Wiebe, Viola Bergthold (1903-1996)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 26 Sep 1996 p. 10

Birth date: 1903

text of obituary:

Longtime MB India Missionary Dies

HILLSBORO, Kan. -- A pastor's earnest prayer beside the open grave of a young mother concerning her infant daughter became a blueprint for a rich life of joyful service on two continents.

"Lord," he prayed, "let this small child, Viola, grow up to serve thee in the work her mother had to leave so early."

That child, Viola (Bergthold) Wiebe, became a missionary to India, the land where her mother was buried. She served 31 years with the Mennonite Brethren Board of Foreign Missions from 1927 to 1958 and with the American Baptist Board of Missions from 1961 to 1970.

She died Sept. 10 in Hillsboro at the age of 93.

Viola was the eldest child of pioneer missionaries Daniel and Katherina Bergthold, who came to India shortly after Viola's birth on Aug. 17, 1903. The young couple had been in India only a year when smallpox struck Katherina and she died.

In 1905 Daniel married Anna Epp, a fellow missionary, who cared for Viola. Viola's second mother died in childbirth in 1915. Anna Suderman, a single missionary, assisted with the Bergthold children. In 1916 Anna became their mother.

On furlough in 1921, the family settled temporarily in Oklahoma. That fall, Viola and her sister Lydia bid a tearful farewell to their parents and younger sisters and brothers who were returning to India. It would be almost seven years before they would see them again.

Viola enrolled in Tabor Academy in Hillsboro and graduated in 1925. There she met John A. Wiebe. They were married June 1, 1926. They accepted a call to the mission field in India.

At first the Wiebes worked with Viola's parents at the Nagakurnool Mission Station. Then they transferred frequently to various mission stations. Beginning in 1937 they were stationed at Mahbubnagar and supervised this field and three others.

Viola worked in a medical clinic and did rural health work and women's evangelical outreach. The mission work flourished, and the Wiebes continued in this capacity until 1958. At that time the MB mission board established a new policy regarding older missionaries, and they were asked to complete their term and not return to the field.

In 1961 they were invited by the American Baptist Board of Missions to teach at their seminary in Ramapatnam, India, and supervise the dispensary work. There on the coastal plains of eastern India they became part of a joyful seminary community.

This rewarding time was interrupted when John Wiebe died by drowning in the Bay of Bengal on Dec. 28, 1963. Viola continued her work until 1970, teaching in the seminary, working with village women and supervision the dispensary.

In 1970 she moved to Hillsboro. In the local Mennonite Brethren church she taught Sunday school classes and led Bible studies and prayer groups. In 1971 she received the Tabor College Alumni Merit Award. With her daughter Marilyn Dodge, she wrote Sepia Prints, memoirs of her life in India.

She is survived by four daughters, Esther Wiebe of Hillsboro, Viola Ruth Friesen of Peshawar, Pakistan, Irene Janzen of Moundridge and Marilyn Dodge of Nairobi, Kenya; three sons, John C. of Trinidad, Calif., David of Kearney, Neb., and Paul of Kodaikanal, India; 23 grandchildren and 33 great-grandchildren; two sisters, Bertha Ikenberry of Washington and Martha Pullman of Fresno, Calif.; and a brother, Henry Bergthod of Salem, Ore.