wfn.org | Church historian John H. Ness Jr. dead at age 80

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

Sept. 25, 2000  News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.     10-71B{430}

By United Methodist News Service

The Rev. John H. Ness Jr., 80, the first executive for the United Methodist
Commission on Archives and History, died Sept. 18 at the hospice at
Gilchrist Center of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

Born Sept. 29, 1919, in Hagerstown, Md., Ness served for 10 years as
secretary-curator of the historical society of the former Evangelical United
Brethren Church. When the denomination merged in 1968 with the former
Methodist Church to become the United Methodist Church, he was named staff
executive for the new Commission on Archives and History. He retired in
1982.

He earned a bachelor's degree from Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pa.;
his master's degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania in
Philadelphia; and his master of divinity degree from the United Theological
Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.  

Ness' father, a former EUB clergyman, served for many years as staff
executive of that denomination's Board of Pensions.  

Ness is survived by his wife, Naomi (Kaiser) Grieve Ness, whom he married in
1973, a daughter, two sons, one stepdaughter, one stepson, six
grandchildren, three step-grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and four
step-great-grandchildren.   

He was author of One Hundred and Fifty Years: A History of Publishing in the
Evangelical Church, published in 1966. 

A memorial service was held Sept. 23 at Otterbein United Methodist Church in
Mont Alto, Pa. 

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United Methodist News Service
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