by Bruce Leichty
This is the first of a two-part series by Bruce Leichty of Fresno, California, on the life of John P. Bontrager, a Mennonite Church Bishop from Oregon and California. The series will be concluded in a future issue of the Bulletin.
"I am exceedingly sorry that conditions at Los Angeles have been so unsettled and unsatisfactory," wrote a mission board executive to a member of the congregation there in 1929.1 It was neither the first nor last time that such sentiments would be expressed about the ministry of John P. Bontrager, the first Mennonite bishop2 in California. Although he had a sizable and appreciative following, controversy dogged Bontrager, who carried out his bishop duties in the Pacific Coast Conference of the (Old) Mennonite Church for almost four decades from California.
The controversy surrounding "JPB," as he was often called, emerged at least in part out of the inevitable clash between Bontrager's own tolerant instincts and the resistance to modernization of others in the (Old) Mennonite Church. This is most visible in Bontrager's decade-long ministry in Los Angeles in the 1920s, where at one time he presided over a congregation of 150.3 Although Bontrager submitted to conference discipline at Los Angeles, and later in the central California community of Winton to which he moved, on some disciplinary issues he was ahead of his time and his heart was obviously not there. Being a lone bishop in California meant that Bontrager was largely on his own in trying to reconcile his liberal and conservative impulses; he did so with mixed success. His ministry, and perhaps the prospects for the (Old) Mennonite Church in his adoptive state, never completely recovered from a preoccupation with a certain kind of outward nonconformity—as well as questions raised about JPB's financial accountability and partiality.
Under pressure, Bontrager left Los Angeles for Winton in 1931. The L.A. congregation dwindled after he left, but survives to this day in a different form as the predominantly black Calvary Christian Fellowship at Inglewood. There is no longer a Mennonite Church congregation at Winton or the nearby town of Atwater, where Bontrager spent the last 18 years of his life.
Bontrager's institutional legacy, however, cannot be measured only by what remains at those two places. He was influential in the founding of several other churches, including one at Portland, Oregon.4 He was bishop of the prominent Albany (Oregon) Mennonite Church during the 1940s.5 Shortly before his death in 1949 JPB also organized the South Pacific Conference for churches in California, Arizona and New Mexico. The churches in that conference were later subsumed into the Southwest Mennonite Conference and ultimately the Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference, uniting congregations of both Mennonite Church and General Conference Mennonite Church origins, where most of the disciplinary restrictions that divided the church of Bontrager's day have long since been abandoned.
By all accounts Bontrager was a beloved father and grandfather, but his family came to symbolize the diaspora that is California. Two daughters divorced, one remarrying. Among Bontrager's descendants there are none today who relate to churches in the Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference, although there is one great-grandchild who attends a congregation of the Mennonite Brethren6—a branch of Mennonites that did prosper in California. The bishop who warned that the theater was "demoralizing"7 may have looked the other way as his daughters surreptitiously applied make-up during his numerous absences on church business;8 he certainly could not have foreseen, however, that one of his granddaughters would marry a make-up artist for Elvis Presley's first movie.9
Bontrager was born in 1872 in an Amish-Mennonite community in Fairfield County, Ohio. His parents took an active part in advocating for English-language worship and Sunday schools, the progressive movements of their day.10 In 1900 he went West, first to a Mennonite settlement at Nampa, Idaho, and then to Oregon,11 where his first ministerial assignment was to conduct a Sunday school from the years 1905 to 1909 at the Fairmont Grange Hall near Albany.12 He was ordained a minister in 1905 by Tillman Erb and then bishop in 1911 by Pacific Coast Conference bishops J. D. Mishler and David Hilty, the latter the father of Bontrager's Ohio-born wife, Amanda Hilty.13
In an era when Mennonite ministers had to be self-supporting, Bontrager worked as a carpenter, and frequently did so in the service of the church. He built or remodeled Mennonite meetinghouses in Albany, Oregon; Los Angeles and Winton in California; and Filer, Idaho.14
The carpenter bishop combined practical and pastoral approaches in his ministry, as illustrated in the earliest preserved letter of Bontrager from 1917, when he was still living in Oregon. In it he counseled young men living near Porterville, California ("Jonas [Horst] and all Concerned") about conscientious objector status. "[A]void thinking about the war, and what will become of you, and also avoid talking about it as much as posible, and commit your self into the hands of God," advised Bontrager. After listing the "12 questions that you will hafto answer [in front of draft boards]," he admonished, "Now brethren you will do me a favor and also avoie me much trouble perhaps in the past if you will keep this letter confidential, among yourselves . . . of corse you under stand that I do not fear the authorities, but there are always people that will talk and sad to say talk to much. . . . [S]hould the Presedent of this the United States see fit not to exempt any of you be true to your God, be willing to suffer for Him, if need be. and when you are ask as to your ocupation, ans Farmer. and this will be a Great help to you in being exempt." "I firmly believe that the coming of the Lord is near at hand, and we ought to be looking for Him at any time," concluded Bontrager.15
During his first decade as a bishop Bontrager experienced two personal tragedies within the space of two years: his only son, 18-year-old Paul, died in a drowning accident in the Calipooia River in Albany, Oregon, in 1916, and his wife Amanda apparently contracted an illness that left her an invalid the rest of her life. Bontrager, wrote of the latter incident in June 1918 that "we are passing through quite an experiance [sic] here also, Wife took suddenly worse and after the examination of three Drs we took her to the Hot Lake Sanitorium Oregon she has been there for Two weeks now and may hafto stay four or five more."16
The domestic roles of unsalaried bishop and bishop's wife could not have been easy ones even without a disability to contend with, but the Bontrager family included six daughters who helped manage the household. Several grandchildren remember keenly the constant "Mennoniting" in the Bontrager home—and the occasions when the food would all be eaten before their turn came, and beds all taken by guests.17 Although relatively less is known about Amanda than about her more prominent husband, she apparently tried to function normally within the boundaries accepted by many Old Mennonite women of her day despite her disability: among other things, she sewed, canned fruits and made candy,18 all the while raising her daughters and later helping to care for two granddaughters left homeless after a divorce. Prefiguring a later time, she did not like to be called "Old" Mennonite; Mennonite was what she preferred.19 Ironically, however, her Amish heritage may have showed more than her husband's: she never adopted buttons for her clothing even though JPB did. She did not like to talk about the practice of "powwowing" forsaken by her grandmother.20
Amanda's physical condition was a factor cited by Bontrager in his decision to move to California;21 many Mennonites were moving to southern California in the early 1900's for health reasons.22 His successor at the Albany congregation, N. A. Lind, states that there was also some discontent with Bontrager among some members of the Albany congregation at that time.23
Once Bontrager's decision to move to California was known, he was asked to locate at the Los Angeles mission by the Pacific Coast Conference Mission Board.24 In November 1919 Bontrager, aided by prominent Albany "Prune King" C. R. Widmer,25 arrived at Los Angeles for what would be a decade of turbulent service to the Los Angeles Mennonite Mission and the congregation that later became known as Calvary Mennonite Church. Catherine Culp was already at Los Angeles serving as a mission worker and D. Parke Lantz, soon to be sent into pioneering missionary service in Argentina, had been superintendent of the fledgling mission prior to Bontrager's arrival.26
Bontrager was no stranger to California. As early as 1907 California correspondents to the Gospel Herald had been writing to say that "Bro. Bontrager" had been visiting: in May 1907 a correspondent from Pasadena wrote that Bontrager preached five sermons at the General Conference Mennonite church and two at the River Brethren [now Brethren in Christ] church in Upland before traveling to "Reidley [sic] [to] meet with a few of the Mennonite people....I trust the Lord will open the way that some day we may have a church established in this land of 'sunshine and flowers.'"27 The members of the GC and BIC churches were not at that time part of the "we;" and indeed there is little evidence of interaction between Bontrager or his (Old) Mennonite congregation with other Mennonite groups at any time during his acquaintance with the state.28 When Bontrager held meetings in Dinuba in the first decade of the 1900's it was primarily for settlers of the (Old) Mennonite faith who then resided there (but later moved away)—although "outsiders love to hear the brother speak, and do so when they can."29
Bontrager was known as a dynamic speaker. According to one of his son-in- laws, Roy Horst, on a quiet evening, his voice could be heard a quarter mile away.30 When he spoke he did so with "anointing," remembered another.31 Although many remember that he spoke without notes, he kept a book of both typewritten and handwritten notes which he apparently used on at least some occasions.32 Throughout those notes, Satan is referred to often, so that Bontrager was labeled a "fire and brimstone" or "hellfire and damnation" preacher from at least some who remember his preaching. Although Bontrager's notes consist of more than just biblical authority—at one point he cites Voltaire and at another point Josephus—he used Scripture references heavily and the themes in his notebook are for the most part biblical rather than topical. He rejected reading novels and his personal collection of books contained none.33
Bontrager's view—at least that expressed in his notebook—of a proper Christian life was full of restrictions and family values. "The home itself is the most pleasurable thing or place on earth, if it is a christian home. It does not take a movie, a show, a fair, a football game, a nonsensical radio program, a lot of foolish talk to satisfy a christian young man or woman; they feel better satisfied at home [than] any where else, because of the home atmosphere."34 Interestingly, however, one of Bontrager's grandchildren says he accepted the radio and "modern gadgets" earlier than some others in the Mennonite Church, in order to "broaden...the borders of God's kingdom."35 In his later years in Winton he did not prohibit the granddaughters under his care from going to the fair or to a show.36
The Gospel Herald records a great coming and going of Mennonites to Los Angeles during the early days of Bontrager's ministry there, many of them tourists.37 Bontrager apparently convened in 1921 the first meeting of a "local board" for the mission, appointed by the Pacific Coast Conference executive committee,38 but his role there was questioned from the start. Also in 1920 the Pacific Coast Conference successfully sought to transfer administrative responsibility for the mission to the "General (Mission) Board" of the entire denomination, which had occurred by 1921.39
Although JPB served as chairman for the local board's initial meeting in July 1921, at least one board member, Edward E. Watkins, originally from Hubbard, Oregon, was opposed to him and the board actually forwarded two different names to the General Board as candidates for mission superintendent, Bontrager and one Henry Harder.40 Watkins promptly wrote to S. C. Yoder of the General Board expressing his disapproval of JPB and emphasizing that Bontrager was simply one of two "nominees" for the superintendent position and "if you have anyone else in mind for Sup. would be excepted [sic]. As for J.P.B. it is a question, as for some of his Financial Dealings on the Pacific coast, in church work and Personal work."41 The General Board sidestepped the issue and appointed no one except Catherine Culp as worker, and left it to the Mission itself to "appoint a pastor and such other teachers and Sunday School superintendents as may be needed."42 Watkins then records that Bontrager was appointed as both pastor of the mission and Sunday School superintendent "till next conference."43
The fact that the city mission and congregation were separate but related entities proved to be a persistent point of contention during Bontrager's tenure. Although the General Mission Board held title to the mission property, they did so on behalf of Pacific Coast Mission Board, which had funded the mission and purchased the property.44 As a mission, therefore, the Los Angeles workers were responsible to the "General Board" of the entire denomination (personified by S. C. Yoder then residing in Iowa) which in turn had oversight of the local board, but the General Board in turn consistently deferred to the Pacific Coast Mission Board, and both boards consistently claimed that distance and a lack of reliable information hindered their oversight.45 Bontrager as bishop and pastor, besides having his own interests, represented yet a third outside governing interest—that of the Pacific Coast Conference proper. In fact, Bontrager had been the first moderator of that conference in 1906 when, prior to merger with Amish-Mennonite churches, it consisted of only three churches—Albany; Hopewell near Hubbard, Oregon; and Antioch at Nampa, Idaho.46 By 1921, the Pacific Coast Conference had merged with the Amish-Mennonite churches in Oregon, prompting consideration of a new constitution and discipline. A letter from the Los Angeles congregation in the course of that project, signed by Bontrager, reveals some of the differences between the Oregon churches and Bontrager's more cosmopolitan setting. In this 1922 letter Bontrager describes meeting as a congregation in Los Angeles for two-and-a-half hours on the Discipline as distributed to congregations, at which time the congregation voted to reject it. Bontrager takes issue with what he sees as different treatment for men and women: "why legislate on one side of the House an not on the other? this was bitterly opposed. if we define, what Sisters shall wear, why not what Brethren shall weare? or give both same privilege, this was sentiment expressed. and is also my sentiment. is it posible that all the Fences must be built? May the Holy Ghost be the Guide in all things." The letter also questioned why weddings had to be conducted in churches since there was nothing in Scripture about that. And what was Bontrager to do about the proposed prohibition on use of musical instruments and "how get them out of the Homes where they are already?"47
In a letter to Fred Gingerich, another bishop in Oregon, written only a few months earlier, Bontrager had expressed similar sentiments, questioning why neckties should be prohibited by the Pacific Coast Conference "when the Mother Church in the East has not...." But he also added, "Remember, I am not going to be a kicker, but as Con[ference] does I will be satisfied."48 Bontrager cited job-related reasons for not attending the conference at which the Discipline was approved for distribution to congregations,49 and he was not present either when it was finally adopted in early 1923.50
If Bontrager was not going to be a "kicker," though, others were prepared to adopt equally vigorous imagery for their own positions. Bontrager's brother- in-law John Hilty and wife moved to southern California in 1922, and Hilty became the target of much speculation about liberalism in Los Angeles. "...[A]s long as Hilty is in the bunch there will be an eruption every once in a while," opined D. H. Bender.51 Daniel Kauffman was even more emphatic: "Somebody needs to go to Los Angeles and by a vigorous application of the toe of the boot send John Hilty across the line into Lower California."52
Herbert E. Widmer, appointed assistant superintendent of the mission for a brief period in 1921, recited a long list of different beliefs found among participants in the Los Angeles congregation (including "absolute discord as to what a bonnet is" and "open and close communion—which is Bible?" and "it is wrong to eat pork" and "the born again man is now in such a state that he does not sin"). Widmer observed, "Because of these conditions here one family of our brethren told me that they are going to the brethren church as there is no housekeeping in our church. On many of these questions Bro. Bontrager gives his philosophy of it and admits himself as undecided in so many things and that leaves many under the impression if he does not know how can I know and therefore so many do the way they do in the congregations they came from."53 "It seems to many as if Bro. Bontrager wants to run it all," worried Widmer. "It seems to me as though some one must step in and perform an operation soon and no one had the courage so far to express this."54
B. P. Swartzendruber of Upland, who would become one of Bontrager's main adversaries in future years, echoed the criticism in a 1923 letter. "Now what seems to puzzle Bro. Bontrager is this. He does not like to refuse communion to such that are high headed. This point he is lame on."55 Local board secretary J. L. Rutt wrote that Bontrager is "either very changeable or does not always speak the way he thinks, this we have been noticing almost ever since we are here, but tried hard not to believe it, nevertheless facts are facts."56 Even Chris Snyder, president of the Pacific Coast Mission Board, joined the chorus of criticism from a distance: "I have now been acquainted with Bro. Bontrager for ten years and have in these years been aware of his inaptitude to labor with other men in promoting a common cause. . . . Bro. Bontrager doesn't fit into conference work any more submissively than he does in the plan of the General Mission Board."57
Nonetheless, Bontrager was in California to stay and he was attracting a crowd. The mission was outgrowing its building58 and a fund-raising effort was discussed for buying a new property. Bontrager's role, however, was a subject of concern: "I think it will be well that you remember the financial disabilities of J.P.B. and possibly the less he has to do with the executive side of the work at Los Angeles the better the work will be supported," wrote Fred Gingerich to S. C. Yoder59 at the time of discussions about the building program. After being "denied the privilege of solliciting funds for a new and larger Building,"60 Bontrager received permission to remodel the existing building and it was completed and dedicated in 1924; it was said that Bontrager, esteemed for his organizational ability, coordinated the work so that the congregation did not miss any meetings.
Apparently as a result of this remodeling effort, Bontrager also became the first Mennonite bishop to be sued in the state of California. In 1924, Garden City Lumber Company sued "M. Dorsey, J. P. Bontrager, and Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities," for $45 in Los Angeles County Superior Court;61 the Lumber Company also sued in a different case a certain "H. G. Erisman and Lottie Stauffer." Erisman was a long-time member of the Mennonite church in Los Angeles. The suit against Bontrager was dismissed in September 1924 and whether the $45 was paid is not recorded; this brush with the law apparently never drew the attention of the church outside of Los Angeles, for there is no mention of it in any contemporaneous or later correspondence.
Bontrager's personal beliefs as well as that of the Mennonite Church precluded participation in litigation, of course. After moving to central California, Bontrager would exercise theological creativity as an alternative to suing at law. When one man would not pay him for his carpentry work (despite acknowledging the debt), Bontrager finally told him that after 4 p.m. that day he would not have to pay him. When the man asked him would happen at 4 p.m., Bontrager replied that that was when he would turn the debt over to the Lord. The debtor showed up at Bontrager's shop at 3:30 and told Bontrager that if he hadn't already turned it over to the Lord, he would like to pay.62
Perhaps understandably, given his position as a bishop and the fact that his congregation in Los Angeles was primarily made up of long-time Mennonites from other parts of the U.S., Bontrager chafed at being accountable to the General Mission Board, and perhaps he was also smarting from the Board's refusal to support the church in buying new property. In any event, at the end of 1922 he apparently either solicited the congregation63 or certainly supported it when the congregation decided that it would withdraw from the supervision of the General Board by becoming a congregation and not a mission station.64 However, this move did not result in the desired outcome: "This is without precedent in the history of missions in the Mennonite church that a minister should without the consent of his conference and mission board under whom they serve take the liberty of withdrawing and organizing a separate congregation without first getting the consent and advice of others involved," fumed S. C. Yoder to Pacific Coast leader J. B. Mishler in a letter of March 1923.65 Although the congregation then belatedly formally petitioned the Pacific Coast Mission Board and Conference for release at the June 1923 conference session, in a petition signed by 28 persons including five members of the Bontrager family,66 the only action taken by that conference was to appoint a minister to a General Board investigating committee to visit Los Angeles.67 As a result of that visit, by D. H. Bender of Hesston, Kansas, and Chris Snyder of Aurora, Oregon, it is recorded that the congregation voted to repeal their petition "without one dissenting vote."68
Regardless of the lack of expressed dissent at that meeting, however, what followed these events were years of friction involving Bontrager, the local mission board, the congregation and the General Board, which ultimately resulted in two factions within the congregation and Bontrager's eventual departure.
1. Sanford C. Yoder to J. M. Brubaker, Orange, Calif., 12/19/29, found in IV-7-1, Mennonite Board of Missions Collections, Executive Committee Correspondence, "Los Angeles Mission," Archives of the Mennonite Church, Goshen, Ind. (hereinafter referred to as "MBM Goshen").
2. The title "bishop" was a uniquely (Old) Mennonite title. Sherman Maust and James Lark were probably the only other Mennonites in the state to ever hold this office: Maust served at Upland, California, near Los Angeles, and James Lark, the first black Mennonite bishop, resided and ministered briefly at Fresno.
3. Jacob J. Reber to S. C. Yoder, 12/15/26, MBM Goshen.
4. Bontrager held the first preaching service at Portland in 1915, but no congregation developed then. In 1924 he traveled from California to hold three weeks of evangelistic meetings, and an organizational meeting for the congregation was held at the close of those meetings 7/27/24. Source: S. G. Shetler, Church History of the Pacific Coast Mennonite Conference District (no publication date given], Mennonite Publishing House, Scottdale, Pennsylvania.
5. Bontrager's services were called upon at a time of crisis in the Albany congregation after Norman A. Lind's request to be released of his duties in 1940. Lind's release on 2/10/40 is discussed in a "Report of Votes of the Albany Congregation Regarding the Appeal by Bro. Lind..." to be found in the Pacific Coast Conference Collection of the Archives of the Oregon Mennonite Historical and Genealogical Society ("OMHGS"), Salem, Oregon. Bontrager was apparently serving as bishop of the Albany Church already by June 1941, when he was called upon by the Pacific Coast Conference Executive Committee and bishops to "make immediate effort to make adjustment" because the "unsettled state of affairs within the Albany congregation." Source: Report of the 20th Annual Mennonite Church Conference of the Pacific Coast District [etc.], Nampa, Idaho, June 3-6, 1941, found in Pacific Coast Conference Collection, OMHGS, Salem (hereinafter referred to as "PCC Salem").
6. Interview with Catherine (Cathy) (Horst) Kaul and Charles Horst, Lodi, California, 11/27/98. Ken Horst, grandson of J.P. Bontrager's daughter Mabel and son of Charles Horst, relates to the Vinewood Community Church of Lodi, member of the Pacific District MB Conference.
7. Sermon notes of John P. Bontrager, "Beasts of Ephesus No. 2," private collection of Catherine Kaul.
8. Interview with Cathy Kaul, 11/28/98. She stated that J. P. Bontrager's children were typical "preacher's kids" and that experimenting with make-up was one of the things that some of the daughters did on the sly; however, "parents know more than their children think they do." According to Claud M. Hostetler, in "John P. Bontrager, 1872-1949," 1950 Mennonite Yearbook and Directory, Bontrager was away from home more than half the time during the years 1906 to 1930, gone for as long as five months at a time.
9. Dorothy Irene Kniss, daughter of J.P. Bontrager's daughter Mary Edna and Orville Kniss, married Terry Norbert Miles in April 1946. Miles was make-up artist for Elvis Presley for his first movie, "Love Me Tender," and later "Double Trouble." "Cathy's Story About John Paul Bontrager and Amanda Hilty Bontrager," Catherine (Horst) Kaul, 1994, private unpublished manuscript.
10. Lehman, James O. Uncommon Threads: A Centennial History of Bethel Mennonite Church (West Liberty, Ohio: Bethel Mennonite Church, 1990).
11. Claud M. Hostetler, "John P. Bontrager, 1872-1949," 1950 Mennonite Yearbook and Directory, p. 24.
12. Notes of Katie (Widmer) Burck located in Hope Lind Collection, I-10, Albany Mennonite Church folder, OMHGS, Salem.
13. Hostetler, n. 11. David Hilty, born in Pandora, Ohio, in 1845, died in Nampa, Idaho, in 1914.
15. This letter is in the private collection of Cathy Kaul. In a letter from Aaron Loucks and J. S. Hartzler dated 10/31/18, held in the same collection, Bontrager was also told that Loucks had just met with Mr. R. C. McCrea, Civilian Commissioner on Conscientious Objectors, and that JPB should "consider yourself appointed to look over your community" in order to get applications for farm furloughs, "[h]owever do not apply if you think that it will create disturbance in the neighborhood." Bontrager apparently performed a similar counseling function with conscientious objectors prior to and during World War II, even though persons who this writer spoke to do not recall his having spoken much about that war or the church's peace position from the pulpit or in conversation. It is difficult to know for sure whether this was because the subject of peace became less important to him, or—as seems more likely—because he was simply following his own advice about discretion. Bontrager did express considerable support personally to conscientious objectors, as evidenced by other letters preserved from World War I, and welcoming California's Civilian Public Service workers into his home during World War II. Personal interviews with Clarence Leichty, Goshen, Indiana, 11/98; and Daniel M. Widmer, Salem, Oregon, 1/17/99.
16. J. P. Bontrager to A. A. Bontrager, June 14, 1918, personal collection of Cathy Kaul. Bontragers had moved from Albany to Filer, Idaho just that year.
20. Ibid. n. 9. "Powwowing" refers to a folk practice based on incantation or ritual, particularly relating to health remedies, associated with some Amish.
21. Gospel Herald, 11/6/19, pp. 584-85. Anonymous correspondent from Albany, Oregon.
22. Kevin Enns-Rempel, "In Search of Health and Land: Mennonite Settlement in California, 1887- 1940," paper presented at the annual meeting of the California Historical Society, Sacramento, Calif., 17-19 September 1992.
23. The reasons are not known. In the Autobiography of N. A. Lind (N. A. Lind collection, 1-231, Archives of Mennonite Church, Goshen, Indiana), p. 255, Lind writes, "Very soon [after arriving in Albany from Bakersfield, California] we were awaking to the fact of some very, very delicate local problems here at Albany. So too there were conditions prevailing between Albany Congregation and some of the neighboring congregations that, as I became the more aware of the real issues, were very shocking....Among the first such condition to which I was soon very rudely exposed was a very unfriendly attitude toward the bishop, Bro. J. P. Bontrager. For long I had desired to be at home in a congregation where there was a resident bishop, and now here where there was a home bishop such a condition prevailed. Soon too, we were awaking to the unpleasant fact that our coming there was designed by some as a solution to a bad condition that had been existing." Lind had been invited to Albany by Bontrager among others, and was ordained as bishop despite his own reluctance by J. D. Mishler, Bontrager and S. G. Shetler in 1921. In a letter dated 11/15/21 to Chris Snyder, chairman of the Pacific Coast Mission Board, Lind writes, "The few months of responsibility as Bishop surely have been crushing ones. Do pray that we may not give way or even shrink from the Right irrespective of any individuals." Lind seems to have been writing at that time primarily about a painful "admission of misconduct by S. G. Shetler," who had been among those ordaining Lind and who had conducted a Bible school in Oregon in 1921 and then suddenly returned to the East in the summer of 1921. This letter is found in the Chris Snyder Collection, Archives of OMHGS, Salem, Oregon.
24. Autobiography of N. A. Lind, ibid n. 23, pp. 257-58.
25. Bontrager and Widmer had made an exploratory trip to Los Angeles in May 1919. Gospel Herald, 5/29/19, p. 152. C. R. Widmer was nicknamed "Benton County Prune King" because of his success farming his prune orchard near Albany, according to his grandson Daniel M. Widmer. Phone interview with Daniel M. Widmer, 1/17/99. Some considered him to be the wealthiest man in the Albany congregation. Hope Lind Collection, I-10, Box 13, OMHGS Archives, Salem. He apparently was one of Bontrager's strongest supporters and handled certain property (probably a former residence) that Bontrager continued to own in Albany during the early 1920's. Letter from C. R. Widmer to Chris Snyder, 5/8/23, found in Chris Snyder Collection, OMHGS Archives, Salem, Oregon. Later he seemed inclined to dismiss an unspecified "rumor" about Bontrager or the L.A. congregation as "all gossip" in a 10/23/23 letter written to Snyder, found in the same collection. Daniel M. Widmer indicated that although many believe that Widmer later founded the breakaway Grace congregation of the General Conference Mennonite Church (1931) in Albany as a result of his son-in-law's purchase of a life insurance policy, he attributes the break with Albany Mennonite Church more generally to C. R. Widmer's "business connections."
26. S. G. Shetler, ibid n. 4, pp. 49-50; Gospel Herald, 6/26/19, p. 220.
27. Gospel Herald, 5/30/07, p. 196, Anna L. Miller correspondence from Upland, California.
28. Not only that, but the minutes of the Local Board of the Los Angeles Mennonite Mission of August 4, 1923, show that the Old Mennonites were aware of plans by the General Conference Mennonites to "come out in our District at 79th & Main" and "[w]e feel that they are encrouching [sic] upon our territory because we were here first, and that our work would be hindered thru the two missions stations being only six blocks apart." Minutes found in II-5-2, pp. 8-9, Calvary Christian Fellowship (earlier called Los Angeles Mennonite Mission, Inglewood, California, 1916 - ), Archives of the Mennonite Church, Goshen, Indiana (hereinafter referred to as "CCF Goshen").
29. Gospel Herald, 11/2/11, Orva Kilmer correspondence from Dinuba. While Dinuba apparently had an sizable group of Old Mennonites at the turn of the first decade of the century—with names like Weaver and Shenk joined by names of Bebb, Bledsoe and Isgrigg, no Old Mennonite congregation was ever organized there. A personal diary/datebook left behind by Bontrager contains a list titled "Members of the Mennonite Church in California," probably made up before Bontrager took up residence in California, "Lile Sharer" is recorded as the only member residing in Dinuba. A certain "V. Augestine and wife" are listed in Reedley, and the other places with (Old) Mennonites are identified (complete with names of members) as Pasadena, Upland, Orange, Ontario, Corning and Terra Bella, Long Beach, Sawtell, and Los Angeles. The majority of the members in this list—Horsts, Millers and Gingeriches—lived at Terra Bella near Porterville, and Bontrager's notes indicate that on February 23, 1916, 17 persons took communion there and one person was baptized. Personal diary/datebook of John P. Bontrager, personal collection of Cathy Kaul. Bontrager would later make frequent trips from Los Angeles to conduct services at Terra Bella and several members of the Horst family would be part of the congregation at Winton where he moved in 1931.
31. Phone interview with Ray Eason, former member of Winton Mennonite Church, Atwater, California, 1/99.
32. His granddaughter Margaret Collins, who lived at the Bontrager home in Atwater in the early 1930's and stayed there during summers into her youth, remembers him frequently typing in the next room, working on his sermon notes. Telephone interview with Margaret Collins, January 17, 1999.
33. Interview with Cathy Kaul, 11/28/98. However, his books did include a thick volume on oratory.
34. Notebook of John P. Bontrager, personal collection of Cathy Kaul.
36. Telephone interview with Margaret Collins, 1/17/99. She stated that Bontrager would question the practices in a good-natured or teasing manner.
37. See, e.g., correspondence from J. P. Bontrager to Gospel Herald dated October 25, 1920, found in November 11, 1920 issue.
38. Bishop Fred Gingerich to S. C. Yoder, 6/28/21, MBM Goshen.
39. Collection of the Pacific Coast Conference Mission Board, III-1.1.2, Minutes, second annual meeting, June 8, 1921, at archives of OMHGS, Salem. In a letter written by Bishop Fred Gingerich to S. C. Yoder, general secretary for the churchwide Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities, dated June 28, 1991 (MBM Goshen), Gingerich stated that the work should be under the General Board "for safety, on the same ground that others are, for instance, Chicago, K.C., South America or India Missions etc....I think Bro. Bontrager wanted the place and work thrown back upon the Cong[regation] there but this is not the wish of the district Conf[erence] at present and individually I feel that that would be practically throwing the work away, because of the floating membership and other local conditions which you no doubt know better than I do." Gingerich and Yoder were cousins.
40. The minutes of this initial meeting, held 7/24/21, are found at CCF Goshen.
41. E. E. Watkins to "Dear Sir," 7/29/21, MBM Goshen.
42. S. C. Yoder to E. E. Watkins, 8/27/21, MBM Goshen.
43. Minutes of 9/11/21 meeting of Local Board, CCF Goshen. Whether coincidence or not, Watkins, Harder and Catherine Culp had all left Los Angeles by the next summer. Gospel Herald, 10/27/21; Local Board minute, 4/22, CCF Goshen.
44. MBM Collection, Executive Committee correspondence, Los Angeles Mission 1921-24, passim, Archives of Mennonite Church, Goshen, Indiana.
45. See, e.g., letters of S. Yoder, secretary of General Mission Board, to J. B. Mishler, secretary of Pacific Coast Mission Board, 10/17/22; and letter from Mishler to Yoder 1/31/23.
47. Pacific Coast Conference collection, III-1.1.1, OMHGS, Salem. Bontrager took a different tack in a letter to S. C. Yoder of the General Mission Board not a month later, however, stating, "We are being bothered some with the Progressive element. but so Far I have refused to receive any Sisters wearing the Hat. some put them a way and some would not. Right or wrong? Pray for us in the work here." Letter dated 10/9/22 found in MBM Goshen. Even if they could not wear hats, women were apparently more frequently included as speakers and choristers on mission or church worker programs held at Los Angeles during the 1920's in contrast to the roster of all men at conference mission programs held in Oregon. See, for example, Local Board minute dated 7/18/25, CCF Goshen; Gospel Herald, 6/3/20, "Report of Christian workers meeting," p. 191.
48. Pacific Coast Mennonite Conference Collection, II-13, Box 1, "Secretary Book, 1921-22," Archives of the Mennonite Church, Goshen.
49. JPB wrote to Gingerich, "I am afraid that I will not get to the Conference. as I Am Foreman on a Big Job and we will lack a few weeks of being thru at the time that we should start for the Con. and I do not feel my self justified in quiting them at such a time, when I know that they do not want me to go. what would you do? and as I must look out for my support, I feel that I must be obedient to my Masters. especialy when the Job is so near finished. and they say if I quit the Job will stop as they want me on the Job all the time. so I wish that I would know just what is best. But God will over rule all to His Glory. Pray for me."
50. Omar G. Miller to J. P. Bontrager, 1/26/23, Pacific Coast Conference Secretary Collection, Archives of the OMHGS, Salem, Oregon.
51. D. H. Bender to S. C. Yoder, 1/28/24, MBM Goshen.
52. Daniel Kauffman to S. C. Yoder, 2/4/24, MBM Goshen.
53. Herbert E. Widmer to Aaron Loucks, 12/22/22, MBM Goshen. This letter was written while Widmer was vacationing in Bakersfield.
54. Widmer added obliquely, "I have no idea as to who it would be to put things in order so I felt that could do something in some way or other. There are as a result of this several crooked dealings that would come to light as the work or operation would begin which I could not mention because I think if the other would be settled the other would come alright also." Ibid.
55. B. P. Swartzendruber, Upland, California, to D. H. Bender, Hesston, Kansas, 10/22/23, MBM Goshen.
56. J. L. Rutt to S. C. Yoder, 1/14/24, MBM Goshen.
57. Chris Snyder to S. C. Yoder, 1/16/24, MBM Goshen.
58. A report in the Gospel Herald states that an average attendance of 100 was trying to fit into a building of 600 square feet. J. B. Mishler, GH, 7/6/22. Wrote Bontrager to S. C. Yoder on 10/9/22, "Imagine our Perdigerment...as many as 19 in several classes and that is no uncommon occurance." MBM Goshen.
59. MBM Goshen. As early as 1920 Fannie Bontrager, one of J. P. Bontrager's daughters, had written to the Gospel Herald requesting financial help for the mission and noting that "J. P. Bontrager is treasurer of the building committee." Gospel Herald, 5/27/20, pp. 164-65. A later notice in the Gospel Herald by Oregon Bishop J. B. Mishler about the building program was at pains to announce, however, "The work is under the management of the General Mission Board and any who give of their means may feel sure that the money will be rightly placed." Gospel Herald, 7/6/22.
60. J. P. Bontrager to S. C. Yoder, 10/9/22, MBM Goshen.
61. Archives, Los Angeles County Superior Court, Case No. B146141, 1924.
62. Phone interview with Ray Eason, Atwater, California, 1/99. Eason worked for Bontrager in his contracting business and attended Sharon Mennonite Church at Winton.
63. According to H. E. Widmer, Bontrager "suggested that we withdraw from under the general board and didn't give open meeting for discussion of the matter and so it was given only his idea and it was passed unanimously with one undecided and he announced that as No. beings I know this is because I was that one." Widmer added, "I had thought that all voted and therefore I'd keep quiet about it and now they are starting to say that many did not vote at all." H. E. Widmer to Aaron Loucks, 12/22/22, MBM Goshen.
64. Wrote Bontrager to S. C. Yoder, "Was Los Angeles ever a Mission? If so we never received any support for the work from the Board.....In regards to the condition of the Church here, I can truthfully say is good. with the exception of two members they are all in order, and spiritualy very good....we have quite a few this winter again from the East that have never handed in a letter, and they are the most dressy `as you call it' that we have here, and of corse we cant do any thing with them. as they are not members." This letter, dated 2/22/23, is found in MBM Goshen.
65. This letter, dated 3/12/23, is found in MBM Goshen.
66. Undated petition found in Pacific Coast Conference Collection, III-1.1.1, Archives of OMHGS, Salem.
67. Minutes, Pacific Coast Mission Board, 6/6/23, Pacific Coast Mission Board Collection, III- 1.1.2, Archives of OMHGS, Salem; Letter of Omar G. Miller, Secretary of Pacific Coast Conference to S. C. Yoder, 6/9/23, MBM Goshen.
68. Minutes of Local Board, 8/4/23, found in CCF Goshen.
© 1999 California Mennonite Historical Society.
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modified: 3/24/99