Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Yoder, Sanford Calvin, 1879-
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Description area
Dates of existence
History
Sanford Calvin Yoder was born 5 December 1879 to Christian S. and Anna Swartzendruber Yoder, near Iowa City, Iowa. In 1903 he married Emma Stutzman from the same community. Their three children were Myron, Marguerite, and LaVerne.
Yoder graduated from the Clarion, Iowa, high school (1901) and Hamilton College of Law (LLB, 1926), University of Iowa (BA, 1927), Winona Lake School of Theology (MA, 1933), Northern Baptist Seminary (BD, 1934; DD, 1937), and Gordon College Divinity School (STD, 1939). He taught in the public schools of Iowa and Washington. In Washington he was also a rancher.
Yoder was ordained to the ministry in the Mennonite Church (MC) at Chappell, Nebraska, in 1911. When he returned with his family to Kalona, Iowa, in 1913, he was ordained bishop at the East Union congregation. His most significant work was as secretary of the Mennonite Board of Missions (MC), 1921-1944, and as president of Goshen College, Goshen, IN (1923-1940). His statesmanship and leadership served as a reconciling influence in the Mennonite Church (MC) during the troubled decade of the 1920s and the years following. He died 23 February 1975 at Goshen.