Ortman, Leslie (1929-2008)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2008 Nov 10 p. 9

Birth date: 1929 Jan 17

text of obituary:

LESLIE ORTMAN

Leslie Ortman, 79, died Sept. 24, 2008, in Lewisville, Texas. Active until the end, he had arrived at his daughter Faith Hartman’s home nine days earlier from two months of doing tractor field work at Jubilee Partners in Georgia.

He was born Jan. 17, 1929, to Henry C. and Adina Ortman at home on a farm in McCook County, S.D. He graduated from Freeman (S.D.) Academy as valedictorian and went on to earn his bachelor’s degree from Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kan., in 1950.

He married Hope Wiebe on Aug. 29, 1950, and together they prepared for the mission field.

He received a master’s degree in animal husbandry from Kansas State University and then a bachelor’s degree in divinity from Central Baptist Seminary in Kansas City, Kan. In 1957, he and Hope and their two sons went to Belgium to learn French and then went on to the Belgian Congo as Mennonite Brethren missionaries. Independence followed by rebellion in 1960 forced them to flee the Congo with their four young children. From 1961 to 1965, he pastored First Baptist Church in Alta Vista, Kan., while earning a second master’s degree, followed by a doctorate in genetics, from KSU in 1965. He then accepted a position with Cornell University in New York for two years, followed by a year at Franklin College in Indiana before becoming professor of biology at Friends University in Wichita, Kan., in 1967, and soon after chair of the science department. In 1976 he was asked to be president of Freeman Junior College. In 1979 he returned to Wichita, pastoring several churches while teaching special education in high school. In 1995, he and Hope moved to Georgia to live with their son Blake and his family at Jubilee Partners. After Hope’s death in 2006, he split his time between his daughter Faith in Texas and Jubilee Partners.

Survivors include three sons, Mark, Blake and Bryan; a daughter, Faith Ortman Hartman; and 12 grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his wife of 55 years, Hope, on July 25, 2006.