Markham-Waterloo Mennonite Conference

Administrative history: The Old Order Mennonite (horse and buggy) Mennonite district conferences separated in Indiana and Ohio (1907), Pennsylvania (1927) and Ontario (1931) over the use of modern technologies. In Ontario telephones and automobiles were at the heart of the division. The more progressive group is known in Indiana and Ohio as the Indiana-Ohio Conference, in Pennsylvania and Virginia as the Weaverland Conference, and in Ontario as the Markham-Waterloo Conference.

For a description of events leading to the founding of the Markham-Waterloo Mennonite Conference in Ontario see Frank H. Epp. Mennonites in Canada, 1920-1940: A People's Struggle for Survival (Toronto: Macmillan, 1982), pp.429-37; and Isaac R. Horst. "The Markham Waterloo--Old Order Mennonite Division," Mennogesprach 6(1988), 9-12. For a biography of Thomas Reesor, who generated many of the papers in this collection, see Paul H. Burkholder. "Thomas Reesor (1864- 1954)," Canadian-German Folklore 1 (1961), 137-38.

Box 1.1 Official Records

1. Duplicate meeting calendars
2. Ministers meeting minutes, 10 June 1939
3. Mennonite Parochial School Constitution, 1973, 1992 reprint.

Box 2.1

1. Newsclippings
2. Isaac G. Martin, "The Story of Waterloo-Markham Mennonite Conference" Mss.
3. Leonard Freeman, "Markham-Waterloo Conference" Mss.
4. Geographic Location of the Members of the Waterloo-Markham [sic] Mennonite Conference Church Feb. 1992; Markham-Waterloo Mennonite Conference Map, March 2000, Spring 2004, 2012, 2017, 2017 (Beachburg and North Haven)
5. Deacon Martin L. Zimmerman letters (photocopies from Muddy Creek library)

Box 3.1

1. Non-resistant Relief Organization Correspondence 1917-1920, 1924-1925
2. Non-resistant Relief Organization Minutes 1917-40
3. Mennonite Relief Fund 1918-19
4. Non-resistant Relief Organization Correspondence and Minutes 1940-49
5. Conference of Historic Peace Churches Minutes 1941-46
6. Conference of Historic Peace Churches Correspondence 1942-48
7. Mennonite Central Committee Correspondence 1944-47
8. Mennonite Central Committee Publications 1945?-1951

Box 3.2

1. Correspondence re: Military Exemption WWI
2. Circular re: Military Exemption WWII
3. Government War Bonds WWII
4. Mennonite Central Committee Circular, "From European Relief Notes" June 1947
5. Reesor Settlement Correspondence
6. Reesor Settlement Correspondence
7. Reesor Settlement Correspondence
8. Reesor Settlement Correspondence
9. Canadian National Railways "Report on the Mennonite Settlement at Reesor," February 1928. - 2 copies of the report. The second copy is missing some photographs, and some text is in German.

Box 3.3

1. Tear Sheets, Dordrecht Confession
2. Miscellaneous translations
3. List of "young folks baptized in 1945"
   Note: List donated to the Archives in 2023 from the estate of Gordon Bauman