W. Clarke MacDonald (1920-1993) was born in Pictou, Nova Scotia. MacDonald graduated from Dalhousie University in 1941. Afterwards, he took his theological training at Pine Hill Divinity Hall in Halifax, was ordained by the Maritime Conference in 1943. In 1944, he received his Bachelor of Divinity from Pine Hill, and married Muriel MacDonald. From 1944-1962, he served pastorates including West Bay (Cape Breton), Black River Ridge (New Brunswick), Port Hawkesbury and Trinity Church (Cape Breton) and also served as Secretary of the Maritime Conference from 1961-1962. From 1962-1971 he was minister at St. Luke’s in Toronto, then, was appointed Secretary of the Board of Evangelism and Social Service in 1971. He served as Moderator of the United Church from 1982-1984. After serving as Moderator, he returned to his position of Deputy Secretary of the Division of Mission in Canada, with the responsibility for the Office of Church in Society and also, was chairman of the ecumenical Project Ploughshares. He retired in 1986 and died in 1993.
Norman Hall MacKenzie (1915-1989) was a United Church minister, an overseas missionary and a church administrator. He was born in North Honan, China, the son of missionaries. He married Dorothy MacKenzie in 1943; she was the child of missionaries and a registered nurse. He served as a missionary in China, India and Nigeria. Mackenzie served as Personnel Secretary, Board of World Mission (1966-1969), and later with the Division of Mission in Canada of the United Church and served pastorates in Ontario. During the years 1969-1972, Mackenzie served as pastor of the Rama Reserve & Mission [Chippewas of Rama First Nation], near Orillia, Ontario.
Wayne Oliver MacKenzie was born at Riparia, Washington. He was ordained in The United Church of Canada by BC Conference in 1958. He served pastoral charges in Alert Bay (1958-1961); Bamfield (1962-1963); North Kamloops (1964-1966); Enderby (1967-1971); Squamish (1972-1974); and Revelstoke (1975-1976). MacKenzie retired in 1976 and served the church at Kaslo as retired supply (1978). In his early charges, he served as skipper of the “Robert C. Scott” and pilot of a Cessna, both part of the marine mission work of the Church on the coast. In his later years, he was a vocal member of the Community of Concern, an organization that arose in response to the Church’s decision to ordain qualified candidates regardless of sexual orientation. MacKenzie died in 2000.
Angus James MacQueen (1912-) was a United Church minister and Moderator. He was born in Cape Breton, and was educated at Mount Allison University (B.A.) and Pine Hill Divinity Hall (B.D. and D.D.). After graduation Rev. MacQueen held pastorates in the Maritimes (1935-1946), Edmonton (1946-1951), London (1951-1964), and Toronto (1964-1980). He was elected Moderator in 1958.
Elizabeth Mary "Betty" Marlin was a diaconal minister with The United Church of Canada. Early in her ministry, Betty was part of a small group of diaconal ministers who pushed for the formation of a diaconal association. This led to the establishment in 1984 of the association of practitioners of diaconal ministry, known as “Diakonia of the United Church of Canada” (DUCC). In the late-1980s and early 1990s, Betty was instrumental in both establishing and coordinating the Western Field-Based Diaconal Ministry Program, which was sponsored by St. Stephen’s College (1989–1996). This work in western Canada was followed up by four years in Zambia where she taught at the United Church of Zambia Theological College, contributing to the training of students studying for ordained and diaconal ministry. Throughout her life, she has been an active member of the United Church of Canada, working and/or volunteering in various capacities in both Alberta and Saskatchewan. Notably, as Conference Staff in Social Ministry, Betty was active in the development and training of the Sexual Abuse and Harassment Committee, in education and advocacy for the LGBTQ2+ community, and in the promotion of language and action that builds gender equality in church life and beyond. Betty has been recognised with a Doctor of Divinity (honoris causa) from St. Andrew’s College (1999), a Companion of the Centre for Christian Studies (2006), and the Order of St. Stephen's College in 2020.
The Martha Wilson Memorial Bible Institute was established by Louise McCully, a missionary with the Presbyterian Church of Canada Foreign Missionary Society. Administration of the school was transferred to the Woman's Missionary Society of The United Church of Canada after union.
Lily May McCargar was born on December 14, 1887 at Maxville, Ontario. She was educated in Ontario and attended the Margaret Eaton School of Literature and Expression in Toronto. She moved to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, in 1909 to teach English to members of the Chinese Methodist Mission Church. She joined the Woman's Missionary Society in 1921 as a mission worker, and was sent to Vancouver to work with the kindergarten at the Chinese Methodist Church (which came under The United Church of Canada in 1925). In 1933, she chose to use her year of furlough by traveling to China to study Cantonese. Before returning to Canada, she visited Jerusalem, Egypt, Germany, and the United Kingdom. During a second furlough, she attended the lectures at the Canadian School of Missions and at Emmanuel College in Toronto. Lily McCargar died on November 6, 1947 at Vancouver.
Robert Baird McClure (1900-1991) was an overseas medical missionary and the first lay Moderator of the United Church of Canada. He was born in Portland, Oregon, the son of Dr. William McClure, a Presbyterian medical missionary to China. McClure spent most of his childhood in China. He graduated in medicine from the University of Toronto in 1922 and returned to China as a medical missionary in 1924. He married Amy Hislop in China in 1926 after having met her as a student in Canada. After marriage in Tianjin, the McClures returned to Qinyang. They returned to Tianjin less than a year later as a civil war had broken out. McClure then relocated to a Presbyterian mission hospital in Taipei. In 1930-1931, McClure travelled to the UK, then Toronto to earn his FRCS degree. He and his family moved back to Qinyang in late 1931. In 1937, McClure became the Field Director for the International Red Cross. Throughout 1938-1945 he organized convoys of medical supplies into China via Burma, and other medical relief operations in remote locations. In 1946, he opened a United Church mission hospital in Hankou and spent two years there. In 1948 he returned home to Canada. McClure also served in Gaza, Palestine (1950-1954), Ratlam, India (1954-1967). He returned to Canada and was elected the 23rd Moderator of The United Church of Canada in 1968. After his term as Moderator, McClure continued to do volunteer medical work in Sarawak, Malaysia, Peru, in the West Indies and in Zaire. McClure became a companion of the Order of Canada in 1971, and a member of the Order of Ontario in 1990. McClure died in 1991.
Ethel Susan McEachran was a Presbyterian, and later United Church, missionary and educator. She was born on September 13, 1881 in York County to Colin and Martha (née Proctor) McEachran. She attended the London Normal School and taught for nine years. While the exact dates are unknown, records indicate McEachran also attended the Ontario College of Education and the Presbyterian Missionary and Deaconess Training Home.
In 1913, McEachran was appointed by the Presbyterian Church in Canada's Foreign Mission Committee, Western Section to Korea. From 1913-1915 she was stationed in Sŏngjin (now Kimch'aek) to learn Korean and probably to teach at the local girls' school. In 1915 she founded the Young Saing Girls' School in Hamhŭng, becoming its first principal. She took a leave of absence and returned to Canada in order to attend Queen's University in Kingston, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1922. She remained principal until 1941 when the wartime exodus of missionaries forced McEachran to return to Canada.
She continued her missionary work in a domestic setting, being stationed as superintendent of St. Columba House in Montreal between 1941 and 1943, then at Settlement House, Regina between 1945 and 1947, and finally to carry out community work in Saskatoon. McEachran retired to Toronto in 1951, but continued teaching English classes for immigrant communities.
McEachran died on October 27, 1959 at the age of 78, and is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto.
Stanley J. McKay (1942-) was born and raised on Fisher River Indian Reserve. He attended Fisher River Indian Day School until he was 13 years old, then was sent to Birtle Indian Residential School to complete High School. After a year at the Manitoba Teacher’s College he taught at Norway House, Manitoba from 1962-1964. In 1967, McKay graduated with a B.D. from United College in Winnipeg, and married his wife, Dorothy. In 1971, he was ordained, the ceremony being held at Stevens Memorial Church on the reservation where he grew up. McKay served Fisher River from 1971-1975, and Norway House from 1975-1982 before being hired to coordinate the developments of the United Church’s national consultation process for the National Native Council, 1982-1987. During that time, McKay successfully advocated for the Church’s apology for it’s role in culture oppression of First Nations peoples in 1986. From 1987-1988 he served in Native Ministry at Winnipeg Presbytery and in 1988 was hired as the director of the Dr. Jessie Saulteaux Resource Centre, a training centre for native ministries. McKay served as Moderator from 1992-1994.
Audrey Patricia Marie McKim (1926-1999) was born in Toronto. She attended Eastern High School of Commerce and the Ontario Ladies College. She received her B.A. from Victoria University in 1953, and earned a diploma in Christian Education from Covenant College in 1954. At the United Church of Canada, she was an editor of “Discovery” and “World Friends” with the Board of Sunday School Publications, and was also the Director of Christian Education at two Toronto churches. McKim was one of the first United Church of Canada missionaries to Kenya, where she served for ten years. She initially went to Kenya as a Deaconess of the United Church, and part of the Canadian contingent to Operation Crossroads Africa in 1962. In 1963 she returned as a Christian Education Worker with the National Christian Council, and the Christian Churches Educational Association where she worked until 1967. From 1968-1972, she served as Administrative Secretary for the same organizations. In 1972, as part of the World Council of Churches’ Relief and Rehabilitation Team, she undertook a special assignment in Southern Sudan, launching a secretarial school for the government to train some of the first female governmental employees in Sudan. After returning home in 1973, McKim served as Mission Secretary of the Hamilton Conference from 1973-1974, Personnel Secretary of the Division of World Outreach, 1974-1977, Executive Secretary with Registrarial duties at Emmanuel College, 1979-1981 and Administrator at St. Matthew’s Bracondale House from 1981-1982. McKim was also a prolific writer and authored numerous articles and books, mostly for children. She was a founding member of CANSCAIP, the Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers.
Claire Serena Stevens McLellan was a Deaconess with The United Church of Canada and attended the United Church Training School, winning the Martha Rutherford Beatty Scholarship and The Anna Hilliard Scholarship for General Proficiency in 1950.
Hugh Alexander McLeod (1894-1992) was a Presbyterian/United Church minister and Moderator of the United Church. He was born in Owen Sound, Ontario. Originally planning to pursue a career in law, he worked his way through university as a helmsman on the Great Lakes' steamboats. He served as a quartermaster aboard barges crossing the English Channel with ammunition during World War I. In 1921, he married Doreen Taggart. He was ordained a Presbyterian minister in Luseland, Saskatchewan, in 1920 and served various charges in Western Canada. In 1960, he was elected Moderator of the United Church.
Norman Bruce McLeod was Moderator of The United Church of Canada, 1972-1974. He was born in Toronto in 1929. He obtained his B.D. from Emmanuel College in 1953, M.A. from Columbia University and Th.D. from Union Theological Seminary in 1960. He was ordained by Toronto Conference in 1953 and served at the following churches in Ontario: Victoria Harbour, 1956-1958; St. Stephen’s on-the-Hill, Port Credit, 1958-1965; Westdale United Church, Hamilton, 1965-1970; Bloor Street United Church, Toronto, 1970-1975; and Richmond Hill United Church, 1979-1983; Metropolitan Toronto, 1984-1987; Bellefair, 1989-1994. Following retirement in 1994, he served as long term pulpit supply at St. John’s Stratford, 1994-1995; St. John’s Scarborough, 2000; Rosedale, 2000-2001. During his term as moderator he travelled extensively in Canada. In 1975 following his term as Moderator he became a Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and was responsible for public hearings across Ontario, receiving 300 written briefs and drafting "Life Together", the first revision of the Human Rights Code in 15 years.
In the 1980s and 1990s Dr. McLeod was often invited as international observer and went to Africa, Latin America and Asia. Inter-faith conversations were a hallmark of his service. He was a frequent contributor to the United Church Observer and for eight years, a weekly op-ed columnist for the Toronto Star.
Joseph Edwin James Millyard (1876-1950) was a Methodist, then United Church Minister. He served as Conference President for the Methodist Church. He worked in the following areas in Ontario after 1925: Wesley, London (1925-1928), George Street, Peterborough (1929-1934), Hyatt, London (1935-1937). He retired in London in 1938 and died June, 1950.
Enos T. Montour (1899-1984), B.A., B.D., D.D. (honoris causa), U.E.L., was a United Church minister and Delaware writer from Six Nations of the Grand River. He attended the Mount Elgin Residential School in Muncey from 1910 to 1915, then a public high school in Hagersville. He later studied at McGill University, earning degrees in Arts (1927) and Divinity (1929). He was ordained in 1929, and served charges in Quebec, Ontario, and Saskatchewan. He also wrote for newspapers and magazines, and authored three books: The Feathered U.E.L.'s: An Account of the Life and Times of Certain Canadian Native People (1973); The Rockhound of New Jerusalem: Being the SAGA of Dr. Gilbert Clarence Monture (1981); and Brown Tom's Schooldays (republished 2024).
Arthur Bruce Barbour Moore (1906-2004) was born in Keswick Ridge, New Brunswick. He received his early education in New Brunswick and Quebec and graduated from McGill in 1927 with honours in English and History. In 1930, he graduated from United Theological College in Montreal with his Bachelor of Divinity. Following graduation, he spent seven years as a minister in Quebec (Amherst Park United Church, Howick United Church) and four years as a minister of College Hill Church in Easton, Pennsylvania. From 1940-1942 he supplied at Parkdale United Church in Ottawa, then served at Westminster United Church in Saskatoon until 1946 when he was appointed Principal of St. Andrew’s college. He received a Doctor of Divinity in 1947, and was elected President of the Saskatchewan Conference of The United Church of Canada in 1949. In 1950 he was appointed President and Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University. In 1952 he received his Doctor of Laws from the University of Saskatchewan and a Doctor of Divinity from Trinity College in Toronto. From 1954-1958 he was Chairman of the Board of Overseas Missions of the United Church. In 1969, he was appointed President of the Canadian Council of Churches. From 1971-1972 he served as Moderator of the United Church. From 1973-1974 he served as an Interim Minister at St. Andrews Kirk in Nassau, Bahamas. In 1976 he served as Interim General Secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches and was also named to the Order of Canada. From 1977-1980 he served as Chancellor of the University of Toronto. Moore died in 2004. He was married to Margaret Moore who died in 2004.
Thomas Albert Moore (1860-1940) was a Methodist/United Church minister and administrator and Moderator of the United Church of Canada. He was born in Acton, Ontario. He studied at McGill University and Wesleyan College, Montreal, was ordained in 1884, and served Methodist circuits in Ontario. He was Secretary of the Lord's Day Alliance of Ontario, 1903-1906; Secretary of the Methodist General Conference, 1906-1925; Secretary of the Methodist Board of Temperance and Moral Reform/Evangelism and Social Service, 1910-1925; Secretary of the General Council of the United Church, 1925-1936; and Moderator of the United Church, 1932-1934. He also served in several other positions, including committees relating to church union (1925).
The Rev. James "Jim" Wylie Moulton was a minister in The United Church of Canada. He was born on October 24, 1930 in Epworth, Newfoundland to Frederick and Susan (née Baker) Moulton. He attended Epworth United Church School before working as school teacher (1948-1950). In 1953 he enrolled at Mount Allison University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1957. He followed that with a Bachelor of Divinity from Pine Hill Divinity Hall in 1959 and a Master of Theology from Emmanuel College in Toronto in 1963. He also studied at New College in the University of Edinburgh from 1960-1961.
Moulton was initially received as a ministerial candidate in 1951, and served as lay supply in Bonne Bay, Newfoundland (1951-1953) and Weyburn, Saskatchewan when he was a student. He was ordained on June 9, 1959 in Grand Bank, Newfoundland, and took up his first pastorate in Happy Valley, Labrador in 1961. In 1964 he moved to the Sandford-Zephyr pastoral charge in Ontario. Moulton remained in Ontario, moving to Northminster, Willowdale (1967-1975), St. Luke's, Islington (1975-1988), and Forest Grove, North York (1988-1995). He also served as a supplementary reserve chaplain with the Canadian Armed Forces (1961-1968). In 1995, he moved to Peterborough, where he was active in retirement as supply for several churches.
Moulton held a number of volunteer roles within the church. He was the chair of the stewardship committees in the York Presbytery and the Toronto Conference, the chair of the pastoral relations committee of the Toronto West Presbytery, chair of the Toronto Conference staff committee, and a member of the Conference's settlement committee. He sat on the board of directors of the Toronto United Church Council, as well as the National Stewardship Committee and the Task Force on Transfer and Settlement.
James Moulton married Myrna Mabel Taylor in 1959. They had two children, Heather and Paul. Moulton died on December 5, 2023 in Peterborough.
James Ralph Mutchmor (1892-1980) was a United Church minister, administrator and Moderator. He was born on Manitoulin Island, Ontario. He served in the Canadian Field Artillery in World War I, and returned home after being wounded at Vimy Ridge. After the war, he studied economics and theology in Toronto and New York. He was ordained a Presbyterian Minister in 1920, and ministered in Winnipeg, first at Robertson Memorial Church and House (1920-1932), then at John Black Memorial Church (1932-1936). During his residence in Winnipeg he was also the Secretary of the Manitoba Welfare Supervision Board from 1926-1936, and of its Child Welfare Board from 1934-1936. He served as the Secretary of the United Church Board of Evangelism and Social Service from 1938 to his retirement in 1963, was the Moderator of the 20th General Council of the United Church, 1962-1964, and the Secretary of the United Church Committee on Church and International Affairs, 1938-1964. During World War II he was Chairman of Chaplaincy Services and Secretary of its War Services Committee. He also served other Church and ecumenical organizations. He was secretary of the National Religious Advisory Council of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for 24 years, being responsible for the United Church broadcasts on Religious Period and Church of the Air on Sunday Afternoons, and was a recognized television personality. Mutchmor died on May 17, 1980.
Grace Namba was a kindergarten and music teacher employed by the United Church, initially through the Woman's Missionary Society. Her family included Toyonori Namba (father) and Tokiwa Namba (mother; nee Tokiwa Ogura). She taught at the Steveston Japanese kindergarten until she was forcibly uprooted to Greenwood, B.C. during the internment of Japanese Canadians. There, she continued her work with the Greenwood congregation. In 1949, Ms. Namba graduated from the United Church Training School in Toronto and became a deaconess. For most of her ministry, she served the Vancouver Japanese United Church congregation, retiring from there in 1978.
Rev. Dr. C.M. Nicholson was Moderator of the United Church of Canada, 1950-1952
James Nisbet (1823-1874) was a Presbyterian minister and missionary, and founder of the settlement at St. Albert, Saskatchewan. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and immigrated with his family to Canada (Oakville, Ontario) in 1844. He studied at Knox College, and was ordained in 1850 after which time he served Presbyterian charges in Ontario. In 1862 he was appointed by the Foreign Mission Committee of the Presbyterian Church to work with Rev. John Black at the Red River Settlement and he began work in Kildonan in July of that year. In 1866 he began the Mission to the Indigenous Peoples at what he named Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. By 1867 he had established an institution for Indigenous children. Nisbet died in 1874. He married Mary MacBeth in 1864; they had four children.
James Ernest "Ernie" Nix (1920-2013) was an ordained minister and former Archivist at The United Church of Canada Archives. He was ordained in 1947. His first church placement was in Barrhead, Alberta. He went on to serve congregations in Lamont, AB; Winnipeg, MN; Calgary AB; Westmount, QC; Cobourg, ON; and Mississauga, ON, as well as a Methodist church in Salem, MA. He was an Archivist at the United Church of Canada Archives when it was a part of the University of Toronto.
Daniel Norman (1864-1941) was a Methodist/United Church minister to Japan. He first went to Japan as a Methodist missionary in 1897. He married Catherine Heal in 1901; they returned to Japan and continued work there until after retirement in 1935.
Belle Chone Oliver (1875-1947) was overseas medical personnel with the Presbyterian Church in Canada, then United Church of Canada. She was born at Ingersoll, Ontario on January 25, 1875 daughter of Adam Oliver and Helen Rintoul. Dr. Oliver matriculated the O.M.C.W. in 1900 and served as house surgeon at the Philadelphia Women’s Hospital before she went to India under the Presbyterian Church in Canada, arriving in January, 1902. There, she served as a medical missionary in hospitals under the Women’s Medical Service in the Central India Mission of the Presbyterian Church in Canada in Indore, Neemuch, and Dhar. In 1915 she was appointed the first medical missionary to Banswara, with the opening of that station. In 1929 she was appointed a secretary of the National Christian Council of India with special responsibilities for the Christian Medical Association of India. In this capacity she travelled extensively throughout India and visited Burma, Ceylon, and special centres of medical work in Japan, China and Europe and was a delegate to the International Missionary Council meetings in Jerusalem and Madras. Dr. Oliver was credited with the development of the Women’s Medical College at Vellore, South India into the Vellore Christian Medical College for men and women and for raising the standard of training and equipment for doctors and nurses. Dr. Oliver served in India for 45 years and retired in 1944 to Fort William, Ontario. Dr. Belle Chone Oliver died on May 21, 1947.
Marion Pardy (1942-) was born in Gander, Newfoundland. She graduated from Covenant College (Centre for Christian Studies) and holds a B.A. (Honours) and a Masters degree from York University. She earned Doctor of Ministry from Boston University School of Theology in 1997. In 1968, she was ordained as a diaconal minister by Hamilton Conference and designated as a deaconess at Gower Street United Church (St. John’s). She was Director of Christian Education for Yorkton Presbytery from 1968-1970, Team Minister and Minister in Birtle Presbytery (1970-1973), Program Resource Field Staff for Manitoba Conference (1973-1975), Pastoral Assistant, Forest Grove United Church (1975-1977), and Team Minister at Cliffcrest United Church (1977-1981). She was ordained in 1982. Pardy has served the United Church General Council Office as well, she was a contributing writer for Loaves and Fishes, Religion and Life, Worldwind and Exchange, served on the Celebration Committee, Christian Initiation Task Force, Loaves and Fishes Committee, and was chairperson of the Ministry with Children Working Unit. In 1982, she was appointed as Special Assistant, Children in the Division of Mission in Canada. From 1990 she was pastor of Gower Street United Church in St. John’s. Pardy served as Moderator from 2000-2003, and was the first diaconal minister to do so. Following her term as Moderator, she represented the United Church on the Governing Board of the Canadian Council of Churches, where she served as Vice-President from 2004-2009.
Gary J. Paterson (1949-) was born in Whitehorse Yukon, and as an ‘army brat’ lived in Toronto and Germany before his family settled in Vancouver, British Columbia. He earned a B.A. in English Literature at the University of British Columbia and an M.A. in English from Queen’s University before becoming a sessional lecturer at the University of British Columbia. He then studied theology at Andover Theological School in Boston and the Vancouver School of Theology. He was ordained in 1977. He was a minister at Marpole United Church in Vancouver from 1979-1981. He served as minister in Vancouver-Burrard Presbytery from 1982-1989, First United in Vancouver from 1989-1993, Ryerson in Vancouver from 1993-2005, and St. Andrew’s-Wesley, Vancouver from 2005-2011. Paterson served as Moderator of the United Church from 2012-2015, and was the first openly gay person to do so. His spouse, Tim Stevenson, a Vancouver City Councillor is the first openly gay male to be ordained by the United Church.
David Peng was born in Guangdong, China. He pursued theological studies at Union Theological College of Lingnan University and graduated in 1944. He came to the United States in 1947, serving the Presbyterian Church in San Francisco. In 1955, he was called to the Chinese United Church in Vancouver, and was ordained by BC Conference in The United Church of Canada the following year. Under his leadership, the Vancouver congregation became self-supporting. Peng returned to the Chinese Presbyterian Church in San Francisco in 1959.
Walter Edwin Pescott (1860-1953) was a Methodist/United Church minister. Born in the Channel Islands in 1860, he came to Canada in 1880, and studied at Victoria University. He was ordained into the Methodist Church in 1891. Mabel Hardy and Walter Edwin Pescott were married in 1892. As Walter Pescott served as a Methodist and then a United Church minister, the couple served various charges in Ontario: Burlington Plains, Port Colborne, Hamilton, Simcoe, Galt, Toronto, Windsor, London, Kitchener and Orillia, as well as in Winnipeg and Vancouver. They had one daughter, Aleda, born in 1918. After his retirement, Pescott represented the Ontario Temperance Federation.
Eunice Peters was a Methodist and United Church of Canada missionary to West China, 1923-1948. Peters was born on September 10, 1898 in Fredericton, New Brunswick. She was educated at the Provincial Normal School and taught in New Brunswick before attending the Methodist National Training School in Toronto. In 1923 she was appointed by the Women's Missionary Society of the Methodist Church to West China. She received language instruction at Fowchow and taught at the missionary school there until 1926. Records indicated that she was assigned to teach at schools in several different cities during her time in China: Kiating (1926-1928); Fowchow (1929-1930); Chungking (1930-1932); Junghsien (1932-1936); Chungking (1938-1941), where she also carried out urban social work; Chengtu (1941-1947), and finally Kiating (1948) where she was responsible for evangelistic work. Between 1944 and 1946 she studied at the Hartford Theological Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut, where she received a Bachelor of Religious Education. In 1948 she returned to Canada, where she was eventually posted to the Chinese United Church Mission in Victoria, British Columbia from 1952 to 1962. She formally retired to Victoria in 1964. Eunice Peters died on February 5, 1991 at the age of 92.
William Phipps was born in 1942 in Toronto, Ontario. He earned his B.A. at Victoria College, his LL.B. from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1965 and his Bachelor of Divinity from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago in 1968. While studying in Chicago he worked for the social activist, Saul Alinsky. Bill Phipps was ordained by Toronto Conference in 1969 and was admitted to the Law Society of Upper Canada in 1970.
He served at Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church in Toronto from 1974-1983, Alberta Northwest Conference as Conference Executive Secretary, 1983-1993 and at Scarboro United Church in Calgary, 1993-2007, from where he took a three-year leave of absence when he was elected Moderator in 1997. In 1998, he issued the second formal apology to the First Nations people for all the sufferings they endured because of the church’s participation in the residential school system.
From 1999-2006 he was International President of the World Conference of Religions for Peace. He has also worked as a poverty lawyer, community organizer, hospital chaplain and adult educator. Rev. Phipps retired from ministry in 2007 but continues to be active in social justice, the defence of Aboriginal rights and peace issues. He is married to Carolyn Pogue, a writer.
The Very Rev. Dr. George Campbell Pidgeon, D.D., LL.D., was a Presbyterian and United Church minister and the first Moderator of The United Church of Canada. He was born on March 2, 1872 in Maria, Québec, on the Gaspé peninsula, to Archibald Montgomery and Mary Campbell Pidgeon. He attended Morrin College (1887-1889) and McGill University (1889-1891), from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. He then attended Presbyterian College, Montréal (1891-1894), where he received his Bachelor of Divinity and, later, an earned Doctor of Divinity in 1905.
Pidgeon was ordained on May 29, 1894 and was called to Montréal West Presbyterian Church, where he served until 1898. Subsequent charges and positions were Streetsville Presbyterian Church (1898-1903), Victoria Presbyterian Church in Toronto Junction (1903-1909), the registrar and professor of practical theology at Westminster Hall in Vancouver (1909-1915), and Bloor Street Presbyterian (later United) Church in Toronto (1915-1948). From September 1917 to May 1918, he was granted a leave to serve as a special preacher for the Y.M.C.A. in France during the First World War. Following his retirement from Bloor Street, he was granted the title Minister Emeritus.
Around 1917, Pidgeon became an active proponent of church union. From 1921-1925, he served as the convenor of the Joint Committee on Church Union, and in 1924 took over as convenor for the Presbyterian General Assembly’s Committee on Church Union. In June, 1925, he was elected Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. A week later he was elected the first Moderator of The United Church of Canada, a role he held for one year.
Pidgeon was active in many causes, especially the temperance movement, moral reform, religion in education, evangelism, and ecumenism. Some of the positions he held and organizations he was involved with include: first convenor of the Presbyterian Church’s Board of Moral and Social Reform; president of the Inter-Church Council of Moral and Social Reform for British Columbia; chair of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions; chair of the Interdenominational Committee on Evangelization in Canadian Life; president of the Western Section of the Alliance of Reformed Churches; and president of the Social Services Council for Canada. He was also in attendance at many international ecumenical conferences as a representative for Canada, and was involved with the creation of the World Council of Churches and the Canadian Council of Churches.
Pidgeon remained in the public sphere after his term as Moderator concluded. His sermons at Bloor Street United Church were regularly broadcast over the radio. He wrote a number of books and articles, and had a weekly column, “Religion and Life”, in The Toronto Telegram from 1949-1960. His last public act for The United Church of Canada was laying the cornerstone of the United Church House on May 7, 1958.
While attending Presbyterian College, he met Mary Helen Jones, whom he married on March 23, 1898. They had three children: Mary Alice (b. 1899), Archibald Leslie Stephen (b. 1902), and Helen Campbell (b. 1911). George Pidgeon died on June 15, 1971 at the age of 99.
Edward Joseph Rattee was a minister with The Presbyterian Church in Canada, then The United Church of Canada. He was born in Cambridgeshire, England in 1869 and came to Canada in 1882. He graduated from Dalhousie University in Arts, and from Queen's University in Theology. He was ordained in 1892 and worked in the Maritimes: Salina (1892), Noel (1893-1898), Blue Mountain (1899-1902), Clifton (1903), Princetown (1903-1914), New Richmond (1915-1918), then Quebec: Longeuil (1919-1920), Windsor (1921-1923), and Joliette (1924-1931). He died in November, 1931 in Joliette.
Frederick John Reed (28 October, 1891-21 April, 1979) was born in Lindsay, Ontario to parents William Thomas Reed and Emma Smale. He was accepted as a probationer by Lindsay Presbytery in 1912 and was a student minister at Dalrymple for the year. In 1913 he entered Victoria College (Toronto) where he took Arts and Theology concurrently and received a B.A. in 1917. In 1917, he joined the Signal Corps as a private and in September went overseas as a corporal with the Canadian Fifth Divisional signals company. In England, he acted as an instructor in Signals and P.T. and after the armistice was a tutor in the Canadian Army School at Rhyll until he was discharged in March, 1919 and returned to Canada. In September 191 he re-entered Victoria, where he finished his B.D. in Theology and at the College of Education gained a High School Teacher’s certificate and diploma in physical education. He was appointed in April 1920 by the Methodist Church to work as an educational missionary in Szechuan, China. During his voyage to China he met fellow missionary Annie H. Hale, a trained nurse, and they married in November, 1921. In China, Reed was principal of Penghsien Junior Middle School. They returned home from 1926-1929 due to growing agitations in China. Reed taught and preached during that time in Gibson Pastoral Charge. In 1929 they returned and went to Kiating where Reed engaged in evangelistic and educational work. In 1934 they were transferred to Tzeluitsing where they worked at the Mission Middle Schools and Nurses Training School until 1948. They returned to Canada in 1949 and Frederick worked in Dalrymple until 1956, having resigned from the Mission Board in 1953. From 1954-1961 he was at Hampton Pastorate. In 1961 they moved to Sunderland and worked at Almonds Pastorate. Frederick died in 1977, and Annie in 1982.
Newton Reed (1923-2016) was born in West China and spent most of his childhood there. He finished his high school education at Llewellyn Hall in Oshawa and afterwards enlisted with the Ontario Regiment for the remainder of WWII. After attending Victoria College and Emmanuel College at the University of Toronto, he was ordained in 1953. He was a minister in Preeceville, Saskatchewan for three years, then Sutherland in Ontario for 15. Reed was deeply involved in Bay of Quinte Conference in many different capacities; and was also an ardent researcher of all things United Church; writing histories on Llewellyn Hall for Missionaries Children, the Lay Commissioners of the First General Council, the First General Council, Toronto Conference History amongst other subjects.
Richard Roberts (1874-1945) was a Presbyterian/United Church minister and Moderator of the United Church. He was born in Wales, where he also studied. He was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1897, and ministered in England until he resigned as a result of his pacifist views in 1915. He ministered in Brooklyn, New York, 1917-1921; and in Toronto and Montreal, 1922-1938. He was Moderator of the United Church, 1934-1936. He lectured briefly in Halifax before moving back to the United States in 1940.
Rev. Douglas H. Ross (1929-2021) was born in Wainwright, AB and grew up in Belleville, ON. He was educated at Queen’s University and later earned a Master of Theology (1972) and a PhD in theology (1982) from St. Paul University. He began student ministry outside Perth, ON in 1953 and was ordained in 1957 where he served as a pastor in Schefferville, QC (1957-1960), Bells Corner United Church (1960-1974), and Wesley-Knox United Church (1974-1984). At the national level Ross was a member of the Overview Committee, National Forum for Staff Priorities, Task Force on Administrative Review, and both the executive and sub-executive of the General Council. He also served on the Executive of the London Conference first as President of the London Conference (1979-1980) and then as Executive Secretary (1984-1992) which he held until his retirement. Douglas continued to be active in the community and was involved with several interim ministries before returning to Wesley-Knox in 2000 as Minister of Visitation and Minister Emeritus until 2019. Douglas was married to Hellen Ross.
The Rev. Dr. Francis (Frank) Edwin Runnalls was born on November 9, 1895, and was raised a Presbyterian in the farming community of Mt. Brydges, Ontario. He graduated from the University of Toronto with a B.A. in 1917, and from Knox Theological College (Toronto) in 1921 with a Bachelor of Divinity. After ordination, he was sent to the railway towns of McBride and Lucerne, BC. He married Nellie Oliver, Sunday school teacher and daughter of Premier John Oliver, in Victoria, 1923. Runnalls also served the Church at Grand Forks (1923-1926), during which time he joined the newly formed United Church of Canada; Riverview (1926-1932) and Cedar Cottage (1932-1941) in Vancouver; Knox in Prince George (1941-1946); Armstrong (1946-1953); South Arm-Steveston in Richmond (1953-1962); and Steveston (1962-1964).
Frank Runnalls held several offices in the wider church, including Secretary then Chair of Vancouver Presbytery, Chair of Kamloops-Okanagan Presbytery, and President of BC Conference. He received an honorary doctorate from Union College in 1952. Always keen on history, he also served informally as Conference Archivist in the mid- to late 1960s. His published works include It's God's Country (1974) and Memoirs and Reflections (1999). He retired in 1964 to the White Rock/Surrey area. Frank Runnalls died on June 2, 1990.
Nora Sanders (19??-) graduated with a degree in History from Western University in 1977. She was Deputy Minister of Justice in Nunavut before becoming the General Secretary of the General Council, a position she held from 2006-2021.
Joyce Sasse (b. 1940) was a United Church rural minister and an overseas missionary. She was adopted and raised on a farm-ranch in Milk River, Alberta. Sasse felt the call to rural ministry at a young age when she noticed a disconnect between the local ministers and the rural community. To become a minister she studied theology at the University of Saskatchewan and focused on rural issues and historical initiatives like the credit union movement. As a result she earned a Bachelor of Arts (1962), Bachelor of Theology (1965), Bachelor of Divinity (1968) and Master of Divinity (1987). She was ordained as a United Church minister in 1965. To broaden her experience she served as a missionary in Korea working on community development from 1967-1971. Upon her return to Canada she served as Executive Director of the YWCA. From 1974 to 1978 she worked as Saddle Bag minister in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan as part of the Division of Mission’s experimental project on rural ministry. From her ordination to her retirement in 1998, Sasse served at the following charges: Morse/Chaplain (1965-1967), Moose Jaw (1974-1978), Tugaske (1978-1986), Rockford (1986-01989), and Pincher Creek (1989-1996). To further rural ministry during her career, Sasse worked with the International Rural Church Association, helped found the Canadian Rural Church Network and contributed significantly to the Centre for Rural Community Leadership and Ministry (CiRCLe-M). Upon retirement in 1998, Sasse continued to support rural ministry through speaking engagements and publications. More recently she has been working on the Annora Brown Art and Life Legacy Project.
Moderator of the United Church of Canada, 1942-1944
Moderator of the United Church of Canada, 1952-1954