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C. L. Bauer

Photo courtesy of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Archives.

Bauer, Clifford Lawrence (1891–1964)

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: November 28, 2021

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Clifford L. Bauer, a conference administrator in the United States and South America, served the Pacific Union Conference for more than 20 years, first as secretary-treasurer and then as president.

Early Experience

Clifford was born on August 3, 1891, in southeastern Michigan near the town of Clinton where his father, of German heritage, worked as a farmer and later as a garage machinist. Clifford was the only child of Ludwig and Chloe Luella Furgason Bauer.1

After completing a degree in mechanical engineering at Michigan Agricultural College (later Michigan State University) in 1913, Clifford briefly held positions at Northway Motor and Manufacturing Company in Detroit (July-October 1913) and Kalamazoo Oil Company in Kalamazoo (October 1913-April 1914).2 On January 14, 1914, he married Louise Eliza Allen in Bridgewater, Michigan, about 10 miles from Clinton where the couple had grown up and attended public school together.3 The Bauers moved to Braddock, Pennsylvania in April 1914 where Clifford took a position as a cashier for Morris and Company, and then to Charleston, West Virginia in December 1914 where he was transferred for work with the same company. In May 1919, the S. Grafton Lumber Company, also in Charleston, hired him as bookkeeper.

In 1917 Louise was converted and baptized as a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Through her influence Clifford was baptized on June 19, 1918, by Theodore Westbrook at Sistersville, West Virginia.4

Secretary-Treasurer and Missionary

Bauer did not have any formal theological training but his college degree and business experience were appealing qualifications for the role of conference secretary-treasurer and the West Virginia Conference called him to this position, beginning January 1920. Two years later he accepted the same position in the Virginia Conference, based in Richmond.5 He served only about six months there before entering overseas mission service in South America, where he was appointed secretary-treasurer of the São Paulo Mission, Brazil. Clifford, Louise, and their two young children, Donald Allen and Emmeta Beth, sailed from New York aboard the “Vassari” on December 16, 1922. Louise was pregnant with their third child.6

Bauer served in South America as a secretary-treasurer for 12 years. After approximately three years each in the São Paulo Mission and the Austral Union Conference in Argentina, he served for six years in the South American Division office in Buenos Aires.7 Most of his period of service with the division took place during the Great Depression when fiscal matters had to be carefully managed. General Conference appropriations to church entities like the South American Division were trimmed by 24 percent and salaries at all levels were reduced by approximately 20 percent.8 Reserve funds were steadily eroded.9 Some countries, Brazil for example, were permitted to offset a drop in tithe receipts with an increase in freewill mission offerings to maintain a degree of stability.10

Pacific Union Years

At the Autumn Council in 1934 Bauer was appointed secretary-treasurer for the Southwestern Union Conference with offices located in Keene, Texas.11 The role included serving as the editor of the Southwestern Union Record.12 In mid-1936 he transferred to be secretary-treasurer of the Pacific Union Conference, Glendale, California.13 He also became the ex-officio editor of the Pacific Union Recorder.14

Bauer’s appointment to the Pacific Union Conference proved to cover a period of just over two decades—10 years as secretary-treasurer (1936-1946) and 11 years as president (1946-1957).15 While in the role of secretary-treasurer he was first listed as an ordained minister in 1940.16

His range of responsibility as an executive officer of the union conference was broad, including oversight of a 12-grade educational system, two colleges, medical institutions and a large team of ministers, teachers, doctors, nurses and support staff. Moreover, the Pacific Union Conference had the largest membership of any union conference in North America. In 1937 the conference consisted of 265 churches with a membership of 29,614.17 When Bauer retired from the presidency in 1957 the number of churches had grown to 372 with a membership of 64,092.18

Glenn Calkins, one of the presidents under whom C. L. Bauer served as secretary-treasurer, described him as gifted with “exceptional ability, not only as a spiritual leader, but as a financial guide.”19 The Bauers spent their retirement in the mountains at Colfax, California. Clifford passed away at St. Helena Sanitarium on March 16, 1964, and was laid to rest in the St. Helena Cemetery. Louise and their three children, Donald, Beth and David, survived him.20 Louise passed away in Carmichael, California, on December 27, 1980, and was interred alongside Clifford in St Helena Cemetery.21

Sources

Benton, R. L. “A Change in Union Staff.” Southwestern Union Record, December 12, 1934.

Calkins, Glenn. “Change in Treasurer.” Pacific Union Recorder, July 29, 1936.

Calkins, Glenn. “Pacific Union Conference.” ARH, October 19, 1939.

“Clifford Lawrence Bauer.” FamilySearch. Accessed November 11, 2021, https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/K2F7-25T.

“Clifford Laurence Bauer.” Find A Grave. Memorial ID 47730501, February 7, 2010. Accessed November 11, 2021. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/47730501/clifford-laurence-bauer.

Clifford Lawrence Bauer and Louise Eliza Allen Bauer Biographical Information Forms. September 8, 1922. Secretariat Missionary Files, RG 21, Record 114875. General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Archives, Silver Spring, MD (GCA).

“Clifford Lawrence Bauer obituary (1).” Pacific Union Recorder, April 6, 1964.

“Clifford Lawrence Bauer obituary (2).” ARH, May 7, 1964.

“Louise Bauer obituary.” ARH, April 10, 1980.

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbooks. General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Online Archives (GCA), https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Yearbooks/Forms/AllItems.aspx.

Shaw, J. L. “Financial Statement and Appeal.” ARH, July 14, 1932.

Shaw, J. L. “News From the General Conference Treasurer.” ARH, June 16, 1932.

Wissner, U. “Progress in Brazil.” ARH, August 4, 1932.

Notes

  1. “Clifford Lawrence Bauer,” FamilySearch, accessed November 11, 2021, https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/K2F7-25T; “Clifford Lawrence Bauer obituary (1),” Pacific Union Recorder, April 6, 1964, 7.↩

  2. Clifford Lawrence Bauer and Louise Eliza Allen Bauer Biographical Information Blanks, September 8, 1922, Secretariat Missionary Files, RG 21, Record 114875, GCA.↩

  3. “Clifford Lawrence Bauer,” FamilySearch.↩

  4. Bauer Biograph Information Blanks, September 8, 1922, Record 114875, GCA.↩

  5. Ibid.↩

  6. “Clifford Lawrence Bauer,” FamilySearch.↩

  7. “Clifford Lawrence Bauer obituary (2),” ARH, May 7, 1964, 32.↩

  8. J. L. Shaw, “Financial Statement and Appeal,” ARH, July 14, 1932, 24.↩

  9. J. L. Shaw, “News From the General Conference Treasurer,” ARH, June 16, 1932, 24.↩

  10. U. Wissner, “Progress in Brazil,” ARH, August 4, 1932, 21-22.↩

  11. R. L. Benton, “A Change in Union Staff,” Southwestern Union Record, December 12, 1934, 1.↩

  12. Masthead, Southwestern Union Record, January 2, 1935, 8.↩

  13. Glenn Calkins, “Change in Treasurer,” Pacific Union Recorder, July 29, 1936, 1-2.↩

  14. Masthead, Pacific Union Recorder, July 22, 1936, 7.↩

  15. “Clifford Lawrence Bauer obituary (1).”↩

  16. “Pacific Union Conference,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook 1940, 53-54, GCA, https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Yearbooks/YB1940.pdf .↩

  17. “Pacific Union Conference,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook 1937, GCA, 51-52, https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Yearbooks/YB1937.pdf.↩

  18. “Pacific Union Conference,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook 1957, GCA, 48-52, https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Yearbooks/YB1957.pdf.↩

  19. Glenn Calkins, “Pacific Union Conference,” ARH, October 19, 1939, 19.↩

  20. “Clifford Lawrence (sic) Bauer,” Pacific Union Recorder, April 6, 1964, 7.↩

  21. “Louise Bauer obituary,” ARH, April 10, 1980, 16; “Clifford Laurence Bauer,” Find A Grave, Memorial ID 47730501, February 7, 2010, accessed November 11, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/47730501/clifford-laurence-bauer.↩

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Hook, Milton. "Bauer, Clifford Lawrence (1891–1964)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. November 28, 2021. Accessed September 12, 2024. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=88Y9.

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Hook, Milton. "Bauer, Clifford Lawrence (1891–1964)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. November 28, 2021. Date of access September 12, 2024, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=88Y9.

Copy to clipboard Download Word File

Hook, Milton (2021, November 28). Bauer, Clifford Lawrence (1891–1964). Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. Retrieved September 12, 2024, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=88Y9.

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