Collection 00/MS.469 - Agnes Lohrentz Papers

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary:

Agnes Lohrentz was born near Moundridge, Kan., on Dec. 26, 1897. She died at the Bethel Home for Aged on Aug. 1, 1991, at age 93.

She was the second youngest of nine children who grew to adulthood in the family of Jacob and Maria Martens Lohrentz.

Upon completing elementary school, she attended the Bethel Academy in North Newton and graduated in 1922. In 1925 she entered the deaconess training program at Bethel Deaconess Hospital, from which she graduated in 1928.

She became a registered nurse and began training in laboratory technology at St. Francis Hospital in Wichita. She returned to Bethel Deaconess Hospital and served in the laboratory and nursing.

She was ordained as a Bethel Sister by pastor J. E. Entz on June 11, 1933.

In 1953 she returned to St. Francis Hospital to take training in X-ray technology which became her main field of service until her retirement in September 1978, 50 years after she had completed the deaconess training course.

As a young girl, through the teaching received in the church and a close relationship with her mother, she learned to know the Lord Jesus as her personal Savior and friend, as she stated in her own words. She was baptized in a river by her uncle, A. M. Martens, and was received as a member of the Hebron Mennonite Church near Buhler. Later she joined First Mennonite Church of Newton, where she was an active member until her death.