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Frederick and Flora Paap and their family

From Ross Goldstone collection.

Paap, Frederick William (1870–1950)

By Lester Devine

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Originally trained as a secondary history teacher, a career long Adventist educator, Lester Devine, Ed.D., has taught at elementary, secondary and higher education levels and spent more than three decades in elected educational leadership positions in two divisions of the world Church, NAD (1969-1982) and SPD (1982-2005). He completed his forty years of denominational service with a term as director of the Ellen G. White/Adventist Research Centre at Avondale University College in Australia where his life-long hobby of learning and presenting on Adventist heritage issues became his vocation. 

First Published: July 15, 2020

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Frederick Paap was born in New Zealand. He was a pastor who was for a time the head of the Home Missionary Department at the General Conference in Washington, D.C.

Early Life and Education

Frederick William Paap was born on February 2, 1870, in Napier, New Zealand.1 His parents were John Joseph and Caroline Paap.2 They were parents to ten children, four of whom entered either the ministry or the educational work of the Seventh-day Adventist Church: John Henry, Frederic William, Leonard Gabbetis, and Charles Albert.3 Prior to taking up farming, John Joseph Paap had served in the New Zealand Police Force.4

In 1890 Morgan Connell, a literature evangelist, had succeeded in placing The Great Controversy in many homes in Kaikoura, including the Paap home. This created quite a stir and curiosity, and resulted in Caroline Paap’s determining to keep the Sabbath.5

Stephen McCullagh, on a pastoral visit to Palmerston North, was informed of what was transpiring in Kaikoura and determined to travel south temporarily to proclaim the three angels’ messages in that town. There he met up with the Paap family.

As a result of public presentations and personal visitation McCullagh was successful in establishing a new company of believers, the baptisms taking place on March 22, 1892. Members of the Paap family, including Fred Paap, were among those baptized on that occasion.6

After their baptism, John, Fred, Leonard, and Charles sailed to California to train for the ministry at Healdsburg College. While enrolled there, Fred Paap married an American, Flora Bell Fish.7

After some six years in America, Paap returned to New Zealand in 1898.8 Shortly after returning, he was invited to work in Queensland.9 Then toward the end of 1900 it was announced that he and his family would be transferring from Brisbane in Queensland, to the town of Lismore in New South Wales, where just a few months earlier a church had been established.10

At the beginning of 1904 Paap was at Wingham in New South Wales.11 He was ordained that year.12 Later in the year he was at Bathurst and then at Mosman, in the city of Sydney.13 In 1905 Paap was working in the city of Sydney, where he baptized 17 persons in the Stanmore church on April 30 of that year.14 During May of that year he was holding public meetings in a rented hall in Pitt Street in the city. Then he was assigned to follow up interests created by a camp meeting at Bondi, an outlying suburb of Sydney.15 He ran a series of meetings at Marrickville in Sydney in 1906.16 Apparently he was still working in the Sydney area in 1907, at Paddington, where the 32′ x 52′ “gospel tent” was set up near Centennial Park. He was a member of the evangelistic team there.17 By 1908 Paap was working in the north of the state of New South Wales in the town of Bullahdelah. This transfer was in response to a request from Dr. and Mrs. Stuttafford, who asked for a tent mission to respond to the interest raised as the consequence of a medical practice they were running there.18 The next move for the Paap family was back to the north of Sydney, where he conducted a tent mission at Galston with early indications predicting a favorable outcome for the series.19 In early 1909 the Paap family moved north again, this time to the Manning River area, where he was to respond to interest in the area as a consequence of people reading Adventist literature.20 A few months later the family was back in Sydney and involved with a tent mission in the suburb of Ashfield and where the evangelistic team found their work difficult, “with the ground being old, it proved difficult to secure a hearty response to the message.”21 Later that year Paap connected with “the work in the (state of) Victoria.”22

In September 1910 the Fred Paap family, along with that of his brother, J. H. Paap, sailed from Sydney for California. The wives of these two men both had aged parents in America and whom they desired to be near and the General Conference had invited the two men to connect with the work of the church in California.23 Once the two families arrived safely in California Fred Paap took up his pastoral role in the Southern California Conference while his brother, J. H. Paap, became the manager of the Agricultural Department at Pacific Union College in northern California, with his wife teaching drawing there.24 In May 1912 F. W. Paap left California, as he had been called by the General Conference into city evangelistic work, taking charge of a campaign in Baltimore, Maryland.25

In the United states Paap presided over the building of several churches, including the one at Riverside in California. From 1914 to 1919 he headed the Home Missionary Department at the General Conference in Washington, D.C. Between 1919 and 1923 he was in pastoral work and built churches in Toronto, Ontario, and Kansas City, Missouri. Moving back to California, he served as the chaplain of the Glendale Sanitarium for two years and helped build the Glendale churches. Retiring from active ministry in 1941, he died on November 12, 1950.26

Frederick Paap served in senior roles in two world divisions. He was an energetic man building the several churches he did, and that required good leadership skills.

Sources

“At the close of the camp meeting at Bondi . . .” Union Conference Record, November 19, 1906.

“Brother F. W. Paap has returned . . .” Bible Echo and Signs of the Times, April 4, 1898.

“Brother F. W. Paap writes . . .” Union Conference Record, March 1, 1904.

“Brother Fred Paap will soon . . .” Union Conference Record, November 1, 1900.

Charles Albert Paap Biographical Information Blank, September 25, 1905. General Conference Archives, Box 1950, P to Pet, 00114936.

“Distribution of Labour.” Union Conference Record, October 4, 1909.

“Frederick W. Paap obituary.” ARH, February 22, 1951.

“From the Pacific Recorder . . .” Australasian Record, January 2, 1911.

“Index to New Zealand Police Gazette, Volume 1, from July 2 to December 31, 1877.” Accessed March 15, 2018. http://www.nzpictures.co.nz/pandoraresearchANZ-P12-6-11.pdf.

McCullagh, Stephen. “Notes From New Zealand.” Bible Echo and Signs of the Times, May 1, 1902.

“On January 9, Pastor F. W. Paap left . . .” Union Conference Record, January 25, 1909.

“On Sunday, April 30, seventeen persons . . .” Union Conference Record, May 15, 1905.

Paap, C. A. “How the Message Entered South New Zealand.” Australasian Record, December 16, 1935.

Paap, F. W. “Bathurst and Mossman.” Union Conference Record, March 1, 1905.

———. “Bullahdelah Tent Mission.” Union Conference Record, April 20, 1908.

———. “Lismore.” Union Conference Record, July 1, 1901.

———. “Marrickville Tent Mission.” Union Conference Record, April 2, 1906.

———. “The Gospel Tent Sydney.” Union Conference Record, March 4, 1907.

Paap-Mortensen, Marion. “A Few Childhood Memories.” January 1980. Unpublished manuscript held in the private collection of Ross Goldstone.

“Pastor F. W. Paap . . .” Australasian Record, July 8, 1912.

“Pastor F. W. Paap . . .” Union Conference Record, October 3, 1910.

“Pastor F. W. Paap is conducting . . .” Union Conference Record, May 18, 1908.

“Queensland Notes.” Union Conference Record, March 1, 1900.

“The New South Wales Conference.” Union Conference Record, September 1, 1904.

Woods, J. W. “New South Wales.” Union Conference Record, May 17, 1909.

Notes

  1. “Frederick W. Paap obituary,” ARH, February 22, 1951, 23.↩

  2. Charles Albert Paap Biographical Information Blank, September 25, 1905, General Conference Archives, Box 1950, P to Pet, 00114936.↩

  3. John entered the teaching profession and was at one time principal of Avondale College; Fred was an evangelist who ministered in Australia and America; Leonard became a minister and later entered the field of education; and Charles was a minister and church planter.↩

  4. “Index to New Zealand Police Gazette, Volume 1, from July 2 to December 31, 1877,” 26, accessed March 15, 2018, http://www.nzpictures.co.nz/pandoraresearchANZ-P12-6-11.pdf; Marion Paap-Mortensen, “A Few Childhood Memories,” January 1980 (unpublished manuscript held in the private collection of Ross Goldstone).↩

  5. C. A. Paap, “How the Message Entered South New Zealand,” Australasian Record, December 16, 1935, 2.↩

  6. Stephen McCullagh, “Notes From New Zealand,” Bible Echo and Signs of the Times, May 1, 1902, 140.↩

  7. “Frederick W. Paap obituary.”↩

  8. “Brother F. W. Paap has returned . . . ,” Bible Echo and Signs of the Times, April 4, 1898, 112.↩

  9. “Queensland Notes,” Union Conference Record, March 1, 1900, 11.↩

  10. “Brother Fred Paap will soon . . . ,” Union Conference Record, November 1, 1900, 15; F. W. Paap, “Lismore,” Union Conference Record, July 1, 1901, 12.↩

  11. “Brother F. W. Paap writes . . . ,” Union Conference Record, March 1, 1904, 7.↩

  12. “The New South Wales Conference,” Union Conference Record, September 1, 1904, 4.↩

  13. F. W. Paap, “Bathurst and Mossman,” Union Conference Record, March 1, 1905, 2.↩

  14. “On Sunday, April 30, seventeen persons . . . ,” Union Conference Record, May 15, 1905, 7.↩

  15. “At the close of the camp meeting at Bondi . . . ,” Union Conference Record, November 19, 1906, 7.↩

  16. F. W. Paap, “Marrickville Tent Mission,” Union Conference Record, April 2, 1906, 4.↩

  17. F. W. Paap, “The Gospel Tent Sydney,” Union Conference Record, March 4, 1907, 3.↩

  18. F. W. Paap, “Bullahdelah Tent Mission,” Union Conference Record, April 20, 1908, 5.↩

  19. “Pastor F. W. Paap is conducting . . . ,” Union Conference Record, May 18, 1908, 7.↩

  20. “On January 9, Pastor F. W. Paap left . . . ,” Union Conference Record, January 25, 1909, 7.↩

  21. J. W. Woods, “New South Wales,” Union Conference Record, May 17, 1909, 2.↩

  22. “Distribution of Labour,” Union Conference Record, October 4, 1909, 4.↩

  23. “Pastor F. W. Paap . . . ,” Union Conference Record, October 3, 1910, 8.↩

  24. “From the Pacific Recorder . . . ,” Australasian Record, January 2, 1911, 8.↩

  25. “Pastor F. W. Paap . . . ,” Australasian Record, July 8, 1912, 8.↩

  26. “Frederick W. Paap obituary.”↩

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Devine, Lester. "Paap, Frederick William (1870–1950)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. July 15, 2020. Accessed March 14, 2025. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=481X.

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Devine, Lester. "Paap, Frederick William (1870–1950)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. July 15, 2020. Date of access March 14, 2025, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=481X.

Copy to clipboard Download Word File

Devine, Lester (2020, July 15). Paap, Frederick William (1870–1950). Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. Retrieved March 14, 2025, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=481X.

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