George and Esther Anderson and the Student's League of Many Nations

George M. Anderson's Senior Picture 1925 Theologue

Esther Blanke's Senior Picture 1925 Theologue

The 1925 Theologue Staff. George Anderson is 2nd person in the back row wearing the bow tie.

Another couple I have met since the publication of the Reminisce Magazine was Mr. William Anderson and his wife Willene. While neither graduated from PBTS, Mr. William Anderson's parents both came to PBTS and met each other here. In fact George Anderson was the founder of the Student's League of Many Nations on Thanksgiving Day 1922. Enjoy the reading below and see a new part of Davis College History. I know I have enjoyed reading it.

The following was written by George Anderson before he went home to be with the Lord several years back.

In 1922, on Labor Day, I left home to enroll in the Practical Bible Training School, near Binghamton, New York. Another Freshman in that class later became my wife, a year after our graduation in 1925. On Thanksgiving Day 1922, I was Chairman of the Committee which presented a “Nationality Stunt” from our Freshman Class. This “Stunt” went over so well that it developed into “The Students League of Many Nations.” We held services in 26 states, Mexico, Canada and before I left the group in May 1927, we had visited most of the State Capitols and our National Capitol. On February 2, 1925, we were special guests of President Calvin Coolidge at the White House, and gave our religious program in his Congregational Church. All together, we spoke to hundreds of thousands of people in our visible audiences and saw thousands of souls won to Christ, besides other hundreds rededicating their lives to His service. We also used radio scores of times in addition to our visible audiences. We visited every large penitentiary across our country and preached to prisoners of every age - men and women. We had personal conferences with many of them who asked for spiritual help.

The Reverend George W. Labaw helped me to enroll in Rutgers University as a Pre-Seminary student in September 1925. I tried to maintain my Christian zeal and witness in Hertzog Hall as well as on the campus, but the conditions were unfavorable. The unltra-modernistic professors on the Rutgers staff in those days were almost antagonistic toward any effort to lead a spiritual life, and I resigned from the University in November after the Thanksgiving recess. In January, I went back to do post-graduate work in Bible School.

I married Esther L. Blanke on October 7, 1926 and we set ourselves to find a college where we, together, could continue preparations for the ministry. In May 1927, the day I left the “League,” we met an alumnus of Taylor University in Buffalo, New York who advised us to write to Taylor. Although I was a Rural Substitute in the Paterson Post Office and had carried mail from 1915 to 1927, and had seen hundreds of Taylor Bulletins, I never was attracted to it until I began correspondence. We were the first married couple to be registered the same day together, and later to receive our degrees on the same day in June 1929. We remained for another year so I could complete my post-graduate work and receive my Master of Arts Degree in Religious Education.

When I entered Taylor University in 1927, I found a place as Assisting Minister in the church nearest to the University. There was no Dutch Reformed Church near us, nor any Baptist (my wife being a Baptist) so we compromised and placed our membership in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ where I was serving at Upland, Indiana. Following the Annual Conference, in September 1928, I was assigned as the supply minister of the Upland United Brethren Church. It was at this time that my membership changed from Preakness to Upland, September 29, 1928. My Quarterly Conference License dates from the same month. On September 1, 1929 at the Annual Conference in Anderson, Indiana I was ordained by Bishop Henry Fout, after examination by necessary committees of that Conference. The pastorate in Upland ended after the completion of my post-graduate days at Taylor in 1930.