Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Mueller, Adam Theodore, 1904-2004
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1904-2004
History
Adam Theodore Mueller was born on January 8, 1904, in Meno, Oklahoma, to Theodore Henry Mueller and Anna Becker Mueller. His father was not of Mennonite background, but had come from Leavenworth, Kansas, to participate in the Oklahoma “run” in 1893 and homesteaded land a mile north of Meno. Adam’s father married Anna Becker and Adam was baptized in the New Hopedale Mennonite Church. Adam attended the Oklahoma Bible Academy, 1916-18, but ended his secondary education at Lahoma, Oklahoma, High School in 1921 without a diploma. During this period the family had spent a year or two in far southern Texas at LaFeria, near Brownsville. Adam attended the Enid Business College for two years and received a diploma in business in 1924. He attended Bethel College from 1927-32 and obtained a BA in 1932. Adam continued his education with a MA in economics in 1939 from the University of Kansas. He also studied accounting at the University of Oklahoma in 1946 and Wichita State University from 1957-1959.
Adam’s career included stints at a number of businesses. From 1924 to 1927 before attending Bethel he was the bookkeeper for the Wynona, Oklahoma, Chevrolet Dealer and then for the Meno Hardware and Implement Company. He worked in the business office and bookstore at Bethel while a student and returned a decade later to work in the business office and as purchasing agent, 1943-46. He worked in the General Conference Offices from 1948-50. Then he and Helen left Newton to become the first directors of Camp Mennoscah, 1950-54. For the following years, 1954-62 he worked as the office manager for the doctors’ office of Tippin, Harms, and Tippin in Wichita. He taught a night course at Wichita State. During these years the Muellers were members of the Lorraine Avenue Mennonite Church.
Adam obtained a teaching position at Southeast Missouri State in 1962 and taught there until his retirement in 1974. With no Mennonite churches nearby, he and Helen participated in an Episcopal Church.
Adam married Helen Elisabeth Hiebert on June 7, 1932. They had two children, Theodore, born December 3, 1934; and Lyman, born April 14, 1938. Following the death of Helen on December 14, 1975, Adam married Amelia Katherine Mueller (no relation) on August 14, 1976, and after selling her house in Hutchinson they moved into her family home in Halstead. She preceded him in death on October 14, 2001. They moved from Halstead to North Newton in 1999. Adam died on January 12, 2004, a few days after his 100th birthday.