Collection HM1/503 - J. D. (Joseph Daniel) and Minnie (Swartzendruber) Graber Papers 1920-1978

Joseph Daniel "J. D." Graber was born 18 October 1900 at Noble, Iowa, to Daniel and Fanny Conrad Graber. He was educated at Hesston College and Goshen College. He received a BD degree from Princeton Theological Seminary (1943). He married Minnie Swartzendruber (28 June 1925). They were appointed by the Mennonite Board of Missions (Mennonite Church) to serve in India (1925-1942). Graber served as general missionary, pastor, bishop, mission secretary, high school principal, and in other positions. He returned to the United States for furlough at the beginning of World War II and served as Mennonite Central Committee relief commissioner in China, 1943-1944. While in China, he was elected as first full-time general secretary of the Mennonite Board of Missions, a position he held until retirement in 1967.

An effective public speaker, Graber exerted wide influence in the Mennonite Church (MC) in support of missions. He came into leadership at the beginning of a period of rapid growth both at home and overseas. He is credited with the slogan "Every church a mission outpost," which caught the imagination of many congregations across North America, resulting in a dispersion of motivated young people, primarily lay people. Alert to the issues being debated in mission circles, he exerted strong influence on the mission philosophy and policies applied overseas. Keenly conscious of the implications of the movement for political independence sweeping across the non-Western world, he advocated the dismantling of colonial mission structures and adoption of an approach attuned to current sociopolitical realities (indigenization). Graber was the most prolific Mennonite writer on missions prior to 1967. Graber's Conrad Grebel Lectures for 1959 (published as The Church Apostolic, 1960) present the essentials of his philosophy of missions. He was a part-time instructor in missions at Goshen Biblical Seminary, 1955-1963. He died at Goshen, IN on 25 January 1978.

Minnie Swartzendruber Graber (1902-2000) was born to parents Elias and Sarah Knepp Swartzendruber in Manson, Iowa in 1902. Throughout her life, Minnie was known for her deep devotion to the church, which was often channeled through work with women. Early on in her 17 years as a missionary in India (1925-52), she proposed opening the annual meeting of mission women to women from the Indian Mennonite congregations. Minnie, with her excellent Hindi and loving spirit, participated in that historic first meeting, which took place under a large kussum tree at Balodgahan. An organization similar to WMSC in North America emerged and became a constant source of stability and strength in the life of the church in India. While in India, Minnie also engaged in evangelism in the villages, taught in the high school, mastered Indian cuisine and shared the couple’s home with a stream of guests. There were difficult days in the development of the church, and a friend remembers that she never worked with anyone as loving as Minnie.

Returning to Elkhart in 1942 when J. D. was called to be Secretary of the Mennonite Board of Missions, Minnie remained active in the church and completed her undergraduate degree at Goshen College. She helped establish sessions for women in the Indiana-Michigan Conference meetings. From 1950 to 1959 she was president of church-wide Women’s Missionary and Service Commission. Under her leadership WMSC made the transition from being a wing of the Mission Board to independent but cooperating status. She also traveled widely in the church. Retiring to Greencroft, Goshen, in 1977, Minnie continued her role as hostess and carried on a voluminous correspondence supporting the two central concerns of her life, world-wide missions and womens’ place in the church. Minnie and J.D. had two children, Ronald Graber and Eleanor Kreider, and many grandchildren and great-granchildren.