The La Junta Mennonite School of Nursing (La Junta, Colo.) Alumnae Association was founded in 1956. The association not only helps nursing school classmates maintain a sense of community, but also supports nursing students at Mennonite colleges through scholarships. Materials in this collection include governance and adminstrative documents of the association, the alumnea newsletter (1944-2008), scholarship fund correspondence and records, reunion materials, lists of graduates, class correspondence, photographs, alumnae studies, a scrapbook created from yearbooks, and miscellaneous materials. Of particular note is a phonograph record of the class of 1946 singing its class song, "Onward and Upward."
La Junta Mennonite School of Nursing (La Junta, Colo.) Alumnae Association
Papers of a Mennonite missionary couple stationed in India and Ghana, with interest in the mission field in Nigeria. Divided into the following series:
(1) Correspondence, Subject Files, and Miscellaneous, 1944-1977
Personal papers of a lifelong peace activist from the Mennonite / Anabaptist tradition. Materials include journals, personal and professional correspondence, reports and articles associated with his work for International Voluntary Services (IVS) and Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), lectures and speeches, photographs, and remembrance books compiled after his death. These papers also include Synapses: Messages, newsletters of a grass-roots human rights and spirituality organization based in Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s.
The collection of the Mennonite Medical Association includes minutes and reports, convention materials, membership lists and news releases, correspondence, photographs and albums, and audio recordings from 1944 to 2003.
Mennonite Medical Association (Harrisonburg, Virginia)
Records documenting congregational life of the (Old) Mennonite Church's urban mission in Chicago, Illinois. Materials include a membership ledger, records of events and organizations associated with the mission congregation, Sunday school records, financial records, and photographs.
Dockets, minutes, correspondence, and miscellaneous records of the board that governs the semi-independent magazine associated with the Mennonite Church USA. Includes an employee policy handbook and photographs of staff members.
Records of a department of the Mennonite Board of Missions that worked to strengthen and support racial and ethnic minority congregations, to assist the church in relating to minority communities, to serve as liaison between militant groups and the church, and to help the church understand and practice the radical discipleship of Jesus Christ. Materials include council minutes and publications, photographs, and correspondence and subject files of minority council leaders.
Mennonite Board of Missions. Minority Ministries Council
These records document the institutional history of a Mennonite turbuculosis sanatarium in Swink, Colo. that ultimately became the general hospital for the community of La Junta, Colo. Other names by which this institution have been known include Mennonite Hospital and La Junta Medical Center. In 1998, the hospital severed its association with the Mennonite Church and adopted the name Arkansas Valley Regional Medical Center.
Records include board meeting minutes, early correspondence of long-time administrator Allen H. Erb, and financial records. The gradual process of the city of La Junta assuming responsibility for the hospital, which began in the 1960s, is also well-documented.
La Junta Mennonite Hospital and Sanatorium (La Junta, Colorado)
Daniel H. Coffman served as a deacon at Prairie Street Mennonite Church (1893-1899), Olive Mennonite Church (1899-1904), and Clinton Brick Mennonite Church (1904 - 1941). This collection consists primarily of Coffman's correspondence to his brother and sister in Virginia as well as his daughter in Indiana, and contains information regarding church conflicts from 1898 to 1903. Also in this collection are histories of the Daniel H. Coffman family and the Samuel H. Eldridge family, as well as a photograph of the Eldridge family circa 1890.
The papers of Vernon and Evangeline Matthies Neuschwander primarily document relief and service work to Russian Mennonite refugees after World War II. Materials include correspondence, poems, testimonies, and songs by Russian Mennonite refugees, reports and correspondence pertaining to Mennonite Central Committee relief work in the Netherlands and Paraguay, a diary kept by Evangeline Matthies Neuschwander during her Europen relief work, correspondence between Vernon and Evangeline Matthies Neuschwander, and a well-labeled photograph album documenting Evangeline Matthies Neuschwander's relief and service work. Other materials include records of Vernon Neuschwander's Civilian Public Service work, family and genealogical materials, Evangeline's writing and reminiscences, and miscellaneous materials.
A small collection including photographs of the Peter Smith family (including Christian Smith, Peter Smith, and Mary Smith Oyer) and an account book apparently kept by Peter Smith.
Records of the African American constituency group of the (old) Mennonite Church. Emerging from the Minority Ministries Council, the African American Mennonite Association began its orginizational life as the Black Council or Black Caucus. In the early 1980s the name was changed to the African American Mennonite Association (AAMA). The AAMA strove to support black and racially integrated congregations in the (old) Mennonite Church through annual assemblies and programming, leadership training, educational opportunites, and congregational economic development.
One scrapbook of photographs documenting Fred E. Swatzendruber's travel and work with Near East Relief from 1920 to 1921. Swartzendruber's assignment was at an orphanage in Beirut, Syria, sheltering children whose parents were killed in the Armenian genocide. Contains photographs documenting the travel by ship and locations around the region including trips to the Holy Land and other pilgrimage sites.
Photographic prints and contact sheets depicting Mennonite Board of Missions missionaries, voluntary service workers, and staff. Most images are black and white. Photographs of individual missionaries and voluntary service workers may include both formal portraits and "action shots" in the field.
