Floyd Bartel (1929 to 2017)
Obituary
Floyd G. Bartel, 87, of North Newton,
died Friday (May 5, 2017) at Schowalter Villa in Hesston. He was the
husband of Pearl (Schroeder) Bartel from 1951 until her passing in
1994. In 1995, he married Justina D. Neufeld in North Newton. She
survives of North Newton.
Other survivors include two brothers,
Marvin (Delores) Bartel of Goshen, Indiana; and Dean (Gwen Preheim)
Bartel of Goshen; four children, Katherine Bartel (Rus Binkley) of
North Carolina, Nathan Bartel (Sylvia Bartel) of North Newton,
Matthew Bartel of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Rebecca Quiring (Dave
Quiring) of Fresno, California; and one grandchild, Henry Bartel of
Manhattan. In addition to Pearl, he was preceded in death by his
parents, Henry and Linda (Penner) Bartel of rural Hillsboro; his
stepmother, Dora (Ewert) Bartel of Hillsboro; and one brother, Alfred
Bartel of rural Hillsboro.
A memorial service will be at 11 a.m.
Saturday (May 20, 2017) at Bethel College Mennonite Church. The
family will greet friends from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday (May 19, 2017)
at Menno Hall, Kidron Bethel.
Floyd was born Nov. 25, 1929, in rural
Hillsboro. His youth spent on the farm instilled a work ethic and
sense of frugality that followed him throughout his life. It also
instilled a love of gardening that he continued for more than 80
years.
During the Great Depression, the war
and the years that followed, Floyd attended the Silverfield one-room
country school for eight years, Hillsboro High School for two years,
and the Mennonite Bible Academy at Bethel College, where he finished
high school and attended college. His family was part of a close-knit
farm community centered around Johannestal Mennonite Church, where he
was baptized.
After high school and the Bible
Academy, Floyd taught at Steinbach country school and Buhler
Elementary School.
Early in their marriage, Floyd and
Pearl served a one-year voluntary service assignment in Cuauthémoc,
Mexico, where Floyd taught in a one-room school for German-speaking
children. Floyd returned and graduated from Bethel College in 1953.
While still a senior at Bethel, he served as interim pastor for a
congregational church in Maize.
Floyd attended Mennonite Biblical
Seminary in Chicago, where he also served as interim pastor and
minister of community outreach at Woodlawn Mennonite Church. After
graduating from seminary in 1956, he taught public school and trained
at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka. While in Topeka, he became the
founding pastor for the Southern Hills Mennonite Church.
In 1965, Floyd and his family moved to
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he was the pastor of Bethel Mennonite
Church for 11 years. In 1976, he returned to Kansas, where he worked
for the General Conference Commission on Home Ministries.
In 1982, he became the pastor at First
Mennonite Church in Newton, and in 1989 he went to work for the
Western District Conference as associate conference pastor, later
adding part of his time at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary
branch in North Newton, an extension of the Elkhart seminary.
Floyd began a busy retirement in 2002,
teaching the Chapel Sunday School class at Bethel College Mennonite
Church, and continuing to garden both at home and as the gardener for
the Kaufman Museum's Prairie Garden exhibit, a task he had begun in
1993.
After Pearl's passing in 1994 and his
remarriage to Justina, Floyd and Justina traveled to Ukraine
(Justina's birthplace), Poland (Floyd's grandparent's birthplace),
India, Paraguay, Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, China and Germany.
In 2011, Floyd and Justina moved across
the back yard to a duplex-style house in the Kidron-Bethel Retirement
Community. Floyd's son Nathan and his wife, Sylvia, bought their
former house in North Newton, and Floyd continued to tend to the
gardens and grounds.
In 2015, Floyd and Justina were joined
by family and friends to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. By
late 2016, Floyd's frontal lobe disorder required him to move to
skilled nursing, first at Kidron-Bethel and then at Schowalter Villa.
Memorials may be designated to Bethel
College or Peace Connections at Bethel College Mennonite Church.
