Kenneth Wiebe, spouse of the late retired Covenant minister Rev. Marie Wiebe, passed away on June 1, 2026, in Lakewood, Colorado. He was 94.
Kenneth Carl Wiebe was born December 3, 1931, in Newton, Kansas, to Willie and Esther (Claassen) Wiebe. He grew up on the family farm, where he loved working the land alongside his father. When his father died, Ken was nine years old, and he continued farming with his mother, his brother, and his uncles. After graduating from Berean Academy, he attended Grace Bible Institute for three years before transferring to Wheaton College to complete his pre-med studies, graduating in 1954. At Wheaton he met Marie Crapuchettes. Ken entered Kansas University Medical School, and he and Marie married during his second year on December 22, 1956. Ken graduated from medical school in 1959, completed his internship the following year, and began a career that would span surgery, teaching, and service over the next several decades.
Ken and Marie moved the family to Chicago in 1960, and then to Kansas City in 1962, where Ken completed a surgical residency. Their four children—Matt, Heidi, Margo, and Bekkey—were born during those years. Ken joined a private surgical practice in Kansas City and remained at Kansas University as a clinical professor from 1966 to 1973.
After Ken had been teaching a Sunday school course on “Abraham’s Migration from Babylon to Palestine” at Hillcrest Covenant Church in Kansas City for years, the family migrated to Camarillo, California. They attended Simi Valley Covenant Church until Marie became a pastor and founded Camarillo Covenant Church, where Ken taught Sunday school and served however he could. In Oxnard, California, Ken built a surgical practice that spanned 27 years at St. John’s Hospital, where he also served as chair of the board. When Marie suffered a stroke in 1989, Ken became her devoted caregiver for the next 19 years. Later in life, he returned to farming in Kansas, purchasing his uncle Ernest Claassen’s farm a half-mile from where he grew up and farming alongside his brother Lloyd and Lloyd’s son Daren. Driving the grain truck during harvest, he said, gave him great joy.
Teaching was Ken’s constant companion throughout his life—in Sunday school classrooms, medical school lecture halls, continuing medical education courses in Kenya and Malaysia, and in the practical business of teaching his children to drive, ice skate, and waterski. Even in his final days at Villa Manor, he was still passing along medical knowledge to the nursing home staff. He was known equally for his generous spirit, his gift for dramatic storytelling, his enthusiastic tenor, his love of singing duets with Marie, and his adventurous, self-taught cooking.
Kenneth was preceded in death by his wife, Marie; his brother, Lloyd Wiebe; and his sister Marianne Siebert. He is survived by his sister Evelyn Quiring; his son Matt (Lori Andrews) of New Mexico, with grandchildren Maddy, Willie, and Esti; and his daughters, Heidi of Colorado, Margo
(John Franz) of Colorado with grandchildren Claire and Gretchen, and Bekkey (Kevin Yoder) of Colorado.
A memorial service will be held at Grace Hill Mennonite Church in Whitewater, Kansas, on August 22 at 11 a.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Grace Hill Mennonite Church (gracehillmc.org) or to Paul Carlson Partnership (paulcarlson.org).
Peace be to his memory.
