Obituary of DOROTHY ANNE FRIESEN

Dorothy Anne Friesen passed away peacefully at her home in West St. Paul on Tuesday, January 28, at the age of 75.

She was predeceased by her mother Katherine Friesen (nee Epp) who was born May 16, 1910, in Waldheim, SK, father Jacob Dietrich Friesen who was born January 6, 1913 in Ekaterinoslav, Russia, and by her husband Gene Stoltzfus of Indiana who passed away suddenly on March 10. 2010, in Emo, Ontario. She is survived by brothers James Friesen of Kitchener, Ontario; Robert Friesen of Winnipeg and Thomas Friesen of Vancouver, B.C.

Dorothy was born in Winnipeg May 27, 1949, and attended Vincent Massey and Mennonite Brethren Collegiate before graduating from the University of Manitoba. She attended the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana, where she met Gene and married him in 1975.

They worked for the Mennonite Central Committee in Asia and became country co-directors for the Philippines where Dorothy was based in a poor urban district of Davao on the island of Mindanao. One day she was quickly given a sari and asked to speak to the group of soldiers heading their way. She was able to confuse and misdirect them from the local women activists they had come for. She also stayed for a time in an indigenous hillside village where residents routinely scrambled to shelters during daily bombings from the air force of martial law ruler Ferdinand Marcos who wanted their land for a large hydro project.

Dorothy later wrote a book about her experiences and the large-scale effects of colonialism, US government policy and the domination of multi-national fruit growers in the Philippines. She also offered pathways to restore democracy and economic well-being in “Critical Choices: a Journey with the Filipino People.”

Dorothy and Gene moved back to Chicago in 1981 where she became a director of Synapses, a non-profit focused on social justice and human rights issues. They also worked together in Christian Peacemaker Teams with Dorothy putting out a newsletter while Gene was often out with a team standing between warring sides in combat zones from Colombia to Gaza. Dorothy began working on social justice issues in Chicago with allies in the Black gospel church.

When they retired and moved to Northern Ontario in 2004, she immersed herself in working on reconciliation as an ally to indigenous people in Rainy River and then around Emo where Gene and Dorothy had purchased their retirement cabin. She was gifted with an eagle feather on her 60^th birthday.

After Gene’s death, she returned to Winnipeg and settled in Osborne Village where she continued to write while practicing and teaching a healing technique called Body Talk. Dorothy was a self-described “rabble rouser” and kept up the struggle of reconciliation, joining with tribes in the Dakotas for the anti-pipeline protests at Standing Rock in 2016.

But if the struggle was her task, her gift was an amazing ability to connect with people. Those she touched in the Philippines, Chicago and Northern Ontario became close friends for life.

Blessed are the Peacemakers…