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.

Dolores (Correll) Campbell's Memories of PBTS

Since Reminisce Magazine published back in early February I have had the privilege of getting to know some new Alumni of the college and some people whose parents attended the college. The follow memories below were written to me in an email by Dolores (Correll) Campbell, a member of the class of 1954. I hope you enjoy her memories I know I always enjoy reading and hearing new memories.

Binghamton, NY is a long way from where I lived in the little town of Belvidere, IL in the 1950`s. I grew up in a home with good parents; however, it was not a Christian home. While I was in high school a classmate asked me to attend a Baptist church with her for a youth meeting, and I knew right away that this is what I had been searching for all of my young life. The meetings were held in the church parsonage, and two weeks later the pastor`s wife took me aside and presented the Gospel of Salvation to me. It was the first time in my life that I had ever heard John 3:16 and it was then that I turned my life over to Lord. The pastor`s wife was Marion Blossom, wife of Gordon Blossom who had been a student at PBTS. As a new Christian I was so hungry to know more of God`s word, and so when I heard that two of the young people in our church was attending the Bible school in Binghamton, NY. I prayed that God would show me what He wanted for my life. That`s how I ended up at PBTS where I studied and learned how to serve the Lord.

Each of us were required to spend time in field evangelism work, as I suppose it is still required today. In my first year four of us girls, Marguerite Wheeler, Wilma Snyder, Norma Aughenbaugh and I went each Sunday to the county TB sanatorium where we sang and gave testimonies to the patients. In my second year, the same four girls traveled with Harold Winter & his wife into the outlying hills of NY to help start new churches.

The third year (the one that gave me a real burden for the lost) I spent weekends at the City Mission in Binghamton, working with the children in that area - this is the one that gave me a real burden for the lost. There were many of the students from PBTS, as well as students from the Baptist Bible Seminary, that came to teach, preach, witness, sing and visit for the mission. I was so burdened and also led of the Lord to work there that I and 2 others (Pauline Wells & Rosa Aesch) worked there for several years after graduation.

There are other memories of PBTS. Each spring at graduation time we would decorate the dining room with dogwood flowers that were blooming at Bible School Park. Do you still have dogwoods growing there each spring?

I remember the time Abu Sobha Dass, a student from India, made a special mid-eastern dish for the school as a treat. It was delicious and I have been trying to recreate that recipe all these years, but have yet to make it exactly as it tasted then.

I remember the day they had a band visiting the school and Dale Baker, one of our students, sang "Old Man River" with the band accompaniment. God had blessed him with such a magnificent voice that it brought tears to the eyes of our school president, Dr. Gordon Davis. Dr Davis was the voice teacher for our school at that time.

And there was the day that Dr. and Mrs. Patterson and Dr. and Mrs. Westbrook were traveling together and were involved in an auto accident. Dr. Westbrook was a hemophiliac (a bleeder) and God in His mercy watched over him, and he was the only one in the car that was not injured. God is so good.

I remember the thrill of being asked to give my testimony on live radio, from our school. It was a weekly radio program put on by radio station WPEL in Montrose, Pennsylvania. It could have been "The Little White Church" of Conklin, N.Y., where Rev. Paul Griffis was pastor. So many years have passed that it`s hard to remember everything exactly.

Thank you Mrs. Campbell for your memories. I have a few other Alumni Stories that when I have time I will post as well as the Presidential Interviews which are still in progress.

PBTS in February/March 2008 issue of Reminisce Magazine

In the Summer of 2006 I decided to submit the above picture to Reminisce Magazine. It is my favorite picture of the school. I completely forgot about it until the other day when I found out it was in the latest issue of Reminisce. I have not been able to really look at it as of this moment so I have no idea what it says. :) I briefly saw a copy on Friday. Try to find a copy if you do not subscribe to it and reminisce about the early days of PBTS.