Martha Loewen

Funeral services for Martha Jane (Thiessen) Loewen, 95, who passed away Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, will be 10 a.m. Friday, Nov. 8, 2024, at Koerner Heights Church, Newton.

Relatives will receive friends from 9 a.m. until service time at the church. Interment will be at Springfield Cemetery, rural Hillsboro.

Born March 11, 1929, the youngest of five children of John E. and Anna (Siebert) Thiessen, she grew up on a farm southwest of Inman.

She attended Zoar Krimmer Mennonite Brethren Church, South Inman Grade School, Zoar Academy, Inman High School, and Tabor College, where she majored in elementary education. She continued taking classes at Kansas State Teachers College and Wichita State University.

She taught second grade in Hillsboro and married Albert Loewen on June 28, 1957, at Zoar KMB Church.

They made their home in Goessel. Martha took a break from teaching until accepting a position as the first kindergarten teacher at Goessel Grade School, teaching there for 21 years.

The couple moved to North Newton, where she substitute-taught and tutored before she moved to Schowalter Villa in Hesston in 2019. Her husband, who survives, joined her in 2023.

Also surviving are daughter Lois Snyder, sons James and Duane Loewen, 13 grandchildren, and 15 great-grandchildren.

Brother Ed; sisters Ann Penner, Helen Schmidt, and Menda Kliewer; an unborn child; and several unborn grandchildren preceded her in death.

A memorial has been established with Newton Release Time Bible School.