The Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies received a unique and notable gift when Mr. Teddric Mohr, retired Seventh-day Adventist hospital administrator and former CEO, donated four original plates and two serving bowls from Battle Creek Sanitarium tableware to AIIAS on December 16, 2024.
Mr. Mohr, the last president and CEO of Battle Creek Adventist Hospital, had saved these artifacts when the hospital was sold. They will be on display as part of the Adventist Studies holdings in the Leslie Hardinge Library. Additionally, a table and two chairs designed by Adventist healthcare pioneer John Harvey Kellogg were donated for the collection.
The furniture will soon be shipped to join the display of dishes, housed with the Ellen G. White Estate Branch in the Library building.
During a visit with Mr. Mohr in Penang, Malaysia, AIIAS president Dr. Ginger Ketting-Weller received the dishes, which are decorated with an elegant green design and the letters “BCS” for “Battle Creek Sanitarium.” Additionally, several vintage books, including two books by Dr. J.H. Kellogg and one by Adventist evangelist and administrator F.C. Gilbert, both of them friends of Ellen G. White, were included in the gift.
The chairs, designed ergonomically, will speak to viewers of Kellogg’s observations of the needs of the human body, with its gently curved spine. Dr. Ginger notes that her mother, who was raised in Michigan, remembered going to Adventist summer camp and gazing across the small lake at the property of Dr. Kellogg, and seeing him sitting in his white Adirondack chair in his signature white suit, watching the children play in the water.
Dr. Ginger’s mother said that she thought he always looked rather wistful. Kellogg had been disfellowshipped from the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1907, due to his theological views which were seen as pantheistic.
AIIAS expresses gratitude for the significant gift these items will bring , piquing the interesting of students and visitors to the library as to the historical personalities and ideas that shaped the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
AIIAS President Dr. Ginger Ketting-Weller receives historic Kellogg-era tableware from Teddric Mohr, former president and CEO of Battle Creek Adventist Hospital, on September 16, 2024, in Penang, Malaysia.
