Charles W. Drees (1874)
DREES, CHARLES W. (1851-1926), American preacher and missionary to Argentina and other countries of Latin America, was born in Xenia, Ohio, on Sept. 13, 1851. From childhood he was surrounded by strong religious influences which led him to decide early in life to be a Methodist preacher. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan in 1871, and received his S.T.B. from Boston University School of Theology in 1874. When the M. E. Church, then opening work in Mexico, appealed for volunteers, Drees responded, and became a charter member of the Mexico Conference. His first appointment was to Puebla, a large and fanatical city. Yet in four years he built up a fair congregation, organized a boys’ orphanage, and founded a seminary. Returning briefly to the U.S.A. in 1877, he married Ada Combs of Owensville, Ohio.
In 1878 he was named superintendent of the Mexico Mission, and for about ten years worked in that country. He was then appointed to Eastern South America, where he remained until his death. Though Drees and his wife made their home in Buenos Aires, his work carried him over a vast territory, even into the province of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. At that time the M. E. Church was expanding northward into territory not yet occupied by the M. E. Church, South. In May 1889, Drees went to Porto Alegre, Brazil, taking with him the John W. Prices, who elected to remain in Brazil when the M. E. Church, South took over the work. From Porto Alegre, Drees traveled north to attend the Brazil Conference in Petropolis as a fraternal delegate in 1900. On this occasion plans were made for the transfer of the Brazil Mission of the River Plate Conference to the Brazil Conference.
Drees was sent for a four-year period to Puerto Rico, to supervise the organization of M. E. work on that island. In 1912, at the request of the American Bible Society, he went to Spain to help in the revision of the Spanish New Testament. He was known for his splendid command of that language. He also revised the Spanish translation of Watson’s Life of John Wesley and translated the M. E. Discipline.
In October 1924, Drees retired, after fifty years of active, continuous service on the mission field. He was a “man blessed with a fine mind, a sound body and wonderful endurance; with tact, dignity, good judgment and scholarly achievements . . . , and he added greatly to the impress of the Gospel upon the thought and scholarship of these Latin countries.”
He died on Aug. 30, 1926, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
W. C. Barclay, History of Missions, iii, 779.
Christian Advocate, Sept. 1, 1926.
E. M. B. Jaime, Metodismo no Rio Grande do Sul. 1963.
J. L. Kennedy, Metodismo no Brazil. 1928.