Walter Alexander Elwell

My mentor and college professor at Belhaven, my boss and friend when we worked on the Bible Encyclopedia at Tyndale, my inspiration to earn my PhD and become a teacher. Thank you.

As the youngest of the Elwell/Dismeier clan, I was truly the baby of the family. I was blessed to have Walter as my father for 37 years, and for 37 years I saw him demonstrate the fruits of the spirit over and over again. He expressed the joy he felt in his new family through his constant generosity and his deep, quiet laugh at the things that only exasperated my mom. A man who yearned for peace, he was definitely a calming presence in our household, taking my shenanigans and every life...

I was a grad student at Wheaton, and one very cold, bitter winter, my rickety (and rusty! Toyota Celica broke down. A friend and fellow student, Gary Madison, contacted Dr. Elwell, and the two of them pushed my car through snow streets to Doc's house -- where they repaired it for me! Later on, I worked in Grad Admissions when Doc became Dean of the Grad School. When I learned of his engagement to Barb, I went into his office to congratulate him and he was all smiles. He said to me, "I...

I was Walter's colleague at Wheaton College for his tenure there. A few years ago I called him in Princeton to find out how he and Barbara were getting along, and he told me that he was in the process of selling his library, which contained many first editions and was giving the proceeds to missions. That was a profile of Walter, a man of the church whose influence spread around the world. Rhonda and I once sat in his class on the Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ, and oh how rich!...