Ramer, Henry Brubaker (1876-1960)
Henry Brubaker Ramer: deacon and minister in the Duchess Mennonite Church, Duchess, Alberta; born on 14 February 1876 near Richfield, Juniata County, Pennsylvania, and died on 23 November 1960 at Duchess, Alberta. He was married to Mary N. Durr on 8 December 1901. They had four sons and two daughters.
Henry Ramer was baptized and received as a member of the Susquehanna Mennonite Church in 1897. He was chosen by lot and ordained to the office of deacon in the Martinsburg Mennonite Church, on 8 December 1901. He served as deacon for nine years at the Pleasant Grove and Martinsburg churches after which he and his family moved to Altoona, Pennsylvania. There he worked as a machinist in the Pennsylvania Railroad shops and became interested in starting a mission. In 1910 a mission hall was dedicated, with Henry Ramer serving as deacon and in many other ways in the local Mennonite mission. The Ramer family left for Alberta in 1917, and E. F. Hartzler from Ohio became the minister in the Altoona mission.
Henry Brubaker Ramer's father, Jacob S. Ramer, and his brother, Samuel B. Ramer, moved from Pennsylvania to Duchess, Alberta, in the spring of 1915. They were among the first settlers in the district. Henry, with his family, followed in July of 1917, shortly after a new Mennonite church had been organized at Duchess. In the new congregation, Henry Ramer continued his calling as deacon until 2 November 1919, when he was ordained to the office of minister. He occupied a number of leadership positions in the Alberta-Saskatchewan Mennonite Conference and reportedly never missed a session of the conference from the time he became a member in 1918. He also remained active, until his death, in the Duchess congregation and served for more than twenty years as the Alberta-Saskatchewan Mennonite Conference representative on the Mennonite Publication Board of the General Conference of the Mennonite Church.
During the later years of his ministry Henry Ramer had the joy of serving together with his son, Clarence Jay Ramer, who was ordained a minister on 28 April 1929 and as bishop on 13 July 1941. Another son, Jacob David Ramer, was ordained and served the Duchess Mennonite Church as deacon from 1925 until he and his family moved to Ohio in 1930.
Bibliography
"Duchess Mennonite Church History." 25 May 1997. Unpublished manuscript made available by Mary Burkholder.
Regehr, T. D. Faith, Life and Witness in the Northwest, 1903-2003: Centennial History of the Northwest Mennonite Conference. Kitchener, ON : Pandora Press, 2003.
Stauffer, Ezra. History of the Alberta-Saskatchewan Mennonite Conference. Ryley, Alberta: Alberta-Saskatchewan Mennonite Conference, 1960: 79.
| Author(s) | Ted D Regehr |
|---|---|
| Date Published | December 2003 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Regehr, Ted D. "Ramer, Henry Brubaker (1876-1960)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. December 2003. Web. 16 Apr 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Ramer,_Henry_Brubaker_(1876-1960)&oldid=77119.
APA style
Regehr, Ted D. (December 2003). Ramer, Henry Brubaker (1876-1960). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 16 April 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Ramer,_Henry_Brubaker_(1876-1960)&oldid=77119.
©1996-2024 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.