Erna Harms
Erna Harms, 97, died Feb. 10, 2004, at Parkside Homes, Hillsboro.
Born Nov. 30, 1906, in Beatrice, Neb., she was the fourth of seven children of Gerhard and Anna Gertrude (Claassen) Wiebe. She grew up on a farm four miles north of Beatrice where her father raised prize-winning white Wyandotte chickens and Poland China hogs.
With a keen interest in both education and music, she attended Bethel College in North Newton and graduated from the University of Nebraska.
She taught elementary school in Holmesville, Liberty, Henderson, and Blair, Neb., as well as Hillsboro. During the last 11 years of her 24-year teaching career, she taught special education classes in Hillsboro.
After retiring in 1973, she organized and taught a non-denominational Sunday school class for the retarded.
On Oct. 3, 1941, she married Orlando Harms. He died in 1993. The couple had three children, James Orlando, Robert Wayne, and Marilyn Ann.
She was preceded in death by her husband; brothers, Arthur and Edgar; and her sisters, Gertrude, Marie Helen, Hilda, and Anna.
Survivors include her sons, James and Robert; her daughter, Marilyn Jeppesen; her sister, Anna Miller; her sister-in-law, Vera Wiebe; and her granddaughters, Lisa and Laura Jeppesen.
Services will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at Hillsboro Mennonite Brethren Church. Burial will be held before the service at Ebenfeld Mennonite Brethren Church, rural Hillsboro.
A memorial has been established with the Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies at Tabor College.
