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includes correspondence, diaries, academic papers, sermons, financial papers, biographical material

Contains memorabilia, letters diaries, vitae, photos, negatives, clippings, scrapbooks, and legal papers (passports, deeds, mortgages, bonds, oil and gas leases) of E. G. and Edna Kaufman, photos and clippings on Bluffton College and its Home Economics programs and Women's Association, ca. 1920s and 1930s, AFSC work in France with Spanish refugee children ca. 1940-1942, AFSC work in Mexico ca. 1941-1942, MCC/CPS correspondence ca. 1940-1948, letters and photos on service in India ca. 1965-1968, travel journals of European trips in 1948 and 1957, and an African trip in 1975. Family letters, correspondence, and handwritten newsletters are included. Photographs, color photographs and negatives are found in most parts of the collection. Also included are papers on Anna M. Kaufman.

Box 1: France and India notebooks

Box 2: letters, 1980, Homemakers Notebook column in Mennonite Weekly Review 1981-1990

Box 3: Bluffton College clippings, etc. 1980s mostly

Box 4: clippings, photos, postcard album, wedding items, diaries; E. G. Kaufman hospitalization; mementos of Cuba, clippings, scrapbooks

Box 5: jumble of photos, correspondence, diplomas, teaching notes, travel notes, clippings, autographed book by Albert Schweitzer, diplomas, school materials, dissertation, 1942 AFSC work in France, photo album 1940 with captions in French, passports, travel journals 1948, 1957, 1962 (Gabon), 1975

Box 6: photos, correspondence, travel notes, pamphlets, letters related to India 1965-68, map, calendars

Box 7: photos, clippings, pamphlets, Bluffton College items, correspondence, financial, Bluffton College materials, photos, rolled photos, 50th anniversary class of 1932

Box 8: financial, correspondence, book of menus for guests, pamphlets, clippings, books, history of home economics at Bethel, Bluffton College Women's Association notebooks and cookbooks, Bluffton home economics; James Liu file; book The Schrock-Ramseyer Story

Box 9: items re 1940-42 AFSCrefugee work in Europe, photos, correspondence, clippings

Box 10: financial, Edmund G. Kaufman funeral guestbook, passports, photos, correspondence, Edmund G. Kaufman clippings

Box 11: financial, legal; Anna M. Kaufman papers

Box 12: vitae, clippings, correspondence (some 1940), family letters and newsletters

Box 13: correspondence, MCC work camps 1941-47 scrapbook, miscellaneous notebook, photos, AFSC Mexico journal 1941-1942

Box 14: AFSC Mexico 1942 and CPS - correspondence, photos, clippings

Box 15: framed clippings and photos of her various foreign projects

Box 16: correspondence, photo albums, financial, clippings, 1962 Africa diary, E. G. Kaufman letters, Home Management House at Bluffton, 1940 diary France, book Melting Pot of Mennonite Cookery

Box 17: scrapbooks - India, Bluffton, 1939 work camp, France

Box 18: clippings, photos, scrapbook

Box 19: books, scrapbooks, diaries, guestbooks

Box 20: "sticky" photo album - needs to be disassembled

Box 21: oral history interview, Apr. 29, 1997

"box" 22: map folder of diplomas

Waltner’s papers are extensive and cover his career and service in great detail. Waltner discarded very little, and this is immediately evidenced by the detailed notes and student papers surviving for the classes he took at Bethel, the University of South Dakota, and all three seminaries where he studied. A handful of Winifred’s student papers are included. Both Erland and Winifred kept journals, and Erland actually retained his pocket calendars listing appointments for virtually his entire career. The most significant documentation of the Waltner family is their correspondence, especially some thirty years of nearly weekly letters from Erland’s father, Ben J Waltner. Also revealing the story of the Waltner family are the frequent letters between Erland and Winifred; corresponding whenever they were apart early in the marriage and whenever he traveled to his numerous speaking engagements. The demand for him to speak is documented by many hundreds of letters inviting him to speak, and far more invitations were received than he could accept. Perhaps of most interest to the historian will be Waltner’s extensive correspondence regarding the Mennonite Biblical Seminary and as a General Conference leader in the 1940s and 1950s. Included are details regarding the revival of the seminary and its early years in Chicago. Most significant are likely the negotiations with the Mennonite Church (Old Mennonites) regarding the move of the seminary to Elkhart and the early cooperative efforts, which includes a number of original letters with Harold S. Bender. Also of interest are a decade of letters from E. G. Kaufman trying to recruit Waltner to Bethel College, and letters from those trying to recruit him to the seminary at the same time. Waltner’s involvement with the Board of Education and Publication and numerous subcommittees will have overlapping documentation in the archives of the General Conference, but some materials are not duplicates. This is perhaps most true of the six years of correspondence as conference president. The Board of Missions papers are mostly duplicates of the conference archives, including many numbered and circular letters, but interspersed are some likely original letters not in the church archives. (The collection contains several folders of letters from other, mostly older, General Conference leaders which Waltner somehow acquired and retained). The correspondence and reports Waltner saved from his work with MCC and MWC are also significant although not extensive. He even has papers documenting the beginning of the Mennonite Medical Association (and for many years seemed to be the only non-doctor on the membership list). He was often the person called upon to represent the General Conference in inter-Mennonite activities in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. Waltner was a founder of the first General Conference Mennonite Church in Elkhart, Hively Avenue, and the collection contains materials related to the beginning of the church and its ongoing activities. One surprise might be that this collection does not contain significant documentation from Waltner’s two decades as seminary president - these official files from his administrative duties are at the seminary as they should be. Following his retirement, Waltner did continue to receive and retained a thorough set of faculty minutes and memos. Some of these communications with other faculty may be unique copies. What is definitely unique among Waltner’s seminary papers are the thousands of pages of lecture notes, course syllabi, student papers, exams, and other evaluations. These cover a period of nearly forty years (late fifties through early nineties) and provide insight into what was being taught at a very detailed level. Although perhaps less significant historically than the MBS and General Conference materials, this collection also documents the thinking and preaching of one of the most significant General Conference preachers of the twentieth century. As many as fifteen hundred to two thousand of his sermons have survived - most are in outline form on half sheets of paper and almost all have the place/occasion and date included. They are generally sorted by the scripture passage, i.e. all of the sermons on Mark, Psalms, Job, etc. Some are sorted by topic. However, they maybe found everywhere - so a folder for a seminary course on Peter may contain a handful of sermon outlines on Peter from the 1940s or 1950s. In one respect these sermons are important because only a decade of the over four decades of sermons were as a pastor of a congregation. The demand for Waltner to preach was overwhelming and it seems like he was preaching somewhere every Sunday, including not only at local congregations but also district conferences and a host of special events, such as ordinations, building dedications, commencements, and so forth.

A handful of Waltner’s early sermons in Mountain Lake were in German, and be preached in German during some of his earlier MCC and MWC travels in Canada, Europe and South America. Otherwise the collection is in English.