Bartel, Rosina Gaeddert (1897-1998)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1998 May 7 p. 8

Birth date: 1897

Text of obituary:

ROSINA G. BARTEL

Rosina Gaeddert Bartel, 101, died March 25, 1998. She was born in rural Buhler, Kan., to Dietrich and Helena Gaeddert. Her fater was a Mennonite pastor, founder and one of the leaders of the 1874 migration from Russia to Kansas.

She was baptized in Hoffnungsau Mennonite Church. She graduated from Bethel Academy in 1917.

She married Albert C. Bartel on July 30, 1926. He died in 1958.

She worked at various occupations. She was a nanny for a family in Wichita and a proofreader for Vorwarts, a German newspaper in Hillsboro. She met her husband in Hillsboro. While her husband was the builder and carpenter for Bethel College, she did various jobs at Bethel, working in food service, managing the laundry and helping out at the dairy.

She worked for Mennonite Central Committee at all locations in Newton and North Newton. She was a food buyer and attendant for the snack bar and gift shop at Bethel Deaconess Hospital. Her last work was as a clerk in the Cutting Room in North Newton.

She was an active member of Bethel College Mennonite Church. Being a member of the choir was very special. She held offices in the Women's Mission Society, was on the social committee and was in all-day sewing.

She was almost the last of the "campus kid's" mothers of the 1930s and '40s to pass away. The fathers are all gone.

Survivors include two sons, Melvin of Newton and Lewis C. of Albuquerque, N. M.; two daughters, Ruth Ann Giggy of White Deer, Texas, and Thelma May Bartel of Newton; four grandchildren and three great-grandsons. She was preceded in death by six brothers, Peter, John, Dick, Henry, Abraham and Leonard Gaeddert; and five sisters, Helena Gaeddert, Lena Reimer, Sarah Matthies, Kathryn Gaeddert and Lydia Linscheid.