Clarence Peleg Santee
1856-1930
Clarence Santee was a pioneer Seventh-day Adventist minister and administrator who served as president in four conferences. He also taught and wrote numerous articles for church publications.
Clarence was born on September 19, 1856, in Steuben County, New York, one of twelve children of James Moore and Celina Coal Santee. His parents moved to Missouri while he was still young and while attending school there, he met Julia Hoff., whom he married on May 1, 1878. They established a home in Kansas and would have three daughters and a son.
A year after their marriage he was licensed to preach in Kansas, second largest SDA conference in the world at that time, where he also served as secretary and treasurer for two years. He then continued his work in Missouri, where he was ordained in 1891 at age 35. In 1894-1895, he taught Bible in what had been started in 1888 as the Minnesota Conference School in Minneapolis, a forerunner of Union College, which was founded in 1891. From 1895 to 1899 he served as president of the Iowa Conference.
In 1899 he became president of the California Conference, which at that time included the entire state. A year later the conference was divided into two conferences, and he served for the next four years as president of the Southern California Conference.
Beginning in 1905, he served as president of the Texas Conference and then as president of the Southwestern Union Conference, where he continued until 1910, when he returned to California to teach Bible in the medical school. Five years later he became president of the Northern California Conference, a position he held until ill health led to his retirement in 1925 and a return to Loma Linda.
Known for his faith and devotion, Santeewrote many articles for SDA publications. During his leadership, several institutions were started, including San Fernando Academy (1901) and Glendale Sanitarium and Hospital, and the property on which the Loma Linda Hospital would be built was purchased.
The Santees were residing in Loma Linda when he died on September 11, 1930, at age 74. Julia died five years later, on May 9, 1935, at age 75.
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Sources:
J. E. Fulton, Clarence Santee obituary, Pacific Union Recorder, October 9, 1930, 7 (A primary source for this biography); 1860 U.S. Federal Census, Ancestry.com.; Shelley Family Tree susane uploaded file; Everett Dick, Union, College of the Golden Cords, (Lincoln, Nebraska, Union College Press, 1967), 2; Adrian R. M. Lauritzen, Saints of the Northern Star, (Maple Grove, Minnesota, Maple Grove Printing, 2005), 274; H.H. Hicks, Julia Huff Santee obituary, Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, February 20, 1936, 22.
Lorenzo Dow Santee
1845 - 1919
Lorenzo Santee, a pioneer Seventh-day Adventist minister, served as a pastor in the state of Kansas and in Chicago and Moline, Kansas. He was also a writer and poet whose poem "When the King Shall Claim His Own" became the words for "In the Glad time of Harvest," Hymn #539 in the 1941 Seventh-day Adventist Church Hymnal.
Lorenzo was born in Hornell, New York, on September 19, 1845, and raised in Steuben County, New York, near Hornell, the oldest of twelve children of James Moore and Celina Coal Santee. He and his parents accepted the doctrine of the second coming of Christ and the SDA interpretation of Revelation 14 when he was very young. He moved to Illinois in his late teens, attended Tremont College and then taught for a short while in public schools before marrying Alice Merritt on March 4, 1869, at age 23. They would have six children, one son and five daughters.
Santee was ordained in 1876 by James White and then traveled to Kansas, where he started his ministry. Known as a gentle, thoughtful man without pretense, he particularly enjoyed writing articles and poetry, many of which were published in the Review and Herald in the 1880s, 1890s, and early 1900s. "In the Glad Time of Harvest," with music by Edwin Barnes, music teacher at Battle Creek College, was first published in the 1888 Hymns and Tunes, as hymn #1332, along with the words for two other hymns by Santee (#188 and "302).
The Santees were residing in Pasadena, California, when Alice died on August 10, 1917, at age 67. Lorenzo died two years later, on September 3, 1919, at age 73.
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Sources: Obituary, Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, 23 October 1919, 22; Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia, Volume 11, Second Revised Edition, 1996, (Review and Herald Publishing Association) 542.