Introduction

Biography

Henry was the son of Dan­ish par­ents, and hus­band of An­na Mar­ga­ret Sniff. Hen­ry and Mar­garet’s son, Hen­ry Irv­ing Ras­mus, Jr., was a min­is­ter like his fa­ther.

Henry Sr. moved west with his fa­mi­ly ov­er the Ore­gon Trail. He be­gan his min­is­te­ri­al ca­reer in 1891, as a pre­sid­ing el­der in the Me­tho­dist Co­lum­bia Ri­ver Con­fer­ence.

In 1892, he be­came pastor of the First Me­tho­dist Church in Spo­kane, Wash­ing­ton. In 1894, he was trans­ferred to the Ore­gon Con­fer­ence. Five years lat­er, he ac­cept­ed a pas­tor­ate in Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois.

He re­turned to the First Me­tho­dist Church in Spo­kane in 1904, and while there was in­stru­ment­al in the erect­ion of the Cen­tral Me­tho­dist Church in 1907.

In 1911, Ras­mus ac­cept­ed a pas­tor­ate at the First Me­tho­dist Church in Long Beach, Ca­li­for­nia, said to be at the time the larg­est Me­tho­dist church in south­ern Ca­li­for­nia. He stayed at Long Beach se­ven years, then moved to Glen­dale, where he stayed un­til re­tir­ing in 1921.