CPS Worker 007789 - Oyer, John S.
Birth year: 1925
Denomination: Mennonite Old
Education: BA Goshen; MA Harvard; PhD Univ. Chicago
Occupation: Postwar R&R MCC 3yrs./Prof. History Goshen College 38yrs./editor Mennonite Quarterly
Occupation after CPS: Postwar R&R MCC 3yrs./Prof. History Goshen College 38yrs./editor Mennonite Quarterly
Drafted from: Goshen , Indiana, United States
Entered CPS: 6 30, 1943
Left CPS: 6 15, 1946
Notes:
Oyer recalled the following regarding his experience at the Hudson River State Hospital:
"The superintendent called in four of our unit to ask if they had witnessed mistreatment of patients in their wards. They had. He collected the names of the attendants who beat patients and summarily fired them. The town and the hospital workers were outraged and they shunned us. It took them many months to get over their anger. The experience of extreme hostility etched itself in my memory and opened me to later discoveries of the normality of persecution of Christians in their pursuit of a biblical way of life. Later one of my secular university professors was moved by this simple account."
--Taken from Peace Committee and Seniors for Peace Coordinating Committee of the College Mennonite Church of Goshen, Indiana, “Detour . . . Main Highway”: Our CPS Stories. Nappanee, IN: Evangel Press, 1995, 2000. p 50-2.
Be sure to check out other reflections and stories from this CPS worker as listed under "Other Material."