Item 001 - Elfrieda Ens in China

Robert Stanford Kreider, Mennonite educator and historian, taught at Bluffton College and Bethel College, Kansas. He also directed the Mennonite Library and Archives at Bethel College and served with Mennonite Central Committee and Mennonite World Conference.

Robert S. Kreider was born January 2, 1919, in Sterling, Illinois, son of Amos and Stella Shoemaker Kreider. In 1921 the family moved to Goshen, Indiana, and in 1926 to Bluffton, Indiana, and in 1935 to Newton, Kansas, where Amos taught respectively at Goshen College, Bluffton College, and Bethel College. Robert’s elementary education thus began in Goshen and continued in Bluffton, where he completed high school prior to the move to Kansas in 1935. He entered Bethel College and earned a BA in History in 1939, and in 1941 he completed a MA in Social Ethics from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.

Kreider was drafted and entered Civilian Public Service from1941-1945. He became assistant director of the Colorado Springs CPS Camp, and then became education director for all of the CPS camps operated by the Mennonite Central Committee. On December 30, 1945, Robert married Lois Sommer in Pekin, Illinois, and six weeks later left to direct MCC’s relief program in Germany. Following four years of service in Germany, the Kreiders moved to Chicago where Robert continued his education at the University of Chicago, receiving a PhD in European History in 1953. Meanwhile, Kreider had begun teaching at Bluffton College in 1952. Two years later he became Academic Dean and in 1965 President. In 1972 he resigned as Bluffton’s President. While at Bluffton College the Kreiders had five children: Esther, Joan, Karen, David, and Ruth.

In 1975 Kreider joined Bethel College as Professor of Peace Studies and Director of the Mennonite Library and Archives. In the intervening years between Bluffton and Bethel, he had directed an MCC self study and spent four months visiting MCC programs in Africa and Asia. After a year as Interim Academic Dean, Kreider retired from Bethel College in 1985, but he continued as Administrative Vice Preisdent and Director of the Kansas Institute of Peace and Conflict Resolution for two years.

During his teaching and administrative careers at Bluffton and Bethel, Kreider remained heavily involved in the work of the church. This work continued during his retirement. Kreider and his brother Gerald established the Marpeck Fund to foster creative collaboration among Mennonite Institutions of Higher Education in Canada and the United States. Robert Kreider died on December 27, 2015.