Hours
Generally 9:00 am - 4:00 pm Monday to Friday. An appointment in advance is recommended.
Contact
Mennonite Archives of OntarioConrad Grebel University College
140 Westmount Road North
Waterloo, ON N2L 3G6
Phone: 519-885-0220 x24238
Title: James Reusser fonds
Dates of creation: 1911, 1948-2017
Physical description: 13 cm of textual records, 151 photographs ; col. slides
Biographical sketch: James (Jim) Roger Reusser (1929-2017) was born to Harold and Lorena (Birky) Reusser in Berne, Indiana. His father was a minister of church music, serving at several congregations primarily in central Ohio. Jim graduated from Bluffton College and achieved a Master of Divinity degree from Mennonite Biblical Seminary. He was an active participant in the Mennonite Central Committee Summer Service program, serving at the Mississippi State Hospital in Whitfield (1950), as a leader in the London, Ontario unit (1951) and a leader at the Homewood Sanitarium unit in Guelph, Ontario (1953).
Jim married Helen Snyder in 1953. Helen was an elementary school teacher from Guelph, and later a Christian education consultant with the Mennonite Conference of Ontario and Quebec and a co-pastor with her husband at Mannheim Mennonite Church. The couple had three children. Jim had a career as a pastor at Salem Mennonite Church (Kidron, Ohio), Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church, Manheim Mennonite Church, and Crosshill Mennonite Church. Jim and Helen died in Kitchener just weeks apart in September and November 2017.
Custodial history: Files 11-13 were donated to the Archives at an earlier, unspecified time. Remaining files were donated to the Archives by Mark Reusser in 2015.
Scope and content: The fonds consists primarily of Mennonite and other Christian materials related to peace topics, such as conscientious objection to war, draft resistance, the Cold War, capital punishment, peace theology and peace pedagogy. The Summer Service file contains notes, reports, unit newsletters and information about Jim Reusser's various Summer Service postings. Scope and content of the photographs are described below.
Notes:
Original archival description created 2021 by Laureen Harder-Gissing
File list:
Scope and content: This series consists of 151 colour slides taken by James Reusser in the 1960s. The photographs are of family homes and haunts (particularly of James' wife Helen (Snyder) who grew up in the area), other locations related to Mennonite history in Ontario, and photographs of contemporary Ontario Mennonite churches and institutions. Photographs are described in the Mennonite Archival Information Database. The slides are physically located in Hist.Mss.10.42.
Generally 9:00 am - 4:00 pm Monday to Friday. An appointment in advance is recommended.
Phone: 519-885-0220 x24238
Conrad Grebel University College
140 Westmount Road North
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G6
519-885-0220
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Conrad Grebel University College is situated on the traditional territory of the Attawandaron (Neutral), Anishinaabeg, and Haudenosaunee peoples. Read Grebel's full territorial acknowledgement.