Guide to the Reifsnyder Family Papers

T. Bancroft Reifsnyder was born in Newark, New Jersey on February 7, 1896, and joined the Presbyterian Church at the age of ten. He earned a BA at Lafayette College in 1916 and went on to the seminary at Princeton University, finishing his work there in 1919. Later he earned an EdM from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He was married twice, first to Vera Brewer in 1921. In 1925, one year after her sudden death, he married Grace Navarre Watson; they had five children.

During his three years at Princeton, Reifsnyder wrote to the Board of Foreign Missions (PCUSA) to inquire about applying for missionary work overseas. The BFM appointed him in March of 1919 and two years later he and his wife Vera were assigned to Mexico. He continued to serve there after her death, teaching in the seminary and holding the positions of secretary and treasurer of the mission, while his second wife taught and worked mainly with children. In 1938 the Reifsnyders were transferred to Venezuela. During their tenure there, negotiations began with the BFM for a seminary in Colombia, which had none. Four years later Colombia's first Presbyterian seminary opened in Bogotá; Reifsnyder, who had taken an active part in starting the seminary, was transferred there with his wife. In 1952 a decision was made to start a second seminary in Ibagué, Colombia; Reifsnyder was assigned there as its dean, while his wife taught in leadership training schools and worked as librarian. This venture was short-lived due to lack of funding, and the Reifsnyders, now listed as Latin American General Workers, were sent temporarily to the Matanzas Seminary in Cuba in 1953. In 1956 they returned to Mexico; in June of 1957, Bancroft Reifsnyder died of a heart attack. Grace Reifsnyder continued her missionary work until the mid-1960s, at which time she retired. She went on to teach in the United Church of Japan college of Kwassui Gakuin in Nagasaki, and thence to the National Evangelical School in Zahle, Lebanon.