When her mother became ill, Susan left school at 13 to help with her younger siblings. In her 20s, she lived with other Mennonite girls cleaning homes in Vancouver. Later, she was a housekeeper at Essendale (Riverview Hospital). At 24, Susan decided to finish high school. On her way to Mennonite Educational Institute, Abbotsford, B.C., she passed George’s watch repair shop every day, and he fell in love with her. Some doubted her decision to marry a man in a wheelchair; that didn’t deter Susan. Susan and George’s children grew up to serve God in U.S.A., Australia, Mexico, Canada and South Africa. Church was a big part of their life; Susan and George helped plant Prairie Chapel and loved Central Heights. Susan wore many hats: loving wife, stay-at-home mom, bookkeeper/payroll clerk for Bartsch Jewellers, church librarian, pie-maker, lawn mower, Menno Voth missionary home caretaker, babysitter for grandchildren, caregiver to aging parents. After George’s death in 2005, Susan was diagnosed with Lewy Body dementia and spent her last 6 years at Sherwood Crescent Manor, Abbotsford. Her motto was “only what’s done for Christ will last.”
