Sect appeal

Free Press readers of a certain vintage may remember when tuning into a local radio station to hear a pair of disc jockeys perusing a section of the Saturday edition was appointment listening.

On Sunday mornings from 1962 until the mid-1980s, CKRC 630 personalities Bob Washington and Tom Ashmore — better known as Wash and Ash — entertained Winnipeggers of all ages by impersonating the likes of Dennis the Menace, Beetle Bailey and Archie Andrews, as they lent their voices to that weekend’s multi-page, colour comic insert.

In a 1984 interview, Washington, who died in 2016 at the age of 82, attributed the weekly program’s longevity to audiences enjoying the antics of “two middle-aged guys in 24 dialects, giving their version of what Dagwood is saying to Blondie, or what Hägar the Horrible is bragging about.”

More than 40 years later, another Winnipegger is turning to the Free Press for her material. Only instead of reading the paper’s funnies, Lori Klassen, a mother of three and grandmother of two, is funnily reading the paper.

Since May 2025, Klassen as “Mrs. Klassen” has been posting near-daily videos of herself discussing Free Press stories while dressed in folksy Mennonite garb.

Speaking in a pronounced Low German accent loosely based on members of her family, the former Steinbach resident often takes aim at Mennonite stereotypes, whether the piece she is focusing on that morning relates to her “people” or not.

For example, after citing an article about Door Dash user fees going up, she branded the charge a “lazy fee” that Mennonites are loath to fork over. “I mean, you want to cook at home, make yer soup and maybe, if very, very special occasion, walk to the Chicken Chef. You don’t pay someone to pick up food cooked by someone else,” she opined.

Or last summer, while holding up a column touching on Folklorama, she reasoned why there is no longer a Mennonite pavilion at the annual cultural festival.

“Someone tell me that was because they did not sell enough alcohol. I think they should have known ahead of time that there is not going to be a Mennonite buying alcohol — at least not in a room full of other Mennonites,” she deadpanned.

Seated in a Portage Avenue coffee shop five minutes from where she lives with her husband, Phil, Klassen, fashionably attired in a red blouse, black-and-white flowy pants and open-toe sandals, says she couldn’t be more surprised that Mrs. Klassen Reads the Winnipeg Free Press — the name she granted her shtick — has cast her as a social-media sensation.

Besides having a combined 6,000 followers on Facebook and Instagram, her routines have racked up as many as 30,000 views on YouTube, with comments ranging from “You’re killing me, Mrs. Klassen” to “Sooooo funny” to “One of the best parts of my day.”

“I don’t have a comedic background, whatsoever. No acting — nothing,” she stresses, noting in her “real life” she teaches grades 1, 2 and 3 at a school in her Wolseley neighbourhood. “As teenagers we would mimic our grandparents, but that was about it.”

Well, not exactly. There were occasions when visiting with friends in the past that Klassen would break into an exaggerated Low German accent to better relate something her mother or aunt had told her.

“I don’t have a comedic background, whatsoever. No acting– nothing.”

Her portrayal was so spot-on that about 15 years ago, one of her pals enlisted her services for a wedding reception. The crowd that evening was overwhelmingly Mennonite, and they roared in laughter over her Menno-centric observations, she says.

Fast-forward to last spring. One morning, Klassen was walking to her classroom when she overheard a group of Grade 6 boys discussing YouTube as a career option, and how older kids they knew were making money by becoming creators for the online video-sharing platform.

She wasn’t particularly interested in the topic, but she found it intriguing to hear them agree that if one wanted to be successful, they would need to focus on one thing specifically.

“A few days later I was reading the Free Press — Phil and I have been six-day subscribers forever — and I thought hmm, what if I did something revolving around it, for my Facebook friends to maybe get a kick out of?” (Klassen says her father used to read the Winnipeg Tribune religiously and in her head she can still hear him labelling the Free Press the “other paper.”)

Mrs. Klassen Reads the Winnipeg Free Press made its official debut on May 21, 2025. Parked in a living-room armchair with a grey kerchief covering her blond locks, she offered what has become her standard greeting, “Oba, good morning everybody.”

Then she called attention to a story about food pairings headlined Dynamic duos. Placing the page-in-question down on a table beside her, Klassen openly wondered why the reporter had neglected to mention “varenyky and schmaundt fat.

“The reason we pair them is so the fat globules can stick to yer existing rolls even better, thereby increasing yer girth,” she said, smacking her lips together.

No sooner did she arrive at school that morning than a co-worker who isn’t Mennonite shouted out down the hall, “Hey, Mrs. Klassen! Loved it!”

“It never occurred to me that non-Mennonites would find it amusing — at least not until my daughter told me, ‘Don’t you remember how much you loved the TV show Kim’s Convenience, even though you’re not Korean?” she says.

“It never occurred to me that non-Mennonites would find it amusing.”

Klassen admits there isn’t a lot of method to her madness. Because she records her posts on her phone before leaving for work — generally between 7:45 a.m. and 8 a.m. — she doesn’t spend much time leafing through the paper hunting for something to talk about.

It’s very impulsive, she says, though if an article revolves around Steinbach or Altona, or is penned by a Mennonite writer (here’s looking at you, Aaron Epp and Grace Penner), that’s always fair game.

“And I doubt very much whether my accent is consistent from day to day,” she continues. “I was thinking I should flesh this character out more by deciding who she really is and where she comes from, but then I remind myself this is just for fun and that I’m a teacher and have to get to work.”

MaryLou Driedger is the author of two books, including Lost on the Prairie, which touches on her Mennonite upbringing. Driedger, the Free Press’s faith columnist in the early 2000s, has been following Klassen’s exploits since last summer, and appreciates her satirical portrayal of “old-fashioned Mennonite women.”

“One of the things I recognize is my grandma always wore a kerchief on her head, whether she was in the kitchen or not. Plus she has the accent absolutely down pat — it’s really, really good,” she says.

Driedger surmises Klassen’s popularity is due to the fact Winnipeg has one of the largest urban Mennonite populations on the planet. That and how almost every non-Mennonite Winnipegger she knows seems to have a Mennonite or three in their circle of friends.

“What I also like about Lori is that even though she’s poking fun at Mennonites, every once in a while she’ll make subtle points about some of our idiosyncrasies, hitting at hard truths,” Driedger says. “She’ll often say when we have a problem we tend to run away — ‘to Mexico or Paraguay’ — rather than face up to what’s going on.”

Driedger smiles, recalling a recent video of Klassen’s that had her cackling out loud. In it, Klassen was reading from a story about the late John Buhler, a prominent entrepreneur and philanthropist originally from Haskett, south of Winkler.

“She was talking about how Mr. Buhler seems to have his name on everything in the city and how it’s not very Mennonite to be boastful,” she chuckles. “Then she said you can never say meet me at the Buhler building, because there’s so many.”

“I guess if I ever choose to go the Fringe route, I’d have to add to my wardrobe… maybe buy a few new scarves.”

Klassen can’t say for sure how long she’ll continue as Mrs. Klassen.

Scores of people have told her the act is a Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival production waiting to happen, so that’s one possibility. (Owing to demand, she has performed live twice as Mrs. Klassen in the past few months, first at a community gathering in Randolph, near Steinbach, and again at the Fort Garry Mennonite Fellowship Church.)

“I guess if I ever choose to go the Fringe route, I’d have to add to my wardrobe… maybe buy a few new scarves,” she says with a wink.

Regardless, even if she were to hang up her babushka tomorrow, her everyday habit of poring through the paper won’t change.

“I love spreading the Free Press out on the table and going through it page by page,” Klassen says, noting her alter-ego has likely highlighted stories from every section thus far, save for Passages. “And of course my husband needs it for the puzzles. He does every last one of them, every single day.”

david.sanderson@winnipegfreepress.com