Katherine ‘Kay’ (Neumann) Janzen was born September 27, 1919, in the village of Rosenwald, Barnaul Colony, Asiatic Russia.  Her name went through numerous changes from Katherina to Tina to Katherine to Kay, but most of her life she was known as Kay.  She was 7 years old when the Neumanns emigrated to Canada, and 13, when the family moved to Gem, Alberta in 1932.

     Their back-fence neighbours were the Janzens. Kay fell in love with Henry Janzen when they were both only twelve years old, and later married him.  She grew up without having money so she became engrossed in planning how she might earn money, since she had no hope of getting a good education. Her father made it plain that girls didn’t need education because they were destined to be housewives and raise children.  This urgency to earn money never left her.  She knew she was too young to get a job so she was led to sell Gold Medal Christmas cards and Valentine cards from door to door. These cards came in boxes costing a dollar per box and were not sold separately.  In those days a dollar was money and people were loath to buy a whole box of cards but they could easily be persuaded to buy one or two.  Selling them individually allowed her to make a dollar per box clear profit for herself.  This early experience would be the beginning of an eventual career in sales.

     The Depression years were life-changing for most Canadians, and certainly Kay was no exception. It was in 1935, at age 16 after personal searching and questioning that she accepted the Lord into her life and was baptized that same year, in the Mennonite Brethren Church in Gem, Alberta.

     That same year, her parents lost their entire crop through hail and faced a bleak winter without income.  She asked her parents if she could go to Calgary to work.  They agreed and so began two years of housework for the affluent “English.”  She felt that was the best school she attended.  Not only did she Iearn Canadian household skills but also learned about people and relationships.  After two years working and living in, she moved into a basement suite with another girl and worked by the hour.  She earned fifty cents an hour and worked eight hours a day.  She made more than fifteen dollars a month – “real” money during the Depression.

     In 1939, war broke out and Hank Janzen joined the army.  After basic training he was stationed in Calgary.  So began their off and on again courtship.  Hank’s parents were good friends of Kay’s parents but they belonged to the General Conference Church while her family belonged to the then more evangelical Mennonite Brethren Church.  In those days the Mennonite Brethren perceived the General Conference people to be less spiritual and so this was a barrier to their marriage.  Hank had not been baptized into any church at this time.

     After Hank had been in the army thirteen months he became recurrently ill and was given a medical discharge.  Somehow Kay and Hank belonged together and on July 25, 1943, were married in the Arnold Mennonite Brethren Church.  They were the first couple to be married there and only the basement and main floor platform existed at the time.

     Hank and Kay began married life in a small basement suite on 49th Street in Vancouver, where Kay had been living before the marriage.  The house was sold to the Girls’ Home or ‘Mädchenheim’ soon after and they had to move.  Since there was war going on, they had trouble finding a nice place that they could afford, so they moved to Greendale where Hank became an electrician.  Soon after, they tried farming in Abbotsford, with Hank supplementing their income in his chosen trade, but he soon gave up farming altogether.  By this time, Hank and Kay had established their own small family of three children – Victor, Gerald and Margaret (Peggy).

     With three kids in tow, Kay returned to door-to-door sales, foreshadowed in her teenage card-selling days.  She decided to sell made-to-measure foundation garments door to door.  This she did with three young children in the car who miraculously gave her no trouble.  Every day on the selling route was an adventure for them.  This was no easy job, fitting large ladies with corsets, but it took the boredom out of the humdrum and made her some money.  She had a particular “in” with the Mennonite women who hesitated to shop for corsets and, of course, being fluent in ‘Plautdietsch’ (Low German) was an asset. 

     Work was scarce in the Fraser Valley, so in the spring of 1953, Hank and Kay decided it was time to move to where there was work.  Hank went ahead to Whitehorse, Yukon, where he worked as a painter, returning to collect the family in May of that year.  The family hooked onto a plywood trailer that Jake Harder and Hank had built in Father Neumann’s barn in Greendale.  Pulling the trailer with a 1947 Chrysler, they headed north.  They wound through the then torturous Fraser Canyon, a gravel trail with steep cliffs on either side, up the John Hart Highway from Prince George to Dawson Creek, and then up the Alaska Highway to Whitehorse.

     When they arrived at the Parsnip River, disaster struck.  The bridge had been washed out by spring floods just before they arrived.  They camped there for almost a week, near the head of a lineup of cars, trucks and trailers that piled up for miles as the days wore on.  For the kids, this was exciting.  For Kay as a mother it meant things like running out of money and groceries—having a one-week trip extended to nearly two weeks.

     They eventually arrived in Whitehorse where they camped with the Indians at the southern end of town between the Yukon River and the clay cliffs.  The family camped near the Whitehorse rapids which no longer exist, owing to river damming projects. Kay and Hank and Peggy lived in the 8 X 12 plywood trailer, while Vic and Gerry bunked in a borrowed army tent.  Vic and Gerry enjoyed living in this camp proximal to the Indian squatters and were sure they spoke Plautdietsch since it was the only other language they heard besides English.

     After renting a duplex made from an old World War II army barracks, Hank and Kay soon built a new house, and while Hank returned to the electrical trade, Kay took advantage of the bored housewives of the 1950’s and sold Tupperware and Rena Ware at assorted home parties.

     Eventually Kay moved on to selling in a clothing and souvenir shop called The Yukon Gold and Ivory Shop.  There was lots of gold as well as mastodon ivory available in those days.  Her career picked up with little interruption.

     Since theirs was the only Mennonite family in the city, they attended a small Baptist church where Kay soon became Sunday School superintendent and taught Pioneer Girls, and Hank was in demand for singing solos and duets.  The boys got to know the Indian children at the Baptist residential school, which was run by missionary families, and so escaped the scandals of abuses of later years.  Kay had some of the girls from the school in her home to learn light housework and jewelry making.  Jewelry making was another house party kind of business she had going along with her other irons in the fire.

     In 1956, Hank and Kay returned to the Coast, moving into West Vancouver and later into East Vancouver. Hank worked as a marine electrician while Kay returned to sales, working on the fashion floor at the downtown Vancouver Hudson’s Bay Store.  She soon moved into selling real estate, first at Exchange Realty on Fraser Street and later joined the sales staff at Block Brothers, at their only office at the time. The family became part of Ruth Morton Baptist church during the Vancouver years.

     In the summer of 1958 Hank and Kay bought a house in North Delta from her brother Jake, a building contractor at the time. They returned to the Mennonite Brethren Church, which was within walking distance and was also mostly in English.  This was the Strawberry Hill Church, which later became the Kennedy Heights Church. 

     The distance of this home from the Vancouver Real Estate market forced Kay to give up real estate sales and move back into retail, where she served for many years as supervisor of the Eaton’s fashion floor in nearby New Westminster.  The children all finished high school during their North Delta years, leaving Hank and Kay free to travel to major electrical projects throughout the province, which they did until Hank’s retirement. They were always able to connect with a church fellowship in whichever remote community they found themselves.  Kay continued to find work in some of these communities, even branching out into government service, by working with clients in the Quesnel Unemployment Insurance office.  She amused staff there by instinctively treating the suppliants, who came to the desk like customers, by leading them over to the job posting boards and attempting to “sell” them jobs.

     In their senior years of retirement Hank and Kay lived in Chilliwack and Abbotsford.  For some time they holidayed at their log house on the 108 Mile Ranch near 100 Mile House, BC.  While in Chilliwack they lived in a log house near Cultus Lake, which they built with son Vic during his log-building years.  Kay worked in stained-glass art for several years during these retirement years, selling pieces at craft fairs and also on private commission. One of her pieces forms the sky-light in the library entrance to Columbia Bible College.  With Hank’s increasing ill health (cancer), rooted in his exposure to asbestos wiring insulation and lead-based paint, they moved into a number of successive condominiums in Abbotsford where Hank died October 16, 2001. 

     Kay continued to live on her own for another 12 years after Hank’s passing. In her senior years, she continued to be involved in the church, leading Home Bible Studies, where she was appreciated for her careful preparation and her sense of humour.   Kay passed away on June 8, 2013, at the age of 93 years, 8 months, outliving every other Neumann family member, to this point.

     Kay and Hank’s direct descendants number 27 (2023).