Habegger, LaVeta Loganbill (1925-2008)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2008 Sep 1 p. 13

Birth date: 1925 Feb 28

LAVETA HABEGGER

LaVeta Loganbill Habegger, 83, died Aug. 19, 2008, at her home in Newton, Kan. She was born Feb. 28, 1925, to Aldus and Susanna Krehbiel Loganbill near Tulsa, Okla. Her father died when she was 2. When she was 3, her mother married Albert Penner.

She married David L. Habegger on Aug. 18, 1946, in the Bethel College Chapel in North Newton.

She was baptized and united with Bruderthal Mennonite Church of Hillsboro. Since retiring in Newton, she joined Bethel College Mennonite Church of North Newton.

She graduated from Bethel College with a degree in Bible, from Goshen College with a bachelor’s degree in home economics and from Western Michigan University with a master’s degree in home economics.

She and her husband served churches in Busby and Lame Deer, Mont.; Carlock, Ill.; Allentown, Pa.; Upland, Calif.; Elkhart, Ind.; Wichita; and Champaign-Urbana, Ill., for 42 years. After retirement in 1991, they lived in Fort Wayne, Ind., and since 2003 in Newton.

In addition to being a homemaker and a teacher of children’s Sunday school classes, she taught in junior and senior high schools and at Friends University in Wichita. In Urbana, Ill., she taught quilting through an adult education program. She made many quilts, nine of which were hand quilted for the conferences of the General Conference Mennonite Church and Mennonite Church USA; and for the Strasbourg, France, Mennonite World Conference.

Survivors include her husband, David; five children, Rachel and John Pannabecker, Nathan and Nicole Habegger, Christen and Trish Habegger, Rebecca and Roger Zehr and Peter Habegger; four siblings, the children of Aldus and Susanna Loganbill: Vera Kliewer of Dodge City and Eleanor Lehman of Fort Collins, Colo., and the children of Albert and Susanna (Krehbiel) Penner: Loretta Krehbiel of Pretty Prairie and Lorene K. Goering of Newton; 11 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by two siblings, children of Albert and Eliese (Riesen) Penner: Randy Penner and Hilda Jantzen.

A memorial service was held at Bethel College Mennonite Church. Burial was in the cemetery of First Mennonite Church of Christian, Moundridge.