Robert L. Glass and Ruth C. Brown family collection

The Reverend Robert L. (Bob) Glass was born on September 14, 1925 and passed away February 18, 2024.

His parents were Beulah Leavitt and Dorse Lorenzo Glass, and he was born in the family farmhouse on U.S. 31 in Tipton County, Indiana. Robert graduated from Alexandria High School in 1943 and at age 17 entered the V-12 program of the U.S. Navy to train deck officers during World War II. He completed two years of coursework at the University of Notre Dame, but was not selected ultimately for officer candidacy. In 1945 he was assigned as a seaman to a Landing Ship Tank (LST) in Shanghai, China, with the mission of ferrying Nationalist Chinese soldiers to fight the Communists in Manchuria and repatriating defeated Japanese soldiers to Japan. Upon honorable discharge from the Navy, Robert completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in history at Indiana University and graduated in 1949, benefitting from the G.I. Bill of Rights. He then entered Drew Theological Seminary in Madison, New Jersey, from which he received a Master of Divinity degree in 1952.

In 1950, Robert married Marjory (Margie) Brown of Indianapolis, and the couple spent 55 years together and raised five children. Always interested in the educational side of ministry, Robert obtained a Master’s degree in Christian Education in 1955 from Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University in New York City.

In 1952, he was ordained an elder by Bishop Richard C. Raines of Indiana. He received his first pastoral assignment after seminary from the New York Conference and was appointed to serve as minister to the two small Methodist congregations of Maybrook and Montgomery, New York. One of his achievements was recruiting a director of Christian education for the two congregations, Charlotte Skillman. He also helped the Montgomery Church make a decision to use a $10,000 bequest to build an addition to the church building that could be used as a kitchen and meeting room. This served to increase the church’s attractiveness for existing and new members.

Beginning in 1956 Robert and Marjory moved back to Indiana, where Robert served for a year and a half as Joint Youth Program Director for First Methodist Church and the Federated Churches of West Lafayette, Indiana. Among his achievements was working out an exchange relationship between the West Lafayette high school youth and youth in an African American congregation in Chicago to visit each other’s churches. The West Lafayette youth worked on a construction project during their visit to Chicago.

At the beginning of 1958, Robert was assigned by Bishop Raines to serve as Associate Minister at Central Methodist Church in Evansville in the Indiana Conference. Central Church was a large congregation in downtown Evansville, and Robert’s responsibilities covered Christian education and work with the high school youth group. He worked closely with the senior Minister, William N. Burton. Later, the senior minister was Francis Johnson. Two of Robert and Marjory’s close friends were counselors with the Central youth group, Mary Ellen and Lester Hasenmeyer. Robert, Marjory, and their four children would accompany the youth group for summer camps and retreats in the Methodist camp ground, Rivervale, north of Evansville, and at another church camp in Santa Claus, Indiana.

Robert and Marjory before moving to Evansville had responded to a call by Bishop Raines for Methodists in the United States and Indiana to adopt orphans in South Korea. The bishop at that time was serving as Bishop of Korea as well as of Indiana and had a special interest in the orphans. After their initial application was not acted on by the immigration authorities, Robert and Marjory gave up on the idea of adoption. Soon after the arrival of a new son, Jeffrey, in West Lafayette, they suddenly were informed by the immigration authorities that their adoption of a two-year-old orphan had been approved. In 1958, Jon Lee Glass arrived in the Evansville airport and became a member of the Glass family. This boosted the family numbers to six. The family lived in a modest-sized National modular home acquired by the church as a parsonage in a new subdivision north of downtown. The address was 5301 Stratford Road.

After four years in Evansville, in 1962 Robert accepted a new appointment by Bishop Raines to serve in a similar capacity as Associate Minister at First Methodist Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Immediately after moving to Fort Wayne, Robert and Marjory added their fifth and final child to the family, Bonnie Lynn. The church purchased a new parsonage to accommodate the growing family on the north side of the city, at 1208 Glenwood Avenue. Robert led efforts to enhance educational offerings in the Sunday School at First Church, a downtown church. He also was responsible for the high school youth group and led several youth trips to the East—both to New York City and environs and to Washington, D.C. In New York, the youth met and socialized with their peers in an urban congregation. The Washington trip in 1963 included visits with new Indiana U.S. Senator Birch Bayh and Fourth District Indiana Congressman E. Ross Adair.

After only three years at First Church, Robert, with Marjory’s concurrence, decided in 1965 to accept the top position in Christian education of the Indiana Conference--Executive Secretary of the Board of Education for the conference. In that position, he was charged with designing and overseeing training programs in Sunday School and adult education for churches in the conference and managing the camping programs at Epworth Forest, a Methodist educational and camping facility and summer Methodist community on Lake Webster in North Webster, Indiana. He, Margie, and the family lived at Epworth Forest in several rental cottages during the summers of that period.

In 1971 he was appointed Pastor of Whiting United Methodist Church in Whiting, Indiana and served there until 1978. He led the successful merger of the former First Methodist Church and the Lakeside Evangelical United Brethren congregations and helped organize ecumenical efforts to provide bus service for parishioners from many denominations to attend their church services. He also helped organize a Meals on Wheels program in Whiting and served as President of the Whiting-Robertsdale Kiwanis Club.

In 1978 he was appointed Senior Pastor of Simpson United Methodist Church in Fort Wayne, where he served until retirement in 1990. At Simpson, Robert led a successful effort to maintain and add to the membership of an urban congregation while embarking on many new ministries. Among his achievements was adding a second worship service, connecting church members with a pastoral counseling service, and starting a Retreat in Motion bus ministry. He also collaborated with others on creating Project Renew, which stimulated the rehabilitation of housing stock and construction of new affordable housing in the near-Southside of Fort Wayne. Robert served as president of the effort. While at Simpson, Bob and Margie led church groups that traveled to Israel and Egypt, Greece and Turkey, Austria and Germany, Russia and Scandinavia, and China.

In the 1990s, Robert served as President of Friends and Alumni of Epworth Forest, which provided volunteer labor and raised funds to rehabilitate the Epworth Forest Hotel. After Margie’s passing in 2005, Bob moved in 2009 to Robin Run Village in Indianapolis, where he helped found a Kiwanis chapter and served as the first president and program chair. He also helped organize a Green Team, to expand recycling and composting, which he chaired for 10 years. In 2012, he married his second wife, Margaret Riley Pengilly, whom he met at Robin Run. Their marriage lasted until Margaret’s death in 2019.

Throughout his career and life, Robert was always curious about people and how he could contribute to making the world a better place for all people. Robert and Marjory raised five children—James, Kathryn, Jon, Jeffrey, and Bonnie. The children adjusted to multiple moves as they grew up—living in West Lafayette, Evansville, Fort Wayne, Marion, and Whiting, Indiana.

Marjory Glass was born July 23, 1923, the daughter of Ruth C. and Harold S. Brown. She grew up with her brother Donald (Don) in an eastside Indianapolis neighborhood. In the 1920s, her parents bought a new bungalow at 809 N. Gladstone Avenue, where Marjory and her brother grew up. They attended Ralph Waldo Emerson School 58 at Linwood Avenue and New York Street and graduated from the school in their eighth-grade classes. The family attended Grace Methodist Episcopal Church on New York Street until about 1940, when Marjory’s parents switched their membership to Irvington Methodist Church in the eastside suburb of Irvington.

Marjory attended Arsenal Technical High School at 1500 E. Michigan Street and enjoyed the campus composed of post-Civil War buildings and newer academic structures. When she entered Tech, it was the second-largest high school in the United States, with 7200 students. Marjory excelled academically, graduating in the top ten students in her class. She also made many friends and socialized with them.

After graduation in 1942, Marjory continued to live at home and obtained work as a secretary for several employers. She had taken secretarial courses in high school. During World War II, Marjory worked for Indianapolis Railways, the streetcar and bus company in the city. After the war she worked at summer jobs while she attended Indiana University. Among her summer jobs were secretarial work for Eli Lilly International, the Grain Dealers Association, and Gravely Tractors.

In 1944, her father left home, and her parents were divorced. Marjory wanted to attend college, but her parents lacked the funds to send her. Fortunately, her paternal grandfather, Luke R. Brown, a merchant tailor in Waterville, Maine, decided to pay her tuition and room and board at Indiana University, Bloomington. Marjory majored in Spanish and teaching and also took courses in designing and making clothes. She enjoyed her four years at I.U. and made many friends. She also was active in the Wesley Foundation at Indiana University, an organization for Methodist students. During her senior year, she met Robert L. Glass, a history major who was intending to go to seminary.

After graduation in 1949, Marjory taught school for a year in the Gosport, Indiana school and roomed with a couple who were members in the local Methodist church. In 1950 she and Robert were married at the Irvington Methodist Church, where Marjory had been active and secretary for a church committee. They then moved to Madison, New Jersey, where Robert was beginning his second year at Drew Seminary. Marjory for two years worked as a secretary in several Drew University offices. She and Robert moved several times as he worked as a student minister in two Methodist churches in the New York City area—Simpson-Grace Methodist Church in Jersey City and St. Mark’s Methodist Church in Brooklyn.

In 1952, Robert graduated from seminary, and was ordained as an elder by Indiana Bishop Richard C. Raines. Robert then joined the New York Methodist Conference and was assigned as minister to two churches near Newburgh, New York—Maybrook Methodist Church in Maybrook and nearby Montgomery Methodist Church. Marjory took on the responsibilities of a minister’s wife—greeting parishioners after services, being active in Woman Society of Christian Service chapters, etc. She also took on the new responsibility of being a homemaker, as she and Robert became parents of two children, James and Kathryn.

In 1956, Marjory and Robert moved to West Lafayette, Indiana for Robert’s new assignment in youth ministries at First Methodist Church and Federated Churches. While there, son Jeffrey was born. The Glasses rented rooms in the upstairs of their house to Purdue students to earn extra income beyond Robert’s salary.

At the beginning of 1958, Marjory and Robert moved to a National modular home at 5301 Stratford Road in Evansville, Indiana. The Stratford Road house was the parsonage of the Central Methodist Church, a large downtown church where Robert was assigned as associate minister. Soon after moving in, Marjory and Robert were surprised to get word that their application to adopt an orphan in Korea had finally been approved by the immigration authorities. New son Jon was two years old and knew no English. The house had three bedrooms, a modest-sized living room, bath, and combined kitchen and dining room. Marjory now became the primary care-giver to four children under the age of six, and space was at a premium. She also gave some time to the continued role of minister’s wife and limited activity in the Women’s Society activities and one of the circles of women.

Marjory and Robert made friends in the congregation and frequently took their family when Robert led youth camps in Rivervale, a Methodist church camp north of Evansville and to another youth camp at Santa Claus, Indiana. Marjory and Robert enjoyed travel, and they took the family for vacations at Kentucky Lake south of Evansville and in the winter of 1961-62 took the family to Florida. Marjory inherited some money from her grandfather in Maine in 1959, and that helped ease the financial strain that the family faced.

Robert had carved out a niche as a specialist in Christian education, and in 1962 he accepted a new appointment as Associate Minister at First Methodist Church, in downtown Fort Wayne. Marjory and Robert were pleased to be closer to her mother in Indianapolis and his parents in Alexandria, Indiana. Right after the move, the couple added a daughter to the family, Bonnie Lynn, for a family of seven. Fortunately, to accommodate the large family, the church purchased a new parsonage with a split-level, providing a spacious family room on the lower level and a separate dining room. The address was 1208 Glenwood Drive, on the northside of Fort Wayne. Marjory found herself scrambling to manage five children, but she was a well-organized person and somehow was able to cope. Robert’s job had long hours, and he was able to devote limited time during each week to help with the children. He tried to schedule regular days-off, and the couple took regular vacations with the family, including a trip to the New York World’s Fair in 1964.

After only three years at First Church, Fort Wayne, Robert was appointed Executive Secretary of the Board of Education for the North Indiana Conference of the Methodist Church. The new position was based at the conference office in Marion, Indiana, and so the family moved again. Due to the inheritance from her grandfather and a bequest from her great-uncle, Marjory and Robert were able to build a new, split-level house in Shady Hills Estates subdivision. They designed the house to accommodate their large family. There was a spacious living room, separate dining room, large kitchen, four bedrooms, a family room, Robert’s study, and a basement.

Marjory did not have the responsibilities of a minister’s wife in Marion. As youngest child Bonnie entered first grade, Marjory began to think about returning to teaching. To do so, she needed a Master’s degree in education and so she started taking courses at nearby Ball State University in Muncie.

She did have responsibilities with the children during the summers at Epworth Forest, where Robert was in charge of the educational and camping programs of the North Indiana Conference. The family stayed in rental cottages each summer. In 1971, Robert was assigned to become the pastor of the Whiting United Methodist Church, in the Calumet region of Indiana. It was an adjustment for the family to move into an urbanized, industrial community from the suburban existence that they had led previously. The Whiting Church had a modest-sized parsonage with three bedrooms, so space was a challenge for a while. Marjory returned to the role of minister’s wife, greeting people at services, serving in circles of the Women’s Society, and entertaining members in the Glass residence. She also continued work on her Master’s degree at Indiana University Northeast in Gary. Finally, she obtained her Master’s degree, close to the end of Robert’s tenure at the Whiting Church. During the seven years of residence in Whiting, most of the children graduated from high school and college.

In 1978, Robert was appointed Senior Pastor at the 600-member Simpson United Methodist Church in Fort Wayne. He and Marjory encountered another modest-sized parsonage, but the church soon gave them a housing allowance, and the couple purchased a home at 4805 Tacoma Avenue, on the southside of Fort Wayne. With Bonnie’s departure for college in 1980, Marjory and Robert adjusted to the life of empty-nesters. Marjory tried to obtain full-time employment as a teacher in the Fort Wayne Community Schools, but no positions were available. Instead, the school system offered her a part-time position teaching home-bound students, both children and adults. Over a 12-year period, Marjory gained satisfaction in the home-bound experience.

She also fell into the familiar routine of the pastor’s wife and formed many friendships with women in the church. She and Robert also enjoyed leading groups of parishioners on trips abroad, including “In the Steps of St. Paul,” in Greece and Turkey; Israel, Jordan, and Egypt; China; and Austria and Germany.

In 1990, Marjory retired from her job, and she and Robert began a retirement life centered on additional travel, including one trip touring Methodist missions in Indonesia. They also enjoyed time at their lake cottage in Epworth Forest. They purchased a spacious one-level house at 416 W. Fairfax Avenue, on the south side of Fort Wayne. Marjory and Robert attended First-Wayne Street United Methodist Church in retirement, but Marjory continued her friendships among women at Simpson. In 2000, she and Robert celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at Epworth Forest. She celebrated her 80th birthday among family in 2003 and passed away in 2005.

Ruth Collins Brown was born in Anderson, Indiana in 1900, the daughter of Mary Annette Adams Collins and John B. Collins. Her father was the son of Irish immigrants and served in the Spanish-American War as a first lieutenant of a volunteer regiment from Anderson. Her mother came from a prosperous family of merchants in Anderson, the Adams family. Both of Ruth’s parents died when she was young—Mary Annette when Ruth was a year and half, and John when she was four or five years old. She was raised by her aunt and uncle, Elizabeth Adams Hardwick and Charles Hardwick.

Ruth and her aunt and uncle moved to the Haughville neighborhood of Indianapolis when she was about nine. She attended School 52 near her house on King Avenue and graduated from the eighth grade. She then entered the Manual Training High School on South Meridian Street and completed her sophomore year. At that point, her aunt and uncle advised her to drop out of Manual and take courses in a business college, which she did. At age 16 she sought secretarial positions in Indianapolis and served in several jobs, including for the Western Union company on Monument Circle, a bathroom fixtures retail company in the Merchants National Bank Building, and a factory in West Indianapolis. During the 1916 political campaign, her uncle George got Ruth a temporary job working for the Progressive Party of Indiana.

Ruth continued to live with her aunt and uncle and to work in secretarial positions until her marriage in 1921. She met her husband, Harold Spencer Brown, at the King Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church in Haughville. Harold Brown was born and grew up in Waterville, Maine and graduated from Colby College. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1917 and was transferred to an Army camp in Speedway, Indiana, north of Haughville.

After her marriage, Ruth was a home-maker and became the mother of two children, Marjory and Donald. Harold found employment during the 1920s and much of the 1930s as a salesman for the Indiana Paper Company of Indianapolis. Ruth and Harold in the mid-1920s purchased a story and half bungalow at 809 N. Gladstone Avenue, on the east side of Indianapolis. The family attended a fairly new Methodist church on New York Street, the Grace Methodist Episcopal Church. Ruth was active in the church and participated in some of the “circles” that included women in the congregation.

The two children attended Ralph Waldo Emerson School No. 58, at Linwood Avenue and New York Street, walking distance from their home. Marjory and Donald both graduated from the eighth grade at School 58. Marjory then entered Arsenal Technical High School, the second largest high school in the United States during the late 1930s. She liked Tech and stayed there even after a new high school, Thomas Carr Howe, opened in Irvington, to the east of Gladstone Avenue. Donald attended Howe. Both children graduated from high school in 1942 (they were a year apart, but Marjory took additional courses and finished at the same time as Donald).

In 1942, Donald enlisted in the U.S. Navy and entered the V-12 program for training deck officers during World War II. He took college coursework at the University of Michigan, but decided eventually to become a storekeeper in the Navy and was assigned to American bases in England for the duration of the war.

Marjory took secretarial courses in high school and worked at several secretarial positions during the war and in the late 1940s. In the early 1940s, the Brown family switched their membership to Irvington Methodist Church, and Ruth continued her church activities. Marjory also became active. Harold, an active member of the American Legion organization of World War I veterans, about 1940 found employment working for the American Legion headquarters in Indianapolis.

About 1944, Ruth and Harold were divorced, and Ruth made a major transition to life alone. She received some alimony, but soon found she needed to work full-time.

Marjory attended Indiana University in the late 1940s and in the summers worked at several secretarial positions. One of them was the Gravely Tractor Company, then located on East 10th Street. Marjory in 1950 married Robert L. Glass, a Methodist seminary student at Drew Theological Seminary in Madison, New Jersey. She left her job at Gravely and recommended that her mother to replace her as a secretary. Ruth worked as a secretary at Gravely for about four years, reporting to the head of the local office, D. Ray Hall. She continued to live in the house at 809 N. Gladstone Avenue.

In 1954 an opportunity opened for Ruth. The Indiana Area of the Methodist Church was looking for a secretary to assist with the public relations efforts of the Methodist Church in the state. By this time, Ruth’s son-in-law, Robert Glass, had been ordained by Indiana Bishop Richard C. Raines and had graduated from Drew Seminary. He and Marjory had been assigned to two small Methodist parishes near Newburgh, New York. It’s possible that Robert’s becoming a member of the Methodist clergy and being known to Bishop Raines helped open doors for Ruth. In any event, she became a member of the staff of the Indiana Area of the Methodist Church in 1954. She was assigned as a secretary assisting the Director of Public Relations, Nelson Price. Ruth and Nelson were part of the larger staff of Bishop Richard Raines’ office. At that time, the Methodist Church in Indiana was organized into three conferences—the Indiana Conference, comprising the lower half of the state, with a northern boundary just north of Indianapolis; the North Indiana Conference, covering the northeast section of the state; and the Northwest Conference, covering the northwest section. Bishop Raines served as bishop for all three conferences and thus Ruth and the staff of the Indiana Area were responsible for the needs of the three.

The Area Office was located in the Underwriter’s Building on the southeast corner of Michigan and Pennsylvania Street. Ruth and Nelson had a cordial working relationship. At least two other secretaries worked in the Indiana Area Office—Mrs. Edith Spaulding and Marian (later Garrison). Edith and Ruth particularly became close friends. About the late 1950s, Nelson and his family moved to another public relations job associated with the Methodist Church in Illinois. He was replaced as Director of Public Relations by Robert Gildea.

In 1957 the Indiana Area of the Methodist Church created the first Methodist area program in pastoral care and counseling, and Bishop Raines appointed Dr. James E. Doty to be the first director. Doty had previously served as pastor of the First Methodist Church of Lynn, Massachusetts, and he also had served as director of the Pastoral Counseling Center of Lynn, which he had founded. He held a bachelor of sacred theology and a Ph.D. from Boston University. The mission of the new center in Indiana was to “help ministers of Indiana Methodism become better qualified and more efficient counselors.”

Doty hired Ruth Brown to serve as the center’s secretary and also his personal secretary. She worked for him from 1957 to 1965, when she retired. Her job consisted of typing correspondence, keeping minutes at meetings of the new Area Board of Pastoral Care and Counseling, and scheduling Doty’s appointments. To ensure confidentiality, the pastoral care and counseling office was located in a different location from that of the Area Office. The counseling office was located in the Chamber of Commerce Building, 320 N. Meridian Street. Several prominent Methodist laymen were members of the Area Board of Pastoral Care and Counseling. An example is Daniel F. Evans, Sr., President of the L.S. Ayres and Company department store and a member of Meridian Street Methodist Church. Ruth Brown provided efficient and capable support to both the counseling office and the board, and she earned the respect of both Doty and the board members, as is evidenced in the letters and cards sent her upon her retirement.

James Doty also had broad interests beyond pastoral care and counseling. In the late 1950s and well into the 1960s he traveled repeatedly to Africa and in 1957 visited Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the great humanitarian, in the latter’s compound in Lambarene, then part of French Equatorial Africa. Doty wrote an article about his visit in 1957 for the Methodist magazine, Together, and later wrote a book, Post-Mark: Lambarene—A Visit with Albert Schweitzer. Ruth Brown provided the clerical and logistical support needed for both her boss’s travels and possibly helped type and edit the manuscripts for the article and book.

In June, 1965, after eleven years’ service for the Indiana Area of the Methodist Church, Ruth retired at age 65. The Indiana Area and James Doty held a retirement dinner for her in June, 1965, conjunction with the annual conference meeting of the North Indiana Conference at Ball State University.

After retirement, Ruth continued to work part-time as a secretary for the new Director of Pastoral Care and Counseling, Dr. Foster Williams through the late 1960s. James Doty left the counseling position in 1966 and became President of Baker University in Kansas.

Ruth lived out her years in retirement in an apartment located at 5901 E. Washington Street. She died in 1985.