as reckoned by missionaries; Abraham B Yoder, “History of Our Mission,” Our Monthly Letter (November 1914).

12T Ford Barker, “Spreading the Work,” Gospel Banner (September 29 1910) p 13, “From Everek, Turkey,” (September 28 1911) p 13.

13Daniel C and Blanche Eby, “Back to Asia Again,” “The Interior,” Gospel Banner (January, 1913) p 10-11, letters written December 11 1912.

14Kate Bredemus, “Hadjin, Turkey,” Gospel Banner (January 1913) p 11. Also written December 11 1912.

15Rosemary Russell (2016) https://www.houshamadyan.org/mapottomanempire/vilayet-of-adana/hadjin/religion/missionaries.html. Many photographs in her article were from the Dorinda Bowman Collection, Missionary Church Inc Archives at Mishawaka, IN. Materials include issues of Our (Bi-) Monthly Letter (at least 1914-1938), edited by Dorinda Bowman, (kept in Mishawaka); a 16 page overview published ca 1936, mostly written by Daniel C Eby (copy in David Sapelak fonds, file 68, Mennonite Archives of Ontario, Conrad Grebel University College, Waterloo, ON); historical collections in Mishawaka; and the MCHT in Elmira, Waterloo Region, ON. Max Haines’ book of 2021 has profiles of many North American staff members. Sharon L Klingelsmith wrote “Mennonite Women in Mission: Rose Lambert, Pioneer,” Mennonite Historical Bulletin (October 1978) p 1-3. Some Armenians wrote memoirs of their family experiences which incidentally refer to the Mennonite mission, eg Bedros Sharian, Armenia: Her Church and Faith (1928), and I Love America (New York: Vantage Press, 1974) whose biography was written by Ernest Pye, Prisoner of War 31,163 (New York: Fleming H Revell, 1938).