Landa U. Kreider

Among the Brethren participating in the colonization in Cuba in the early 1900s (see yesterday's entry) was Landa U. Kreider and family. He was born September 14, 1874 in South Whitley, Indiana and received his education in the rural schools of Whitley County. He was married to Emma Blanche Snell of Sidney, Indiana in 1894 and together the family farmed until 1906.

Brother Kreider was called to the ministry in 1901 by the Sugar Creek Church and in 1906 he took over the ministerial work in the new colony in Cuba. After serving six years in Cuba, he returned to Indiana in the spring of 1912. They returned to the Kreider homestead until 1918 when he moved to Michigan to serve as pastor of the Sugar Ridge Church of the Brethren.

He returned to Indiana to serve the following churches: North Winona (1921-1925). In 1925 he moved to Columbia City, where he served as both pastor and elder of the Blue River congregation until his retirement in 1948.

A son and a daughter died in Cuba and are numbered among the nineteen buried at Omaja. His wife Emma Blanche died in 1913 and he later remarried a second wife also named Emma.

Source: Lest We Forget and Tales of Yester-Years, Rolland C. Flory