Covenant News

Saturday Service for Former Covenant Missionary

ROCKFORD, IL (October 17, 2005) - A funeral service for former missionary Eleanor (Jones) Engeman, 87, will be conducted at 2 p.m. Saturday in the chapel at Sunset Memorial Gardens in Rockford. She died this past Saturday, October 15.

Engeman knew as a child that she wanted to be a missionary. She and her husband, Harry, were commissioned in 1949 to missionary work in China, but were unable to go to China because of the Communist revolution. Instead the couple served in Japan from 1950 to 1981. While in Japan, she served as an English and Bible study teacher and ministered to women's groups. She moved to Rockford in 1981 when Harry became the pastor of North Park Covenant there until 1987.

Engeman was born in 1918 at Aurora, Nebraska, where her father, Arvid Jones, was the pastor of the Mission Covenant Church. She grew up in Marquette, Kansas, and Ceresco, Nebraska. She was a member of Batavia Covenant Church in Batavia, Illinois.

Engeman graduated from North Park College in 1938 and the Swedish Covenant Hospital School of Nursing in 1941. After marrying Harry, she spent a year at the Yale University Institute for Far Eastern Languages for Chinese and Japanese language studies. Her work in Japan included time in Tokyo, Nagaoka, and Shibukawa.

She is survived by two daughters, Joyce Marsden, and Joan Tomlin; one son, Stewart; and four grandchildren. Harry and a son, Stephen, preceded her in death.

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