Neufeld, Katharina Derksen (1900-1977)

Mennonite Brethren Herald obituary: 1977 Oct 28 p. 33

Birth date: 1900 Feb 14

text of obituary:

KATHARINA NEUFELD

(Mrs.) Katharina Neufeld of Clearbrook B.C. passed into the presence of her Lord on July 18. She was in her 78th year. She was born on February 14, 1900, in Komeschewa, Orenburg, Russia to the Peter J. Derksens. Her early childhood and school years were spent in that village. In 1909 her parents moved to Nikolaipol, Slawgorod, in Siberia. Here she came to salvation in Christ in 1916 and was baptized and received into the Mennonite Brethren church that same summer. Her parents left Siberia in 1923 for Suworowskaya, in the Kuban area in southern Russia, where her mother died shortly after; and in 1924 the family managed to leave this place, which had become a land of terror to them, for Canada. In 1930, after spending short periods in various places, they settled down in Yarrow, B.C.

In 1936 Katharina was married to a widower from Vauxhall, Alta., John Esau, and became the mother to his three children. The Lord gave them three years together and then took him to himself in 1940. After a further three years, she married again, again to a widower and this time with ten children. It was a decision which demanded much grace and the Lord amply supplied. Her second husband was John G . Neufeld, with whom she enjoyed twenty years. He was taken from her side in 1963. After her second husband's death, she lived first in Yarrow, then in Chilliwack, and finally moved in 1975 into the Tabor Home in Clearbrook.

She was grateful for the care and spiritual community she could enjoy in the Tabor Home.

She is survived by two sisters, (Mrs.) Nettie Giesbrecht and (Mrs.) Justina Peters; three brothers, Henry, Martin and Jacob Derksen; children, John Esau, (Mrs.) Tina Rempel and (Mrs.) Annie Prochnau from her first marriage; and John, George and Henry Neufeld, and (Mrs.) Katie Buller, Anne and Sue Neufeld and (Mrs.) Hilda Stewart, from her second marriage.