John Walter Kliewer was about five years of age when the family came to Kansas and he grew up on a farm and secured his early education in the rural schools of Marion and Harvey counties. He also attended the Mennonite Seminary at Halstead and was a student of Bethel College at Newton the first two years of its existence. From there he entered Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois, where he was graduated in the Theological School with the degree S. T. B. in 1901. Ordained a minister, he served the Mennonite Church at Wadsworth, Ohio, as pastor from 1901 to 1903 and was stationed at Berne, [p.2660] Indiana, with a large and prosperous congregation from 1903 to 1911. He then responded to the call back to his alma mater, Bethel College, in the fall of 1911 and was its acting president until 1915, in which years he was formally installed as president.
Mr. Kliewer has done much to build up the college and extend its influence. He has a faculty of twenty instructors and professors and the enrollment of the college is 274. The chief buildings on the campus are a main hall, ladies' dormitory, which was partly a gift from Mr. Carnegie, the alumni hall, containing gymnasium, and four dormitories for men, and a boarding hall.
Mr. Kliewer owns his residence on the college campus and is also owner of a farm of 160 acres in Haskell County, Kansas, and a tract of 320 acres of the rich farming land of Western Canada in the Province of Saskatchewan. Mr. Kliewer is independent in voting and political affiliations. He is president of the Mission Board of the Mennonite Church.
At Halstead, Kansas, in 1902, he married Miss Emma M. Ruth, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John W. Ruth, her mother now deceased. Her father settled at Halstead on a farm in 1873 and is now retired. Mr. and Mrs. Kliewer have three children: Karl, born March 7, 1905; Ruth, born January 30, 1907; and Paul, born August 2, 1908.
