Juhnke, Anna Kreider (1940-2005)

Newton Kansan obituary: 2005 Jun 21 p. 2; 2005 Jun 22 p. 2

Birth date: 1940 May 11

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2005 Jun 27 p. 12

text of obituary:

Bethel prof. was women's advocate

Juhnke taught English for 30 years

By Robert Rhodes
Mennonite Weekly Review

NORTH NEWTON, Kan. — Anna Kreider Juhnke, a former Bethel College English professor known as much for her advocacy of women in the church as for her devotion to teaching, died June 17 at her home after a long battle with cancer. She was 65.

Juhnke served on the Bethel faculty from 1966-96 and had dealt with cancer intermittently since 1982. She became the first female chair of the Bethel faculty in 1985.

Bethel English professor Ami Regier of Wichita, a former student of Juhnke's, remembered Juhnke for the encouragement she gave to other women on the faculty and to female students.

"She was an important role model for many women," Regier said. "In that sense, she does represent an era of change in higher education when few women were leaders and were able to create significant change. She certainly encouraged strong female students to be more ambitious, rather than play down their strengths."

Juhnke and her husband, Jim, a retired history professor at Bethel, were active in overseas service. In the early 1970s, they served in Botswana with Mennonite Central Committee. In 1987-88, they taught English in Chengdu, China, with China Educational Exchange.

Juhnke served on the executive committee of the MCC U. S. board, which she chaired for three years, and for 12 years on the board of the General Conference Mennonite Church, including seven years on the church's executive committee. She also was active with Mennonite World Conference and was a plenary speaker at the MWC assembly at Wichita in 1978.

Juhnke credited her mother, Rachel Kreider, for inspiring her interest in expanding women's roles in the church.

"My mother . . . was my first model and mentor for women in church leadership," Juhnke wrote in 1999. "Although I had never seen a woman pastor, Mom was pastoring every Sunday after the worship service — greeting new people and thinking of ways they could be integrated into the action, inquiring about griefs and joys, encouraging people of all ages."

An exacting and rigorous teacher who returned papers covered in red-penned corrections, Juhnke is remembered as an inspiration in many lives.

Claudia Limbert, president of the Mississippi University for Women in Columbus and a 1978 Bethel graduate, said Juhnke was a devoted mentor.

"She totally changed my life for the better," said Limbert, who was an impoverished mother of four when she started attending Bethel in 1975. "If I hadn't known her, I don't know what would have happened to me."

When Limbert told Juhnke her ambition was to teach kindergarten someday, "she said she saw me doing something more than that," Limbert said. "When I asked her how I could ever repay her, she said, 'Claudia, you don't pay it back, you pass it on.' "

Born May 11, 1940, in Newton, the daughter of Leonard and Rachel Kreider, Juhnke graduated from Bluffton (Ohio) College and earned master's and doctoral degrees in English literature at Indiana University. She attended Bethel for a year.

Juhnke met her husband at a peace conference in Tennessee, and they married Aug. 31, 1963, at Wadsworth, Ohio.

Survivors include her husband; a son, Karl Juhnke of Minneapolis; a daughter, Joanne Juhnke of Madison, Wis.; her mother of Goshen, Ind.; a brother, Emil Kreider of Beloit, Wis.; and two grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her father and by a sister, Sara Kreider Hartzler.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a. m. July 2 at Bethel College Mennonite Church, where Juhnke was a member. Memorials may be made to Bethel College.