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Castillo, Elsie Shank (1911-2006)
Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2006 Mar 13 p. 15
Birth date: 1911 Jun 1
text of obituary:
By Mennonite Mission Network
LA JUNTA, Colo. — Elsie Shank Castillo, 94, a former mission worker in Chicago and the daughter of mission pioneers in Argentina, died Feb. 1 in a La Junta nursing home.
Castillo was born June 1, 1911, at La Junta, the daughter of J. W. and Emma Hershey Shank. With her family and T. K. and Mae Hershey, Castillo moved to Argentina in 1917, where her parents served with Mennonite Board of Missions as pioneer mission workers.
She left Argentina to attend Goshen (Ind.) College from 1931-34.
Castillo served with MBM, a predecessor agency of Mennonite Mission Network, in 1935 at the Chicago Spanish Mission, where her father had started Spanish services during a temporary North American assignment.
She returned to Argentina from 1936 until her marriage to David Castillo on July 25, 1938.
Her husband was pastor at the Chicago Spanish Mission and, according to the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, the first Hispanic Mennonite pastor in North America.
The couple served at the Chicago Spanish Mission until they moved to La Junta, where David Castillo pastored a Spanish mission church, which later became Emmanuel Mennonite church. She taught elementary school for 23 years in Colorado.
Castillo's husband died June 7, 1986. Surviving are a daughter, Anita Beadles of Emery, S.D.; two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
