Gilbert Schneider was born in Dallas, Oregon, in 1920. That same year, Mildred Voth was born in Salt Creek, Oregon. Both were descended from Russian-German (Volga German) immigrants. They met in high school, and after they had both completed college, they married in 1944.
In 1946, Gilbert Schneider and Mildred Schneider were sponsored by the North American Baptist Commission as missionaries to western Africa. They worked in the Mambilla region of Cameroon, and during the 1950s built and managed New Hope Settlement, a hospital for leprosy patients in Mbingo, Cameroon. In 1961, the Schneiders returned to the United States, where Gilbert Schneider began graduate studies.
After their official resignation from missionary service in 1963, the Schneiders moved to Athens, Ohio, where Gilbert Schneider taught linguistics and African Studies at Ohio University, and Mildred Schneider worked as a registered nurse at the Ohio State Mental Hospital. In 1982, the Schneiders retired and moved back to Oregon.
Gilbert Schneider and Mildred Schneider had three children: Evan Schneider, Mary Alice Schneider, and Linda Schneider. Mary Alice Schneider, the only one of the children born in the United States, died at sea in 1952. Gilbert Schneider died in 1999; Mildred Schneider died in 2016.
The collection contains the papers and photographs of the Schneider family. The majority of the collection's contents are letters and records from Gilbert Schneider and Mildred Schneider's time as Baptist missionaries in Cameroon, as well as letters from other missionaries to the Schneiders. The collection also contains biographical sketches of Gilbert Schneider and Mildred Schneider; articles written by and about them; their diplomas and credentials; notes made for religious study in the 1980s; and the genealogy of Mildred Schneider's family, the Voths. In addition to several family photographs, the collection contains slides taken at the 1996 centennial celebration of Mildred Schneider's hometown, Salt Creek, Oregon, and a scrapbook put together for the Gilbert Schneider and Mildred Schneider's 50th wedding anniversary in 1994.
The collection is arranged in five series: Series 1. Biographical, education, and genealogical records; Series 2. Missionary work in Africa; Series 3. Post-missionary work papers; Series 4. Writings by Gilbert Schneider and Mildred Schneider; Series 5. Other Schneider family papers.
Collection is open for research.
The Oregon Historical Society owns the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners.
Gilbert Schneider and Mildred Schneider family papers, Coll 570, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Gift of Evan Schneider, April 2016 (Lib. Acc. 28758).
Collection was titled "Schneider family collection" prior to 2021.