Harder, Bertha Fast (1914-2008)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2008 Sep 1 p. 13

Birth date: 1914 Jul 26

text of obituary:

BERTHA FAST HARDER

Bertha Fast Harder, 94, died Aug. 23, 2008, at Bethesda Home in Goessel, Kan. She was born July 26, 1914, to Herman B. and Anna Warkentin Fast in Mountain Lake, Minn.

She married Leland Harder on Aug. 8, 1951, in Mountain Lake.

She was a graduate of Mankato (Minn.) State Teachers College in 1937, of Bethel College in North Newton in 1949 and Mennonite Biblical Seminary in 1951. She was a first-grade teacher in Minnesota public schools from 1937 to 1944. Then for two years until the end of World War II, she volunteered as a relief worker in Egypt and Italy for Mennonite Central Committee and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

She was the first Mennonite Voluntary Service director and the first woman elected to a major Mennonite denominational board and continued as a member of the General Conference Mennonite Church’s Commission on Education for 18 years. Together with her husband she was a member of the faculty at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind., from 1958 to 1983.

In retirement they moved to North Newton, where she became a docent at Kauffman Museum, a frequent storyteller in the community, and director of Low German programs at Bethel’s Fall Festival. She was a member of Bethel College Mennonite Church, where she taught Sunday school children.

Survivors include her husband, Leland; two sons, John Harder and his wife, Julie, of Windsor, Ont., and Tom Harder and his wife, Lois, of Wichita; two sisters, Wilma Fast Jungas of Mountain Lake and Marie Ruth Fast Wall of Avon, Conn.; a brother, Bob Fast of Fairmont, Minn.; and five grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by a sister, Alma Fast Young.

A memorial service is being held Aug. 30 at Bethel College Mennonite Church.

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2008 Sep 8 p. 2