Ummel, Joseph (1897-1943)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1943 Jul 29 p. 1

Birth date: 1897 Feb 22

text of obituary:

Relatives Receive Message African Missionary Has Died

REV. JOSEPH UMMEL SERVING UNDER BOARD OF MENN. BRETHREN IN CHRIST

Goshen, Ind. July 22. — The Rev. Joseph Ummel, 46, a missionary in Nigeria, Africa, for the United Missionary Society of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ since 1922, died Wednesday at the mission station at Jebba, whose vice-superintendent he had been for more than 6 years.

News of his death came in a cablegram filed Wednesday by his window [sic] and delivered this forenoon to his brother, John Ummel Jr., at the homestead 4 miles north of Elkhart on the Prairie street road. It said merely: "Joseph died," and was signed "Mabel."

Three daughters of Mr. Ummel are at the homestead, left here when Mr. and Mrs. Ummel returned to Africa in May, 1941, at the end of a 2-year furlough in America.

Other survivors are the mother, Mrs. John (Ella Lambert) Ummel; 3 brothers, the Rev. Paul Ummel, who with his wife, is now at home on furlough from the society's station at uru, Nigeria, 221 miles north of Jebba; Daniel Ummel of Wakarusa and James Ummel, who lives near the homestead; and 4 sisters, Miss Mary Ummel, at home, Mrs. Sammuel [sic Samuel] A. Hoke of New Carlisle, Ohio, Mrs. Richard Blessing of Nappanee and Mrs. Charles Huffman of Elkhart.

The daughters are Josephine Marie, 14, Ruth Evangeline, 12, and Grace Elavnor, 10.

Mr. Ummel who was born Feb. 22, 1897, on the homestead, first went to Nigeria as an evangelistic missionary in July, 1922. While home on a one-year furlough in 1926 he married Mabel Hygema of southwest Wakarusa, who returned to Jebba with him at the end of the furlough.

The local relatives were wholly unprepared to hear of Mr. Ummel's death. An airmail letter written by his wife the first week of June made no mention of illness.

The Rev. Paul Ummel and wife, who came home in November, 1940, expect to return to Nigeria as soon as shipping facilities, suspended by the war, are restored sufficiently to make the voyage possible.