IN MEMORIAM
EXPANDED EULOGIES
Lenora Friesen
Lenora Doris Friesen was born Oct. 15, 1928, to Jacob and Elizabeth Olfert Friesen in Mt. Lake, Minnesota.
She grew up on the farm and helped her parents both with farm work and household chores. She was baptized as a teenager in the creek behind the church and joined the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren church of Mt. Lake.
After high school she attended Grace Bible Institute in Omaha, Nebraska.
On June 24, 1948, she married Donald Klassen and worked with him to establish their farm south of Mt. Lake.
Church was an integral part of her life and she was active in many committees. Family and friends were also valuable to her, and time was spent with them.
In November 1966, the family moved to Kansas, and another chapter in their life began. Lenora returned to school and graduated from St. Joseph School of Nursing. She used this education in many of the different places they would live, but enjoyed surgical nursing the most.
She was an excellent seamstress and quilter and sewed many clothes for others and her family. This included suits for Donald and leisure suits for her boys to formals and pantsuits for her girls and also for many others including the foreign exchange students at Hesston College.
Each of her children and grandchildren received a quilt from her.
She enjoyed the mission trips that she and Donald went on and the opportunities for church work with the different churches they served.
On March 30, 2021, Lenora suffered a stroke and passed away on April 9.
She was preceded in death by her sister Amanda, brother Alden, parents, and husband Donald.
Those left to celebrate her life are her children Marlene and Royce McKitrick, San Marcos, Texas, Sharon and Alan Boese, Lehigh, Marlo Klassen, Manhattan, Roger and Sandra Esch, Los Lunas, New Mexico, Myron and Shelley Klassen, Hesston, and Sheldon Klassen, Wichita; 31 grandchildren and 32 great-grandchildren; sister Arlene and husband Don Krehbiel, Omaha, Nebraska, sister-in-law Sophie Klassen, brother-in-law and sister-in-law Loyal and Bertha Klassen, Mt Lake, Minnesota, and many nieces and nephews.
Visitation with family will be 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, April 23 at Jost Funeral Home. A graveside service will take place at Alexanderwohl Church cemetery at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, April 24.
Memorial gifts can be given to First Mennonite Church or Quilter’s Corner MCC in care of Jost Funeral Home P.O. Box 266 Hillsboro, KS 67063. Online condolences at www.jostfuneralhome.com.