Anna Klassen passed away at her rural Mountain Lake home on Friday, January 3, 2014 – her 90th birthday. Funeral services will be held this Friday morning, January 10, 2014, at 11 a.m., at Bethel Mennonite Church in Mountain Lake, located at 301 9th Street North. Pastor Galen Kauffman will officiate at the services. Interment will be in Mountain Lake City Cemetery.
Visitation will be on Thursday, January 9, 2014, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Chapel at Sturm Funeral Home in Mountain Lake, located at 301 9th Street North.
Anna Elfrieda Fast was born on Thursday, January 3, 1924 to John B. and Agnes (Wall) Fast in Mountain Lake and grew up on her parents’ farm in Mountain Lake Township. She graduated from Mountain Lake Public High School and Mankato Teachers College. She taught for one year in Sanborn before her marriage to Harold Klassen on September 7, 1947, at Bethel Mennonite Church. She was also a substitute teacher at Mountain Lake Christian School following her marriage.
Anna loved living on the rural Mountain Lake farm with Harold, and the couple called that farm site home for their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren for over 66 years. She was a lifelong member of Bethel Mennonite Church and was active in the church, serving in many different ways over the years. She was a wonderful cook and enjoyed reading, gardening, bird-watching and playing the piano. Anna will be remembered as a devoted wife, mother and grandmother who lived her life plainly, and not worldly. She believed one of God’s most powerful gifts was prayer. She lived by the example that God’s saving grace took precedence over things of this world.
Survivors include her husband Harold of rural Mountain Lake; children (Orvil) Karen Klassen of Windom, Myra (Craig) Stoesz of Mound and Pauline (Keith) Buresch of Lakefield; her sister Dorothy Fast of Mountain Lake; eight grandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren and other relatives and friends.
Preceding her in death were a daughter Inez Klassen, a grandson Levi Buresch, a brother John T. Fast and an infant brother Harold Fast.