Bob's tribute to Agnes Klassen

I read this tribute at the funeral for Agnes Klassen.

Agnes Klassen (1919-2019)

By Bob Klassen

One of my favorite verses is Micah 6:8

“And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

I think that Agnes did this.

There were three major storms in Agnes' life that deeply affected her. And, in between, there were long periods of calm, work and exploring the world.

The first major storm was from the time of her birth in 1919 and lasted six years. There is a Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Her first six years were interesting times. She was the fourth child of a gentleman farmer named Henry Klassen, who was born a generation too late. The Klassen’s became Mennonites in the 1600’s and lived in the Netherlands. In the early 1800’s, they emigrated to Germany so they could remain pacifists. Ironic, right? That arrangement only lasted a generation so they then emigrated to southern Russia to become part of German-speaking Mennonite colonies. The Klassens had married into money in the 1800's and in the early 1900’s owned a castle that had a name, Reimerhof. However, history intervened. In 1917, the Bolsheviks toppled the Czar monarchy and initiated a multi-party civil war. Southern Russia was a battleground for internal armies, German invaders and roving Russian bandits. The Mennonite colonies were ripe targets because they had wealth, land, were German sympathizers and were religious. Soon Reimerhof was taken over by the Bolsheviks. It took ten years of civil war, persecutions and famines before the Communists dominated all of Russia. Agnes was born away from Reimerhof in the early part of this upheaval. When she was two years old, she contracted a mild form of polio in her right foot, which left her with a permanent limp. Her family was one of the lucky few to be able to emigrate in 1924. Of 200,000 Mennonites, only about 17,000 escaped due mostly to the Red Cross. Many of the rest were sent to Siberia and perished. After a year or so after arriving in Quebec City, the Klassens had settled on a farm near Dundurn, Saskatchewan.

Thus began the first of three periods of peace. Agnes went to elementary and then high school. She helped her mother and sisters with the house work. She also began a life-long interest in birds and wildlife.

The second storm started when AAgnes was about seventeen and it lasted about ten years. The weather had turned against farmers in the midwest during the 30’s with drought causing crop failures. Agnes’ older sisters took jobs in Dundurn. When Agnes was eighteen, her mother, with whom she was very close, passed away. Next, her older brother, Dietrich, left to emigrate to Germany. At that time, Germany was recruiting German-speakers around the world to return to the fatherland. When she was twenty, her father gave up the farm and moved to the St. Catherines area to seek farm work. Sadly, he didn’t make an effort to keep his children together and in a few years he re-married. Agnes lived with her sister Erica in Toronto. They survived initially by cleaning houses. Agnes took a short secretarial course and obtained her first sustainable job at the Department of lands & Resources. Later it became the Ministry of Natural Resources. It turned out to be a very good career-long fit for her. By this time, her older brother was fighting with the Germans and her younger brother, my dad, was fighting with the Canadians against the Germans. She was about twenty-six when this global and family conflict ended. Both brothers survived the war. Her younger brother returned to Toronto and her older brother later settled in Ohio.

Her next twenty-five years were peaceful. They were filled with steady work, living with her sister Erica and gradually exploring more of the world. When she was forty, she put together all of her savings to pay for a trip, all by herself, to Europe. She said later that she never regretted this decision. She and Erica bought a car around this time and they would come to visit us in Sarnia at Easter and sometimes at Christmas.

The last period of major upheaval happened when she was in her early to mid-fifties. First, the wife of her younger brother died (my mother). A few months later, her father passed away. And then, her sister and long-time roommate, Erica, married and moved to Kitchener.

Her longest period of calm started when her younger brother married again and lived close by. The three were good friends. After her retirement, she traveled more extensively and pursued her interests in literature, art and bird-watching.