Kenneth Ellsworth, retired American Baptist Minister, passed away March 27, 2009 in Wichita, Kansas.
Visitation will be held Tuesday, March 31, 2009 from 12:30 until the Funeral service beginning at 1:30 p.m. both held at First Baptist Church.
Burial will follow at White Chapel Memorial Gardens. The son of Iva (Engler) and William Earl Ellsworth, Kenneth was born February 28, 1915. He and his wife, Mary Jane, were deeply devoted to their Christian faith and their immediate and extended family. Kenneths involvement with American Baptist Churches began shortly after his birth when his mother enrolled him in the nursery at First Baptist Church in Wichita. He joined the church when he was nine years old and was ordained there in to the ministry in 1941. He graduated from East High School in 1934 and enrolled at Baylor University in 1937. His studies were interrupted by World War II. He joined the United States Army December 7, 1941 where he was an assistant Army Chaplain and later became a belly gunner in a B-17 bomber. He flew thirty-five combat missions over Europe. With his crew, he was in the air on D-Day fighting high over the scenes of the allied invasion on French beaches.
Kenneth and Mary Jane met during his military training in California and were married on March 21, 1943. They celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in Wichita before she passed away in 2004.
At the time of his discharge from the Army, Kenneth was called as Pastor of Palmyra Baptist church, Benton, Kansas and attended Friends University. In 1946 he left to attend William Jewell College, Liberty, Missouri, where he was Pastor of First Baptist Church in Linden, Missouri. He received his Bachelor of Divinity Degree from Central Baptist Seminary in 1950. Upon graduation he served as pastor of First Baptist Church in Concordia, Kansas and later First Baptist Church in Overland Park, Kansas. In 1959 he became area minister for the Kansas Baptist convention in southeast Kansas and in 1966 moved back to Wichita as the South Central Area minister. Before his retirement he served seven years as administrator for Prairie Homestead American Baptist estates in Wichita. AFter retirement he continued his lifelong ministry as interim pastor at fourteen churches and served in Kansas for three years as an advisor for the Ministers and Missionaries Board.