Obituary of Roxanne Klassen

A memorial service in her honour will be held on Saturday, April 15, 2023, at 2:00 p.m. at the Grace Mennonite Church, 430 Third St., Steinbach, MB. The prelude of her own recordings and the slide show of her life will  begin at 1:10 p.m. The service will be followed by a stand-up reception, with coffee and dainties. There will be no formal receiving line or program – just visiting like we do after every service at Grace.

The service will be livestreamed on the Grace Mennonite Steinbach YouTube channel and a video recording will be available later for those who are unable to attend.

Roxanne Dawn Beryl Hiebert Klassen was born in Winkler on February 19, 1956, and passed away on Friday, March 17, 2023. She spent her happy childhood days in Plum Coulee, went back to Winkler for high school, and obtained her Bachelor of Education from the University of Manitoba in 1979. She was married to Ken in June 1979 and in September started a 33-year career in education in the Hanover School Division, where she taught music and early years at Southwood, Elmdale and Mitchell School. 

After a few years of teaching, Roxanne and I took a year to travel and study in Europe.  Our first ten years of marriage were a happy blur of teaching and traveling. David was born in 1988 and Roxanne took some time away from teaching. She was able to return to a half-time music position which allowed her to simultaneously pursue her three great passions -  motherhood, teaching and music. Stefan was born in 1992 after another year away from teaching to study in Quebec City.

Roxanne returned to a Grade One classroom for the last 17 years of her career and brought with her a mother’s heart, the love and joy of music and an expert ability to make it all an integral part of her teaching. Children in her classroom were cared for, nurtured, instilled with a joy of music and encouraged to be curious and creative. She was a gift to her students and to her teaching colleagues – always going far beyond the call of duty  for her most vulnerable students and always eager to support new teachers to the profession.

Roxanne was an accomplished and unique pianist and a self-taught organist. Her love of music started at an early age and continued through high school, her teaching career and as pianist, organist, accompanist and music coordinator in the Grace Mennonite Church in Steinbach. Even with your eyes closed, you would know immediately it was Roxanne on the keys – with a deep sensitivity, a strongly passionate rendition, often with quite a bit of volume and a palpable swing. She loved to find new and interesting arrangements and was sought after as an accompanist for her ability to expertly support a variety of vocalists and choirs.

Roxanne was a gift to all and she was always giving. Early in our marriage we talked about how we could make a difference as individuals and as a couple. We were inspired by the concept of The Delighter: Someone who would always try to go a little beyond the ordinary in everything they did and with everyone they met. Roxanne truly lived up to this. She had a list of everyone’s birthdays and never took a shortcut – buying or making a card, writing a meaningful message and sending it by snail mail so as to delight her family and friends with an unexpected and perhaps stubbornly old-fashioned message of love in this era of e-mail and text communication.

In the many messages and tributes that poured in while Roxanne spent her last three weeks in palliative care at the Bethesda Hospital in Steinbach, the one constant theme was the thoughtful gifts she had given throughout her life – many of which were still being treasured by family, friends and former students. Roxanne’s creative and whimsically painted garden pots sit on many decks around town. David and Stefan only had to mention an interest or a need and Roxanne would start plotting how to get that for their stockings at Christmas, often all purchased and wrapped by late October. Of course, there were soon too many items for the stockings and the bottom of the tree would fill up with packages even though we had agreed as a family to no longer do gifts in favour of making family donations to a worthy cause.

So many people also mentioned how their friendship and interaction with Roxanne influenced them and made them better people. When asked to play for funerals or weddings, Roxanne poured herself into finding the perfect music, putting it all together and practicing it relentlessly so that she could honour the people that had requested her services. On January 22, Roxanne played her last prelude in church and she thought it had been a gift from God that she did not make a single mistake. As she prepared for her own memorial service she decided her last gift to the congregation would be a prelude using her own recordings from throughout the years to accompany the slide show of her life. If you don’t want to miss this prelude, show up early!

Her final gift to her family was the incredibly peaceful and accepting way in which she chose to spend her remaining time with us. With quiet strength she lived exactly six more weeks with multiple cancers spreading throughout her body. She used the time to visit with siblings and friends and to tell everyone she loved them. Until her last moment of consciousness she would answer the question “How are you, Roxanne?” with a quiet and calm “OK”. She never once voiced self-pity or anger, only the disappointment that she would not be around to be part of our on-going lives. She stated unequivocally, “I am not afraid to die, I just don’t want to!” We counted our blessings that her care at Bethesda was so compassionate and dignified – with a great doctor in Dr. Karen Toews, a private room for the entire time, and amazing nurses and aides that took time to provide both physical and emotional care of both her and the family. These are the people that make our health care system so remarkable.

Roxanne was predeceased by her parents, Arnold and Helen Hiebert, Ken’s parents, Cornelius and Nettie Klassen, her eldest sister Estelle Warnica, and several in-laws – Lauree Clifford, Leona Giesbrecht, John Giesbrecht, Lisa Bruneteau, Ray Bruneteau, Bernie Klassen, and very recently, Sandra Klassen.

She is survived by her husband Ken, her sons David and Stefan, siblings Shirley and John Bestvater, Ruth Hiebert, Bernice Hiebert Klassen and Russ Smythe, Beverly and Walter Wenaas, Cindy Hiebert and Paul Bezilla, Patrick Hiebert and Andrea Martinez, Charlie Clifford, and their families. She is also survived by Ken’s siblings, Jack and Connie Klassen, Glen and Betty Klassen, Alfrieda and Harold Dyck, Ron Klassen and Esther Tennenhouse, Peter and Luella Klassen, Linda and Del Wall, Daniel Klassen and Valerie Palmer, Julia and Ron Dalloo, and one sister-in-law, Nettie Klassen (Bernie) and their families.

A memorial service in her honour will be held on Saturday, April 15, 2023, at 2:00 p.m. at the Grace Mennonite Church, 430 Third St., Steinbach, MB. The prelude of her own recordings and the slide show of her life will  begin at 1:10 p.m. The service will be followed by a stand-up reception, with coffee and dainties. There will be no formal receiving line or program – just visiting like we do after every service at Grace.

The service will be livestreamed on the Grace Mennonite Steinbach YouTube channel and a video recording will be available later for those who are unable to attend.

If desired, flowers may be sent to the Grace Mennonite Church in Steinbach, MB, on the morning of Saturday, April 15, 2023. There will also be opportunity to make a donation to private sponsorship of Ukrainian refugees in Steinbach.