The Rev. Laurel Ehrhardt
Memorial services for the Rev. Laurel Ehrhardt, 87, will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Rosebank Brethern in Christ Church, west of Ramona. Ehrhardt died from congestive heart failure on March 11, 2003.
The family felt it appropriate to have his service at 11 a.m. Saturday, since this is when he was often preaching his Sabbath sermon. He was a Seventh-Day Adventist minister for 57 years.
The Rev. Mr. Ehrhardt and his wife, Martha, moved from Silverton, Ore., to Kansas in October, 2003 to be near their daughters, Pat Wick and Jessica Gilbert, also of Ramona.
The Ehrhardts lived in Oregon for more than 30 years, where he was pastor of three Seventh-Day Adventist Churches in Silverton, Monitor, and Woodburn. Upon retirement from the ministry in 1979, he continued to serve as minister for the Monitor church and also began a tape ministry, sharing his sermons with more than 250 people who asked to be on his mailing list. He continued his tape ministry until he was 84.
Pastor Ehrhardt was born in Ramona June 7, 1915, to Solomon and Leah Ehrhardt. His wife, Martha (Schubert), was born in Ramona the following year. They met at Ramona High School where both played in the orchestra. They married in 1936 and left Ramona in 1939 when he entered ministerial training at Union College, Lincoln, Neb. He was ordained as a Seventh-Day Adventist minister in 1946.
Pastor Ehrhardt began his ministry as an evangelist in Kansas in Dighton, Liberal, Garden City, Dodge City, Bazine, Schaefer, Nekoma, Bison, Great Bend, and Kansas City. In the 1950s the Ehrhardts moved to Greeley, then to Boulder, Colo. In 1963 Rev. Ehrhardt became pastor at Tacoma, Wash., followed by Vancouver, Wash., and finally moved to Silverton, Ore., where he served until retirement.
He is survived by his wife, Martha; their two daughters, Pat Wick and Jessica Gilbert; and his sister, Naomi Fike, all of Ramona. Another sister, Verna Pritz, lives in Arizona. He has two grandchildren, Patrice Wick Buck, Oak Harbor, Wash., and Jana Wick Chang, Angwin, Calif.
Inurnment will be at Lewis Cemetery, Ramona.
A memorial fund has been established at Maranatha Volunteers International, 1600 Sacramento Inn Way, Suite 116, Sacramento, CA 95815.
