Volunteer Profile:   Agatha Klassen: Teacher, Librarian, Volunteer
 by Lora Sawatsky

Last year Agatha Klassen, librarian in the Chilliwack School District from 1962 – 1985, also retired as librarian for the Mennonite Historical Society where she had volunteered for many years.  She began as a secretary and her many other contributions include working on files, identifying photos, translating documents from German to English.  In addition, Agatha organized the Society’s lending and reference library.  She has had a wealth of experience in organizing libraries, having organized all 27 elementary school libraries in the Chilliwack District.   Later she worked as librarian in Chilliwack Senior Secondary School until 1985.  After retiring as school librarian, she spent three semesters in St. Petersburg changing the library system from Library of Congress to Dewey Decimal.

Born in Kuban, South Russia, Agatha grew up in Coaldale, Alberta where she completed most of her high school.  After she moved to Yarrow, BC, she attended Bible School for one year, and then completed her grade 12 and 13 at Normal School and later completed her BA as well as her Bachelors of Library Science at UBC.  Agatha has taught school for 35 years.

In addition to her many volunteer activities, Agatha found time to record the history of Yarrow in: Yarrow: A Portrait in Mosaic, the first history of Yarrow to be published.  While Agatha has retired as the librarian for the Mennonite Historical Society, she still volunteers her skills when documents need to be translated from German to English.  She is a skilled reader and translator of the Gothic script.

We are indeed grateful to Agatha for her many years of service at the archival centre and are delighted when she visits the archival centre from time to time to assist with translating documents.