Mennonite Weekly Review

AKRON, Pa. — In May 1948, when the good ship Charlton Monarch turned out to be not so good, Elfrieda Dyck stepped up to the deck.

Elfrieda and Peter Dyck aboard ship in 1948 at Bremerhaven, Germany, as they helped Mennonite refugees from Europe travel to new lives in Paraguay. — Photo provided

She did what everyone, including her husband, Peter, expected she would do. She successfully led 860 war-weary European Mennonite refugees to safety and a new life in Paraguay.

The story of the Charlton Monarch, a ship that fell victim to engine and crew problems and became stranded off the coast of Brazil, may have been a defining moment in Dyck’s life.

But it is only one moment in a life filled with service to others through Mennonite Central Committee, her church, community and family.

Elfrieda Klassen Dyck, a longtime MCC worker who helped resettle European refugees after World War II and who exemplified the spirit of Christian service throughout her life, died Aug. 20 in Scottdale. She was 87.

“Refugee work is just a part of her life,” said son-in-law Jack Scott of Scottdale. “Her life was spent so much caring for others, whether it was on the ships going across the Atlantic or her own family. Very much in her heart was a concern for refugees.”

Along with her husband of 60 years, Dyck served with MCC during and after World War II when refugees began flooding out of war-torn Europe. As recently as 10 years ago, at the time of MCC’s 75th anniversary, she and Peter set out on a speaking tour across the United States and Canada, recounting their experiences.

Dyck was born in Donskaja, now Samara, Russia, in 1917, the youngest of 14 children. In 1925, when she was 7, her family left Russia, settling in Winnipeg, Man.

There, she graduated from St. Boniface Hospital in 1939 as a registered nurse.

Dyck’s nursing skills are what led to her involvement with MCC. In 1942, during World War II, she began a one-year term of service at a home for babies in North Wales and later at a boys’ convalescent home in northern England.