Published by Herald Press, May 5, 2015.
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Sunday, June 7, 2015
My Calling to Fulfill: The Orie O. Miller Story (Order paperback and ebooks here)
$18.99 EPUB ebook (iBooks and Nook)
$18.99 MOBI ebook (Kindle)
To order go to MennoMedia.com
Foreword by Editorial Committee (excerpts)
One of the major architects of North American Mennonite Church life in
the twentieth century was Orie O. Miller. Miller was born on an Indiana
farm in 1892. Most of his adult life he lived in Akron, Pennsylvania, the
hometown of his wife, Elta Wolf Miller. From this base he managed a
shoe manufacturing company and administered the increasingly worldwide
program of Mennonite Central Committee.
Although a successful business executive, Orie Miller had a primary
passion of ministering “in the name of Christ,” to quote words used for
almost one hundred years to describe one of the organizations he helped
found, Mennonite Central Committee. This ministry was rooted in local
congregations—Forks Mennonite near Middlebury, Indiana, and Ephrata
Mennonite in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. As a Goshen College student he
heard the call to service in international relief and reconstruction. After
experience in post-World War I Beirut and Constantinople, he was one of
the first North American Mennonites to enter Russia and the Ukraine as a
relief worker in 1920.
With this experience he quickly joined the administrative body of
Mennonite Central Committee, the major involvement of his life for
the next thirty-five years. As a business leader and church administrator
he also accepted responsibilities to the executive committees of two
mission boards, Goshen College, Mennonite World Conference, and a
variety of other church institutions. In retirement he continued to work
on the boards of Mennonite Economic Development Agency (MEDA),
Schowalter Foundation, Mennonite Christian Leadership Foundation
(MCLF), and a number of local involvements. . . .
—Editorial Committee
Robert S. Kreider, North Newton, Kansas
John A. Lapp (chair), Goshen, Indiana
Calvin Redekop, Harrisonburg, Virignia
Morris Sider, Grantham, Pennsylvania
the twentieth century was Orie O. Miller. Miller was born on an Indiana
farm in 1892. Most of his adult life he lived in Akron, Pennsylvania, the
hometown of his wife, Elta Wolf Miller. From this base he managed a
shoe manufacturing company and administered the increasingly worldwide
program of Mennonite Central Committee.
Although a successful business executive, Orie Miller had a primary
passion of ministering “in the name of Christ,” to quote words used for
almost one hundred years to describe one of the organizations he helped
found, Mennonite Central Committee. This ministry was rooted in local
congregations—Forks Mennonite near Middlebury, Indiana, and Ephrata
Mennonite in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. As a Goshen College student he
heard the call to service in international relief and reconstruction. After
experience in post-World War I Beirut and Constantinople, he was one of
the first North American Mennonites to enter Russia and the Ukraine as a
relief worker in 1920.
With this experience he quickly joined the administrative body of
Mennonite Central Committee, the major involvement of his life for
the next thirty-five years. As a business leader and church administrator
he also accepted responsibilities to the executive committees of two
mission boards, Goshen College, Mennonite World Conference, and a
variety of other church institutions. In retirement he continued to work
on the boards of Mennonite Economic Development Agency (MEDA),
Schowalter Foundation, Mennonite Christian Leadership Foundation
(MCLF), and a number of local involvements. . . .
—Editorial Committee
Robert S. Kreider, North Newton, Kansas
John A. Lapp (chair), Goshen, Indiana
Calvin Redekop, Harrisonburg, Virignia
Morris Sider, Grantham, Pennsylvania
Author's Preface (excerpts)
For his colleagues and protégés, Orie is unforgettable. Many describe
him in superlative terms as “the greatest man I ever knew” (Edgar Stoesz)
and as “the most remarkable Mennonite of his generation, perhaps of our
century” (Robert Kreider). But Orie Miller is relatively unknown to those
under sixty. I have come to think of this group—those in leadership roles
as well as those in the pew, those within the Mennonite and Brethren in
Christ household of faith and those beyond—as my primary audience.
The title of this book, My Calling to Fulfill, captures Orie’s lifelong
passion. He responded eagerly, obediently, and repeatedly to the call of
the church to help fulfill its mission to serve humanity. He found honor in
the church’s call, which he believed to be God’s primary means of calling
disciples and healing the nations. Orie was a servant, ready and willing to
go where called. He became a leader, persistent and tireless in calling others
to service.
Miller’s gift was administration—seeing a need, designing a solution,
clarifying its purposes, rallying the church’s support, and calling hundreds
to fulfill the mission. Multiple times he circled the globe, seeing a world
often troubled—broken by war, poverty, and disease. He recognized it as a
world that God loved, and for whom Jesus lived, taught, healed, and died.
him in superlative terms as “the greatest man I ever knew” (Edgar Stoesz)
and as “the most remarkable Mennonite of his generation, perhaps of our
century” (Robert Kreider). But Orie Miller is relatively unknown to those
under sixty. I have come to think of this group—those in leadership roles
as well as those in the pew, those within the Mennonite and Brethren in
Christ household of faith and those beyond—as my primary audience.
The title of this book, My Calling to Fulfill, captures Orie’s lifelong
passion. He responded eagerly, obediently, and repeatedly to the call of
the church to help fulfill its mission to serve humanity. He found honor in
the church’s call, which he believed to be God’s primary means of calling
disciples and healing the nations. Orie was a servant, ready and willing to
go where called. He became a leader, persistent and tireless in calling others
to service.
Miller’s gift was administration—seeing a need, designing a solution,
clarifying its purposes, rallying the church’s support, and calling hundreds
to fulfill the mission. Multiple times he circled the globe, seeing a world
often troubled—broken by war, poverty, and disease. He recognized it as a
world that God loved, and for whom Jesus lived, taught, healed, and died.
Chapter 1, On Cloverdale Farm: 1892–1912 (excerpts)
“Our fathers gave both Harold Bender and me a home and church life advantage.”
On a wintry night in about 1912, Daniel D. Miller drove his horse and
carriage from his home on Cloverdale Farm near Middlebury, Indiana, to
Goshen College some fifteen miles away. Daniel, or D. D., was bundled up
against the snow, still falling after a midwestern blizzard the day before.
A trim man at five feet six inches and 125 pounds, he was also intense,
determined, and on a mission. D. D. was a widely traveled evangelist,
bishop of numerous Amish Mennonite (AM) congregations, and an officer
on various Mennonite Church boards. But tonight he was worried about
his oldest son, Orie. . . .
As Orie watched his father leave the campus and disappear into the
wintry night, he was suddenly moved by his father’s extraordinary effort
and concern. Even so, “I still felt that he needed the help more than I
did,” Orie remembered nearly fifty years later.3 Orie’s son John W. Miller
believes this book was formative for Orie, “open[ing] him to the world of
the Bible in a pragmatic sense,” rather than an ideological sense, which is
how fundamentalists viewed the Bible.”
Despite their occasional differences, Orie and his father maintained a
close relationship until D. D.’s death in 1955. They both, each in his generation,
had a profound effect on the church they loved.
Two Amish Families
Orie’s parents, Daniel D. (1864–1955) and Nettie (Jeanette) Hostetler
(1870–1938) Miller, were fifth- and sixth-generation descendants, respectively,
of Swiss Amish immigrants. Their ancestors were among the five
hundred Amish who emigrated between 1707 and 1774 from Switzerland,
France, and Germany. Both families settled in the Northkill Amish
community of Berks County, Pennsylvania, the earliest Amish settlement
in the New World.
A Clarion Call to Activism
In the spirit of the times, Mennonites and Amish Mennonites held a
large gathering in northern Indiana in 1892, the year Orie was born. This
was the first of three annual Sunday school conferences where leaders
rallied a new generation to “aggressive” and “progressive” programs
of mission, charity, and service. To facilitate such ministries, MC and
AM leaders enlarged the work of the Mennonite Evangelizing Board
(1892); founded Elkhart Institute (1895), forerunner of Goshen College;
and formed a binational denominational body, the Mennonite General
Conference (1897).
The Shaping of a Firstborn
Orie (Ora) Otis was born on July 7, 1892, three years after D. D. and
Nettie were married. Orie’s name was chosen to honor D. D.’s friend,
colleague, and former schoolteacher D. J. Johns, who was also the bishop
who ordained D. D. as deacon, minister, and later as bishop. In the five
years before Orie was born, D. J.’s wife, Nancy (Yoder) Johns, bore two
sons, one named Ora,15 and the other Otis,16 and the Millers called their
firstborn after these two. It was a name Orie never liked—typically, he
signed letters as “O. O. Miller.” Having begun the alliterative naming pattern,
matching his own, D. D. (or was it Nettie?) continued the form, perhaps
with a chuckle, in naming the rest of his sons: E. E. (Ernest Edgar),
T. T. (Trueman Titus), W. W. (William Wilbur), and S. S. (Samuel Silas).
The six daughters happily escaped the pattern and were named more conventionally:
Ida Mae, Clara Olivia, Kathryn Pearl, Bertha Elizabeth, Alice
Grace, and Mabel Ann.
Orie absorbed D. D.’s affection for the church. His father’s service and
the exposure to significant church leaders and activities prepared Orie for
a “momentous” event during the Christmas holidays of 1905. The preaching
of Daniel Kauffman at Forks church moved him to stand to signal his
readiness to identify with Christ and the church. Kauffman (1865–1944)
was then at an early stage of his long ministry as the most influential MC
leader of D. D. Miller’s generation; Orie was thirteen and the first of his
peers to respond to Kauffman’s invitation. In a nearby stream on April
1, 1906, Bishop D. J. Johns baptized Orie, along with a large group of
peers. This moment of conversion and the baptism that followed marked
the beginning of Orie’s lifelong loyalty to the church and his unusually
productive service to both the church and the world.31 Though Orie later
referred to this as his conversion, it was not so much a crisis experience as
it was marking a transition from childhood faith to owned faith, a lifelong
identification with the church and a commitment to serve Christ.
Student and Teacher
Orie finished high school in 1910. That fall he was back in the classroom—
as a part-time college student and as a teacher of country schools.
He taught for one year in a school north of Middlebury and a second year
at the Nihart School in York Township, between Middlebury and Goshen.
Both were one-room schools with eight grades, requiring the teacher
to prepare for twenty-six to thirty class periods per week. The Nihart
School souvenir card for 1911–12 lists thirty students, with such names as
Berkey, Artley, Nussbaum, Lockridge, and Nihart. On the cover is a photo
of Orie, hair neatly combed to the right in a small wave, his oval face and
narrow lips resembling his mother’s. Dressed in a double-breasted wool
suit and narrow necktie, he appears to be a no-nonsense teacher.
On a wintry night in about 1912, Daniel D. Miller drove his horse and
carriage from his home on Cloverdale Farm near Middlebury, Indiana, to
Goshen College some fifteen miles away. Daniel, or D. D., was bundled up
against the snow, still falling after a midwestern blizzard the day before.
A trim man at five feet six inches and 125 pounds, he was also intense,
determined, and on a mission. D. D. was a widely traveled evangelist,
bishop of numerous Amish Mennonite (AM) congregations, and an officer
on various Mennonite Church boards. But tonight he was worried about
his oldest son, Orie. . . .
As Orie watched his father leave the campus and disappear into the
wintry night, he was suddenly moved by his father’s extraordinary effort
and concern. Even so, “I still felt that he needed the help more than I
did,” Orie remembered nearly fifty years later.3 Orie’s son John W. Miller
believes this book was formative for Orie, “open[ing] him to the world of
the Bible in a pragmatic sense,” rather than an ideological sense, which is
how fundamentalists viewed the Bible.”
Despite their occasional differences, Orie and his father maintained a
close relationship until D. D.’s death in 1955. They both, each in his generation,
had a profound effect on the church they loved.
Two Amish Families
Orie’s parents, Daniel D. (1864–1955) and Nettie (Jeanette) Hostetler
(1870–1938) Miller, were fifth- and sixth-generation descendants, respectively,
of Swiss Amish immigrants. Their ancestors were among the five
hundred Amish who emigrated between 1707 and 1774 from Switzerland,
France, and Germany. Both families settled in the Northkill Amish
community of Berks County, Pennsylvania, the earliest Amish settlement
in the New World.
A Clarion Call to Activism
In the spirit of the times, Mennonites and Amish Mennonites held a
large gathering in northern Indiana in 1892, the year Orie was born. This
was the first of three annual Sunday school conferences where leaders
rallied a new generation to “aggressive” and “progressive” programs
of mission, charity, and service. To facilitate such ministries, MC and
AM leaders enlarged the work of the Mennonite Evangelizing Board
(1892); founded Elkhart Institute (1895), forerunner of Goshen College;
and formed a binational denominational body, the Mennonite General
Conference (1897).
The Shaping of a Firstborn
Orie (Ora) Otis was born on July 7, 1892, three years after D. D. and
Nettie were married. Orie’s name was chosen to honor D. D.’s friend,
colleague, and former schoolteacher D. J. Johns, who was also the bishop
who ordained D. D. as deacon, minister, and later as bishop. In the five
years before Orie was born, D. J.’s wife, Nancy (Yoder) Johns, bore two
sons, one named Ora,15 and the other Otis,16 and the Millers called their
firstborn after these two. It was a name Orie never liked—typically, he
signed letters as “O. O. Miller.” Having begun the alliterative naming pattern,
matching his own, D. D. (or was it Nettie?) continued the form, perhaps
with a chuckle, in naming the rest of his sons: E. E. (Ernest Edgar),
T. T. (Trueman Titus), W. W. (William Wilbur), and S. S. (Samuel Silas).
The six daughters happily escaped the pattern and were named more conventionally:
Ida Mae, Clara Olivia, Kathryn Pearl, Bertha Elizabeth, Alice
Grace, and Mabel Ann.
Orie absorbed D. D.’s affection for the church. His father’s service and
the exposure to significant church leaders and activities prepared Orie for
a “momentous” event during the Christmas holidays of 1905. The preaching
of Daniel Kauffman at Forks church moved him to stand to signal his
readiness to identify with Christ and the church. Kauffman (1865–1944)
was then at an early stage of his long ministry as the most influential MC
leader of D. D. Miller’s generation; Orie was thirteen and the first of his
peers to respond to Kauffman’s invitation. In a nearby stream on April
1, 1906, Bishop D. J. Johns baptized Orie, along with a large group of
peers. This moment of conversion and the baptism that followed marked
the beginning of Orie’s lifelong loyalty to the church and his unusually
productive service to both the church and the world.31 Though Orie later
referred to this as his conversion, it was not so much a crisis experience as
it was marking a transition from childhood faith to owned faith, a lifelong
identification with the church and a commitment to serve Christ.
Student and Teacher
Orie finished high school in 1910. That fall he was back in the classroom—
as a part-time college student and as a teacher of country schools.
He taught for one year in a school north of Middlebury and a second year
at the Nihart School in York Township, between Middlebury and Goshen.
Both were one-room schools with eight grades, requiring the teacher
to prepare for twenty-six to thirty class periods per week. The Nihart
School souvenir card for 1911–12 lists thirty students, with such names as
Berkey, Artley, Nussbaum, Lockridge, and Nihart. On the cover is a photo
of Orie, hair neatly combed to the right in a small wave, his oval face and
narrow lips resembling his mother’s. Dressed in a double-breasted wool
suit and narrow necktie, he appears to be a no-nonsense teacher.
Chapter 2, Finding Life’s Work: 1912–1915 (excerpts)
“I may turn out to be of use somewhere in this old world with you helping me. Won’t we try hard,
Elta, dearest, to be of some use to society?”
As Orie was about to graduate from Goshen’s School of Business, he
received an important phone call from Noah Ebersole Byers, president
of Goshen College. Byers, scholarly and sophisticated, had served as
president of Elkhart Institute from 1898 to 1903, and then of its successor,
Goshen College, since 1903. Now he was recruiting a teaching
principal for Goshen’s School of Business, the program of study that Orie
was just completing. Would Orie be willing to fill that role beginning in
September?
As soon as the spring term ended, Orie enrolled in the MacCormac
Business College on East Madison Street in downtown Chicago to take
advanced courses, in order to better prepare for his teaching role. He had
only the summer to do so.
Having begun his studies at Goshen in 1910, Orie already felt at home
on campus. His first association, however, dated from 1903, when his
father took ten-year-old Orie to a wheat field on the south side of Goshen.
It seemed to be a field like any other, until Orie learned that it was to
become the campus that would replace Elkhart Institute.3 Now he was on
that campus in a dual role. As a student, Orie was taking classes toward
a bachelor of arts degree in English; in his faculty post, he was replacing
his former teacher, Frank S. Ebersole, who had resigned after five years
of service.
Elta Wolf
In the spring of 1913, Orie began courting Susan Elta Wolf. The relationship
started with a double date. Orie and a friend had asked two women
for an evening out, but they had not decided how they would pair up. As
the two men waited for their dates to descend the stairs from their thirdfloor
rooms in Kulp Hall, Orie solved the problem by claiming as his date
the one who came down last. Though his plans were rarely so haphazard,
his choice was in character; he did not need to be the main man, nor did
his date need to be the foremost woman. The second woman down the steps that spring night was Elta Wolf, the woman he would marry in 1915.10 She was also the major factor in determining
his “life work,” as he often put it.
A Busy Summer
One catches a glimpse of Orie’s full schedule when later in June he found
himself at home on Cloverdale Farm with a case of the mumps. It required
a great deal of effort to find substitutes to teach his business courses, his
Bible class, and his Sunday school class; to chair the devotional committee;
to lead the Young People’s Bible Meeting; and to fill in as “master” of
the men’s dorm. His brother Ernest agreed to attend faculty meetings in
Orie’s place and do his janitorial work in the dorm. After this litany, Orie
said he had had no clue that “running a school” required so much effort!
There was no one who could do Orie’s twenty-hour student load, of
course. That he had to do himself.
Indecision
Orie felt pulled in both directions. He had begun his postsecondary education
under the Byers administration, and Byers had hired him to teach.
The professors and administrators were his friends and mentors. Yet Orie
was also the son of D. D. Miller, a member of the MBE and of the executive
committee of the Indiana-Michigan Conference, both calling the college
to greater accountability to the church. While Orie became a lifelong
advocate for Goshen College, his greater loyalty was to the church. The
college, as all institutions, was to be a servant of the church.
An Akron Christmas
Orie spent the 1913 Christmas holidays with Elta in Akron. It was his
second visit, having met her parents earlier in the fall. During this festive
week, Orie proposed to Elta and they agreed to marry in September
1915, some twenty months down the road. Elta’s father, A. N. Wolf, and
his partners offered Orie a place in Miller Hess, so his vocational plans
seemed to be settled. They needed his skills and experience as a bookkeeper,
and A. N. wanted an apprentice who would eventually take his place
as wholesale shoe salesman. The Wolfs also planned to buy and remodel a
house across Main Street for Elta and Orie.
Summer 1914
By June 1914, summer school was in full swing. Orie was taking German
and algebra and teaching his usual business courses. He reported to Elta
the beginning of a construction project: teams of horses and graders were
excavating for a new science hall, the school’s third building, which would
not be finished until 1916. As in the previous year, Orie was responsible
for all student religious activities. He asked Elta to pray for wisdom to
make the right decision about his vocation and their future.
Perplexing Choices
Once again Orie worried about his future vocation. What had been
so gloriously clear last Christmas had quickly become murky. By mid-
September, his resolve returned. Innumerable conversations, particularly
with his father, led Orie back to his original commitment to Akron and
the shoe company.34 Elta and the Wolfs were, of course, relieved. Elta was
sympathetic to Orie’s sadness about moving so far away from his parents
and promised to build a close relationship with them by writing frequent
letters and visiting when possible.
Sights Set on Akron Again
In March, A. N. Wolf graciously reaffirmed his desire to have Orie work
for the company. The public nature of their family plan had compounded
Wolf’s distress. The entire Akron community knew he had purchased a
house on Main Street for Orie and Elta. At that very moment, carpenters
and plumbers were at work remodeling the house. A. N. assured Orie he
would not hold Orie’s vacillation against him. Wolf acknowledged Orie’s
desire to serve God and the church and assured him that God could use
Orie in Lancaster just as well as any other place. In fact, the Ephrata
church needed his gifts. “I am very sure if the Lord does not want you to
be in the shoe business or to live in Lanc[aster] Co[unty], he will find you
here and put you in the right place.”
From Indiana Farm to Pennsylvania City
In June 1915, Orie received his bachelor’s degree in English from Goshen
College. In addition to his English concentration, he had taken a wide
variety of liberal arts courses such as history, astronomy, physiology, and
German. His grades were evenly divided between As and Bs. . . .
One can hardly overestimate the influence of Goshen College on
Orie. There he formed a network of friends and colleagues, mentors and
teachers—relationships he would continue to nurture to the end of his
life. There he met Elta, with whom he would share life for forty-three
years. Goshen gave him a broad liberal arts education with a concentration
in classical literature and an introduction to systematic theology and
biblical studies. From his faculty post, he observed the church at work.
Theological wrangling and partisan politics among church leaders that
could have caused Orie to become cynical, as it did some of his peers,
instilled in him instead a sense that the church and its institutions were
worthy of his loyalty and service. Whether east or west, at its best or its
worst, the church was still the body of Christ.
On July 7, his twenty-third birthday, Orie was reflective. His first
twenty-three years had prepared him for the next twenty-three, which he
expected to be his most productive years. He was beginning to make the
mental transition. His Indiana
Elta, dearest, to be of some use to society?”
As Orie was about to graduate from Goshen’s School of Business, he
received an important phone call from Noah Ebersole Byers, president
of Goshen College. Byers, scholarly and sophisticated, had served as
president of Elkhart Institute from 1898 to 1903, and then of its successor,
Goshen College, since 1903. Now he was recruiting a teaching
principal for Goshen’s School of Business, the program of study that Orie
was just completing. Would Orie be willing to fill that role beginning in
September?
As soon as the spring term ended, Orie enrolled in the MacCormac
Business College on East Madison Street in downtown Chicago to take
advanced courses, in order to better prepare for his teaching role. He had
only the summer to do so.
Having begun his studies at Goshen in 1910, Orie already felt at home
on campus. His first association, however, dated from 1903, when his
father took ten-year-old Orie to a wheat field on the south side of Goshen.
It seemed to be a field like any other, until Orie learned that it was to
become the campus that would replace Elkhart Institute.3 Now he was on
that campus in a dual role. As a student, Orie was taking classes toward
a bachelor of arts degree in English; in his faculty post, he was replacing
his former teacher, Frank S. Ebersole, who had resigned after five years
of service.
Elta Wolf
In the spring of 1913, Orie began courting Susan Elta Wolf. The relationship
started with a double date. Orie and a friend had asked two women
for an evening out, but they had not decided how they would pair up. As
the two men waited for their dates to descend the stairs from their thirdfloor
rooms in Kulp Hall, Orie solved the problem by claiming as his date
the one who came down last. Though his plans were rarely so haphazard,
his choice was in character; he did not need to be the main man, nor did
his date need to be the foremost woman. The second woman down the steps that spring night was Elta Wolf, the woman he would marry in 1915.10 She was also the major factor in determining
his “life work,” as he often put it.
A Busy Summer
One catches a glimpse of Orie’s full schedule when later in June he found
himself at home on Cloverdale Farm with a case of the mumps. It required
a great deal of effort to find substitutes to teach his business courses, his
Bible class, and his Sunday school class; to chair the devotional committee;
to lead the Young People’s Bible Meeting; and to fill in as “master” of
the men’s dorm. His brother Ernest agreed to attend faculty meetings in
Orie’s place and do his janitorial work in the dorm. After this litany, Orie
said he had had no clue that “running a school” required so much effort!
There was no one who could do Orie’s twenty-hour student load, of
course. That he had to do himself.
Indecision
Orie felt pulled in both directions. He had begun his postsecondary education
under the Byers administration, and Byers had hired him to teach.
The professors and administrators were his friends and mentors. Yet Orie
was also the son of D. D. Miller, a member of the MBE and of the executive
committee of the Indiana-Michigan Conference, both calling the college
to greater accountability to the church. While Orie became a lifelong
advocate for Goshen College, his greater loyalty was to the church. The
college, as all institutions, was to be a servant of the church.
An Akron Christmas
Orie spent the 1913 Christmas holidays with Elta in Akron. It was his
second visit, having met her parents earlier in the fall. During this festive
week, Orie proposed to Elta and they agreed to marry in September
1915, some twenty months down the road. Elta’s father, A. N. Wolf, and
his partners offered Orie a place in Miller Hess, so his vocational plans
seemed to be settled. They needed his skills and experience as a bookkeeper,
and A. N. wanted an apprentice who would eventually take his place
as wholesale shoe salesman. The Wolfs also planned to buy and remodel a
house across Main Street for Elta and Orie.
Summer 1914
By June 1914, summer school was in full swing. Orie was taking German
and algebra and teaching his usual business courses. He reported to Elta
the beginning of a construction project: teams of horses and graders were
excavating for a new science hall, the school’s third building, which would
not be finished until 1916. As in the previous year, Orie was responsible
for all student religious activities. He asked Elta to pray for wisdom to
make the right decision about his vocation and their future.
Perplexing Choices
Once again Orie worried about his future vocation. What had been
so gloriously clear last Christmas had quickly become murky. By mid-
September, his resolve returned. Innumerable conversations, particularly
with his father, led Orie back to his original commitment to Akron and
the shoe company.34 Elta and the Wolfs were, of course, relieved. Elta was
sympathetic to Orie’s sadness about moving so far away from his parents
and promised to build a close relationship with them by writing frequent
letters and visiting when possible.
Sights Set on Akron Again
In March, A. N. Wolf graciously reaffirmed his desire to have Orie work
for the company. The public nature of their family plan had compounded
Wolf’s distress. The entire Akron community knew he had purchased a
house on Main Street for Orie and Elta. At that very moment, carpenters
and plumbers were at work remodeling the house. A. N. assured Orie he
would not hold Orie’s vacillation against him. Wolf acknowledged Orie’s
desire to serve God and the church and assured him that God could use
Orie in Lancaster just as well as any other place. In fact, the Ephrata
church needed his gifts. “I am very sure if the Lord does not want you to
be in the shoe business or to live in Lanc[aster] Co[unty], he will find you
here and put you in the right place.”
From Indiana Farm to Pennsylvania City
In June 1915, Orie received his bachelor’s degree in English from Goshen
College. In addition to his English concentration, he had taken a wide
variety of liberal arts courses such as history, astronomy, physiology, and
German. His grades were evenly divided between As and Bs. . . .
One can hardly overestimate the influence of Goshen College on
Orie. There he formed a network of friends and colleagues, mentors and
teachers—relationships he would continue to nurture to the end of his
life. There he met Elta, with whom he would share life for forty-three
years. Goshen gave him a broad liberal arts education with a concentration
in classical literature and an introduction to systematic theology and
biblical studies. From his faculty post, he observed the church at work.
Theological wrangling and partisan politics among church leaders that
could have caused Orie to become cynical, as it did some of his peers,
instilled in him instead a sense that the church and its institutions were
worthy of his loyalty and service. Whether east or west, at its best or its
worst, the church was still the body of Christ.
On July 7, his twenty-third birthday, Orie was reflective. His first
twenty-three years had prepared him for the next twenty-three, which he
expected to be his most productive years. He was beginning to make the
mental transition. His Indiana
Chapter 3, Borough on a Hill: 1915–1919 (excerpts)
“I feel we are not giving of our means and selves enough for the Master.”
Akron in 1915
When Orie arrived in Akron, there were no paved streets, and horses still
dominated the traffic, but not for long. As shoe production had replaced
cigar making for the Wolfs and their partners, so cars were now beginning
to replace horses and carriages on the streets of Akron. The borough
was then developing public utilities. A water company had been formed
in 1910–11; gas utilities were still a year in the future; and electricity was
two years in coming. Visible from a long distance was the one-hundredfoot
“standpipe” storage tank, the result of the 1910–11 waterworks. The
stamped iron plate on the upright tank identifies A. N. Wolf as a borough
council member. The opening of the Akron National Bank in 1912 testified
to the borough’s growing prosperity.
Married Life
Orie and Elta were married on August 26, 1915, in their newly refurbished
home on Main Street. (Church weddings were a later development.)
D. D. Miller, just back from representing Mennonite peace concerns
in the nation’s capital, performed the ceremony. He, Orie’s mother,
Nettie, and brother Ernest represented the Indiana Millers. The local
paper reported that “an elegant dinner” followed the ceremony in the
Wolf home across the street.
Miller, Hess & Company
Orie Miller walked four blocks to his new job at the Miller Hess shoe
factory, on the southeast corner of Main and Seventh Streets. The company
had been in operation for fifteen years. Though named for two of its
founders, Orie found it convenient; the coincidental convergence of names
led many outside of Akron to conclude that the “Miller” was for Orie
Miller. At least one colleague believed that Orie was not overly concerned
about correcting the assumption.
A Perplexing Ordination
Orie had little doubt that the lot would fall to him. Though he later
said he never had much confidence in the lot, he was cooperative, believing
he would be called as his father had been called to pastoral ministry or
evangelism. He had nearly scuttled plans to move to Akron for a pastoral
assignment in northern Indiana. He and Elta had often talked about
whether it would be possible for him as a midwesterner and a Goshen
College graduate to serve in a Lancaster Conference congregation. That
possibility was now before him. After a sermon on the qualifications of a
minister and the duties of a congregation, the great moment was at hand.
With the drawing of the lot, one man’s life, and that of his family, would
be forever changed.
Orie, the oldest of the candidates—two weeks past his twenty-sixth
birthday—was at the head of the row and the first to select his book.
He reached for the first book, hesitated, then reached over it to pick up
the second book. Amos Horst, seated next to Orie, took the first book.
When each candidate had drawn a book, the presiding bishop took the
book from each one in turn. When he opened Orie’s book there was no
lot. Instead, the lot was found in Amos Horst’s book—the one Orie had
passed over. As Orie looked on, Horst knelt on the floor while the bishop
laid hands on him in the sacred ritual of ordination.
Orie was perplexed and confused. Why had the outer call not confirmed
the inner call? What did this mean for his life work? One can
imagine the conversations that day with Elta and her parents, and the
troubled sleep that followed. Orie later remembered this as the most
difficult moment of his life. With the benefit of hindsight, ordination as
minister would have greatly restricted.
True Patriotism Has No National Boundaries
When World War I war broke out in Europe, Gospel Herald editor Daniel
Kauffman, whose preaching at Forks church had converted Orie as a teenager,
was quick to denounce the war. Genuine patriotism is not nationalism,
but rather “a loyalty which seeks the glory of God and the good of
fellowmen” in every country. “True patriotism,” he declared, “has no
national boundaries.”
A Mennonite Compromise
As in many other communities, the Mennonites in Lancaster County felt
the pressure to purchase the “voluntary” Liberty Bonds. Their refusal to
participate hampered the success of the bond drives and frustrated officials
in their competition with other municipalities to prove that they were
“100 percent patriotic.” In Akron, a local Jewish farmer who served on
the bond quota committee “was after everybody.”
Lancaster followed the lead of Fulton County, Ohio, Mennonites, who
had worked out a compromise with W. L. Crooks of Cleveland, Ohio,
a Federal Reserve Bank official. Mennonites could make loans to their
local banks according to an assigned quota. Conscientious objector loans
would earn less interest than Liberty Bonds would, but the money was to
be designated for nonmilitary purposes. Mennonites would not be funding
the war directly, but their loans counted toward the quotas of Liberty
Bond drives. Crooks reasoned that his plan put Mennonite money on the
same basis as their grain; what happened to the grain after it was sold was
no longer their responsibility.
The World at War
Orie looked on as the commission acted to support reconstruction
work in France under the American Friends Service Committee
(AFSC), and relief efforts in Turkey and Syria organized by the American
Committee for Relief in the Near East. But the members of the commission
would do more than that; they would also send volunteers to these
places of need. Who would be willing to go to the lands of the Bible,
where the suffering was so great?
Orie was deeply moved by what he was hearing. Had the lack of ordination
at Ephrata six months earlier spared him for such a ministry as
this? Aaron Loucks, chair of the Relief Commission, mentioned Orie as
the type of volunteer they were looking for.
When Orie heard his name, his heart skipped a beat. As the discussion
continued, Orie’s sense of call deepened. When he looked toward his father
across the room, D. D. was looking directly at him. As their eyes met,
each knew the thoughts of the other. In a flash of clarity, Orie responded
to his father’s silent nudge and volunteered to go to the Middle East!
A heavy sense of reality followed. What about Elta, Lois, his work,
and A. N. Wolf? Lois Wolf Miller was sixteen months old. What kind of
a man leaves his family and his job for a foreign land he has never seen to
serve people he has never met?
How would he break the news to Elta and her parents? With D. D.’s
support, Orie did just that. A sense of disbelief followed Orie’s announcement.
Elta’s shock was tempered by her sense of Orie’s call and their many
conversations about Christian service. As she would do many more times,
she acquiesced and tried to make his call hers too. To his father-in-law, A.
N. Wolf, Orie’s abandonment was senseless and irresponsible.
Akron in 1915
When Orie arrived in Akron, there were no paved streets, and horses still
dominated the traffic, but not for long. As shoe production had replaced
cigar making for the Wolfs and their partners, so cars were now beginning
to replace horses and carriages on the streets of Akron. The borough
was then developing public utilities. A water company had been formed
in 1910–11; gas utilities were still a year in the future; and electricity was
two years in coming. Visible from a long distance was the one-hundredfoot
“standpipe” storage tank, the result of the 1910–11 waterworks. The
stamped iron plate on the upright tank identifies A. N. Wolf as a borough
council member. The opening of the Akron National Bank in 1912 testified
to the borough’s growing prosperity.
Married Life
Orie and Elta were married on August 26, 1915, in their newly refurbished
home on Main Street. (Church weddings were a later development.)
D. D. Miller, just back from representing Mennonite peace concerns
in the nation’s capital, performed the ceremony. He, Orie’s mother,
Nettie, and brother Ernest represented the Indiana Millers. The local
paper reported that “an elegant dinner” followed the ceremony in the
Wolf home across the street.
Miller, Hess & Company
Orie Miller walked four blocks to his new job at the Miller Hess shoe
factory, on the southeast corner of Main and Seventh Streets. The company
had been in operation for fifteen years. Though named for two of its
founders, Orie found it convenient; the coincidental convergence of names
led many outside of Akron to conclude that the “Miller” was for Orie
Miller. At least one colleague believed that Orie was not overly concerned
about correcting the assumption.
A Perplexing Ordination
Orie had little doubt that the lot would fall to him. Though he later
said he never had much confidence in the lot, he was cooperative, believing
he would be called as his father had been called to pastoral ministry or
evangelism. He had nearly scuttled plans to move to Akron for a pastoral
assignment in northern Indiana. He and Elta had often talked about
whether it would be possible for him as a midwesterner and a Goshen
College graduate to serve in a Lancaster Conference congregation. That
possibility was now before him. After a sermon on the qualifications of a
minister and the duties of a congregation, the great moment was at hand.
With the drawing of the lot, one man’s life, and that of his family, would
be forever changed.
Orie, the oldest of the candidates—two weeks past his twenty-sixth
birthday—was at the head of the row and the first to select his book.
He reached for the first book, hesitated, then reached over it to pick up
the second book. Amos Horst, seated next to Orie, took the first book.
When each candidate had drawn a book, the presiding bishop took the
book from each one in turn. When he opened Orie’s book there was no
lot. Instead, the lot was found in Amos Horst’s book—the one Orie had
passed over. As Orie looked on, Horst knelt on the floor while the bishop
laid hands on him in the sacred ritual of ordination.
Orie was perplexed and confused. Why had the outer call not confirmed
the inner call? What did this mean for his life work? One can
imagine the conversations that day with Elta and her parents, and the
troubled sleep that followed. Orie later remembered this as the most
difficult moment of his life. With the benefit of hindsight, ordination as
minister would have greatly restricted.
True Patriotism Has No National Boundaries
When World War I war broke out in Europe, Gospel Herald editor Daniel
Kauffman, whose preaching at Forks church had converted Orie as a teenager,
was quick to denounce the war. Genuine patriotism is not nationalism,
but rather “a loyalty which seeks the glory of God and the good of
fellowmen” in every country. “True patriotism,” he declared, “has no
national boundaries.”
A Mennonite Compromise
As in many other communities, the Mennonites in Lancaster County felt
the pressure to purchase the “voluntary” Liberty Bonds. Their refusal to
participate hampered the success of the bond drives and frustrated officials
in their competition with other municipalities to prove that they were
“100 percent patriotic.” In Akron, a local Jewish farmer who served on
the bond quota committee “was after everybody.”
Lancaster followed the lead of Fulton County, Ohio, Mennonites, who
had worked out a compromise with W. L. Crooks of Cleveland, Ohio,
a Federal Reserve Bank official. Mennonites could make loans to their
local banks according to an assigned quota. Conscientious objector loans
would earn less interest than Liberty Bonds would, but the money was to
be designated for nonmilitary purposes. Mennonites would not be funding
the war directly, but their loans counted toward the quotas of Liberty
Bond drives. Crooks reasoned that his plan put Mennonite money on the
same basis as their grain; what happened to the grain after it was sold was
no longer their responsibility.
The World at War
Orie looked on as the commission acted to support reconstruction
work in France under the American Friends Service Committee
(AFSC), and relief efforts in Turkey and Syria organized by the American
Committee for Relief in the Near East. But the members of the commission
would do more than that; they would also send volunteers to these
places of need. Who would be willing to go to the lands of the Bible,
where the suffering was so great?
Orie was deeply moved by what he was hearing. Had the lack of ordination
at Ephrata six months earlier spared him for such a ministry as
this? Aaron Loucks, chair of the Relief Commission, mentioned Orie as
the type of volunteer they were looking for.
When Orie heard his name, his heart skipped a beat. As the discussion
continued, Orie’s sense of call deepened. When he looked toward his father
across the room, D. D. was looking directly at him. As their eyes met,
each knew the thoughts of the other. In a flash of clarity, Orie responded
to his father’s silent nudge and volunteered to go to the Middle East!
A heavy sense of reality followed. What about Elta, Lois, his work,
and A. N. Wolf? Lois Wolf Miller was sixteen months old. What kind of
a man leaves his family and his job for a foreign land he has never seen to
serve people he has never met?
How would he break the news to Elta and her parents? With D. D.’s
support, Orie did just that. A sense of disbelief followed Orie’s announcement.
Elta’s shock was tempered by her sense of Orie’s call and their many
conversations about Christian service. As she would do many more times,
she acquiesced and tried to make his call hers too. To his father-in-law, A.
N. Wolf, Orie’s abandonment was senseless and irresponsible.
Chapter 4, Sacrifice for a Noble Cause: 1919–1920 (excerpts)
“During the world’s reconstruction period we can conscientiously help, and act positively,
showing the world the sincerity and consistency of our [Christian] profession.”
On January 25, 1919, only twenty-one days after Orie volunteered at the
Lancaster meeting of the Mennonite Relief Commission for War Sufferers,
Elta, A. N. Wolf, and Elta’s friend Martha Martin stood on Pier 62 in
New York Harbor and watched the USS Pensacola disappear over the
Atlantic horizon. Orie was on his way to Beirut, Syria (now Lebanon),
along with eight other Mennonite volunteers who were serving at the call
of the commission. It would be fifteen months before he returned home.
No one could know that this was the first of more than sixty transatlantic
crossings for Orie.
Conditions in Beirut
On February 19, after twenty-six days on the Atlantic, the Pensacola
dropped anchor in the port of Beirut. Until the five tons of relief supplies
were unloaded, the volunteers had time to explore the city. Orie made
note of camel caravans; emaciated children barely dressed, some crying
of hunger; soldiers in uniform from many nations; and some well-dressed
Syrians. Orie had never imagined he would see “such a mixed up motly”
collection of people in a single city. And, of course, now the foreign North
American Mennonites were added to the mix.
Thoughts about Future Service
On March 16, the Mennonite workers in Beirut had front-row seats in
a memorial service for the million or more Armenians massacred by the
Turks in the recent war. They found themselves in “rather stately company”
among French and English officers and Red Cross personnel. The
ceremony was conducted in Armenian, except for an English-language
description of the horrors suffered by the victims and an expression of
gratitude for the civil and military assistance of the Allied nations.
A Mission to Russia?
In Beirut, Orie was now in charge of Red Cross warehouses and all
goods received and shipped. He was part of the network of support for
five thousand orphans in the city. While the work was going well, Orie
was dismayed by the long silence of Aaron Loucks and William Derstine,
who had not kept the Beirut volunteers apprised of their progress in
Constantinople. On their way home they suddenly appeared in Beirut, as
though it were an afterthought. The two had been entirely unsuccessful
in Constantinople. Although the NER had assured them of assistance,
the New York office had not prepared the way with the Constantinople
office. There would be no Mennonite relief unit. Orie was disappointed,
but not surprised; he had “felt it coming.”
Orie Promoted
On May 23, Orie received by letter his formal appointment as quartermaster
to the stores of Beirut District. Major James Nichol, deputy commissioner
for Syria, signed the order. The new title was a military designation
for the chief base supply officer, having the rank of captain or major.
Quartermaster Miller would now buy all supplies foreign or domestic,
sign all shipping orders, and oversee weekly expenditures of $3,000 to
$5,000 for supplies from the local markets. He was quite confident that
by making these purchases personally, he could save the agency money. To
Elta he wrote that he did not share this “dope” with everyone, but only
with her, since she was interested in everything he did.
Commanding Officer and Director of Beirut District
Orie had challenges of a different sort; he was now buying all food supplies
for the mess hall at the American College, two hospitals, and an
orphanage, about 150 people in all. With frugality ever in mind, he could
save more money by buying supplies in larger quantities. He was also
learning to know “nearly all the biggest wholesale merchants of Beirut,”
some of whom were very wealthy. While his success was pleasing his
Beirut superiors, he knew he was failing others. Elta’s parents “wanted
and deserved a different kind of son-in-law.” Any decision he and Elta
would make that deviated from the past four years “will not be just as
they wished.” He was “very, very sorry about this . . . but I want to do
right at any cost.” In an echo of his floundering for direction at Goshen
College, he lamented, “It is so hard to know just in what direction one’s
duty lies.”
Something of a Celebrity
At home, Orie found himself something of a celebrity. In the next sixteen
weeks, he spoke eighteen times to audiences from Akron to Middlebury,
Indiana, and from from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Ocean Grove, New
Jersey. His diaries, letters, and articles for the church press had made his
a household name. He also had opportunity to speak to other audiences,
but when invited by the NER to speak to other groups, Orie said, as he
would so often in the future, that his first obligation was to the congregations
“of our own church.”
Orie was never eloquent. He gained a hearing not for the manner of his
speaking, but for his message. In time, he developed his own vocabulary,
which his first biographer called “Orieisms” and “Millerese.” Sometimes
his language was cryptic; at other times, he wrote endless sentences.
Having earned an English major at Goshen College did not prevent Orie
from inventing his own unorthodox semantics.62 (For a sampling, see
Appendix A.)
showing the world the sincerity and consistency of our [Christian] profession.”
On January 25, 1919, only twenty-one days after Orie volunteered at the
Lancaster meeting of the Mennonite Relief Commission for War Sufferers,
Elta, A. N. Wolf, and Elta’s friend Martha Martin stood on Pier 62 in
New York Harbor and watched the USS Pensacola disappear over the
Atlantic horizon. Orie was on his way to Beirut, Syria (now Lebanon),
along with eight other Mennonite volunteers who were serving at the call
of the commission. It would be fifteen months before he returned home.
No one could know that this was the first of more than sixty transatlantic
crossings for Orie.
Conditions in Beirut
On February 19, after twenty-six days on the Atlantic, the Pensacola
dropped anchor in the port of Beirut. Until the five tons of relief supplies
were unloaded, the volunteers had time to explore the city. Orie made
note of camel caravans; emaciated children barely dressed, some crying
of hunger; soldiers in uniform from many nations; and some well-dressed
Syrians. Orie had never imagined he would see “such a mixed up motly”
collection of people in a single city. And, of course, now the foreign North
American Mennonites were added to the mix.
Thoughts about Future Service
On March 16, the Mennonite workers in Beirut had front-row seats in
a memorial service for the million or more Armenians massacred by the
Turks in the recent war. They found themselves in “rather stately company”
among French and English officers and Red Cross personnel. The
ceremony was conducted in Armenian, except for an English-language
description of the horrors suffered by the victims and an expression of
gratitude for the civil and military assistance of the Allied nations.
A Mission to Russia?
In Beirut, Orie was now in charge of Red Cross warehouses and all
goods received and shipped. He was part of the network of support for
five thousand orphans in the city. While the work was going well, Orie
was dismayed by the long silence of Aaron Loucks and William Derstine,
who had not kept the Beirut volunteers apprised of their progress in
Constantinople. On their way home they suddenly appeared in Beirut, as
though it were an afterthought. The two had been entirely unsuccessful
in Constantinople. Although the NER had assured them of assistance,
the New York office had not prepared the way with the Constantinople
office. There would be no Mennonite relief unit. Orie was disappointed,
but not surprised; he had “felt it coming.”
Orie Promoted
On May 23, Orie received by letter his formal appointment as quartermaster
to the stores of Beirut District. Major James Nichol, deputy commissioner
for Syria, signed the order. The new title was a military designation
for the chief base supply officer, having the rank of captain or major.
Quartermaster Miller would now buy all supplies foreign or domestic,
sign all shipping orders, and oversee weekly expenditures of $3,000 to
$5,000 for supplies from the local markets. He was quite confident that
by making these purchases personally, he could save the agency money. To
Elta he wrote that he did not share this “dope” with everyone, but only
with her, since she was interested in everything he did.
Commanding Officer and Director of Beirut District
Orie had challenges of a different sort; he was now buying all food supplies
for the mess hall at the American College, two hospitals, and an
orphanage, about 150 people in all. With frugality ever in mind, he could
save more money by buying supplies in larger quantities. He was also
learning to know “nearly all the biggest wholesale merchants of Beirut,”
some of whom were very wealthy. While his success was pleasing his
Beirut superiors, he knew he was failing others. Elta’s parents “wanted
and deserved a different kind of son-in-law.” Any decision he and Elta
would make that deviated from the past four years “will not be just as
they wished.” He was “very, very sorry about this . . . but I want to do
right at any cost.” In an echo of his floundering for direction at Goshen
College, he lamented, “It is so hard to know just in what direction one’s
duty lies.”
Something of a Celebrity
At home, Orie found himself something of a celebrity. In the next sixteen
weeks, he spoke eighteen times to audiences from Akron to Middlebury,
Indiana, and from from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Ocean Grove, New
Jersey. His diaries, letters, and articles for the church press had made his
a household name. He also had opportunity to speak to other audiences,
but when invited by the NER to speak to other groups, Orie said, as he
would so often in the future, that his first obligation was to the congregations
“of our own church.”
Orie was never eloquent. He gained a hearing not for the manner of his
speaking, but for his message. In time, he developed his own vocabulary,
which his first biographer called “Orieisms” and “Millerese.” Sometimes
his language was cryptic; at other times, he wrote endless sentences.
Having earned an English major at Goshen College did not prevent Orie
from inventing his own unorthodox semantics.62 (For a sampling, see
Appendix A.)
Chapter 5, Terrible Beyond Description: 1920–1921 (excerpts)
“I am too close to all this misery and suffering to talk much about it, my mind is all a daze. I have
thot nothing, dreamt nothing it seems for weeks . . . but poor, starving, sick miserable humanity.”
Amid speaking engagements and shoe sales (yes, Orie was selling shoes
again), Middle East relief work was ever on Orie’s mind and agenda,
even as his passion for Russia was rekindled. Having won the confidence
of Major James H. Nichol in Beirut and NER General Secretary C. V.
Vickery in New York, Orie was helping recruit young Mennonites for
NER work in Syria and Turkey. In recruitment, Orie was careful, and in
the case of one young couple, immovable. Nellie Miller, who was already
serving in Constantinople, was eager to have Cleo Mann, her fiancé, join
her in Beirut. C. W. Fowle, NER managing director of Beirut District, sent
an urgent request for Mann to New York, Scottdale, and Akron. Cleo was
eager to serve, but Orie believed him too young and refused to bend, to
the great disappointment of both Nellie and Cleo.
Never a “Cause in Which I So Thoroughly Believe”
In the spring of 1920, Orie returned from a long business trip in time to
travel with Elta to Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to attend meetings of the
Mennonite Board of Missions, and then to Scottdale for a meeting with
the Mennonite Relief Commission for War Sufferers. At both meetings,
Orie urged leaders to make Russia a priority.
From Scottdale, Orie wrote about his future with Miller Hess. To his
brother Ernest he wrote that he had his partners’ “reluctant permission”
to take a four-month leave and that his job would be secure.9 But a day
later, Clarence wrote that an extra salesman for the next season was absolutely
necessary and asked Orie to declare his intentions. Orie responded:
“It does not seem possible to open Russia work now unless I stay by my
promise” (to be available for service there). “Does your wire mean my
acceptance would sever my past relations with the firm or would you
endeavor to secure a temporary salesman?
“Think of Us as Your Servants”
On,Wednesday, September 1, 1920, Elta Wolf Miller once again watched
Orie disappear over the Atlantic horizon. She, Clarence and Gertie Hess,
and Levi Mumaw, secretary-treasurer of MCC, traveled with Orie to New
York Harbor where Orie boarded the SS Providence.36 His companions
were Arthur Slagel, a member of the Hesston College music faculty from
Flanagan, Illinois; and Clayton Kratz, a Goshen College student from
Perkasie, Pennsylvania. Kratz was a campus leader and an excellent student.
He was president-elect of the Young Peoples’ Christian Association,
the most active of student organizations. Kratz interrupted his college
training to accept the call to service in Russia.
In Constantinople
On September 27, 1920—the day the MCC board was meeting for the
first time in Chicago—the Providence steamed through the Dardanelles
and into the Sea of Marmara, then into the Bosphorus Strait to dock at
Constantinople, the former capital of the great Byzantine Empire. Named
for Emperor Constantine, the city spanned the strait to occupy the continents
of both Europe and Asia. The grand city of Emperor Justinian, who
built the world-famous Hagia Sofia, the Church of Holy Wisdom, had
strategic access to the Black Sea on the north, and the seas of Marmara,
the Aegean, and the Mediterranean to the south.
The Dreadful Specter of Starvation
On the northern shore of the Black Sea lay the object of their mission.
Like much of Europe, the Russian Empire had suffered the ravages
of World War I, the folly of vainglorious royalty . . .
This was the heartrending, chaotic crucible that Orie Miller, Clayton
Kratz, and Arthur Slagel entered in October 1920. The “dear brethren
from abroad” were trying to bring food and clothing, but the advance
of the Red Army was threatening the effort. When Miller and Kratz
crossed the Black Sea, the Soviet Reds controlled most of Russia. The
White Army, the armed forces of South Russia under the command of
General Pyotr Nikolayevic Wrangel, struggled to hold what was left of
the Ukraine and the Crimea, where most of the Mennonite colonies were
located. Wrangel’s coalition government welcomed the relief efforts of the
American Mennonites, but a Red victory would close the door to Russia.
By October 1920, a White defeat was
The Blighting Effects of War
On October 10, in the trade city of Melitopol on the Molotschna River,
Dr. Monastery hired a “rickety” carriage to take them the three miles to
Jacob Neufeld’s mills. Neufeld had also been appointed a member of the
Studienkommission but had been denied a visa. Along the way, Miller and
Kratz began to see the suffering they had come to relieve, though not yet
at its worst. Orie recorded the scenes in his diary:
I never saw a poorer looking town. A few Wrangel motor cars and trucks
lumbered along on the poorly paved street. 90 per cent of the people
outside of the army and even most of these seemed to be literally in rags.
Windows in buildings were broken and not replaced. Horses are skinny
and few, and the poorest kind of harness. On the way down we met a
bunch of Bolshevik prisoners, mere boys, with their coarsely woven gray
uniforms. Probably one woman out of four had shoes that at least looked
like leather, the rest had none or cloth ones. Children are mostly barefoot.
The Abduction of Clayton Kratz
The road to Alexandrovsk, their next destination, ran parallel to the
battlefront. Destruction was visible everywhere. They saw hundreds of
the reported twelve thousand dead horses, some partly consumed by
dogs. There were “hundreds and hundreds” of graves of fallen soldiers,
and mass graves in trenches. They stopped for the night in a German village
where they heard more stories of deprivation and suffering caused
by occupying armies. Eleven times the village had been occupied by
one army or the other, each time soldiers taking what they wanted. The
people were “all extremely sad and pessimistic, and felt utterly hopeless in
their misery.” They were “in constant fear of plunder, robbery and rape.
Roving bands on horseback under a Father Maknov [sic] were the special
terror of many.”67 Thousands had died here the winter before from the
typhus spread by soldiers. The next day, Orie, Clayton Kratz, and Dr.
Monastery drove four more hours to Alexandrovsk by the Dnieper River,
in Chortitza Colony.
“Mountains of Work” in Constantinople
While to P. C. Hiebert, Orie’s worked appeared efficient, Orie was becoming
impatient. He wished for Slagel’s return and for A. J. Miller’s arrival
to share the load. To Elta, he registered his frustrations: “So many more
things could be done right now so terribly necessary if only personnel
were here. Three months gone already and still [I have] no help. I want to
come home by February 1. . . am ready to turn the work over to someone
else, but plainly can not leave now until a proper person arrives to take it.
I am tired and have lived under severe strain for the past two months, and
just long for a little let up, but none is in sight.”
Contact s with European Mennonites and Quakers—and Aid to Russia
Orie left Constantinople on February 9, 1921. He apologized to Elta for
his indefinite return plans—he had not been sure when he could leave
Constantinople, and MCC had insisted he consult with Swiss, German,
and Dutch Mennonite leaders on his way home. That would take an
additional ten days. “In a short time . . . we can talk over these misunderstandings
together and they will probably clear up.” At least he
hoped so!
thot nothing, dreamt nothing it seems for weeks . . . but poor, starving, sick miserable humanity.”
Amid speaking engagements and shoe sales (yes, Orie was selling shoes
again), Middle East relief work was ever on Orie’s mind and agenda,
even as his passion for Russia was rekindled. Having won the confidence
of Major James H. Nichol in Beirut and NER General Secretary C. V.
Vickery in New York, Orie was helping recruit young Mennonites for
NER work in Syria and Turkey. In recruitment, Orie was careful, and in
the case of one young couple, immovable. Nellie Miller, who was already
serving in Constantinople, was eager to have Cleo Mann, her fiancé, join
her in Beirut. C. W. Fowle, NER managing director of Beirut District, sent
an urgent request for Mann to New York, Scottdale, and Akron. Cleo was
eager to serve, but Orie believed him too young and refused to bend, to
the great disappointment of both Nellie and Cleo.
Never a “Cause in Which I So Thoroughly Believe”
In the spring of 1920, Orie returned from a long business trip in time to
travel with Elta to Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to attend meetings of the
Mennonite Board of Missions, and then to Scottdale for a meeting with
the Mennonite Relief Commission for War Sufferers. At both meetings,
Orie urged leaders to make Russia a priority.
From Scottdale, Orie wrote about his future with Miller Hess. To his
brother Ernest he wrote that he had his partners’ “reluctant permission”
to take a four-month leave and that his job would be secure.9 But a day
later, Clarence wrote that an extra salesman for the next season was absolutely
necessary and asked Orie to declare his intentions. Orie responded:
“It does not seem possible to open Russia work now unless I stay by my
promise” (to be available for service there). “Does your wire mean my
acceptance would sever my past relations with the firm or would you
endeavor to secure a temporary salesman?
“Think of Us as Your Servants”
On,Wednesday, September 1, 1920, Elta Wolf Miller once again watched
Orie disappear over the Atlantic horizon. She, Clarence and Gertie Hess,
and Levi Mumaw, secretary-treasurer of MCC, traveled with Orie to New
York Harbor where Orie boarded the SS Providence.36 His companions
were Arthur Slagel, a member of the Hesston College music faculty from
Flanagan, Illinois; and Clayton Kratz, a Goshen College student from
Perkasie, Pennsylvania. Kratz was a campus leader and an excellent student.
He was president-elect of the Young Peoples’ Christian Association,
the most active of student organizations. Kratz interrupted his college
training to accept the call to service in Russia.
In Constantinople
On September 27, 1920—the day the MCC board was meeting for the
first time in Chicago—the Providence steamed through the Dardanelles
and into the Sea of Marmara, then into the Bosphorus Strait to dock at
Constantinople, the former capital of the great Byzantine Empire. Named
for Emperor Constantine, the city spanned the strait to occupy the continents
of both Europe and Asia. The grand city of Emperor Justinian, who
built the world-famous Hagia Sofia, the Church of Holy Wisdom, had
strategic access to the Black Sea on the north, and the seas of Marmara,
the Aegean, and the Mediterranean to the south.
The Dreadful Specter of Starvation
On the northern shore of the Black Sea lay the object of their mission.
Like much of Europe, the Russian Empire had suffered the ravages
of World War I, the folly of vainglorious royalty . . .
This was the heartrending, chaotic crucible that Orie Miller, Clayton
Kratz, and Arthur Slagel entered in October 1920. The “dear brethren
from abroad” were trying to bring food and clothing, but the advance
of the Red Army was threatening the effort. When Miller and Kratz
crossed the Black Sea, the Soviet Reds controlled most of Russia. The
White Army, the armed forces of South Russia under the command of
General Pyotr Nikolayevic Wrangel, struggled to hold what was left of
the Ukraine and the Crimea, where most of the Mennonite colonies were
located. Wrangel’s coalition government welcomed the relief efforts of the
American Mennonites, but a Red victory would close the door to Russia.
By October 1920, a White defeat was
The Blighting Effects of War
On October 10, in the trade city of Melitopol on the Molotschna River,
Dr. Monastery hired a “rickety” carriage to take them the three miles to
Jacob Neufeld’s mills. Neufeld had also been appointed a member of the
Studienkommission but had been denied a visa. Along the way, Miller and
Kratz began to see the suffering they had come to relieve, though not yet
at its worst. Orie recorded the scenes in his diary:
I never saw a poorer looking town. A few Wrangel motor cars and trucks
lumbered along on the poorly paved street. 90 per cent of the people
outside of the army and even most of these seemed to be literally in rags.
Windows in buildings were broken and not replaced. Horses are skinny
and few, and the poorest kind of harness. On the way down we met a
bunch of Bolshevik prisoners, mere boys, with their coarsely woven gray
uniforms. Probably one woman out of four had shoes that at least looked
like leather, the rest had none or cloth ones. Children are mostly barefoot.
The Abduction of Clayton Kratz
The road to Alexandrovsk, their next destination, ran parallel to the
battlefront. Destruction was visible everywhere. They saw hundreds of
the reported twelve thousand dead horses, some partly consumed by
dogs. There were “hundreds and hundreds” of graves of fallen soldiers,
and mass graves in trenches. They stopped for the night in a German village
where they heard more stories of deprivation and suffering caused
by occupying armies. Eleven times the village had been occupied by
one army or the other, each time soldiers taking what they wanted. The
people were “all extremely sad and pessimistic, and felt utterly hopeless in
their misery.” They were “in constant fear of plunder, robbery and rape.
Roving bands on horseback under a Father Maknov [sic] were the special
terror of many.”67 Thousands had died here the winter before from the
typhus spread by soldiers. The next day, Orie, Clayton Kratz, and Dr.
Monastery drove four more hours to Alexandrovsk by the Dnieper River,
in Chortitza Colony.
“Mountains of Work” in Constantinople
While to P. C. Hiebert, Orie’s worked appeared efficient, Orie was becoming
impatient. He wished for Slagel’s return and for A. J. Miller’s arrival
to share the load. To Elta, he registered his frustrations: “So many more
things could be done right now so terribly necessary if only personnel
were here. Three months gone already and still [I have] no help. I want to
come home by February 1. . . am ready to turn the work over to someone
else, but plainly can not leave now until a proper person arrives to take it.
I am tired and have lived under severe strain for the past two months, and
just long for a little let up, but none is in sight.”
Contact s with European Mennonites and Quakers—and Aid to Russia
Orie left Constantinople on February 9, 1921. He apologized to Elta for
his indefinite return plans—he had not been sure when he could leave
Constantinople, and MCC had insisted he consult with Swiss, German,
and Dutch Mennonite leaders on his way home. That would take an
additional ten days. “In a short time . . . we can talk over these misunderstandings
together and they will probably clear up.” At least he
hoped so!
Chapter 6, Patterns of a Calling: 1921–1929 (excerpts)
“Where the administrative gift tends to become noticeable and prominent anywhere, it’s a pity,
because it’s not intended to be that.”
When Orie returned from Russia in 1921, it was to a troubled church.
Mennonites were caught up in a theological crucible, which included
premillennialism, resistance to modern cultural change, and the fundamentalist-
modernist debate. Fundamentalism, which emerged in the wake
of World War I, was a militant protest against liberal theology and social,
cultural, and intellectual changes. Modernists believed it possible to
reconcile recent discoveries in history, science, and religion with Christian
faith. Fundamentalists attempted to safeguard traditional views of biblical
inspiration and authority against Darwinism and higher critical methods
of Bible study. Essential “fundamentals” of doctrine included inerrancy
of Scripture, the virgin birth, Christ’s bodily resurrection, and the historical
reality of his miracles. One result of the turmoil was a realignment of
American Protestantism into “mainline” liberal Christianity on the one
hand, and evangelical and fundamentalist churches on the other.
Goshen College Caught in the Storm
The leaders of the Mennonite Board of Education and the Indiana-
Michigan Conference, in whose territory Goshen College operated, used
their influence to close and remake the college. Orie had hoped drastic
measures could be avoided. In 1921, when 1921 D. D. Miller mentioned
the possible closing, Orie was thoroughly disappointed: “It seems to me
the last thing that should be thought of is to close the school. . . . There
must be some way out.”
By March 1923, however, he was persuaded otherwise.
An Ideal Mennonite College
Writing from Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri, later that year,
Orie reflected on his recent visit to Hesston College. After a meeting of
the Mennonite Colonization Board in Newton, Kansas, President D. H.
Bender had persuaded Orie to spend the evening at Hesston. The visit
prompted Orie to write to Elta, “I always enjoy the fine spirit at Hesston
[College]. I wish somehow at Goshen we could get the same spirit and
loyalty plus the culture and broad mindedness and scholarship that
Goshen has stood for in the past. That in my mind would be the ideal
combination for a Mennonite college.” He continued his musings as he
boarded the train to sell shoes in Nashville and New Orleans.
Negotiating on Behalf of “the 62”
After Orie’s return from Russia in 1921, he promoted ongoing relief
efforts tirelessly and persistently. In 1922, Lancaster congregations and
individuals through Eastern Mennonite Missions contributed $73,426;
in 1923, $72,889; and in 1924, $90,486. Line items included the NER,
German relief, Russian relief, Fordson tractor fund for Russia, passage
money for Constantinople refugees, Canadian immigration, and loans
to immigrants.
More Committees and a New Shoe Company
That’s not all Orie was doing. In addition to his involvements with
Goshen College, the MBE, and refugee settlement, Orie took on three
more institutional affiliations and offices in the 1920s: chair of the Young
People’s Problems Committee (1921–37); financial agent and member of
the MBE executive committee (1922–55); and the MC Peace Problems
Committee, which he would serve as executive secretary (1925–53).
It was an era of identifying tasks as problems—appropriate for the
troubled twenties.
Albert and Daniel Join the Family
On January 29, 1922, Orie went to the NER offices in New York City to
accept a medal for meritorious and humanitarian service in the Middle
East, an honor he never seemed to mention to anyone. Surely the most
significant event of 1922 for Orie was the birth of Albert Wolf Miller on
March 18. Albert, Orie and Elta’s second child and first son, was named
for his grandfather Albert N. Wolf.
Called to Be an Administrator
Like a magnet attracting metal, Orie continued to attract offices and
duties. In 1924, in addition to fundraising for Goshen College, he was
appointed to the executive committee of the Mennonite Colonization
Board. He offered privately to John Mellinger to help launch a missionary
paper, and Mellinger made Orie the founding editor of the Missionary
Messenger, the periodical of EMM. Mellinger’s paradoxical quip summed
up Orie’s productivity: “If you need to get something done, ask Orie
Miller. He is busy and he will have time to help you.”45 In 1925 (August
5), Orie was elected vice president of EMM, an office he would hold until
he became secretary in 1935, serving until retirement in 1958.
“Brother Orie is a Dangerous Man”
On December 27, two days before an important peace conference at
Elizabethtown (Pennsylvania) College, Mosemann complained vociferously
in a letter to Orie about his association with such dangerous
people as former Goshen College president Noah E. Byers. Since Orie’s
name appeared with that of Byers on the letterhead of the Continuation
Committee of the Conference of Pacifist Churches, “Can you blame any
one for believing that your sympathies run strong toward the old Goshen
ideas of world progress, world betterment and world improvement? Is not
this conclusion justly drawn?”
Bible in One Hand, Newspaper in the Other
In countless future conversations with colleagues and protégés, Orie
described his reading practices (in a formulation later attributed to Karl
Barth) as the Bible in one hand and a major newspaper, such as the New
York Times or the Wall Street Journal, in the other. It was not enough
to read one without the other, because each illuminated the other. The
Bible provided the prism through which he saw nearly everything. Orie
had “hidden the Word in his heart,” and he applied Scripture to most
everything. Often his first response to a problem or event was a biblical
allusion. “He owns the cattle on a thousand hills” was his response to
the challenge of raising a monumental amount of money to move several
thousand refugees to South America. The Wall Street Journal was the lens
though which he saw the world—international events or trends and financial
markets. Reading the trends often informed his decisions about new
service or mission opportunities.
Feeding the Hungry
The ultimate MCC report on relief work in Russia, titled Feeding the
Hungry, was published in 1929. P. C. Hiebert, MCC chair, did the majority
of the work, but Orie is listed as coauthor.
When relief operations in Russia closed in 1925, many assumed the
work of MCC was finished. P. C. Hiebert and Orie Miller were not among them. Already on August
9, 1923, Hiebert issued a call to all Mennonites to make MCC a longterm
agency in order to respond to future emergencies. Unspent funds
could be applied to other needs. In his open letter, Hiebert asked the
readers of Mennonite periodicals whether it would not be beneficial
to make MCC a permanent organization. “Is our mission as a peoplehood
finished? Does God say, ‘Enough, Now you may quit?’”
because it’s not intended to be that.”
When Orie returned from Russia in 1921, it was to a troubled church.
Mennonites were caught up in a theological crucible, which included
premillennialism, resistance to modern cultural change, and the fundamentalist-
modernist debate. Fundamentalism, which emerged in the wake
of World War I, was a militant protest against liberal theology and social,
cultural, and intellectual changes. Modernists believed it possible to
reconcile recent discoveries in history, science, and religion with Christian
faith. Fundamentalists attempted to safeguard traditional views of biblical
inspiration and authority against Darwinism and higher critical methods
of Bible study. Essential “fundamentals” of doctrine included inerrancy
of Scripture, the virgin birth, Christ’s bodily resurrection, and the historical
reality of his miracles. One result of the turmoil was a realignment of
American Protestantism into “mainline” liberal Christianity on the one
hand, and evangelical and fundamentalist churches on the other.
Goshen College Caught in the Storm
The leaders of the Mennonite Board of Education and the Indiana-
Michigan Conference, in whose territory Goshen College operated, used
their influence to close and remake the college. Orie had hoped drastic
measures could be avoided. In 1921, when 1921 D. D. Miller mentioned
the possible closing, Orie was thoroughly disappointed: “It seems to me
the last thing that should be thought of is to close the school. . . . There
must be some way out.”
By March 1923, however, he was persuaded otherwise.
An Ideal Mennonite College
Writing from Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri, later that year,
Orie reflected on his recent visit to Hesston College. After a meeting of
the Mennonite Colonization Board in Newton, Kansas, President D. H.
Bender had persuaded Orie to spend the evening at Hesston. The visit
prompted Orie to write to Elta, “I always enjoy the fine spirit at Hesston
[College]. I wish somehow at Goshen we could get the same spirit and
loyalty plus the culture and broad mindedness and scholarship that
Goshen has stood for in the past. That in my mind would be the ideal
combination for a Mennonite college.” He continued his musings as he
boarded the train to sell shoes in Nashville and New Orleans.
Negotiating on Behalf of “the 62”
After Orie’s return from Russia in 1921, he promoted ongoing relief
efforts tirelessly and persistently. In 1922, Lancaster congregations and
individuals through Eastern Mennonite Missions contributed $73,426;
in 1923, $72,889; and in 1924, $90,486. Line items included the NER,
German relief, Russian relief, Fordson tractor fund for Russia, passage
money for Constantinople refugees, Canadian immigration, and loans
to immigrants.
More Committees and a New Shoe Company
That’s not all Orie was doing. In addition to his involvements with
Goshen College, the MBE, and refugee settlement, Orie took on three
more institutional affiliations and offices in the 1920s: chair of the Young
People’s Problems Committee (1921–37); financial agent and member of
the MBE executive committee (1922–55); and the MC Peace Problems
Committee, which he would serve as executive secretary (1925–53).
It was an era of identifying tasks as problems—appropriate for the
troubled twenties.
Albert and Daniel Join the Family
On January 29, 1922, Orie went to the NER offices in New York City to
accept a medal for meritorious and humanitarian service in the Middle
East, an honor he never seemed to mention to anyone. Surely the most
significant event of 1922 for Orie was the birth of Albert Wolf Miller on
March 18. Albert, Orie and Elta’s second child and first son, was named
for his grandfather Albert N. Wolf.
Called to Be an Administrator
Like a magnet attracting metal, Orie continued to attract offices and
duties. In 1924, in addition to fundraising for Goshen College, he was
appointed to the executive committee of the Mennonite Colonization
Board. He offered privately to John Mellinger to help launch a missionary
paper, and Mellinger made Orie the founding editor of the Missionary
Messenger, the periodical of EMM. Mellinger’s paradoxical quip summed
up Orie’s productivity: “If you need to get something done, ask Orie
Miller. He is busy and he will have time to help you.”45 In 1925 (August
5), Orie was elected vice president of EMM, an office he would hold until
he became secretary in 1935, serving until retirement in 1958.
“Brother Orie is a Dangerous Man”
On December 27, two days before an important peace conference at
Elizabethtown (Pennsylvania) College, Mosemann complained vociferously
in a letter to Orie about his association with such dangerous
people as former Goshen College president Noah E. Byers. Since Orie’s
name appeared with that of Byers on the letterhead of the Continuation
Committee of the Conference of Pacifist Churches, “Can you blame any
one for believing that your sympathies run strong toward the old Goshen
ideas of world progress, world betterment and world improvement? Is not
this conclusion justly drawn?”
Bible in One Hand, Newspaper in the Other
In countless future conversations with colleagues and protégés, Orie
described his reading practices (in a formulation later attributed to Karl
Barth) as the Bible in one hand and a major newspaper, such as the New
York Times or the Wall Street Journal, in the other. It was not enough
to read one without the other, because each illuminated the other. The
Bible provided the prism through which he saw nearly everything. Orie
had “hidden the Word in his heart,” and he applied Scripture to most
everything. Often his first response to a problem or event was a biblical
allusion. “He owns the cattle on a thousand hills” was his response to
the challenge of raising a monumental amount of money to move several
thousand refugees to South America. The Wall Street Journal was the lens
though which he saw the world—international events or trends and financial
markets. Reading the trends often informed his decisions about new
service or mission opportunities.
Feeding the Hungry
The ultimate MCC report on relief work in Russia, titled Feeding the
Hungry, was published in 1929. P. C. Hiebert, MCC chair, did the majority
of the work, but Orie is listed as coauthor.
When relief operations in Russia closed in 1925, many assumed the
work of MCC was finished. P. C. Hiebert and Orie Miller were not among them. Already on August
9, 1923, Hiebert issued a call to all Mennonites to make MCC a longterm
agency in order to respond to future emergencies. Unspent funds
could be applied to other needs. In his open letter, Hiebert asked the
readers of Mennonite periodicals whether it would not be beneficial
to make MCC a permanent organization. “Is our mission as a peoplehood
finished? Does God say, ‘Enough, Now you may quit?’”
Chapter 7, Mission as Necessity: 1930–1939 (excerpts)
“I believe our missionaries are going to do good work in foreign fields . . . if they can shake off,
mentally at least, the traditional attitudes towards other . . . groups. One doesn’t need to compromise
in principle or simply molly coddle other folks, but one must give them the same rights to interpret
Christianity’s basics as one reserves for oneself. Sometimes I get shivers on just this point.”
On the road for Miller Hess and A. N. Wolf shoe companies, Orie saw
economic distress in nearly every city he visited. In Cincinnati in a single
month, 799 new families appealed to the charitable organization, the
Community Chest. Detroit had “police watching all entrances to the city
to keep outside unemployed from coming there for jobs & then becoming
subjects of charity.” Daily, Orie heard and read stories that “make
one sick at heart.” St. Louis was no exception. “Everywhere, it’s the same
story of unemployment, bread lines, [and] distress.”
Shoe Company Prosperity
In striking contrast, the prospects for the A. N. Wolf company in Denver,
Pennsylvania, “never was brighter,” and Miller Hess in Akron was “picking
up every day.” The two companies produced quality shoes at lower
prices. If people could afford shoes at all, they chose products made
by such companies as the efficient “Mennonite” factories in Lancaster
County, Pennsylvania. In comparison to the pain of millions, Orie and his
partners could “feel most happy.”
The Voice of Eastern Mennonite Missions
In July 1931, Orie’s attention was turning southward to South America
and an upcoming MCC mission to Brazil and Paraguay to help Russian
Mennonites who had settled there. “The burden of the coming task is . . .
resting more & more heavily on my heart, as the time approaches,” he
told Elta. His anxiety added intensity to his prayers: “Am praying mightily
for full submission to His Will & for sensitiveness to His leading.”
He had reported the assignment to the readers of the Eastern Mennonite
Missions paper, the Missionary Messenger, of which he was editor.
David Toews and the Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization
In subsequent issues of the Missionary Messenger, Orie continued to publish
reports on the Russian Mennonite migrations to Canada. In response,
the Lancaster Conference shipped to Rosthern, Saskatchewan, and
Altona, Manitoba, 8,877 garments, weighing 7,463 pounds and valued at
$6,668. Ironically, as Russian Mennonites were immigrating to Canada,
Old Colony Sommerfelder Mennonites of Russian origin were emigrating
from Manitoba to Paraguay. The Messenger carried the report of A.
J. Miller, director of MCC relief work in Russia, that the work in Russia
was essentially finished. The Lancaster Conference had in six years given
$50,000 to MCC’s relief work in Russia. From Canada, David Toews
reported that 18,098 Russians had arrived since July 1923.
A New Crisis in Moscow
The December 1929 Messenger informed its readers of a new crisis brewing
in the Soviet Union. Thousands of refugees were camped in and about
Moscow in a “final desperate attempt to emigrate.” After Lenin’s death
in 1924, Joseph Stalin worked to outmaneuver his rivals for control of the
party and the Soviet Union. In 1927, he achieved his goal and initiated his
“five-year plan” to industrialize and collectivize the Soviet economy. This
disastrous policy enacted the confiscation of private property, religious
repression, and a systematic program of extermination of Soviet citizens
in Siberia—and sparked a new wave of emigration.
Mission to the Paraguayan Chaco
Having been thus commissioned, Orie set off on August 8 from Pier 64 in
New York Harbor on the SS American Legion. It was Orie’s first mission
to South America, a trip he would repeat, by his count, thirty-some times.
The next day, Orie wrote a letter for the Messenger, recalling his previous
journeys to Beirut and Constantinople: “Now for the third time we
find ourselves on the briny deep, cut off from homeland, loved ones, and
friends.” Orie took care, as always, to identify his MCC mission as an expression
of the church. He expressed gratitude for the promise of prayer.
“Indeed effective intercession is in itself efficient service.”
The Efficiency of Air Travel
Orie Miller, MCC liaison to the Mennonite colonies in South America and
associate editor of the Missionary Messenger, also had to earn a living.
And his family was growing—on August 8, 1930, Robert Wolf Miller was
born, the fifth and the last child to join Orie and Elta’s family. Fortunately,
despite the dramatic drop in national industrial output, shoe sales in
Akron and Denver were booming. From the Copley-Plaza Hotel in Boston
on January 13, 1932, Orie reported higher than average sales of ninetynine
cases. In March, he was expecting even higher daily sales since he
was getting into “better territory” west of Kansas City.
Shirati by Lake Victoria
After a long and arduous journey, Stauffer and Sylwulka found themselves
on the low, flat-topped Kuturu Hill overlooking a small trading
village near the eastern shore of Lake Victoria. In the region lived 550,000
people in 402 villages, “with hardly four Christians.” Chief Nyataya, who
had led them to the hill, said, “Here is where I think you should build.”
Sylwulka agreed, “That is your field.” On February 16, Stauffer, confident
that this was, indeed, the place, stepped off the perimeter of the mission
compound.82 It was a place called Shirati—a name that for Lancaster
Mennonites would become as familiar as Salunga.
Appointments as MCC and EMM Executive
The year 1935 saw another important milestone for Orie. The MCC
executive committee selected him to be its executive secretary-treasurer in
place of the late Levi Mumaw, who had served conscientiously in that role
since its founding in 1920. Orie, the new executive, moved the MCC files
from Mumaw’s office at the Mennonite Publishing House in Scottdale to
the Miller home in Akron. Thus, the inter-Mennonite relief agency’s office
was relocated to the heart of Lancaster County, a constituency wary of
such cooperation.
Growing Children
Fundraising was not the only thing on Graber’s mind. In an undated
handwritten letter, Graber wrote to Orie “as a favor,” citing Lois’s less-than-
stellar conduct as a Goshen College student. Several times during
the fall, Lois had spent weekends with her grandparents, Nettie and D.
D. Miller, at the Board of Missions headquarters on Prairie Street. The
problem was that she went out every night and came home late. Recently,
Grandpa D. D. had checked his watch when Lois came in—it was 3:00
a.m. Furthermore, she was flaunting conference rules by wearing not a
bonnet but a hat with feathers. In the course of her conversation with D.
D., Lois said she did not know how long she could remain a Mennonite.
Graber knew of no “tilts” with college administrators, but “the weekend
business had to be stopped.” They had decided not to “raise a rumpus”
before the Christmas holidays, but when she returned to campus, Graber
was “going to wake her up.”
mentally at least, the traditional attitudes towards other . . . groups. One doesn’t need to compromise
in principle or simply molly coddle other folks, but one must give them the same rights to interpret
Christianity’s basics as one reserves for oneself. Sometimes I get shivers on just this point.”
On the road for Miller Hess and A. N. Wolf shoe companies, Orie saw
economic distress in nearly every city he visited. In Cincinnati in a single
month, 799 new families appealed to the charitable organization, the
Community Chest. Detroit had “police watching all entrances to the city
to keep outside unemployed from coming there for jobs & then becoming
subjects of charity.” Daily, Orie heard and read stories that “make
one sick at heart.” St. Louis was no exception. “Everywhere, it’s the same
story of unemployment, bread lines, [and] distress.”
Shoe Company Prosperity
In striking contrast, the prospects for the A. N. Wolf company in Denver,
Pennsylvania, “never was brighter,” and Miller Hess in Akron was “picking
up every day.” The two companies produced quality shoes at lower
prices. If people could afford shoes at all, they chose products made
by such companies as the efficient “Mennonite” factories in Lancaster
County, Pennsylvania. In comparison to the pain of millions, Orie and his
partners could “feel most happy.”
The Voice of Eastern Mennonite Missions
In July 1931, Orie’s attention was turning southward to South America
and an upcoming MCC mission to Brazil and Paraguay to help Russian
Mennonites who had settled there. “The burden of the coming task is . . .
resting more & more heavily on my heart, as the time approaches,” he
told Elta. His anxiety added intensity to his prayers: “Am praying mightily
for full submission to His Will & for sensitiveness to His leading.”
He had reported the assignment to the readers of the Eastern Mennonite
Missions paper, the Missionary Messenger, of which he was editor.
David Toews and the Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization
In subsequent issues of the Missionary Messenger, Orie continued to publish
reports on the Russian Mennonite migrations to Canada. In response,
the Lancaster Conference shipped to Rosthern, Saskatchewan, and
Altona, Manitoba, 8,877 garments, weighing 7,463 pounds and valued at
$6,668. Ironically, as Russian Mennonites were immigrating to Canada,
Old Colony Sommerfelder Mennonites of Russian origin were emigrating
from Manitoba to Paraguay. The Messenger carried the report of A.
J. Miller, director of MCC relief work in Russia, that the work in Russia
was essentially finished. The Lancaster Conference had in six years given
$50,000 to MCC’s relief work in Russia. From Canada, David Toews
reported that 18,098 Russians had arrived since July 1923.
A New Crisis in Moscow
The December 1929 Messenger informed its readers of a new crisis brewing
in the Soviet Union. Thousands of refugees were camped in and about
Moscow in a “final desperate attempt to emigrate.” After Lenin’s death
in 1924, Joseph Stalin worked to outmaneuver his rivals for control of the
party and the Soviet Union. In 1927, he achieved his goal and initiated his
“five-year plan” to industrialize and collectivize the Soviet economy. This
disastrous policy enacted the confiscation of private property, religious
repression, and a systematic program of extermination of Soviet citizens
in Siberia—and sparked a new wave of emigration.
Mission to the Paraguayan Chaco
Having been thus commissioned, Orie set off on August 8 from Pier 64 in
New York Harbor on the SS American Legion. It was Orie’s first mission
to South America, a trip he would repeat, by his count, thirty-some times.
The next day, Orie wrote a letter for the Messenger, recalling his previous
journeys to Beirut and Constantinople: “Now for the third time we
find ourselves on the briny deep, cut off from homeland, loved ones, and
friends.” Orie took care, as always, to identify his MCC mission as an expression
of the church. He expressed gratitude for the promise of prayer.
“Indeed effective intercession is in itself efficient service.”
The Efficiency of Air Travel
Orie Miller, MCC liaison to the Mennonite colonies in South America and
associate editor of the Missionary Messenger, also had to earn a living.
And his family was growing—on August 8, 1930, Robert Wolf Miller was
born, the fifth and the last child to join Orie and Elta’s family. Fortunately,
despite the dramatic drop in national industrial output, shoe sales in
Akron and Denver were booming. From the Copley-Plaza Hotel in Boston
on January 13, 1932, Orie reported higher than average sales of ninetynine
cases. In March, he was expecting even higher daily sales since he
was getting into “better territory” west of Kansas City.
Shirati by Lake Victoria
After a long and arduous journey, Stauffer and Sylwulka found themselves
on the low, flat-topped Kuturu Hill overlooking a small trading
village near the eastern shore of Lake Victoria. In the region lived 550,000
people in 402 villages, “with hardly four Christians.” Chief Nyataya, who
had led them to the hill, said, “Here is where I think you should build.”
Sylwulka agreed, “That is your field.” On February 16, Stauffer, confident
that this was, indeed, the place, stepped off the perimeter of the mission
compound.82 It was a place called Shirati—a name that for Lancaster
Mennonites would become as familiar as Salunga.
Appointments as MCC and EMM Executive
The year 1935 saw another important milestone for Orie. The MCC
executive committee selected him to be its executive secretary-treasurer in
place of the late Levi Mumaw, who had served conscientiously in that role
since its founding in 1920. Orie, the new executive, moved the MCC files
from Mumaw’s office at the Mennonite Publishing House in Scottdale to
the Miller home in Akron. Thus, the inter-Mennonite relief agency’s office
was relocated to the heart of Lancaster County, a constituency wary of
such cooperation.
Growing Children
Fundraising was not the only thing on Graber’s mind. In an undated
handwritten letter, Graber wrote to Orie “as a favor,” citing Lois’s less-than-
stellar conduct as a Goshen College student. Several times during
the fall, Lois had spent weekends with her grandparents, Nettie and D.
D. Miller, at the Board of Missions headquarters on Prairie Street. The
problem was that she went out every night and came home late. Recently,
Grandpa D. D. had checked his watch when Lois came in—it was 3:00
a.m. Furthermore, she was flaunting conference rules by wearing not a
bonnet but a hat with feathers. In the course of her conversation with D.
D., Lois said she did not know how long she could remain a Mennonite.
Graber knew of no “tilts” with college administrators, but “the weekend
business had to be stopped.” They had decided not to “raise a rumpus”
before the Christmas holidays, but when she returned to campus, Graber
was “going to wake her up.”
Chapter 8, Work of National Importance: 1940–1942 (excerpts)
“War is sin . . . violence must be abandoned. . . . We love our country . . . but true love . . .does not mean hatred of others.”
Although Orie, tuned as always to world events, saw the war coming in
1935, he could not possibly have imagined the destructive power of the
approaching global apocalypse. How was it possible to have learned so
little from World War I?
Historic Peace Churches Respond
World War II also had a profound effect on Mennonites and those from
other peace churches. It became something of a watershed; some chose
military service, while others chose the nonmilitary option of Civilian
Public Service (CPS) in the United States and Alternative Service Work
(ASW) in Canada. In both cases, young Mennonites left home congregations
and communities and entered a complex world. Both avenues led
toward assimilation and the integration of Mennonites and Brethren in
Christ into North American society. For those choosing the military, it
was often a doorway out of peace churches and into the mainstream.
Those who served in CPS or ASW typically caught a new vision and
passion for service and mission, which reshaped the church and redefined
Mennonite identity. At the fore were mentors like Orie Miller and
Harold Bender.
Prelude to Civilian Public Service
In the next five years, a dizzying array of peace committees, some newly
minted, held a myriad of meetings and conferences and sponsored publications
to nurture peace convictions. Orie was in the center of activity
as the secretary of the MC Peace Problems Committee; executive secretary
of MCC; vice president of the Continuation Committee of Historic
Peace Churches; as the Washington link for the Mennonite Central Peace
Committee, which became MCC Peace Section in 1942; and finally, as
vice president of the National Service Board for Religious Objectors
(NSBRO) when it was formed in 1940.
New Statements on War and Peace
In September of 1936, a “Sub-Committee on Literature” of the CCHPC
met in Chicago. After a review of peace literature available in each
church, they agreed that new peace education materials were needed “in
the face of war crisis with the perils of an enlarging army and navy.” Each
church was to write a new position statement on peace and war to be circulated
to the other member churches. Guy Hershberger, Rufus Bowman,
and William Harvey were appointed to create a handbook of war resistance
for future draftees.
Negotiating with Washington
The German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, added a sense of
urgency to the work of the Historic Peace Churches. The CCHPC met in
Goshen two weeks later on September 17. The first agenda item was a
discussion about whether to attempt a second “interview” with President
Roosevelt. Two years earlier, the PPC had met with the president to inform
him of their position on peace and war, and to present their hope for
nonmilitary alternative service.32 Regarding a second visit, Orie counseled,
characteristically, that if they did, they should make sure to have a “concrete,
definite proposal.”
Paul Comly French
Orie always said that Mennonites led the way in the planning for alternative
service, but the Quakers made the most difference in Washington.
In July, Quaker journalist Paul Comly French went to Washington to
lobby for peace church concerns. French had been a reporter for the
Philadelphia Record and the New York Evening Post. Joe Weaver, a
Mennonite who worked in the NSBRO office in Washington, later
said he admired French because he was dynamic, fearless, persistent,
and resourceful.
The Face of the Government
The NSBRO consulted with the successive directors of the Selective
Service administration, Lewis B. Hershey and Clarence Dykstra, as they
constructed the program that became Civilian Public Service. Dykstra,
president of the University of Washington and a respected political scientist,
seemed a better fit in some opinions than did a career military
brigadier general. Of Dykstra’s appointment, Time magazine said, “It
was the addition of one more big name to President Roosevelt’s impressive
defense corps . . . to keep the army from civilian draftees until actually
inducted into service.” The peace churches found Dykstra to be
“understanding.”
Equanimity under Fire
While CPS was a unique church-state experiment and represented a great
effort on the part of the peace churches, not everyone was happy with the
result. Mennonite conservatives complained of the influence of liberals in
their camps. For others, CPS blurred the distinction between church and
state, or as some put it, CPS created “an unholy alliance” between the
two. In 1941, complaints from the Virginia Conference executive committee
sparked an MC Investigative Committee, headed by Orie’s friend A. J.
Metzler of Scottdale, Pennsylvania. Its task was to investigate all charges
of liberalism and “mismanagement” of the Mennonite camps.
Continued Attempts to Discredit Orie Miller and Others
True to form, Orie never complained of unfair charges, nor did he speak
disparagingly of his Virginia interrogators. Robert Kreider, on staff at
the MCC Akron office and responsible for CPS hospital units, was aware
that MCC and CPS were “under surveillance” from fundamentalists such
as “the Sword and Trumpet people,” who were well-represented in the
Virginia meeting. Orie’s equanimity under fire increased Kreider’s already
high respect for him.
Although Orie, tuned as always to world events, saw the war coming in
1935, he could not possibly have imagined the destructive power of the
approaching global apocalypse. How was it possible to have learned so
little from World War I?
Historic Peace Churches Respond
World War II also had a profound effect on Mennonites and those from
other peace churches. It became something of a watershed; some chose
military service, while others chose the nonmilitary option of Civilian
Public Service (CPS) in the United States and Alternative Service Work
(ASW) in Canada. In both cases, young Mennonites left home congregations
and communities and entered a complex world. Both avenues led
toward assimilation and the integration of Mennonites and Brethren in
Christ into North American society. For those choosing the military, it
was often a doorway out of peace churches and into the mainstream.
Those who served in CPS or ASW typically caught a new vision and
passion for service and mission, which reshaped the church and redefined
Mennonite identity. At the fore were mentors like Orie Miller and
Harold Bender.
Prelude to Civilian Public Service
In the next five years, a dizzying array of peace committees, some newly
minted, held a myriad of meetings and conferences and sponsored publications
to nurture peace convictions. Orie was in the center of activity
as the secretary of the MC Peace Problems Committee; executive secretary
of MCC; vice president of the Continuation Committee of Historic
Peace Churches; as the Washington link for the Mennonite Central Peace
Committee, which became MCC Peace Section in 1942; and finally, as
vice president of the National Service Board for Religious Objectors
(NSBRO) when it was formed in 1940.
New Statements on War and Peace
In September of 1936, a “Sub-Committee on Literature” of the CCHPC
met in Chicago. After a review of peace literature available in each
church, they agreed that new peace education materials were needed “in
the face of war crisis with the perils of an enlarging army and navy.” Each
church was to write a new position statement on peace and war to be circulated
to the other member churches. Guy Hershberger, Rufus Bowman,
and William Harvey were appointed to create a handbook of war resistance
for future draftees.
Negotiating with Washington
The German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, added a sense of
urgency to the work of the Historic Peace Churches. The CCHPC met in
Goshen two weeks later on September 17. The first agenda item was a
discussion about whether to attempt a second “interview” with President
Roosevelt. Two years earlier, the PPC had met with the president to inform
him of their position on peace and war, and to present their hope for
nonmilitary alternative service.32 Regarding a second visit, Orie counseled,
characteristically, that if they did, they should make sure to have a “concrete,
definite proposal.”
Paul Comly French
Orie always said that Mennonites led the way in the planning for alternative
service, but the Quakers made the most difference in Washington.
In July, Quaker journalist Paul Comly French went to Washington to
lobby for peace church concerns. French had been a reporter for the
Philadelphia Record and the New York Evening Post. Joe Weaver, a
Mennonite who worked in the NSBRO office in Washington, later
said he admired French because he was dynamic, fearless, persistent,
and resourceful.
The Face of the Government
The NSBRO consulted with the successive directors of the Selective
Service administration, Lewis B. Hershey and Clarence Dykstra, as they
constructed the program that became Civilian Public Service. Dykstra,
president of the University of Washington and a respected political scientist,
seemed a better fit in some opinions than did a career military
brigadier general. Of Dykstra’s appointment, Time magazine said, “It
was the addition of one more big name to President Roosevelt’s impressive
defense corps . . . to keep the army from civilian draftees until actually
inducted into service.” The peace churches found Dykstra to be
“understanding.”
Equanimity under Fire
While CPS was a unique church-state experiment and represented a great
effort on the part of the peace churches, not everyone was happy with the
result. Mennonite conservatives complained of the influence of liberals in
their camps. For others, CPS blurred the distinction between church and
state, or as some put it, CPS created “an unholy alliance” between the
two. In 1941, complaints from the Virginia Conference executive committee
sparked an MC Investigative Committee, headed by Orie’s friend A. J.
Metzler of Scottdale, Pennsylvania. Its task was to investigate all charges
of liberalism and “mismanagement” of the Mennonite camps.
Continued Attempts to Discredit Orie Miller and Others
True to form, Orie never complained of unfair charges, nor did he speak
disparagingly of his Virginia interrogators. Robert Kreider, on staff at
the MCC Akron office and responsible for CPS hospital units, was aware
that MCC and CPS were “under surveillance” from fundamentalists such
as “the Sword and Trumpet people,” who were well-represented in the
Virginia meeting. Orie’s equanimity under fire increased Kreider’s already
high respect for him.
Chapter 9, Sheeplike Living in a Wolves’ World: 1942–1949 (excerpts)
“When the church asks you to serve, let your answer be yes, unless there is a good reason to say no.”
“I was glad to read the article in Time magazine,” John W. Miller wrote
happily to his mother on February 10, 1947, the day a feature article on
MCC and its executive officer appeared. “Almost everywhere I go someone
quips to me about my ‘greying and bespectacled’ father!”
The article, titled “Plain People,” begins with a quote from Conrad
Grebel: “True believing Christians are as sheep in the midst of wolves.”
After a broad sweep of Anabaptist martyrdom history, and under
the subtitle “Wolves’ World,” comes a survey of current Amish and
Mennonites. The requisite photo shows two plain-suited men exchanging
a “Mennonite ‘Holy Kiss.’” Then on to the main point of the article.
Akron, Pennsylvania, a “tiny town” of 877, is identified as “the center” of
the United States for most Mennonites. There lives the “greying, spectacled
Orie O. Miller,” the chief administrator of MCC.
Family Matters
In 1942, Albert Wolf Miller, Orie and Elta’s oldest son, was a student
at Goshen College, and second son Daniel Wolf Miller was at Eastern
Mennonite High School (EMHS) in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Albert kept
his parents posted on the Middlebury Millers. He wrote of a tragedy in
April: “I suppose you have heard by this time that Grandpa’s house at
Chanceys [sic] practically burned down. I haven’t seen it yet and I don’t
know how it started. They were eating in the kitchen when smoke started
coming through the doors from grandpa’s room. I think the summer and
the winter kitchens are still standing. They are living at Arts now, I think.”
That Saturday, Albert rode his bicycle the twelve miles to Brookside Farm
to see the burned house. D. D. was salvaging bricks from the remains, but
said he was glad for a rest now that Albert had arrived. Carpenters were
beginning that day to rebuild the house, smaller than before.
Calling Others to Service
Civilian Public Service opened a new world for the 4,665 Mennonites
and Brethren in Christ who chose alternative service. They constituted
46 percent of draft-age Mennonite and Brethren in Christ men. Nearly
54 percent chose military service as combatants or noncombatants. That
more young men chose military service over alternative service was, of
course, troubling to church leaders.11 Though CPS numbers were small,
CPSers gave significant service in the war years, far more than their numbers
would suggest.
The Formation of MCC Canada
In 1943, Orie initiated the idea of establishing an MCC office in Canada.
He arranged for a meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba, of representatives
from four active relief organizations—the Non-Resistant Relief
Organization, the Conference of Historic Peace Churches, the Mennonite
Central Relief Committee, and the Canadian Mennonite Relief Committee
(CMRC)—and MCC’s executive committee on April 2 and 3. His goal
was to share information of MCC’s activities and plans for a program to
train volunteers for postwar reconstruction in Europe. The executive committee
also invited counsel on MCC’s work and suggested that a Canadian
commissioner be appointed to meet with the executive committee. At a
subsequent meeting in December, Orie proposed the establishment of an
MCC office in Canada. Representatives approved the idea and in January
1944 an office was opened in Kitchener, Ontario. The office would coordinate
clothing collection, give information to Canadian churches in
both English and German, receive Canadian funds, serve as a liaison to
Ottawa, and approve relief workers. C. J. Rempel, a Mennonite Brethren,
became office manager.
Transforming the “Bedlam” of Mental Hospitals
“Most U.S. [mental] hospitals are a shame and a disgrace,” declared Life
magazine in 1946. Titled “Bedlam 1946,” the article featured the deplorable,
filthy, subhuman conditions of state hospitals. “Conchies,” as COs
were derisively called, changed all that. The overwhelming staff needs in
hospitals and the growing desire of CPSers to do more significant work
eventually trumped General Hershey’s strategy of keeping COs out of
sight. Before hospital units were opened to CPSers, Robert Kreider noted
in his journal in December 1942, there were already 726 men who had
volunteered for hospital work.
Format ion of Mennonite Mutual Aid
On October 16, 1943, Guy Hershberger, Harold Bender, Chris Graber,
and Orie—fertile minds all—sat at the kitchen table in the Millers’ Akron
home. They were inventing a new organization to manage financial assets,
to assist families in need because of loss of property and life, and to help
CPSers reintegrate into civilian life after the war. As Hershberger remembered
it, Orie, pencil in hand, scratched out a name for the new organization:
Mennonite Mutual Aid (now Everence).
“I was glad to read the article in Time magazine,” John W. Miller wrote
happily to his mother on February 10, 1947, the day a feature article on
MCC and its executive officer appeared. “Almost everywhere I go someone
quips to me about my ‘greying and bespectacled’ father!”
The article, titled “Plain People,” begins with a quote from Conrad
Grebel: “True believing Christians are as sheep in the midst of wolves.”
After a broad sweep of Anabaptist martyrdom history, and under
the subtitle “Wolves’ World,” comes a survey of current Amish and
Mennonites. The requisite photo shows two plain-suited men exchanging
a “Mennonite ‘Holy Kiss.’” Then on to the main point of the article.
Akron, Pennsylvania, a “tiny town” of 877, is identified as “the center” of
the United States for most Mennonites. There lives the “greying, spectacled
Orie O. Miller,” the chief administrator of MCC.
Family Matters
In 1942, Albert Wolf Miller, Orie and Elta’s oldest son, was a student
at Goshen College, and second son Daniel Wolf Miller was at Eastern
Mennonite High School (EMHS) in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Albert kept
his parents posted on the Middlebury Millers. He wrote of a tragedy in
April: “I suppose you have heard by this time that Grandpa’s house at
Chanceys [sic] practically burned down. I haven’t seen it yet and I don’t
know how it started. They were eating in the kitchen when smoke started
coming through the doors from grandpa’s room. I think the summer and
the winter kitchens are still standing. They are living at Arts now, I think.”
That Saturday, Albert rode his bicycle the twelve miles to Brookside Farm
to see the burned house. D. D. was salvaging bricks from the remains, but
said he was glad for a rest now that Albert had arrived. Carpenters were
beginning that day to rebuild the house, smaller than before.
Calling Others to Service
Civilian Public Service opened a new world for the 4,665 Mennonites
and Brethren in Christ who chose alternative service. They constituted
46 percent of draft-age Mennonite and Brethren in Christ men. Nearly
54 percent chose military service as combatants or noncombatants. That
more young men chose military service over alternative service was, of
course, troubling to church leaders.11 Though CPS numbers were small,
CPSers gave significant service in the war years, far more than their numbers
would suggest.
The Formation of MCC Canada
In 1943, Orie initiated the idea of establishing an MCC office in Canada.
He arranged for a meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba, of representatives
from four active relief organizations—the Non-Resistant Relief
Organization, the Conference of Historic Peace Churches, the Mennonite
Central Relief Committee, and the Canadian Mennonite Relief Committee
(CMRC)—and MCC’s executive committee on April 2 and 3. His goal
was to share information of MCC’s activities and plans for a program to
train volunteers for postwar reconstruction in Europe. The executive committee
also invited counsel on MCC’s work and suggested that a Canadian
commissioner be appointed to meet with the executive committee. At a
subsequent meeting in December, Orie proposed the establishment of an
MCC office in Canada. Representatives approved the idea and in January
1944 an office was opened in Kitchener, Ontario. The office would coordinate
clothing collection, give information to Canadian churches in
both English and German, receive Canadian funds, serve as a liaison to
Ottawa, and approve relief workers. C. J. Rempel, a Mennonite Brethren,
became office manager.
Transforming the “Bedlam” of Mental Hospitals
“Most U.S. [mental] hospitals are a shame and a disgrace,” declared Life
magazine in 1946. Titled “Bedlam 1946,” the article featured the deplorable,
filthy, subhuman conditions of state hospitals. “Conchies,” as COs
were derisively called, changed all that. The overwhelming staff needs in
hospitals and the growing desire of CPSers to do more significant work
eventually trumped General Hershey’s strategy of keeping COs out of
sight. Before hospital units were opened to CPSers, Robert Kreider noted
in his journal in December 1942, there were already 726 men who had
volunteered for hospital work.
Format ion of Mennonite Mutual Aid
On October 16, 1943, Guy Hershberger, Harold Bender, Chris Graber,
and Orie—fertile minds all—sat at the kitchen table in the Millers’ Akron
home. They were inventing a new organization to manage financial assets,
to assist families in need because of loss of property and life, and to help
CPSers reintegrate into civilian life after the war. As Hershberger remembered
it, Orie, pencil in hand, scratched out a name for the new organization:
Mennonite Mutual Aid (now Everence).
Chapter 10, To the Ends of the Earth: 1950–1959 (excerpts)
“But don’t forget—it is His church—He is building her. Our responsibility is to seek to see His building and our place as Body members and in that find the fullness and eternal living assured.”
When Cal Redekop met twenty young American farm boys at the harbor
in Antwerp, the Netherlands, on April 6, 1951, it was the beginning of yet
another MCC mission of international goodwill. With a “vast amount of
vigor, vitality, and energy,” these twenty—and 1,160 others who followed
them—enacted “a remarkably idealistic, naïve, flexible, experimental, and
ingenious jerry-built dream” called Pax. There was little romance, though,
in the ditches they dug, the rubble they shoveled, the cement they mixed,
and the concrete blocks that they laid up. With shovels, picks, hammers,
and good intentions, they were waging
From Medicine to Old Testament Studies
After graduating from Goshen College, John W. Miller and his wife,
Louise (Heatwole), were intending to study medicine. Both planned careers
as medical missionaries “somewhere in the world.” Both had been
accepted—she to study nursing at University of Pennsylvania Hospital,
and John in a Philadelphia medical school. In 1948, at the end of a summer
pre-med internship in New York City, Harold Bender and Uncle
Ernest Miller, Goshen College president, came calling.
Goshen Biblical Seminary
The board of the seminary for which John was trained to teach was
sketching plans for new facilities. The founding of the General Conference
Mennonite Biblical Seminary (MBS) in 1946 had motivated Harold
Bender to propose an MC version, to be called Goshen Biblical Seminary.
The Mennonite Board of Education had deferred earlier building plans
to give preference to more pressing needs on the Goshen campus. Now,
in 1948, the board was ready to give the seminary project priority. A
new committee, the Joint Church Building Committee was formed. As a
member of this committee, Orie requested from Nelson Kauffman, MBE
president, all minutes and actions of the earlier committee as background
to the current committee’s work. In November 1950, the joint committee
proposed a “gable-type structure” that would meet the needs of both
College Mennonite Church and the new seminary. It was to include a
chapel, offices, seminary classrooms, and Sunday school classrooms.
Building Plans and Conversations about GBS-MBS Cooperation
The presidential transition and other building projects slowed the planning
for seminary facilities. In addition, there was a major new development.
In 1954, the GC-supported Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Chicago
initiated conversations with Goshen Biblical Seminary about cooperation.
Those talks were promising enough to cause MBS in 1958 to relocate to
a new campus on the south side of Elkhart, Indiana—with the dream of
inter-Mennonite cooperation.
The GBS building plans faltered when their primary promoter, Dean
Harold Bender, proposed enlarging the building. This alteration increased
the cost, making Orie and Elta’s gift a smaller percentage of the whole.
Goshen’s new president, Paul Mininger, ordered Bender to reduce the
cost to $97,000, causing him to grumble that it was once again “Orie
Miller’s building.”
The Amsterdam Seven
While Orie was managing the presidential transition at Goshen with its
resultant controversies, overseeing reconstruction in postwar Europe, and
expanding the work of Eastern Mennonite Missions in Africa, a crisis of a
different nature was unfolding in Europe.
John Miller reported to his parents an “extremely interesting” conference
of American Mennonites in Amsterdam, April 14–25, 1952.
The two-week conference had been carefully scripted by Irvin Horst in
the Netherlands. Activities included lectures by four leading Dutch and
German church leaders and papers by seven MCC workers: Irvin Horst,
John W. Miller, Paul Peachey, Calvin Redekop, David A. Shank, Orley
Swartzentruber, and John Howard Yoder.
Orie’s Response
A long period of silence followed the grueling session. As Redekop
recalled, Orie finally said, “Well, if that’s the way these men think, then
I am going to go home and resign.” The executive secretary “cried and
cried.” Orie’s tears shocked the young critics. “We felt terrible!” Redekop
remembered. After a minute or two, Orie regained his composure and
led a vigorous and collegial discussion. Orie concluded their conversation
with the grace of an elder statesman: “Thank you boys. We will take this
into advisement.”
When Cal Redekop met twenty young American farm boys at the harbor
in Antwerp, the Netherlands, on April 6, 1951, it was the beginning of yet
another MCC mission of international goodwill. With a “vast amount of
vigor, vitality, and energy,” these twenty—and 1,160 others who followed
them—enacted “a remarkably idealistic, naïve, flexible, experimental, and
ingenious jerry-built dream” called Pax. There was little romance, though,
in the ditches they dug, the rubble they shoveled, the cement they mixed,
and the concrete blocks that they laid up. With shovels, picks, hammers,
and good intentions, they were waging
From Medicine to Old Testament Studies
After graduating from Goshen College, John W. Miller and his wife,
Louise (Heatwole), were intending to study medicine. Both planned careers
as medical missionaries “somewhere in the world.” Both had been
accepted—she to study nursing at University of Pennsylvania Hospital,
and John in a Philadelphia medical school. In 1948, at the end of a summer
pre-med internship in New York City, Harold Bender and Uncle
Ernest Miller, Goshen College president, came calling.
Goshen Biblical Seminary
The board of the seminary for which John was trained to teach was
sketching plans for new facilities. The founding of the General Conference
Mennonite Biblical Seminary (MBS) in 1946 had motivated Harold
Bender to propose an MC version, to be called Goshen Biblical Seminary.
The Mennonite Board of Education had deferred earlier building plans
to give preference to more pressing needs on the Goshen campus. Now,
in 1948, the board was ready to give the seminary project priority. A
new committee, the Joint Church Building Committee was formed. As a
member of this committee, Orie requested from Nelson Kauffman, MBE
president, all minutes and actions of the earlier committee as background
to the current committee’s work. In November 1950, the joint committee
proposed a “gable-type structure” that would meet the needs of both
College Mennonite Church and the new seminary. It was to include a
chapel, offices, seminary classrooms, and Sunday school classrooms.
Building Plans and Conversations about GBS-MBS Cooperation
The presidential transition and other building projects slowed the planning
for seminary facilities. In addition, there was a major new development.
In 1954, the GC-supported Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Chicago
initiated conversations with Goshen Biblical Seminary about cooperation.
Those talks were promising enough to cause MBS in 1958 to relocate to
a new campus on the south side of Elkhart, Indiana—with the dream of
inter-Mennonite cooperation.
The GBS building plans faltered when their primary promoter, Dean
Harold Bender, proposed enlarging the building. This alteration increased
the cost, making Orie and Elta’s gift a smaller percentage of the whole.
Goshen’s new president, Paul Mininger, ordered Bender to reduce the
cost to $97,000, causing him to grumble that it was once again “Orie
Miller’s building.”
The Amsterdam Seven
While Orie was managing the presidential transition at Goshen with its
resultant controversies, overseeing reconstruction in postwar Europe, and
expanding the work of Eastern Mennonite Missions in Africa, a crisis of a
different nature was unfolding in Europe.
John Miller reported to his parents an “extremely interesting” conference
of American Mennonites in Amsterdam, April 14–25, 1952.
The two-week conference had been carefully scripted by Irvin Horst in
the Netherlands. Activities included lectures by four leading Dutch and
German church leaders and papers by seven MCC workers: Irvin Horst,
John W. Miller, Paul Peachey, Calvin Redekop, David A. Shank, Orley
Swartzentruber, and John Howard Yoder.
Orie’s Response
A long period of silence followed the grueling session. As Redekop
recalled, Orie finally said, “Well, if that’s the way these men think, then
I am going to go home and resign.” The executive secretary “cried and
cried.” Orie’s tears shocked the young critics. “We felt terrible!” Redekop
remembered. After a minute or two, Orie regained his composure and
led a vigorous and collegial discussion. Orie concluded their conversation
with the grace of an elder statesman: “Thank you boys. We will take this
into advisement.”
Chapter 11, Five-Year Plans and Words Fitly Spoken: 1960–1969 (excerpts)
“The beginning of witness is taking off one’s shoes and sitting eye-level with a conversation partner. If we wish to speak, we must first listen. If we wish to gain respect, we must first offer respect.”
In order to understand the present, Orie said, one gained the best perspective
by turning to the Scriptures. “You can understand our today’s 1960
world in perspective much better by reading the Old Testament, as well as
the New, than you can by just reading Time. The two Testaments tell us
that God is sovereign and the world, which God loves, is a ‘ripe harvest
field.’” In a rambling speech during an overseas orientation session, July
17–20, 1963, Orie referred to the challenges of population growth, hunger,
revolution, national independence movements, technological advances,
economic imbalance, and the struggle for civil rights.
Mission Work and Independence in Africa
“The maturity of independent status of the Tanganyika Mennonite
Church” was Orie’s immediate response when Gospel Herald editors
asked what in 1960 had been of “more than passing interest” in the life of
the church. When EMM sent Elam Stauffer and Orie Miller to Africa in
1933 to find a mission field, they selected a region that contained “hardly
Christians.” In twenty-six years, the witness begun at Shirati on the
eastern shore of Lake Victoria in 1934 had developed into a “missionary minded”
church of 2,200 members.
What Is Your Vision?
The retention and retelling of Orie’s words were sometimes striking. Later,
as David Shenk traveled as international secretary for EMM, he often
heard people say, whether in Indonesia, Europe, or Africa, “At this very
spot Orie said this—.” Shenk has his own story of a memorable encounter
in Somalia:
I was directing the school at Mogadishu and had just installed a diesel generator
. . . so we had electric lights. I got this . . . electrical system working
before Orie arrived. I was so thrilled! When Orie comes, we’ll have electric
lights, and he’ll be so pleased to see . . . this kind of progress. And so after
having tea, we were walking out to the school, and I said, “Brother Orie,
would you step aside here, I’d like to show you the generator I just installed.”
He kept walking and said, “Mennonites always get the generators
installed. My question is what’s the vision for the next five years?” I mean,
that was a tremendously wise word of counsel to a young mid-twenties
missionary.
That statement was transformative! It formed my administrative style.
During my years in overseas and home missions, the directorship, or even
local church pastoring, I would ask that question. It came to me from Orie.
“What’s the vision for the next five years?”
A Difficult Leadership Transition at EMM
Not everyone was in awe of Orie. Just as he passed the baton of MCC
leadership to his “understudy,” Bill Snyder, Orie relinquished the top
office at EMM to Paul Kraybill. Orie had recruited Kraybill in 1953 to
become assistant secretary, in effect a “candidate secretary,” and nurtured
him until the transition in 1958.25 The MCC transition was smoother than
that of EMM. Kraybill, a bit impatient, was ready for the reins before
Orie handed them over.26 After the swap of offices, Orie’s expansionist
worldview and independent action sometimes vexed Kraybill.
Elta Myers Sensenig
Of more than passing importance in Orie’s personal life was his relationship
with Elta Myers Sensenig, whom he married on January 9, 1960. He
was sixty-seven; she was forty-nine. Elta’s husband Isaac (Ike) had died
as the result of an accidental fall from a roof. Donald Sensenig, who was
four years old at the time of his father’s death, recalls the special interest
that Orie and Elta Wolf Miller took in their family, owing to the fact that
his mother had been named after Elta Wolf Miller.
Rather a Friend than a Son
Edgar Stoesz, who came to MCC near the end of Orie’s era, had the greatest
respect for his mentor. When speaking to the Miller family in 2008,
326 My Calling to Fulfill 11: Five-Year Plans and Words Fitly Spoken: 1960–1969 327
Edgar said Orie “was the greatest man I ever knew.”49 He also said he
wished to be Orie’s friend, not his son. He knew how difficult it could be
to live in Orie’s shadow.
In order to understand the present, Orie said, one gained the best perspective
by turning to the Scriptures. “You can understand our today’s 1960
world in perspective much better by reading the Old Testament, as well as
the New, than you can by just reading Time. The two Testaments tell us
that God is sovereign and the world, which God loves, is a ‘ripe harvest
field.’” In a rambling speech during an overseas orientation session, July
17–20, 1963, Orie referred to the challenges of population growth, hunger,
revolution, national independence movements, technological advances,
economic imbalance, and the struggle for civil rights.
Mission Work and Independence in Africa
“The maturity of independent status of the Tanganyika Mennonite
Church” was Orie’s immediate response when Gospel Herald editors
asked what in 1960 had been of “more than passing interest” in the life of
the church. When EMM sent Elam Stauffer and Orie Miller to Africa in
1933 to find a mission field, they selected a region that contained “hardly
Christians.” In twenty-six years, the witness begun at Shirati on the
eastern shore of Lake Victoria in 1934 had developed into a “missionary minded”
church of 2,200 members.
What Is Your Vision?
The retention and retelling of Orie’s words were sometimes striking. Later,
as David Shenk traveled as international secretary for EMM, he often
heard people say, whether in Indonesia, Europe, or Africa, “At this very
spot Orie said this—.” Shenk has his own story of a memorable encounter
in Somalia:
I was directing the school at Mogadishu and had just installed a diesel generator
. . . so we had electric lights. I got this . . . electrical system working
before Orie arrived. I was so thrilled! When Orie comes, we’ll have electric
lights, and he’ll be so pleased to see . . . this kind of progress. And so after
having tea, we were walking out to the school, and I said, “Brother Orie,
would you step aside here, I’d like to show you the generator I just installed.”
He kept walking and said, “Mennonites always get the generators
installed. My question is what’s the vision for the next five years?” I mean,
that was a tremendously wise word of counsel to a young mid-twenties
missionary.
That statement was transformative! It formed my administrative style.
During my years in overseas and home missions, the directorship, or even
local church pastoring, I would ask that question. It came to me from Orie.
“What’s the vision for the next five years?”
A Difficult Leadership Transition at EMM
Not everyone was in awe of Orie. Just as he passed the baton of MCC
leadership to his “understudy,” Bill Snyder, Orie relinquished the top
office at EMM to Paul Kraybill. Orie had recruited Kraybill in 1953 to
become assistant secretary, in effect a “candidate secretary,” and nurtured
him until the transition in 1958.25 The MCC transition was smoother than
that of EMM. Kraybill, a bit impatient, was ready for the reins before
Orie handed them over.26 After the swap of offices, Orie’s expansionist
worldview and independent action sometimes vexed Kraybill.
Elta Myers Sensenig
Of more than passing importance in Orie’s personal life was his relationship
with Elta Myers Sensenig, whom he married on January 9, 1960. He
was sixty-seven; she was forty-nine. Elta’s husband Isaac (Ike) had died
as the result of an accidental fall from a roof. Donald Sensenig, who was
four years old at the time of his father’s death, recalls the special interest
that Orie and Elta Wolf Miller took in their family, owing to the fact that
his mother had been named after Elta Wolf Miller.
Rather a Friend than a Son
Edgar Stoesz, who came to MCC near the end of Orie’s era, had the greatest
respect for his mentor. When speaking to the Miller family in 2008,
326 My Calling to Fulfill 11: Five-Year Plans and Words Fitly Spoken: 1960–1969 327
Edgar said Orie “was the greatest man I ever knew.”49 He also said he
wished to be Orie’s friend, not his son. He knew how difficult it could be
to live in Orie’s shadow.
Chapter 12, Accumulating Years: 1970–1977 (excerpts)
“After about 85 years of age, there should be no excuse for anyone having an estate. . . . I believe
that time spent accumulating wealth beyond the family’s year-to-year needs also wastes time.”
In 1970, Orie Miller turned seventy-eight. He had seven more years of life
left, and the last five were complicated by Parkinson’s disease. He remained
active as long as he could, managing various family partnerships,
developing the Wolf farms on the outskirts of Akron that had been inherited
by Elta Wolf Miller, traveling for MEDA, vacationing in Jamaica, and
attending MCC and EMM executive committee meetings—which, he told
a friend in India, occupied twenty-seven days a year.
Financial Decisions
Akron’s population was growing, causing a housing shortage. Seeing an
opportunity, Orie and his sons decided to develop two farms that were
part of Elta Wolf Miller’s estate. The farms, of sixty-seven and seventy-nine
acres, respectively, were on the western outskirts of Akron, one up
the hill from the railroad and one below the tracks. The farms had been
part of a larger Wolf tract of thirteen hundred acres.6 On December 31,
1958, the property was transferred to the five Miller children.7
The Move to Landis Homes
Orie soon needed a retreat of a different kind. On April 1, 1972, Orie and
Elta moved to a cottage at Landis Homes Retirement Community in rural
Lititz, Pennsylvania. Somewhere on his around-the-world tour for MEDA
in February and March 1969, Orie had a “slight stroke” that left him
with a temporary speech impediment. In 1970, he returned from another
eight-week, around-the-world MEDA mission feeling more tired than
usual. Elta also noticed his “lips twitching” and urged him to see a doctor.
Dr. William G. Ridgway of Akron thought it must have been another
slight stroke and referred him to a specialist.
“The Great Decline in the Imperishable Orie Miller”
During a March 1975 visit from Ira J. Buckwalter, EMM treasurer, Orie
told him that he had been “too weak” to attend the recent executive committee
meeting but was looking for the minutes. He thanked Buckwalter
for visiting. He was grateful also for the visits of Norman Shenk, Nathan
Hege, Mahlon Hess, and Raymond Charles. He assured Buckwalter that
he was “improving,” but would not be able to attend annual meetings.
354 My Calling to Fulfill 12: Acc umulating Years: 1970–1977 355
Landis Homes was a “wonderful institution,” and the staff members were
“the finest folks.”
That same month, Dr. William Ridgway wrote Orie a blunt letter of
advice about the upcoming MCC executive committee meetings Orie
wanted to attend: “We have always leveled with each other and have not
ducked a straight question, and there is no reason to begin now, so here
it is”:
Until now, I have advised that you be active . . . [for] we have agreed that it
is better to wear out than rust out. My feelings are unchanged and yet, I am
going to advise against your planning to attend the coming conference. You
are less than totally aware of your effect on others. Your physical self has
made such a change that those attending the conference would be appalled
at the great decline in the imperishable Orie Miller. The impact would be
such that there would be more anguish than you can imagine [and] . . . it
would detract from the business at hand.
Dying According to Plan
Orie expected to live until age eighty-five. He had no plans beyond that
age. By then, his assets were to be given away. Indeed, by the end, “he
didn’t have much left,” said Ed Miller, Orie’s grandson and legal counsel.
On a “blustery winter evening,” on January 10, 1977, Orie passed
from this world into the next. After spending most of his final days in a
coma, he slipped away at six forty-five that evening. He was eighty-four,
six months short of eighty-five. He even died according to plan!
Epilogue (excerpts)
. . . While Orie assumed he would be called to pastoral ministry or evangelism,
it was not to be. He once said that every time he turned around,
he was given money to raise, count, and manage. At forty-three, and after
struggling mightily, Orie recognized and accepted his gift for administration.
This gift was expressed in a myriad of ministries. Orie’s disciplined
life, his commitment to follow the call of the church, and his quiet persuasion
was a potent combination. When applied to opportunities around the
world, these traits resulted in astounding productivity.
Yet his bearing was understated and quietly persuasive. He had ego
strength but was not egotistical; self-aggrandizement was not in his
nature. He saw himself in a supporting role—as John Mark serving the
apostle Paul, as Nehemiah assisting Ezra the prophet. An effective administrator
works behind the scenes, Orie wrote, and “where the administrative
gift tends to become noticeable and prominent anywhere, it’s a pity,
because it’s not intended to be that.”
His gift of administration was not foremost among the biblical listing
of gifts but was nearly last, a point Orie made repeatedly. A person’s gift
“will make room for him,” he said. That is, in exercising one’s gift, more
opportunities will become apparent. Orie’s gifts were extraordinary, but
his uncommon diligence and discipline magnified his gifts.
Orie’s gifts “made room for him,” but so did his family connections . . .
The convergence of Orie’s abilities with the tremendous needs and opportunities
of his era was a kairos, an opportune moment in history. Orie
helped to move his people from rural isolation to global engagement and
to weather the turbulent 1920s and ’30s. He participated in the formation
of MCC, and thanks to his influence it became the strongest and most
effective international, inter-Mennonite agency in history, while situated
in the center of Lancaster Conference, whose leaders feared such alliances.
He helped to create and manage Civilian Public Service and the National
Service Board for Religious Objectors, both a part of an unprecedented
ecumenical response to World War II.
Orie brought business savvy to the church. His entrepreneurial success
gave Orie added authority in the councils of the church. He knew how to
manage institutions, to build budgets, to write constitutions and bylaws,
to make a plan when others seemed unable to do so. He knew how to
create and organize new organizations to meet needs. He knew how to
mobilize the church to support relief and mission ministries, and to call
and assign young volunteers to posts around the world. In doing so, he
shaped lives and careers. Again and again, people whom I interviewed
testified that “a call from Orie was a call from God.”
it was not to be. He once said that every time he turned around,
he was given money to raise, count, and manage. At forty-three, and after
struggling mightily, Orie recognized and accepted his gift for administration.
This gift was expressed in a myriad of ministries. Orie’s disciplined
life, his commitment to follow the call of the church, and his quiet persuasion
was a potent combination. When applied to opportunities around the
world, these traits resulted in astounding productivity.
Yet his bearing was understated and quietly persuasive. He had ego
strength but was not egotistical; self-aggrandizement was not in his
nature. He saw himself in a supporting role—as John Mark serving the
apostle Paul, as Nehemiah assisting Ezra the prophet. An effective administrator
works behind the scenes, Orie wrote, and “where the administrative
gift tends to become noticeable and prominent anywhere, it’s a pity,
because it’s not intended to be that.”
His gift of administration was not foremost among the biblical listing
of gifts but was nearly last, a point Orie made repeatedly. A person’s gift
“will make room for him,” he said. That is, in exercising one’s gift, more
opportunities will become apparent. Orie’s gifts were extraordinary, but
his uncommon diligence and discipline magnified his gifts.
Orie’s gifts “made room for him,” but so did his family connections . . .
The convergence of Orie’s abilities with the tremendous needs and opportunities
of his era was a kairos, an opportune moment in history. Orie
helped to move his people from rural isolation to global engagement and
to weather the turbulent 1920s and ’30s. He participated in the formation
of MCC, and thanks to his influence it became the strongest and most
effective international, inter-Mennonite agency in history, while situated
in the center of Lancaster Conference, whose leaders feared such alliances.
He helped to create and manage Civilian Public Service and the National
Service Board for Religious Objectors, both a part of an unprecedented
ecumenical response to World War II.
Orie brought business savvy to the church. His entrepreneurial success
gave Orie added authority in the councils of the church. He knew how to
manage institutions, to build budgets, to write constitutions and bylaws,
to make a plan when others seemed unable to do so. He knew how to
create and organize new organizations to meet needs. He knew how to
mobilize the church to support relief and mission ministries, and to call
and assign young volunteers to posts around the world. In doing so, he
shaped lives and careers. Again and again, people whom I interviewed
testified that “a call from Orie was a call from God.”
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