Eitzen, Grace Crist (1898-1983)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 6 Jan 1983 p. 11

Birth date: 1898

text of obituary:

GRACE CRIST EITZEN

Grace Crist Eitzen was born March 20, 1896 near Durham in Marion County, Kan., to William Edward and Henrietta Wright Crist, who came to Kansas as pioneers — the Crists from Indiana and the Wrights from Illinois.

She attended Clark Grade School and graduated from Marion High School in 1916. She then taught school for one year.

On June 20, 1918 she married D. C. Eitzen at Glasgow, Mont. During her high school years she was converted, but was not baptized. So on Oct. 5, 1919 she was baptized and became a member of Ebenfeld church.

They established their home on a farm 10 miles southeast of Hillsboro until moving into Hillsboro in 1963. Five children were born to this union, Clifford, Paul, Mary, Howard and Edith. Paul and Howard died in infancy and Clifford at age 36 in a tractor accident in 1956.

Grace and D. C. opened their home to a number of women who taught at Williams School District 17. She was an active member of the women's sewing circle at the church and taught Sunday school until she was 80 years old. She was reared a Methodist, but when she came into the Ebenfeld community, she learned to speak and read German, bake zwieback and make pluma moos.

After her husband's death in 1967, she moved to the Uptown Apartments and was involved in quilting and other activities of the Hillsboro Golden Years Center. Her health gradually declined and on Sept. 29, 1982 she entered Salem Hospital.

Following surgery at Axtell Hospital in Newton she suffered several strokes. She died on Nov. 10 at the age of 84. She was preceded in death by her husband, four brothers and one sister.

She is survived by her daughter, Mary and husband Jona Baltzer of Moundridge, and their children, Carol and Dwayne Janzen, Craig and Gant, of Enid, Okla., Doug and Shirley Baltzer and Michael of Sterling, another daughter, Edith and husband Reno L. Penner of Hillsboro; a daughter-in-law, Viola Eitzen of Fresno, Calif., and her children, Clifford of San Francisco, David of Fresno, Marjorie of Garden Grove and Carolyn and her husband Daniel Galan, Danny and Shelli, of Fresno.