Petter, Bertha Kinsinger (1873-1967)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1967 Nov 23 p. 6

Birth date: 1873

text of obituary:

Reaches Age of 94

Death Claims Pioneer Missionary to Indians

NEWTON, KAN. (GCNS) — Bertha Kinsinger Petter, the missionary wife of Rodolphe Petter, died on Nov. 7, 1967, at the age of 94. She passed away at the St. John's Lutheran Home, Billings, Mont. and was buried beside her husband in the Lame Deer, Mont. cemetery.

Mrs. Petter was the first General Conference woman to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating from Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio in 1896. She arrived in Cantonment, Okla. in September of that year where she was to teach for four years at the former Mennonite Mission School for Cheyenne and Arapaho children.

SHE WAS RELEASED from teaching duties to serve as secretary to Dr. Rodolphe Petter. Her assignment was to file Cheyenne words for a dictionary and grammar, and to proofread the translations as they were prepared for publication. With the assistance of Mrs. Petter, Dr. Petter prepared a Cheyenne-English dictionary, translations of the New Testament from the Greek, as well as translations of portions of the Old Testament and Pilgrim's Progress.

The Petters were married in 1911 at the Cheyenne Indian Chapel in Cantonment and were transferred in 1916 from Oklahoma to Lame Deer, Mont. There Mrs. Petter taught English to the Cheyennes, worked in the Indian hospital, and helped Dr. Petter's Indian assistants to prepare for Sunday worship services.

AFTER DR. PETTER'S death in 1947, Mrs. Petter occupied her time with cataloging notes and manuscripts left in her husband's collection. In 1952, she supervised the publication of a Cheyenne grammar, one of the works Dr. Petter was engaged in at the time of his death. Mrs. Petter also organized a collection of Cheyenne artifacts which is now housed in the Bethel College Historical Library and Kauffman Museum.

The celebration of Mrs. Petter's sixtieth anniversary on the mission field took place on Sept. 25, 1966 at special services in the Petter Memorial Church at Lame Deer.

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Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1967 Dec 7 p. 9

text of obituary:

Missionary Laid to Rest In Indian Burial Grounds

By Rev. Malcolm Wenger

(Rev. Wenger, home missions and evangelism secretary for the General Conference Mennonite Church, is a former missionary to the Cheyenne Indians in Montana.)

ON FRIDAY afternoon, Nov. 10, under a blue Montana sky curtained with wisps of white clouds, a group of Cheyenne Indians and a few non-Indians gathered on the burial ground at the foot of Squaw Hill. They were there to lay to rest the body of Meneha, "Pearl Woman," who had spent many of her almost 95 years among the Cheyenne people.

Mrs. Rodolphe Petter had come to the Cheyennes in Oklahoma when the days of the buffalo hunt were hardly over and had been with them as they made the changes brought on by the coming of the white man. From the grave site were visible a few of the good houses the Cheyennes now live in, and parked around the cemetery were their cars.

PASTOR Joe Walks Along, standing by the grave, thanked God for the Good News of the Gospel which Mrs. Petter had helped to bring to the Cheyennes. Through her persistence the translations of the Scriptures into the Cheyenne were completed. These had meant much to some of the earlier Cheyennes.

James Shoulderblade, lay pastor of the Birney Mennonite Church, led out in a song: "Maxetahpen Maxnistooheto. . ." (When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound. . .". One looked around at the markets on the hillside and thought of Standing Elk, Whiteman, Rodolphe and Valdo Petter, and many others whose mortal remains awaited the note of that horn.

THERE WAS a prayer in the soft Cheyenne tongue and soon the men were filling the grave. Mrs. Petter was one of the last of the first-generation missionaries to the Cheyenne. The work is far from done. Ike Shoulderblade and others are helping to carry the ministry to their own people.

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The Mennonite obituary: 1967 Nov 28 p. 727

text of obituary:

Bertha Kinsinger Petter, Billings, Mont., the missionary wife of Rodolphe Petter, died on Nov. 7, at the age of ninety-four, and was buried beside her husband in Lame Deer, Mont. In 1896, she graduated from Wittenburg College, Springfield, Ohio, and went to Cantonment, Okla., where she was to teach for four years at the former Mennonite Mission School for Cheyenne and Arapaho children. She then served as secretary to Rodolphe Petter, filing Cheyenne words for a dictionary and grammar, and proofreading the translations. She also assisted in the preparation of a Cheyenne-English dictionary, a translation of the New Testament from the Greek, portions of the Old Testament, and Pilgrim's Progress. The Petters were married in 1911 and were transferred in 1916 from Oklahoma to Lame Deer, Mont. She taught English to the Cheyenne, worked in the Indian hospital, and helped Petter's Indian assistants to prepare for Sunday worship services. In 1952, she supervised the publication of a Cheyenne grammar, one of the works Petter was engaged in at the time of his death in 1947.