Katie Funk Wiebe, professor emeritus of Tabor College, retired in 1990 after teaching English for 24 years. She has devoted her retirement years to bringing meaning to life through writing and speaking. Wiebe grew up in northern Saskatchewan, the daughter of Russian-German immigrants. With her husband and children, she came to Kansas in 1962. Her husband died seven weeks later. That experience prompted the writing of her first book, Alone: A Widow’s Search for Joy. She followed that with several other memoirs and personal histories. In addition to hundreds of articles, she has written and/or edited 18 books, recently focusing on aging. The Mennonite Health Association honored her with the Anabaptist Healthcare Award in 1993 for her work in mental health, women’s issues, and aging. Wiebe is the mother of three children, grandmother of seven, and great-grandmother of five. She lives in Wichita, Kansas.
