Goerzen, Sue Nikkel (1925-2006)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2006 Apr 10 p. 16

Birth date: 1925

text of obituary:

SUE GOERZEN

Sue (Nikkel) Goerzen, a longtime member of Harrow (Ont.) Mennonite Church, died on Jan. 14, 2006, at age 80. She was born in 1925 in Corn, Okla. She married Gerhard Goerzen on July 23, 1960, and the couple moved to Harrow, where they lived ever since.

Holding a bachelor’s degree in home economics from San Jose College and a master’s in home economics from Kansas State University, she taught high school in Kansas and at Tabor College in Hillsboro before she got married. After her marriage, she taught high school for seven years in the challenging environment of the inner city of Detroit before moving to the University of Windsor, Ont., where she taught for 21 years. At her retirement in 1990, she was given a University Teaching Excellence Award in recognition of her distinguished career and her outstanding contribution to education. She also sat on the Conrad Grebel University College board from 1992-99.

Her involvement in church life reached far beyond the local congregation. On several occasions she served as parliamentarian for conference sessions, and she also served on various committees throughout the 1980s and 1990s, one of which helped establish Windsor Mennonite Fellowship. In 1990, the General Boards of the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church mandated the formation of a Listening Committee for Homosexual Concerns, on which she served as co-chair. At the time, she had just completed an eight-year stint as co-chair of a General Conference committee on human sexuality that helped draft the position paper, “Human Sexuality in the Christian life.”