James W. Anderson was born March 17, 1850, to Dennis and Margaret Anderson in Belmont County, Ohio. He joined the church in Salem, Ohio, in 1863 and remained quite active in the church throughout his younger years. He received his early education in local schools and at an academy in Antrim, Ohio; he also attended Mt. Union College. He married Maggie R. Perkins on September 21, 1871. In the late 1870s, Rev. Anderson became interested in the work of the Methodist Church in the new state of Kansas, and in 1880 he joined the South Kansas Conference at the session held in Ottawa, Kansas, with Bishop Foster presiding. Two years later, when the Southwest Kansas Conference was organized, Rev. Anderson became a charter member and remained a member until his death. He served charges in Harper, Anthony, East Wichita, Florence, Andover, Conway Springs, Burden, Douglass, Wichita Dodge Avenue, Halsted, Peabody, and Nickerson. He served as Chaplain of the Kansas House of Representatives during one legislative session in 1911. He served as Conference Evangelist from 1902 until taking the retirement relation in 1914. According to his Conference memoir, Rev. Anderson exhibited not only zeal in his ministry but sound judgement in his business dealings; by his economy and wise investments, he was able to accumulate money sufficient to make several bequests to various charitable enterprises. He made many contributions to Southwestern College (Winfield, Kansas) and to Wesley Hospital (Wichita). He secured the charter for the Methodist Home for the Aged in Topeka, where he later spent the final few years of his life, and where he died on April 28, 1929. Funeral services were held at the Home in Topeka and at First Church, Wichita. Several of his Conference brethren assisted at his service and carried to his final resting place in Maple Grove Cemetery, Wichita, Kansas. Rev. Anderson’s memoir can be found in the Southwest Kansas Conference minutes for 1929, page 223. The memoir for his wife, who preceded him in death, is in the Southwest Conference minutes for 1924, page 377.

Note written by Sarah St. John