Mary Jane (Roth) Yantzi
Mary Jane (Roth) Yantzi was born in 1938 in Tavistock, the daughter of Reuben and Katherine (Bast) Roth. She was the eldest of five children. She grew up on a farm on the 18th Concession, Lot 35, East Zorra Township. Mary Jane attended S.S. No. 5, St. James Public School, where she completed grade 7. She met her future husband, Clair Yantzi, at the East Zorra Amish Mennonite Church, and they were married in 1958. Clair and Mary Jane took over the farm where Clair had grown up and Mary Jane worked alongside her husband in farming and the butcher business. They had four daughters and one son. Mary Jane and Clair moved to Tavistock in 1982 and she turned her love of designing and piecing quilts into a business. They attended the East Zorra Mennonite Church, where for many years Mary Jane played the organ. After Clair’s death in 2002, Mary Jane moved to a retirement apartment in Tavistock. In 2022 she move to the Maples Home for Seniors. She died in 2024, in her 86th year.