Dyck, Katie A. Regier (1881-1971)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1972 Jan 6 p. 8

Birth date: 1881 Jul 11

text of obituary:

. . .

• Mrs. Katie A. Dyck, widow of Rev. H. J. Dyck, died Dec. 30 at Bethel Deaconess hospital after a four-year illness, during which she received care at the Bethel Home for Aged. She was a member of the Zion Mennonite Church at Elbing, where funeral services were conducted Sunday afternoon. Rev. Harold Graber, the pastor, officiated. Mrs. Dyck, the former Katie A. Regier, was a native of the Elbing community and lived there most of her life. Rev. Dyck was a charter member of the Herald Publishing Company board of directors and for many years wrote the devotional column, "Messages for the Heart," in the Review. He died in July 1970. Surviving are a son, Rev. Walter Dyck of Danvers, Ill.; a daughter, Miss Dorothea Dyck of Newton; five grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.

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Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1972 Jan 13 p. 11

text of obituary:

Mrs. Katie Dyck, 1881-1971

A Grateful Tribute to Our Mother

(The following tribute was presented by Rev. Walter H. Dyck at the memorial service for his mother, Mrs. H. J. (Katie) Dyck, on Sunday, Jan. 2, at the Zion Mennonite Church, Elbing, Kan. Mrs. Dyck, who was born July 11, 1881, suffered a severe stroke in 1967 and since then had received care at the Bethel Home for Aged in Newton. She died on Dec. 30.)

*     *     *     *

WE STAND and wait by mother's bed. The year is 1967. With troubled hearts we ask, "Dear Lord, when will you take her home to heaven.?"

The weeks go by, the year is gone, and now it's 1968. With tender hearts we care for her, with tear-dimmed eyes we learn to wait.

Our friends stand by and pray for us, the year is 1969. "Lord, may our lives show forth Thy grace. Teach us to say, Thy will, not mine.'"

The Lord has called our father home. The year is 1970. Why couldn't mother also go and from this body be set free.

Another year is almost gone, the year of 1971. And then what joy! God called her home. His time has come. The victory's won.

We enter 1972, with all its unknown joys and fears, while mother's life is endless joy, for there they do not count by years.

By Dorothea Dick.

OUR FAMILY wishes this to be a time of celebration. "This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!"

Until Christ came death had always been regarded as the archenemy of mankind. As early as the times of the biblical kings the Psalmist wrote, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." It is not naive to think and to say, "When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be."

A little over four score and ten years ago (that was before Elbing was founded and before the Rock Island Railroad line came through here) our mother Katie was born to Abraham and Catherine Regier. She grew up on a farmstead near the corner south of the cemetery where soon this afternoon her body will be laid to rest.

CHECKING the church records last night, we found that she had confessed her faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour as one of four young people who were baptized on the last Pentecost in the other century (1899) by Elder Cornelius H. Regier.

We have a feeling that she had a warm relationship with her Lord. She was deeply conscious of her dependence upon Him. This, we as family members, have felt in many ways.

OUR FATHER relished to tell his children and grandchildren how he was led to our mother as a life's companion. For some time father had been on a voluntary assignment in a children's home near Cleveland, Ohio. On one of his visits to the home community he felt constrained while on an errand for his father (with horse and buggy he was on his way to Elbing), from the place where the Art Dycks now live, to go the long way around the two sections. In some way it had dawned on him that it might not be too much an act of faith to believe that as he was coming by that farmstead in which the Abraham Regiers lived he would see Katie in the lane, and would rein in his horse and then drive in and ask whether he could come to see her.

Just as he came to that opening he tells, there he saw Katie walking across the far end of the lane. So he drove in and asked whether he could come to see her. She was eager for a visit.

Later when he came to the house, Grandfather Regier met him at the door, and said, "Katie is waiting for you! She is upstairs waiting for you."

SO FATHER went up, and knocked at the door. He was asked to come in. She was standing at the window on the other side of the room. And as they came toward each other (father has emphasized to his grandchildren) before he gave her his first kiss, they both dropped to their knees and committed themselves to the Lord for the time of life which he hoped might be long and which might be fruitful, which turned out to be over 65 years.

In the fall of 1904 they were married. About four years later their oldest son was born in the same house, and probably the same room in which the mother was born some years before. Another son, Herbert, was still-born. Mother thought of that day as one of the darkest in her life. Dorothea joined the family circle in 1913, and another sister, Gertrude, in 1917. Twenty-four years later Gertrude left us. Later speaking to one who had been a fellow-patient at LaJunta, Colo., mother commented, "We must rejoice with Gertrude as she celebrates her first days in Glory with her Lord."

WE REMEMBER mother as one who stood by father's side in his varied assignments, praying for him as he preached, praying for him as he was sometimes gone for some days on itinerant visits to churches in western Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. She prayed for him in very practical ways by providing hospitality for guests (and how she loved to do this!), going with him for a year to Hutchinson, Kan. incident to the birth of the congregation there. (I'll never forget how we packed all of our household belongings onto one hayrack and drove those 50 miles, which took two days one way. And a year later we moved back.) Or a year in Europe ministering to refugees, listening to their tales of woe — the countless ministries which become the duty and privilege of a minister's life.

She had a deep empathy for the underprivileged and when trying to comfort and stand with refugees in their temporary housing. Some years later when my sister was on a trip to Europe these people would recall that our mother had said, "Christen sehen sich nie zum letzten mal!" (Christians never see each other for the last time.")

OFTEN I remember mother saying, steeped in her thoughts while busy in the kitchen "Danke Heiland!" Whether a load of wheat was going by our place to the elevator or whatever the circumstance of life, in some way it thrilled her, and these two words would come out, "Thank you, Lord!"

She lived on the edge, the growing edge of a life of faith. Faith was very real to her. Tears were no strangers to her. We saw them often. Sometimes in times of sadness, but probably more often in times of joy. My family would notice it more often as we drove in after a long trip from Aberdeen, Idaho, from Denver, Colo. , or Henderson, Neb.

But then came that time about which my sister has written in the poem, these years which seemed such long years, but in which we learned, I trust, a lot of patience. How else do we learn patience but by being tested by those things which especially try patience!

I THINK it should be said that she was the last to survive of the four Abraham Regier children who grew to adulthood. She lived for her children — only two of the four grew up and came to a life of fulfillment — her five grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren, but most of all she lived for her companion, and still more, she lived for her Lord.

What more can we say? "Her children shall rise up and call her blessed!"

We want to remember her gratefully. Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!!

Now we also want to express our appreciate — our family, my wife Martha and I, and Dorothea, especially — for the many times some of you have sat by our mother's bedside, have fed her a meal, have come in to sing for her, and especially since Martha and I could not be with her as often due to distance.

LET ME CLOSE by reading two verses of a poem which I am reading, incidentally, from my father's Minister's Manual:

'When mother prayed! O precious hour, when God would come in mighty power! O memory sweet! O hallowed place when God did shine in mother's face! Somehow in prayer she found such rest; somehow her soul God always blest.

"When mother prayed! Ah then I knew within my soul that God is true; I could no longer doubt love; and, yielding all, born from above, my soul was filled with peace divine, and mother's God was henceforth mine."

The Mennonite obituary: 1972 Feb 22 p. 136
The Mennonite obituary: 1972 Mar 14 p. 181