Janzen, A. E. (1892-1995)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 7 Dec 1995 p. 3

Birth date: 1892

text of obituary:

Former Tabor College President Dies at 103

HILLSBORO, Kan. -- A. E. Janzen, former Tabor College president and Mennonite Brethren missions leader, died Dec. 2 at the age of 103.

Janzen, president from 1934 to 1942, guided Tabor from the brink of closure to improved financial stability. Due to the Great Depression coupled with choking drought, the college was on the verge of collapse when the Mennonite Brethren Conference of North America assumed control of the college in 1934. It was closed for a year to reorganize, and Janzen, a former Tabor business faculty member then teaching at Friends University in Wichita, came on as president.

Under his frugal operations and economic genius, Tabor ended every year of Janzen's tenure in the black.

Janzen was also deeply committed to missions. In 1945, he became executive director of Mennonite Brethren Foreign Missions, a position he held until 1960. During that time, he oversaw a major shift in mission strategy. Earlier, in 1943, he took a semester's leave from Tabor to serve with Mennonite Central Committee in Paraguay.

Abraham Ewell Janzen was born Nov. 22, 1892, in the Ukraine, and immigrated to Kansas with his parents in 1904. He was a graduate of Tabor Academy and first joined the college faculty in 1916, serving 39 years between then and 1964. He married Zola B. Lants in 1917. She preceded him in death.

Services were held Dec. 5 at Hillsboro Mennonite Brethren Church with burial in the church cemetery. He is survived by a brother , Cornelius E. of Reedley, Calif.