Ken J. Jantzi

Ken J. Jantzi was born in 1954 and grew up working on his parents’ dairy farm west of Milverton in Elma Township. Ken’s first language was Deitsch and he spoke it with his parents and Jantzi and Zehr grandparents as well as with Old Order Amish neighbors and one-room schoolmates. When the country school closed, he attended one year at Elma Township Public School, Listowel High School, Conestoga College, and Eastern Mennonite College. He apprenticed as a tool and die maker and later became a licensed mold maker. With farming in his blood he, alongside his wife, the former Joyce Eby, grew hogs, cattle, and cash crops and raised one daughter and three sons at Topping, ON. During this time he was an elder at Maple View Mennonite Church, worked off the farm, and later had a tooling business. In 2020, the Jantzis retired from the farm and moved to Wellesley. Ken helps teach online Deitsch classes with Fred Lichti.