Katie Funk Wiebe

For more than sixty years, Katie Funk Wiebe gave voice to her thoughts while sitting alone at her typewriter. She was particularly adept at opening up her life to others and "wrapping words" around her questions, doubts, and struggles. In doing so, she invited her readers not only to listen but to recognize themselves in her stories. She believed that the way to keep people alive is by telling their stories. She told family stories, and encouraged others to do this also. In addition to being an author, biographer, editor, columnist and essayist, Katie Funk Wiebe was a speaker, preacher, pioneer, prophet, provocateur, feminist, historian and influential Mennonite. In 2000 The Mennonite named her one of twenty Mennonite Writers who have had “the most powerful influence on life and belief of the General Conference Mennonite Church and Mennonite Church in the 20th century." In her retirement years she wrote and spoke about church and family history, women's issues and aging. She wrote more than two thousand articles, columns and book reviews, and wrote or edited more than twenty books. Her last books were "A Strong Frailty: Agneta Janzen Block: Heroine of the faith in the former Soviet Union" (2014); "My Emigrant Father: Jacob J. Funk, 1896-1986" (2015), a biography of her father; and a revision of her practical and encouraging book "How to Write Your Personal and Family History: If you don't do it, who will?" (2017). She was born in northern Saskatchewan to German-Russian Mennonite immigrant parents. In 1962 she came to Kansas with her husband and children. Her husband died shortly thereafter. She taught at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, for 24 years, retiring in 1990 as professor emeritus. She was the mother of four children: Joanna K. Wiebe, Susan H. Wiebe, Christine R. Wiebe (2000), and James Wiebe; seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.