Peter Penner '62

About the Author

Peter Penner is a 1962 Humanities graduate of McMaster University. Peter is a researcher and writer, who was born in Siberia on April 7, 1925, and came to Canada with his parents in the very next year. He grew up in what is now Lincoln, Ontario. He married Justina Janzen in July 1949. Following three years in Bible college, he earned his BA from the University of Western Ontario, before earning his MA and PhD at McMaster. He served his Mennonite Brethren denomination until 1964, when he took a lecturer's position in History at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. He rose through the ranks until in 1983 he was made Professor of History and served his Department as Head from 1985 to 1992. Over a period of twenty-seven years he taught British and European history, including Russian and Soviet history, with a speciality in British India. His first of three sabbaticals included four months in Northern India during 1972-73, having been awarded a Shastri Scholarship for that period. In all he published eight books and edited three, four on various aspects of the 19th century the India (British) Civil Service, and three on the Mennonite Brethren. After retirement in 1992 he was honoured with the title Emeritus Professor of History.

A TIME TO BE BORN, MEMOIR OF A CANADIAN MENNONITE

FriesenPress, 2016 

While this Memoir covers three generations, each of which has brought its different experiences, excitements, and decision-making, one constant has been the Mennonite faith and culture with which I was imbued in those first thirty years. What were those years like for me? Justina, herself the greatest of volunteers, has been my wife and companion for more than two generations. We have touched many lives, have seen many things, and have stories to tell.

Reaching the Otherwise Unreached: A History of the West Coast Children’s Mission (1939-59)

Other books by this author:

-A Time to be Born, Memoir of a Canadian Mennonite
-No Longer At Arm's Length:  Mennonite Brethren Church Planting in Canada, 1883-1983
-Russians, North Americans, and Telugus: The MB Mission in India, 1885-1975
-The Rebel Bureaucrat:  Frederick John Shore
-Memoirs of a Bengal Civilian
-The Patronage Bureaucracy in North India:  The Robert M. Bird and James Thomason School, 1820-1870
-Robert Needham Cust, 1821-1909:  A Personal Biography 
-The Chignecto 'Connexion':  A History of Sackville Methodist/United Church (1772-1990)
-A Century of Grace, 1905-2005, Grace Presbyterian Church
-Manchester to Calgary South, 1955-2005: Rotary Fellowship in Action