Bergthold, Anna G. Suderman (1875-1957)

Anna Suderman Bergthold, missionary, b. 26 December 1875 in Bingham Lake, Minnesota, the eldest of six children of Gerhard Suderman (4 June 1845 - 26 May 1904) and Anna (Wiens) Suderman (29 August 1842 - 26 May 1904).  She married Daniel F. Bergthold (12 January 1876, Piatagorsk, Stavropol, South Russia - 25 October 1948, Alhambra, California) on 20 June 1916 in Ootacamund, South Madras, India.  Daniel was the son of Heinrich Bergthold (5 April 1848 - 18 March 1933) and Alvina (Starke) Bergthold (20 June 1849 - 20 December 1932).  Daniel's first wife was Katharina "Tiene" Mandtler (16 December 1879 - 26 November 1904) by whom he had one daughter, Viola.  His second wife was Anna Epp (30 April 1877 - 5 September 1915), by whom he had five children: Lydia, Bertha, Martha, Henry and Abraham, who died in infancy.  Anna and Daniel had one son, Samuel.  Anna d. 11 March 1957 in Reedley, California.

Anna was baptized in 1892 in Oklahoma.  She received her Bible training at Moody Bible Institute and in Berne, IN, and was trained as a nurse at Cook County Hospital, Chicago. She served in a mission to the Indigenous in Oklahoma and at the Light and Hope Mission in Chicago. In 1896 she was ordained as a deaconess.

Anna was the first American Mennonite Brethren missionary to go to India (1898), working first under the auspices of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in North India. In 1899 she joined the N. N. Hiebert family and Elizabeth Neufeld, who had recently come from America to establish the first Mennonite Brethren mission in India at Mulkapet. She worked among women and in medical work, becoming the first Mennonite Brethren medical missionary. Later she worked in the first Mennonite Brethren hospital, established in Nagarkurnool in 1912. In 1911, when the plague killed many in Hyderabad City and surrounding villages, she worked daily with the sick. In 1916 in India, she married Daniel, a widower with five children. One son was born to them. Together they continued in evangelism, church building, and Bible instruction, once being pelted with stones and barely escaping with their lives. They retired to the United States in 1946.

Bibliography

Obituary in Zionsbote (12 June 12 1957): 5.

Esau, Mrs. H. T. First Sixty Years of MB Missions. Hillsboro, KS: Mennonite Brethren Publishing House, 1954.

Missionary Album 1889-1963: Mennonite Brethren and Krimmer Mennonite Brethren Conferences. Hillsboro, KS: Board of Missions of Mennonite Brethren Church, 1963.

Author(s)	Katie Funk Wiebe
	Richard D. Thiessen
Date Published	January 2006

Cite This Article

MLA style

Wiebe, Katie Funk and Richard D. Thiessen. "Bergthold, Anna G. Suderman (1875-1957)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. January 2006. Web. 21 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Bergthold,_Anna_G._Suderman_(1875-1957)&oldid=174620.

APA style

Wiebe, Katie Funk and Richard D. Thiessen. (January 2006). Bergthold, Anna G. Suderman (1875-1957). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 21 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Bergthold,_Anna_G._Suderman_(1875-1957)&oldid=174620.

---

Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, p. 70. All rights reserved.

©1996-2024 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.