Yoder, Bessie King (1906-2008)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2008 Sep 1 p. 11

Birth date: 1906

text of obituary:

Hesston College's oldest alumna, 102, dies in Iowa

By Phil Richard

Hesston College

HESSTON, Kan. — Bessie King Yoder, the oldest alumna of Hesston College, died Aug 2 in Kalona, Iowa, at the age of 102.

President Howard Keim gave a tribute at the memorial service at Lower Deer Creek Mennonite Church near Kalona on Aug. 6.

"Bessie remained very interested in Hesston College and prayed daily for faculty, staff and students," Keim said.

Yoder graduated from Hesston Academy in 1924 and from Hesston College in 1928.

At age 98 she was the featured speaker at the college's alumni banquet in 2004. She spoke on "Learning as We Go," making the case that all of life can be an exercise in learning.

College historian John Sharp said Yoder had an early association with learning and with Hesston. "As a beribboned 3-year-old, she appeared with her sister Emma on the first Hesston Academy photo, taken on opening day, Sept. 22, 1900. Her mother, Anna Smith King, championed the case of a school in the West, crafting a proposal for consideration at the fall 1907 Kansas-Nebraska Conference session at East Holbrook Mennonite Church in Cheraw, Colo. The conference approved, and the Mennonite Board of Education endorsed the idea, which became Hesston Academy and Bible School, and later Hesston College."

Yoder credited her mother for her lifelong love of learning. Anna Smith King, who had to quit school in fourth grade to help her mother after her father died, wanted her children to get the education she missed.

After her college grduation in 1928, Yoder taught school at Zimmerdale for two years. On Aug. 4, 1931, she married Herman Yoder, and they settled on a farm near Kalona.

After farming several years, Herman studied to become a mortician, and the Yoders opened a funeral home in their home. Later they bought a large house in Kalona, where they continued in the funeral business for 49 years. Herman died in 1982.

Like her mother, Yoder encouraged their children — Ed, Lois Brubacher, Dorothy Yoder Nyce and Evelyn Miller — to study the Bible and get a good educaion at a Mennonite college. All graduated from Goshen (Ind.) College.