Wiebe, Esther Margaret Claassen (1901-2000)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2000 Nov 30 p. 10

Birth date: 1901 Jan 17

text of obituary:

ESTHER M. WIEBE

Esther M. Wiebe died Nov. 4, 2000, in Newton, Kan. She was 99.

Esther Margaret Claassen was born Jan. 17, 1901, in the family home near Potwin, the ninth of 15 children of John and Elizabeth Thierstein Claassen. Esther attended Plum Grove Elementary School and graduated from Potwin High School. She was baptized at Emmaus Mennonite Church on May 19, 1918, by Gustav Harder and chose as her Bible verse for that occasion Psalm 32:8. On that day, Esther also joined the Emmaus church and remained a member throughout her life.

Esther’s mother died in 1923 when Esther was 22 and her youngest sibling was 8. She assumed the role of mother to the younger children, and in later years she was like a grandma to many of her nieces and nephews.

On Aug. 10, 1927, she married Willie B. Wiebe of Whitewater.

They moved to his parents' family farm, where he farmed and raised cattle and she was a homemaker. They had four children: Evelyn, Lloyd, Kenneth and Mariann. Willie died unexpectedly when he was just 41, and Esther was left to raise their four young children on her own. She did so with strength and resilience. She never remarried, living on her own for nearly 60 years.

In 1957 she moved to Whitewater, leasing the homeplace to her son, Lloyd, and his wife, Elma. She lived on her own until 1996, when she moved to Kansas Christian Home in Newton.

She is survived by a daughter, Evelyn Quiring and her husband Frank of North Newton; two sons, Lloyd and his wife Elma of Whitewater and Kenneth and his wife Marie of Whitewater; 14 grandchildren; 26 great-grandchildren; and two sisters, Elsie Claassen of Whitewater and Edna Regier of Newton.

She was preceded in death by 12 brothers and sisters and a daughter, Mariann Siebert.