Lillian Nickel

Lillian Nickel

October 15, 1923 – August 10, 2020

One week before and one week after October 15, 1923 it snowed in Langham, Saskatchewan.  The sun came out that day and Lillian was born to Cornelius H. and Katharina (Huebert) Epp, on the family farm near Langham.

Lily, together with six older brothers, one older sister, and one younger brother, were orphaned suddenly in May of 1935. She was twelve. The older brothers, Henry and Aaron, kept the family together during that tragic time while Cornelius, Peter, Ben and George, with their unique and essential skills, helped to manage the farm.

Her early childhood had been idyllic. Extraordinary as well as commonplace stories of family and community remained vivid in her memory. A wide range of instruments in the home, combined with nine sibling voices, played a significant role in Lillian’s life as a child.  She   remembered that the shock and sorrow of becoming orphans took its toll on the siblings and on their desire to make music.  Over time, the family did return to its self -taught singing and instrumental roots, using music to bring healing to their sorrow and loneliness.

Lillian attended the Lynne School just as her siblings had done.  On her return from school one day, she found her older sister Helen, slouched at the kitchen table surrounded by freshly baked bread, but sound asleep!  Lillian, 14 years old, reasoned she could not possibly leave Helen alone to do all the cooking and cleaning for the family.    

Younger Albert had to learn to walk to school by himself because Lillian’s formal education was done and the dream of a career died. In her short time in the classroom, she had learned how to learn, and she knew how to read to learn. And read and learn she did.    

Lillian attended and participated in the congregational life of Zoar Mennonite Church in Langham. At seventeen she and her brothers Peter and George attended the Didsbury Bible School in Alberta. She valued that learning experience and built lasting friendships that were easily forged in that setting.  Through her Bible School connections, she met Arthur Nickel from Aberdeen.  

Arthur and Lillian were married November 22, 1942 at Zoar Mennonite Church in Langham.  Arthur’s parents, Rev. Jacob J. and Anna (Wiebe) Nickel of Langham, with their sons and daughters and their spouses, became an integral and meaningful part in Lillian’s life.  Through those relationships she formed friendships that for decades provided council and companionship, laughter and joy.

The Aberdeen dairy farm became home to Arthur and Lillian’s seven children. During those child-raising years, Lillian was committed to the ministries of   Aberdeen Mennonite Church, primarily through her love of  music.  She sang in choirs, in a women’s trio, led the children’s choir for eighteen years, started up another women’s trio group when one wasn’t enough, was the church organist, and sang with Arthur in duets.  She taught her children to sing, play, and perform at school, church and community events.

Farming was never Lillian’s strength or desire, and she made that very clear to Arthur in 1942.  It was not a surprise when in 1961, they rented out the farm, and entered the grocery retail industry, first in the village of Edenburg then in the town of Aberdeen.  They did return to the dairy farm where Lillian still asserted she wasn’t a farmer and never would be.  She preferred her modern house with its music and books.

The friendships formed over those fifty-two years in Aberdeen continued to form who Lillian became.  Neighbors became close  friends as she navigated the complexities and gifts of farm, family and community life.  Her gifts of reconciliation and compassion touched neighbors in the next quarter, families in the next town, and friends from across Canada. 

Lillian and Arthur left the farm in 1994 and moved to Saskatoon.  Lillian flourished in her new home at Bethany Manor.   The music continued.  Mixed quartets, duets, choirs, accompaniment, and again, more than one trio, each continued to be an important part of Lillian’s well-being and the well being of those around her.  Reading continued to be her other passion. She could knit and bake if she had to, but reading and music was what she loved to do. 

In 2007, Arthur now 89 began to have major health issues.  He died September 19, of that year.  Lillian, who had been married to Arthur for 65 years, was now a young 84 year old transitioning to widowhood and into independent living for the first time in her life.  She used her newfound energy to continue her volunteer role at the Mennonite Central Committee thrift shop in Saskatoon.  Along the way she had the gift to make new friends while maintaining the old.  Lillian continued to make music.

Lillian would live a full vicarious life through the events in the lives of her seven children and their spouses, her grandchildren and great grandchildren.  She traveled, pursued more music, learned to navigate new technology, and did more reading.  She was active, happy and healthy.

In her mid 90’s, she recognized her health was failing and began to make the necessary adjustments: first, to give up her driver’s license, then to accept help with daily tasks, then the move in 2019 to an Assisted Living apartment, and into the early months of 2020 a move into the Villa Personal Care wing of Bethany Manor.  She was hospitalized on July 31^st, 2020.

Lillian’s life was pocked with loss.  She lived through the loss of her parents, of a formal education, of a dream of a teaching career, of a spouse, of independent living. In April of 2016, she felt a profound loss in the death of Robert Bueckert, her son-in-law. 

Lillian’s life was speckled with events that could have challenged the very core of her faith.  But those events in her life didn’t alter, but solidified the way in which she remained faithful to Jesus Christ as her example for life, and hope in death.  Lillian was a faithful disciple of Christ, always working toward being filled with and reflecting the nature of God.  She intentionally and consistently showed her children and grandchildren the face of Christ through her commitment to study and prayer.  Her generosity in all things was a reflection of how she personally understood the generous compassion of God.  Her race is finished.  “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

None of her siblings are alive to tell us more stories of Lillian as a child.  None of her original sisters and brothers in law are here to give us insights into her adult years.  Lillian was the last survivor of that generation in both the Epp and Nickel families. Today, the last chapter has been read, and the book is closed.

Books can have sequels.  The sequel to Lillian’s story is the legacy she has left through her children and in turn the impact they have had in the places they have been and in the things they have achieved: 

• Eleanor and Don Funk;
• Stanley;
• Audrey and Dennis Ens, their son Paul Ens and his children Alex, Erika, and Luke, and Audrey and Dennis’ daughter Kim and Curtis Boldt, and their daughters Chloe and Paighton;
• Charlotte and Roger Bueckert and their children Crystal Bueckert and Martin Bennett, Angela Bueckert and Matt Edwards, Dustin and Amanda Bueckert and their sons Ryley and Cade;
• Laura Bueckert and her family, Sheila and Larry Neudorf, Nichole and Pietro Cara, Kevin and Christie Vandenborre and the children in each of those families;
• Jonathan Nickel and his son Darren and Caitlyn Nickel and their sons Abel, Benjamin, and Jesse, and Jonathan’s daughter Jasmine Nickel and Wayne Graham;
• Lyndon Nickel and his children Lyndon and Jolie.  

The legacy of Lillian’s life is seen in the lives of her nieces and nephews from the families of her brothers Henry and Hannah, Aaron and Lillian, Cornelius and Edna, Peter and Elizabeth, Ben and Mary, Albert and Beth, and sister Helen and William Thiessen,  as well as from the families of Arthur’s brothers, Jake and Frieda, Frank and Mary, and Menno and Martha, his sisters Anne and Gilbert Epp,  and Mary  and Peter Olfert .  All of these nieces and nephews hold the memory of their own parents, and now,  Aunt Lil, close to their hearts.

With God as our witness, and partner, we eulogize Lillian Nickel in death, grateful for her generosity, compassion and faithfulness to family and community and God.

Thank you Lillian, mom, grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt and friend.  This is our prayer of gratitude as we send you on your way home.

God of births and beginnings, of deaths and endings, in your wisdom that embraces the universe and all that is divine, we thank you for forming the child Lillian Epp.   We thank you for nurturing the woman Lillian Nickel. Empower each of us to embrace what she was because of You, to become more like You by remembering her.  

A private family Graveside service will take place at Langham Cemetery at 10:00 a.m on Friday, August 14, 2020. Arrangements entrusted to DALMENY FUNERAL HOME 306-254-2022.

Please enjoy watching mom do what she loved.

Beyond the Sunset