John Ralph Voris

Background

John Ralph Voris was born on June 6, 1880, in Franklin, Indiana. He was the son of George Washington Voris, a contract carpenter, and Anna L. Tucker.

Education

Voris attended grade and high school in Anderson after the family moved there in 1889. When the family returned to Franklin in 1898, he entered the Baptist Franklin College, from which he received a B. A. degree in 1901.

Voris' youthful attraction to Christian service as a pastor, teacher, or social worker was turned in the direction of the ministry by a local pastor who encouraged him to give up plans for graduate study in sociology in favor of pursuing a ministerial degree at the University of Chicago's School of Divinity. He completed studies by 1904, for the B. D. degree, which was conferred in 1906, having met tuition expenses through service as pastor of a local German Methodist church.

Voris' practical introduction to social work was as a staff member assigned to youth work at the Twenty-third Street Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in New York City from 1904 to 1909. In 1905-1906, he took graduate courses in sociology at Columbia University.

Career

Voris filled a succession of pastorates during the years immediately before and after World War I, ably supported by his wife. The altruism and concern for children and youth that had drawn him to social service ultimately persuaded him to exchange pastoral for social work. He filled a summer pastorate at the Wading River Congregational Church on Long Island, New York, in 1908-1909.

Following a teaching interlude from 1909 to 1911, which he spent lecturing on biblical literature and directing the campus YMCA at the University of Indiana, he was formally received into the Presbyterian church. He served as pastor in New Albany, Indiana, from 1911 to 1913 and was president of the Social Welfare Association of New Albany.

From 1913 to 1916, he was pastor of the Union Presbyterian Church in Laramie, Wyoming, and served as chaplain at the University of Wyoming and as an officer for the Presbyterian Synod of Wyoming. In Manhattan, Kansas, from 1916 to 1917, he was pastor of the First Congregational Church. He had given eighty-four lectures in several states before responding to an urgent request to administer programs for army recruits when the United States entered World War I.

As general secretary of the YMCA, Voris organized services at Camp Kearney, California, in 1917-1918 and then worked for the National War Work Council of the YMCA out of its San Francisco office from 1918 to 1920, as director of religious work and later as supervisor of the council's western United States operations. Further experiences as associate national field director for the Inter-church World Movement (1919 - 1920) and as associate general secretary and director of church and other relations for the Near East Relief Program exposed Voris to postwar needs. His Near East relief duties involved biennial trips in 1921-1925 to study famine conditions in Russia, Armenia, and Greece and to assist clergymen in charge of orphanages in the Near East.

In 1929-1931, he served as executive secretary of the Golden Rule Foundation and in 1929-1930 as honorary executive secretary of the Committee on Relations with Eastern Churches. The Save the Children Federation, incorporated in New York City by Voris and a few close associates in January 1932, was designed to relieve suffering caused by poverty without creedal, racial, or regional restrictions. Selfhelp methods were invented to employ rural teachers and volunteer aids in southern Appalachia to improve living conditions in that region.

Voris guided the federation from its inception until his retirement in 1952, and under his direction it expanded to serve needy children of the world by means of fund-raising and a network of field offices in various parts of the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as through affiliation with other national and international relief organizations. Tireless in his dedication and keenly aware of the sufferings that World War II and the subsequent displacement of families had inflicted on children, Voris retired from Save the Children in 1952 and formed Seniors in Philanthropic Service, a Los Angeles-based program through which retired persons collected and distributed clothing to needy children.

As with Save the Children, for which Edith Voris had conducted infant clothing drives and other projects, his wife was an active partner in the practical implementation of the new service.

Voris died on January 12, 1968 in Duarte, California.

Achievements

• The British and French governments honored Voris for his international relief work, making him an honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1946, awarding him the French Legion of Honor, and making him an Officier d'Academie in 1948. An honorary doctor of divinity degree was awarded by Franklin College for his efforts in furthering Christian unity and interracial goodwill. He was elected a vice-president of the International Union of Child Welfare in 1945 and participated in its biennial conference at Stockholm in 1948. In the 1930's and 1940's the Christian Century and other church publications carried articles by him on conditions in the Near East and Russia and on the work of the federation.

Personality

Although not an imposing figure, Voris had a commanding presence and a forceful speaking style that led to an invitation to lecture on the Chautauqua summer circuit in 1917.

Connections

On June 19, 1906, Voris married Edith DeMotte Walker, a former high school teacher; they had three children.

Father:

George Washington Voris

Was a contract carpenter.

Mother:

Anna L. Tucker

Wife:

Edith DeMotte Walker