Koch, Roy Swartz (1913-2010)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2010 July 5 p. 9

Birth date: 1913 Sep 6

text of obituary:

ROY S. KOCH

Roy Swartz Koch, 96, of Goshen, Ind., died June 12, 2010, at his home. He was born Sept. 6, 1913, to Charles and Minerva (Swartz) Koch near St. Jacobs, Ont., the seventh of 10 children.

He married Martha Horst on Aug. 8, 1942, and they were married for nearly 68 years.

He was a graduate of the University of Western Ontario at Waterloo and of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart. He was ordained as a pastor in 1936 at age 23 and as bishop in 1951. In addition to pastoring congregations for more than 34 years, he was a teacher, administrator, writer, editor and development officer.

He pastored St. Jacobs (Ont.) Mennonite Church from 1936 to 1957. From 1957 to 1970 he served at South Union Mennonite Church in West Liberty, Ohio. He also filled the bishop’s role in Ontario and Ohio. While pastoring in Ontario, he also taught at Ontario Mennonite Bible School and Institute in Kitchener during the 1940s and 1950s, serving as its principal from 1952 to 1957. He frequently traveled as a speaker, evangelist and storyteller, wrote numerous articles for church and secular papers, and edited the ministers’ section of the Builder and the Mennonite Renewal Services newsletter.

He served as moderator of the Ohio and Eastern Conference in the 1960s and moderator of the Mennonite General Conference from 1963 to 1965. He served on the Mennonite Church’s Board of Missions, Board of Education and Commission for Christian Education. In the early 1970s he was Indiana-Michigan Conference minister, then served as Bethany Christian High School’s development director. He was executive secretary of Mennonite Renewal Services well into the 1980s.

Survivors include his wife, Martha; six children, Robert and his wife, Linda, of Colorado Springs, Arlene Holdeman and her husband, Ken, of Bloomington, Minn., Richard and his wife, Rhonda, of Goshen, Rodney of Salem, Ore., Jane Oyer and her husband, Stanley, of Middlebury, and Sheila Graber and her husband, Millard, of Goshen; 17 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by eight siblings; another sibling, Gladys Martin, died eight days after him; and by a grandchild, Joyce Graber.

Funeral services were held at East Goshen Mennonite Church. Burial was in Violett Cemetery.