Lowell B. Yoder

1930 - 2023

News story
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer

Lowell B. Yoder, founder of a Holland machinery business and a volunteer for church and community, who led trips to aid Haiti and Poland, died Sunday in his Springfield Township home. He was 93.

He suffered a stroke several months ago and was in declining health, said his wife, Marylin Yoder.

Mr. Yoder began Yoder Machinery Co. in 1958 after working as bookkeeper for a machinery company near downtown Toledo.

"He wanted to get in business for himself. He knew it would be a hard start," Mrs. Yoder said Tuesday.

She pitched in - "I was secretary and runner" - but so did their five children over time.

"He started out small, and he worked very hard to get where he wanted to go," Mrs. Yoder said. "It was a family thing."

The business continues to supply metal machinery to machine shops across the United States and internationally, said his son Terry Yoder.

The older Mr. Yoder ran the business with integrity and honesty. And through him, family members learned the importance of ethics and community, the younger Mr. Yoder said.

"It should be something everyone should strive for," said the younger Mr. Yoder, who with his brother Tim took over operations in the early 1990s.

As his children were growing up, Mr. Yoder made time for their activities, as a coach and as a sponsor of youth baseball teams, for instance.

"People are always looking for helpers, and sometimes they can be hard to get," said Mrs. Yoder, who served as a Springfield Township trustee for 40 years. "We were the kind of parents who would be involved with the children."

In the early 1950s, he was among the organizers of Strawberry Acres and served on the committee for the Strawberry Festival held annually at the park. He served on the Springfield board of education from 1967-79.

A longtime member of Holland Free Methodist Church, Mr. Yoder was among the founders of Friends of Haiti Organization. He traveled to the nation for 45 years with work teams and helped coordinate the delivery of equipment for hospitals and farms, but also food.

He traveled to Poland for decades to help deliver food, equipment, and building material for churches.

Mr. Yoder in 1993 received the Badge of Child's Friend from the people of Warsaw and three other Polish communities, to acknowledge his service. A longtime Rotary Club member, he received the award at the Reynolds Corners Rotary's annual dinner. Mr. Yoder also oversaw the club's shipment of supplies to Native American reservations and to Guyana, Guatemala, and the Philippines.

"He felt the need to help people. That was one of his callings," the younger Mr. Yoder said.

He became an ordained minister in 1969 and was a member of Gideons International and the Association of Fundamental Ministers and Churches.

Mr. Yoder had a music ministry, singing and playing guitar in the Gloryland Quartet and then the Calvaryland Quartet, which performed across the Midwest.

"He enjoyed every bit of it. He was preaching the Gospel," Mrs. Yoder said.

He was a founder of WPOS-FM, a Christian radio station, and in 1966 he and Ray Turkington of the station set up a tent at the Fulton County Fair for remote broadcasts.

That marked the start of gospel music as an annual fair attraction, and the groups to which he belonged often performed. He became a member of the Fulton County Christian Music Ministries board, which oversees gospel music at the fair.

Musicians for 49 county fairs performed in a tent. He was an advocate for a building at the fairgrounds dedicated to gospel music.

"He was always looking out for the other person," said Nancy Krieger, vice president of the music ministries board. "His generosity and his commitment to God are all things that play into that. He pushed us people from the churches. He kept pushing and pushing, in a good way, and gave us strength. He prayed for us, too."

The result after five years of fund-raising was the Eunice Tedrow Gospel Building. Mr. Yoder attended the dedication at the start of the 2015 Fulton County Fair.

"You should have seen his face. He was a changed person," Mrs. Krieger said.

A former officer of the Greater Toledo Republican Club, he collected elephant figures.

He was born May 3, 1930, in Holgate, Ohio, to Vera and Loran Yoder, the oldest of what would be eight children. He was a 1948 graduate of Wauseon High School and attended Defiance College.

Surviving are his wife, the former Marylin Yoder, whom he married March 10, 1951; sons Thomas Yoder, Timothy Yoder, and Terral Yoder; daughters Trudy Vicary and Tamra Leinbach; sisters Marel Harris and Lois Gerken; 14 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 2-8 p.m. Friday and after 9 a.m. Saturday at Holland Free Methodist Church, where funeral services will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday. Arrangements are by Walker Funeral Home Holland-Springfield Chapel.

The family suggests tributes to Toledo Christian School, in care of TC Foundation, for the Tyler Lowell Yoder Scholarship Fund, named for his late grandson, or via toledochristian.com.