Harold Davis Neel papers

Collection

Identifier: MSM-2010-043

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Items relating to the life, career and extensive missionary work of Harold Davis Neel, 1910-1988. Collection includes correspondence, scrapbooks, clippings, slide presentations, photographs, certificates, manuscripts and typescripts of sermons by Neel, and various other related items.

Dates

1910 - 1988

Creator

Neel, Harold Davis (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Biographical Note

The Reverend Harold D. Neel was a prominent North Indiana pastor and national mission official. Long identified with missions even in his final days, Dr. Neel worked as an assistant general secretary from 1964 to 1971 in mission education and cultivation work in New York for what is now the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries.

As well as serving in New York, he held pastorates in Poneto, Jonesboro, Elkhart Simpson, Fort Wayne Forest Park and Faith Churches, and two nine-year pastorates -- at Mishawaka First Church and Muncie High Street.

Harold and his wife Betty, worked extensively in missions all of their married life. They were in various groups of "Good-Will" Tours, and attended the organizational meeting of the World Council of Churches at Amsterdam, Holland. They served as short term Missionaries in India, and led work teams to St. Vincent Island, Haiti, and Dominica. They participated in Mission Study Seminars in Africa, Japan, Korea, Egypt, India and Nepal. After his retirement, Rev. Neel and his wife were "interpreters" for the Board of Global Ministries.

Dr. Neel held degrees from Asbury College, Asbury Theological Seminary, Boston University School of Theology, and a Doctor of Divinity from Asbury College. A native of Summer County, Kansas, he was admitted as a conference ministerial member "on trial" in 1935 and ordained a full member in 1937.

Harold and Betty had two children, a son, James Alan Neel, and a daughter, Ruth Ellen Danglade. Reverend Harold Davis Neel died August 25, 1988 at the age of 78.