John B. Baer was born at O’Fallon, Illinois on 19 May 1854 of Bavarian Mennonite parentage. He was a member at first of the Summerfield (General Conference Mennonite) congregation. After irregular attendance in the local elementary schools, he attended at various times educational institutions at Lebanon, Illinois, Wadsworth, Ohio, Bloomfield, New Jersey, and was finally graduated in 1887 from the Union Theological Seminary in New York. While in school he engaged in local city mission work in New York, and later worked as colporteur in Canada for the American Tract Society.

In 1879 he accompanied missionary S. S. Haury to Alaska in search of a mission field for the General Conference Mennonite Church. He was ordained to the ministry by A. B. Shelly in 1886, and married to Jennie A. Roberts the same year. For 15 years he was the home mission and field secretary for the General Conference. In 1894 he moved with his family from Pennsylvania to Bluffton, Ohio, where he served as pastor of the large Swiss congregation, 1900-1909. After this he served the Mennonite church at Aberdeen, Idaho, for three years, and his home church at Summerfield, Illinois, for six. Because of ill health he retired from the ministry, and spent the remaining years of his life in Los Angeles, California, where he died 23 August 1939 at the age of 85 years.

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Author(s)	C. Henry Smith
Date Published	1955

MLA style

Smith, C. Henry. "Baer, John B. (1854-1939)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1955. Web. 3 Dec 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Baer,_John_B._(1854-1939)&oldid=75068.

APA style

Smith, C. Henry. (1955). Baer, John B. (1854-1939). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 3 December 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Baer,_John_B._(1854-1939)&oldid=75068.

Baer, John B. (1854-1939)

Cite This Article

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