Chance, Harold J., 1898-1975

Harold Chance was born in 1898 to John and Mabel Wood Chance of Hardin County, Iowa. Chance served in varying capacities for the American Friends Service Committee, beginning in 1932 as Secretary for the New England Institute of International Relations, eventually advancing to Director of the Friends Peace Service by 1942 (Biographical Sketch). He also served as a delegate to the Friends World Conference held in Oxford, England, in 1952.

Chance traveled throughout the United States lecturing and speaking on the Peace Movement. He authored several books including: Bases of a Spiritual Peace Ministry, 1944; A Report on Friends Intervisitation, 1944; For the Consideration of Friends: a Survey of the Society, 1945; Toward Fellowship with God and Man, 1948; and Tradition and Challenge: The Historic Peace Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends, 1952.

Chance also collected course and lecture notes by Howard Haines Brinton (1884-1973), a 1904 graduate of Haverford College and a professor of religion at Mills, Earlham, Guilford, Bryn Mawr and Haverford colleges. Brinton worked with the American Friends Service Committee in Europe and Japan and was a director, with his wife Anna, of Pendle Hill from 1936-1950. In addition to his many other activities, Brinton served as the first editor of the Friends Bulletin .

Harold Chance died on November 25, 1975 in Lake Wales, Florida at the age of 76. At the time of his death, he was survived by his wife Wannitta Allee (whom he married in 1926), his son Norman, and daughter Carmen Mayer.

Bibliography:

The Friends Journal 22 (April 1, 1976): 211.

“Harold Chance: Biographical Sketch” (Box 1).