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Turner, John Walter (1892–1968)

By Milton Hook

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Milton Hook, Ed.D. (Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, the United States). Hook retired in 1997 as a minister in the Greater Sydney Conference, Australia. An Australian by birth Hook has served the Church as a teacher at the elementary, academy and college levels, a missionary in Papua New Guinea, and as a local church pastor. In retirement he is a conjoint senior lecturer at Avondale College of Higher Education. He has authored Flames Over Battle Creek, Avondale: Experiment on the Dora, Desmond Ford: Reformist Theologian, Gospel Revivalist, the Seventh-day Adventist Heritage Series, and many magazine articles. He is married to Noeleen and has two sons and three grandchildren.

First Published: April 27, 2023

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John W. Turner gave nearly 40 years of ministry to the Seventh-day Adventist church, most of them as a conference president. He led five local conferences and concluded his service with a decade as president of the Southwestern Union Conference.

Heritage and Education

William Albert Turner, John Turner’s father, migrated from England to America and married Mattie Bell Depperman in Iowa. They went West to farm on the Great Plains, locating in Yuma County, northeastern Colorado. It was sparsely populated, buffalo and bald eagle country, flat and prone to drought. Nine children were born into their home: George Henry (b. 1886), Fred Earl (b. 1887), Elva Agnes (1889-1890), Edward Raymond (b. 1890), John Walter (b. 1892), Nellie Rose (b. 1894), William Albert (b. 1896), Mary Ellen (b. 1903) and Martha Alice (b. 1905). In 1900 William Turner was farming at Laird but by 1910 he had turned to operating a grocery store.1

After attending public elementary schools, John gained his high school education at Campion Academy in Loveland, Colorado. He also studied for three years at Union College in Nebraska, though this would take place intermittently during the early years of his ministry. In the summer of 1911 he worked as tent master for an evangelistic effort in Blanca, and the following summer served in the same role for a campaign in Pueblo.2 On November 12, 1913, he married Edna May Moyer at Pueblo, the ceremony conducted by Elder John Rouse. They had two children, Charlotte Opal (b. 1916) and Eugene (b. 1924).3

Early Ministry

Turner began ministry in the employ of the Colorado Conference in May 1913. He evangelized at Center and Woodland Park in western Colorado during 1913 and 1914.4 He then shifted closer to the environs of his boyhood in the northeastern part of the state, where his efforts in 1915 and 1916 brought a number of families into the faith, building up a strong new congregation at Ford, north of Yuma.5 At the 1916 Colorado camp meeting, on June 17, Turner was ordained to the gospel ministry by Roscoe C. Porter and Rufus A. Underwood.6

Following his ordination, Turner was appointed to be the Missionary Volunteer secretary for the Colorado Conference, and not long afterwards the Home Missionary portfolio was added to his responsibilities.7 He studied at Union College during the 1918-1919 schoolyear, then spent the summer of 1919 visiting camp meetings throughout the Central Union to promote involvement in missionary volunteer societies. He then spent a year serving in an entirely different form of ministry as manager and chaplain of the Nebraska Sanitarium, then located on the Union College campus with a branch in Hastings, Nebraska.8

Conference Presidencies

Then, in December 1920, Turner was elected president of the Wyoming Conference. It would prove to be the beginning of 32 years as a conference president. In addition to the state of Wyoming, the conference territory included several western counties of both Nebraska and South Dakota, and its office was in Crawford, Nebraska.9 It was a comparatively small entity comprised of 23 churches with a total baptized membership of 840.10

Turner was elected president of the Inter-Mountain Conference in 1924. This was another conference that covered a large territory (portions of Utah, New Mexico, and western Colorado) with a relatively small constituency of 687 members in 12 churches.11 He remained in this position until 1931 when he became president of the Montana Conference.12

After just a year in Montana, Turner accepted the presidency of the neighboring Idaho Conference in 1932. In addition to southern Idaho, its territory included six counties in eastern Oregon. In keeping with a general upsurge in membership throughout the North American Division during the Depression of the 1930s, the Idaho Conference experienced strong growth during Turner’s six-year administration. Membership increased from 1,164 at the close of 1932 to 1,587 in 1938, and members increased their rate of financial support despite the difficult times.13 In 1938, the Missouri Conference, an entity of 49 churches and close to 3,000 members, elected Turner to serve as president.14

Southwestern Union President

Turner’s final administrative role was as president of the Southwestern Union Conference with headquarters in Keene, Texas, beginning in 1942. The union included four conferences: Arkansas-Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, and Texico (most of New Mexico and portion of western Texas), with a collective membership of more than 12,000.15 A fifth conference, Southwest Region, comprising the predominantly Black congregations throughout the union territory, was formed during Turner’s administration, following the General Conference approval of regional or Black-administered conferences in 1944. First organized in 1946 as a mission, Southwest Region became a full-fledged conference in 1950.16

Turner’s duties included membership on the boards of institutions that served not only Adventists in the Southwestern Union but broader constituencies in North America as well. At the outset of his tenure, he served on the General Conference Committee as well as on the boards of the Voice of Prophecy, the North American Radio Commission, Oakwood College, Union College, the Christian Record Benevolent Association (publisher of literature in Braille), and the Southern Publishing Association (SPA). For four years he chaired the SPA board.17 Membership on the boards of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary and Riverside Sanitarium and Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, would be added in the following years.18

However, Turner’s institutional concerns lay primarily within the Southwestern Union. He chaired the board of the Spanish-American Seminary in Sandoval, New Mexico, a school that trained Spanish-speaking church workers, and existed for 10 years that, coincidentally, paralleled his years as Southwestern Union president (1942-1952).19 The union’s main institution, though, was Southwestern Junior College (later Southwestern Adventist University) in Keene, Texas. During Turner’s watch as board chair, the school experienced healthy growth in enrollment.20 A new gymnasium that also served as a venue for large meetings was constructed in 1947 and named Turner Auditorium in his honor.21 As his retirement approached in April 1952, Turner reported that the necessary approvals from governing entities and the architectural plans were in place for construction of a long-needed women’s residence hall, but funds were still needed to complete construction.22 The dormitory, called Harmon Hall, was completed in 1954.23

Final Years

On the recommendation of physicians, Turner retired in 1952 at the age of 59. He and Edna moved to Loma Linda, California. Deteriorating health marred their closing years. Edna suffered a stroke about 1957 and was unable to walk again. John hired a nurse to provide for her care in the home.24 A few years later she underwent surgery that precipitated heart failure and died on December 22, 1965. She had requested burial with family members in Texas so she was interred at Rosehill Cemetery, Cleburne, Texas.25

Finding life as a bachelor to be lonely, Turner married Edna’s nurse, Flora Alice Davidson (1903-1996), on May 19, 1968.26 It proved to be a brief union, with Turner experiencing a fatal heart attack on December 21, 1968.27 Voice of Prophecy evangelist H.M.S. Richards, Sr. led the funeral service in the Loma Linda Campus Hill church and a vocal duet was rendered by Del Delker and Bob Seamount.28 Elder Turner was buried in Texas alongside his wife, Edna.29

Sources

Annual Statistical Reports. General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Online Archives (GCA). http://documents.adventistarchives.org/.

“Edna May (Moyer) Turner.” Find A Grave. Memorial ID 115812529, August 21, 2013. Accessed January 26, 2023. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/115812529/edna-may-turner.

Emery, Ralph T. “News Notes.” Central Union Outlook, October 24, December 19, 1916.

“John Walter Turner.” FamilySearch. Accessed January 26, 2023. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/KCTM-YGW.

“John Walter Turner.” Find A Grave. Memorial ID 115812530, August 21, 2013. Accessed January 26, 2023. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/115812530/john-walter-turner.

Kephart, H. C. “Elder John W. Turner Retires.” Southwestern Adventist Record, April 30, 1952.

“News Notes.” Central Union Outlook, December 21, 1920.

Page, Franklin A. “Colorado Educational Institute.” Central Union Outlook, March 11, 1919.

Robinson, Asa T. “Colorado Camp Meeting.” Central Union Outlook, June 27, 1916.

Robinson, Asa T. “Ford.” Central Union Outlook, April 18, 1916.

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbooks. General Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Online Archives. https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Yearbooks/Forms/Allitems.aspx.

Turner, J. W. “Another Milestone for the Southwestern Union.” Southwestern Adventist Record, April 16, 1952.

Turner, John W. Secretariat Files, RG 47, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Silver Spring, MD (GCA).

Turner, John W. Sustentation Files, RG 33, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Silver Spring, MD (GCA).

Notes

  1. “John Walter Turner,” FamilySearch, accessed January 26, 2023, https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/KCTM-YGW.↩

  2. John Walter Turner Biographical Information Blank, April 23, 1934. Secretariat Files, RG 21, Record 114948, GCA; John Walter Turner Service Record, Sustentation Files, RG 33, Record 2823, GCA.↩

  3. “John Walter Turner,” FamilySearch.↩

  4. Turner Biographical Information Blank, April 23, 1934, GCA.↩

  5. Asa T. Robinson, “Ford,” Central Union Outlook, April 18, 1916, 4-5.↩

  6. Asa T. Robinson, “Colorado Camp Meeting,” Central Union Outlook, June 27, 1916, 4-5.↩

  7. Turner Biographical Information Blank, April 23, 1934, GCA; Turner Service Record, Sustentation Files, GCA.↩

  8. Ibid; Edward Allen and Yvionne Joseph, “Nebraska Sanitarium,” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, September 28, 2020, accessed April 26, 2023, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=79UT.↩

  9. “News Notes,” Central Union Outlook, December 21, 1920, 4.↩

  10. Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook for 1921, 28.↩

  11. Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook for 1925, 28.↩

  12. Turner Service Record, Sustentation Files, GCA.↩

  13. Annual Statistical Report for 1932, 4, and 1938, 6.↩

  14. Turner Service Record, Sustentation File, GCA; Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook for 1939, 33.↩

  15. Turner Service Record, Sustentation File, GCA; Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook for 1943, 61.↩

  16. Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia, 2nd rev. edition (1996), s.v. “Southwest Region Conference.”↩

  17. “J.W. Turner,” in Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook for 1943.↩

  18. “J.W. Turner,” in Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook for 1952.↩

  19. Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia, 2nd rev. edition (1996), s.v. “Sandia View Academy.”↩

  20. H.C. Kephart, “Elder John W. Turner Retires,” Southwestern Adventist Record, April 30, 1952, 1.↩

  21. J.V. Peters, “Plans for Equipping Turner Auditorium,” Southwestern Adventist Record, April 30, 1947, 8; Altus E. Hayes, “Watch SWJC!,” Southwestern Adventist Record, October 31, 1956, 16.↩

  22. J.W. Turner, “Another Milestone for the Southwestern Union,” Southwestern Adventist Record, April 16, 1952, 1.↩

  23. C.N. Rees, “SWJC President’s Report,” Southwestern Adventist Record, February 23, 1955, 13.↩

  24. John Turner to J.C. Kozel, December 22, 1962, Sustentation File, GCA.↩

  25. John Turner to J.C. Kozel, December 28, 1965, Sustentation File, GCA.↩

  26. John Turner to J. C. Kozel, June 15, 1968, Sustentation File, GCA.↩

  27. “John Walter Turner,” FamilySearch.↩

  28. Turner Sustentation File, GCA.↩

  29. “John Walter Turner,” Find A Grave, Memorial ID 115812530, August 21, 2013, accessed January 26, 2023, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/115812530/john-walter-turner.↩

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Hook, Milton. "Turner, John Walter (1892–1968)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. April 27, 2023. Accessed October 09, 2024. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=1AB6.

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Hook, Milton. "Turner, John Walter (1892–1968)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. April 27, 2023. Date of access October 09, 2024, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=1AB6.

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Hook, Milton (2023, April 27). Turner, John Walter (1892–1968). Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. Retrieved October 09, 2024, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=1AB6.

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