Collection HM1/101 - Gene Stoltzfus Papers

Gene (Mervin Eugene) Stoltzfus was born in Aurora, Ohio to parents Elmer Stoltzfus and Orpha Beechy in 1940. His father was a farmer and pastored Plainview Mennonite Church.

Stoltzfus attended Eastern Mennonite high school (1954-1958) and Eastern Mennonite College (1958-1960). He graduated from Goshen College in 1962. After a term of voluntary service in British Guiana in 1962, Stoltzfus worked with International Voluntary Services (IVS) in Vietnam. He resigned from his IVS position in 1967 in protest against the Vietnam War.

From 1968 to 1972, Stoltzfus lived in Washington, D.C., lobbying against the war and studying at American University. In 1970, he received a Master's Degree in Asian / Southeast Asian Studies. Stoltzfus moved to Indiana in 1972 and received his M.Div in 1973. In 1975, he married Dorothy Friesen.

From 1976-1979, Stoltzfus and his wife co-directed the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) program in the Philippines.They settled in Chicago when they returned to the United States. Stoltzfus served as Director of the Urban Life Center from 1981 to 1986. He cofounded Synapses, a grass-roots peace, justice, and spirituality organization, in 1981, and served on the staff of that organization from 1986 to 1988.

In 1988 Stoltzfus became the founding director of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). He held this position until his retirement in 2004. After he retired, he continued his work as a peace activist and spoke nationally and internationally about peacemaking.

Stoltzfus died in 2010.