Craig, Richard B. (1855–1932)

Richard B. Craig was a canvasser for more than forty years in the United States and Argentina.¹

He attended the General Conference Congress held in Minneapolis in 1888. In 1893 he was appointed as director of the publishing work in South America.² He settled in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he received, in August 1894, Frank H. Westphal (1858–1944) and his family, the first Adventist pastor who worked in South America.³ The publications work had begun in December 1891 with the arrival from the United States of the canvassers sent by the Foreign Mission Board: Elwin W. Snyder, Albert B. Stauffer, and Clair A. Nowlen.⁴ Initially they did not have publications in Spanish until the Spanish edition of Patriarchs and Prophets, by Ellen G. White. The first thing Craig did was a two-week course for the four existing canvassers, complemented by biblical themes.⁵

In 1893 R. B. Craig and his wife opened a school, the first in South America, for young children in their own house, near Solá station, in the southern part of the city of Buenos Aires. Classes were taught in English, with good attendance. Mrs. Craig was the teacher, who, because of her poor health, led them to return to the United States in June 1895.⁶ Edelvina Threadgold, a convert of Craig’s, was the new teacher. Classes moved to one of the rooms in the house where the Westphal family resided.

The Craigs took the nursing course at Battle Creek Sanitarium, Michigan. They opened treatment rooms, first in Peoria and then in Decatur, Illinois. The children were Dr. E. A. Craig and Mrs. A. W. Hewitt. He took courses and was actively involved in canvassing until the time of his death, which occurred in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, on April 16, 1932.

Sources

Brown, Walton John. “A Historical Study of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Austral South America.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California, California, 1953. 4 vols.

Craig, Richard B. “District No. 3.” The Home Missionary, February 1892.

———. “Progress of the Work in South America.” The Home Missionary, June 1894.

———. “South America.” ARH, December 25, 1894.

———. “The Work in South America.” ARH, April 3, 1894.

Fishel, E. M. “R. B. Craig.” ARH, July 28, 1932.

Greenleaf, Floyd. Tierra de esperanza: El crecimiento de la Iglesia Adventista Sudamericana [A Land of Hope: The Growth of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in South America]. Trans. Claudia Blath. Buenos Aires: South America Spanish Publishing House, 2011.

Mammana, Fernando Adrián. “Historias del colportaje y la distribución de los impresos adventistas en la República Argentina desde 1891 hasta 1942” [Stories of Canvassing and Distribution of Adventist Printed Material in the Argentine Republic From 1891 to 1942]. Thesis of degree in Theology, Faculty of Theology, River Plate Adventist University. Libertador San Martín, Entre Ríos: 2005.

“Our Work in South America.” The Home Missionary, May 1895.

Peverini, Héctor J. En las huellas de la Providencia [In the Footsteps of Providence]. Buenos Aires: South America Spanish Publishing House, 1988.

Westphal, Frank H. “Journey to Buenos Aires, Argentina.” ARH, October 16, 1894.

———. Pioneering in the Neglected Continent. Nashville: Southern Publishing Association, 1927.

Westphal, Mary T. “Buenos Aires.” ARH, March 24, 1896.

Notes

1. E. M. Fishel, “R. B. Craig,” ARH, July 28, 1932, 22; Richard B. Craig, “District No. 3,” The Home Missionary, February 1892, 43; Floyd Greenleaf, Tierra de esperanza: El crecimiento de la Iglesia Adventista Sudamericana [A Land of Hope: The Growth of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in South America], trans. Claudia Blath (Buenos Aires: South America Spanish Publishing House, 2011), 30, 31, 33.↩

2. Richard B. Craig, “The Work in South America,” ARH, April 3, 1894, 213; Richard B. Craig, “South America,” ARH, December 25, 1894, 805; Walton John Brown, “A Historical Study of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Austral South America” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California, California, 1953), 1:14.↩

3. Frank H. Westphal, “Journey to Buenos Aires, Argentina,” ARH, October 16, 1894, 645.↩

4. Héctor J. Peverini, En las huellas de la Providencia [In the Footsteps of Providence] (Buenos Aires: South American Spanish Publishing House, 1988), 41; Fernando Adrián Mammana, “Historias del colportaje y la distribución de los impresos adventistas en la República Argentina desde 1891 hasta 1942” [Stories of Canvassing and Distribution of Adventist Printed Material in the Argentine Republic From 1891 to 1942] (Thesis of degree in theology, Faculty of Theology, River Plate Adventist University, 2005), 34–43.↩

5. Richard B. Craig, “Progress of the Work in South America,” The Home Missionary, June 1894, 127, 128.↩

6. Frank H. Westphal, “Journey to Buenos Aires, Argentina”; F. H. Westphal, Pioneering in the Neglected Continent (Nashville: Southern Publishing Association, 1927), 12, 39; Peverini, 43, 44, 106. “Our Work in South America,” The Home Missionary, May 1895, 100; Mary T. Westphal, “Buenos Aires,” ARH, March 24, 1896, 187, 188.↩