Bertha Fast Harder
Bertha Fast Harder, 94, died
Saturday (Aug. 23, 2008) at Bethesda Home in Goessel. She was born July 26,
1914, in Mountain Lake, Minn., to Herman B. and Anna Warkentin Fast. They
preceded her in death. She married Leland Harder on Aug. 8, 1951, in Mountain
Lake. He survives of Kidron-Bethel Retirement Village in North Newton. Bertha
was a graduate of Mankato, Minn., State Teachers' College (1937), Bethel
College in North Newton (Bachelor of Arts, 1949), and Mennonite Biblical Seminary
(MRE, 1951). She was a first-grade teacher in Minnesota Public Schools for
seven years (1937 to 1944).
Then, for two years, until
the end of World War II, she volunteered as a relief worker in Egypt and Italy
for the Mennonite Central Committee and the United Nations Relief and
Rehabilitation Administration. After her service, she traveled to many churches
in the United States and Canada reporting about her relief work.
She also served as the first
Mennonite voluntary service director. She was the first woman elected to a major
denominational board and continued as a member of the Commission on Education
for 18 years, active in planning, writing and leading in the program of
Christian education.
Together with her husband,
she was a member of the faculty at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary
in Elkhart, Ind., for 25 years (1958 to 1983). After their retirement, they
moved to North Newton, where she became a docent at Kauffman Museum, a frequent
storyteller in the community, and director of Low German programs at Bethel College's
annual Fall Festival.
She was an active member of
Bethel College Mennonite Church, where she taught Sunday school children for 18
years.
Other survivors include two
sons and their families, John and Julie Harder of Windsor, Ontario, and their
daughters, Chani and Leah, and Tom and Lois Harder of Wichita and their
daughters, Hillary, Madeline and Anna. Bertha also leaves two sisters and a
brother, Wilma Fast Jungas of Mountain Lake, Marie Ruth Fast Wall and husband,
Gaylord, of Avon, Conn., and Bob Fast and wife, Odette, of Fairmont, Minn.
She also was preceded in
death by a sister, Alma Fast Young, and Alma's husband, Philip, of Sun Lake,
Ariz.
A memorial service will be at
11 a.m. Saturday at Bethel College Mennonite Church, following a family inurnment
at Gnadenau Mennonite Cemetery south of Hillsboro.
Memorials have been
established with Mennonite Central Committee and Bethel College Mennonite
Church.
