Riesen, Rachel Rebecca Penner (1885-1948)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1948 Mar 18 p. 5

Birth date: 1885 Jun 28

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1948 Apr 8 p. 3, 7

text of obituary:

MRS. EMIL R. RIESEN

Mrs. Emil R. Riesen was taken in death on March 11, 1948. The cause was designated by medical science as arterial sclerosis and clotures within the muscles of the heart. Memorial services were held on March 15 in the First Congregational church of Tucson, Arizona. Her body was laid to rest in Evergreen Cemetery of that city.

Mrs. Riesen was born Rachel Rebecca Penner, the eldest daughter of Rev. and Mrs. Heinrich D. Penner at Hillsboro, Kansas, on June 28, 1885. She attended public schools in Lehigh, Newton and Hillsboro, also her father's Vorbereitungs-Schule in Hillsboro and the Bethel College Academy at Newton, Kansas, where she was graduated in 1906. For one term she attended the Kansas State Agricultural College at Manhattan.

She served as a teacher in the Hillsboro public schools, in her father's preparatory school, and for a term she taught in the academy department of Bethel College.

She was a member of the General Conference Mennonite church at Hillsboro, and after her marriage, of the Bethel College congregation. When she went to Tucson, Arizona she and her husband affiliated with the First Congregational church of that city. In each of these places she participated actively in the musical and Sunday School work of her church. In Tucson she either was in charge of or taught in the Primary Department for 25 years. She loved flowers and music, but especially little children, who responded with natural affection.

In 1911 Rachel Penner married Emil R. Riesen, then on the faculty of Bethel College at North Newton, Kansas. The first year of their married life they spent together in Cambridge, Mass., where Mr. Riesen was in graduate study at Harvard University. Then they resided on the Bethel College campus until 1918, when her husband accepted a position on the faculty of the University of Arizona, at first as professor in philosophy and later also as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts.

Mrs. Riesen is survived by her husband, two sons, three grandchildren, and three brothers and seven sisters. The eldest son, Austin Herbert with wife and one daughter, reside in Orange Park, Florida. The second son, Carl Homer with wife and a son and a daughter, live in San Francisco, California.

The seven surviving sisters are Sister Anna Gertrude of Bethel Hospital, Newton, Kans.; Christine, Mrs. J. J. R. Claassen, Beatrice, Nebr.; Clara, Mrs. H. J. Nickel, Wichita, Kans.; Linda, Mrs. W. E. Niles, Sedgwick, Kans.; Ruth, Mrs. J. K. Dirks, Wichita, Kansas; Hulda, Mrs. E. W. Haury, Tucson, Ariz.; and Verna, Mrs. A. L. Miller, Partridge, Kans. The surviving brothers are Daniel D. Penner, Trenton, Nebr.; Albert Penner, Hillsboro, Kans.; and Waldo Penner, Arkansas City, Kans.