by Darren Diekmann
news@thenewsleaders.com
Pastor Harvey Ehlers may have retired officially as a minister at Trinity Lutheran last September at the age of 84, but he will still continue on as a Pastor Emeritus. No longer as active now, he can still be found officiating funerals and other services and preaching at local churches and chapels in the area. He is still connecting with the people.
He served as an associate pastor at Trinity from 1981-85, then was semi-retired to assistant pastor with a less active role at Trinity but an increased role in the larger church community.
Since then he has twice filled a vacant position at Messiah Lutheran in Sartell, and served in several other temporary positions such as at Shepherd of the Pines in Rice, Faith Lutheran in Sauk Rapids and Our Savior in St. Cloud.
Since September, he has officiated eight funerals and continues to conduct a service every Wednesday at Brookdale, an assisted-living facility in Sauk Rapids, as he has done for 15 years.
Even more recently, Ehlers has had to cope with another much more abrupt change. Adeline, his wife of nearly 60 years, died Jan. 8. Along with being a loving wife and mother, she was also an invaluable partner in his ministry work.
She suffered a stroke about five years ago and needed care. As a result, she was admitted to Good Shepherd Lutheran Home. Ehlers moved into Shepherd Court to be near her.
“She was alert all the way to the end. In fact her birthday was Jan. 5, and I asked her how old she was and she said 84,” Ehlers said, smiling wistfully at the memory.
In fact one of the reasons Ehlers became a minister was to comfort the grieving.
He was greatly influenced as a boy growing up in Carroll, Iowa, by the pastor of his church, the Rev. Tews. Ehlers, though very young, remembers how the minister helped and comforted his family through the death of his 11-year-old brother, Albert, who died of complications after his tonsils were removed.
When Ehlers was older, a more formative impression was made when the Rev. Tews helped the family after his brother, Elmer, an Air Force pilot of a C-34 cargo plane, was shot down by the Japanese in 1945.
The grieving process was drawn out while the family waited three years for his brother’s remains to be sent home.
“That was the hardest thing for my mom,” Ehlers said, “but we reassured her he probably died on impact . . . And yes, he [Tews] was right there all the time.”
Immediately after high school Ehlers was not fully committed to becoming a minister.
“I worked on the farm for a while but decided that wasn’t my cup of tea,” he said
So with his parents’ blessing, he enrolled at Concordia College, St. Paul, for two years to get his associate’s degree to qualify for seminary. He found the course work tough but, enjoyable and it reinforced his commitment to be a minister, he said.
It was while he was in St. Paul that he met Adeline in 1953. Her brother and a couple of mutual friends set up a meeting between the two.
“They introduced us and we got to talking,” Ehlers said, “then they just got in their cars and drove away. That left me to be her ride home.”
Apart from the physical attraction he found her to be quite intelligent.
“She was very talented,” Ehlers said. “She had been the organist for her church when she was 14 . . . And at that time she was a secretary for General Electric.”
Later in their marriage, she would be of vital help to him. At times she served as the church secretary, she attended meetings to take notes by short-hand and then type them out for him to read. She also played the organ and other instruments when needed during services.
All the while she remained modest and helpful despite her position as the pastor’s wife.
“It was always, ‘May I help you?‘ – always helpful,” Ehlers said.
They married in 1956, three years after their first meeting, when Ehlers was still a struggling student at Concordia Seminary in Springfield, Ill.
When it came time for Adeline to quit GE, her employer was reluctant to let her go.
“They would kid her,” Ehlers said. “‘You’re not going to change your mind, are you?‘”
“They were so good to us,” Ehlers said about the wedding gifts received from the people of GE. “They gave us a stove and a refrigerator, and a number of other appliances.”
After graduating from seminary and receiving ordination in 1959, Ehlers was assigned to two churches in western Nebraska – St. Paul’s Lutheran in Bridgeport and Mount Calvary in nearby Bayard.
Mount Calvary was just a basement church at the time. Three years later when the full church was complete, Ehlers had moved on to the southern Minnesota town of Claremont. Yet such was the connection he made with the congregation, they asked him back to Bayard to speak at the dedication of the new church.
“They said, ‘when we get out of this hole, we want you to come back to see it,’” Ehlers said with a chuckle.
He also made the same profound connection with one of his next churches, St. John’s Lutheran in rural Claremont. Ehlers was pastor for the church’s centennial celebration and later was asked back for its 125th. And just last year he preached for its 150th.
The Ehlers spent five years in Claremont, then six more in nearby Owatonna. Toward the end of his service there he officiated a funeral. The daughter of the deceased was left with a favorable impression of Ehlers, and she recommended him to her home congregation in Fullerton that was in need of a minister.
“So that’s how I ended up in California,” Ehlers said. “Wonderful people, wonderful climate, but being from the Midwest, the pace was a little too much. It was not my cup of tea.”
Neither was Disneyland, after so many visits. When friends would visit the Ehlers in Fullerton from 1973-75, most wanted to see Disneyland.
“I would tell my kids, you go with them,” he said. “I’ve seen enough of it.”
Two years was enough of California. Elhers returned to the Midwest to Sherburn, Minn. where he stayed until 1981.
From here Ehlers agreed to team up with another local pastor, David Franzmeier, who had gotten a position at Trinity. Because it was such a large congregation, Franzmeier needed an associate and asked Ehlers. Once at Trinity they divided their duties with Ehlers taking the areas of stewardship and ministry to the elderly.
Pastor Harvey Ehlers says he has no regrets in having chosen the life of a pastor. He and Adeline have been able to raise two children in the process, Corrine and Mark. Both have grown to be successful adults with families of their own and have given them four grandchildren.
He said he loves preaching and teaching. It’s through this he can connect with the people.
“When people say to me, you were sitting in the pew today, you know you have connected with them and that feels good,” he said. “If you are not connecting with them, you are just tooting your own horn . . . I like to look them right in the eye and talk to them. That is how I have done it from the beginning.”
Pastor Harvey Ehlers
Pastor Harvey Ehlers