While many spent last week shopping for chocolates or buying flowers for Valentine’s Day, a Westlock couple were preparing to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary on Feb. 24.
Ella and Art Hoehne, who live at the Smithfield Lodge, have seen much of Alberta — Ella, 81, as a Sunday school teacher and Art, 84, as a church-planting pastor.
The two met in Port Coquitlam, B.C. in the 1950s while Art studied at Northwest Baptist Bible College. Ella was, in her own words, just a country girl from Drumheller.
Yet her lust for religious absolution would keep her in lockstep with the young pastor as the two began a life of adventure through love of God and one another.
Ella was taking psychiatric nursing classes within walking distance of the college. Religious fervor, helped along by Art’s hair and a summer breeze, would prove too strong a lure.
“Art had come back to the college for his second year and I was walking down with a girl who was a graduate of the college,” she recalled.
“We came around the corner of the building and Art was at his car. He waved at Martha and afterwards, I said, ‘Who is that guy with the bushy hair?’ The wind was blowing his hair and I proceeded to meet him.”
The pair began to date and married in 1956. Art had already been working on a construction crew in Fort McMurray for a year when Ella moved to Alberta to be with her new husband.
While in Fort McMurray, the pair helped establish Waterways Baptist Church, the first of many they would seed on their long journey together.
“God called him to stay and start a Baptist church,” Ella said.
“Waterways was at the end of the railroad, so it was an important spot and Fort McMurray was three miles down the road,” she added.
While the two found passion as “church-planters,” the north offered other ventures, too.
Soon Art found work as a driver, towing oilfield parts across the vast muskeg. The pair started a chicken coop, with Art using the short summers to haul feed in before the area had highway access.
From 1957-62 they would have five children: Randy, Garry, Terry, Cheryl, and Lois. In fact, it was on visit home from a long haul that he received news of his wife’s second birth, and the arrival of twin boys Garry and Terry.
“I came out of the bush and I came home. The lady had picked up my mail and I got in that letter that they had just discovered there were going to be two,” Art said.
“Of course, my father in law was giving me the news. He said the first one was eight pounds five ounces and then he stopped. I lived in a farm background and when there’s a hesitation, it’s got to be a runt. Anyway, I waited for him to finish and he said the other one was eight pounds 10 ounces, so they were one ounce short of 17 pounds.”
The line of work wasn’t without its perils.
On one trip, faulty breaks put Art’s truck in the ditch near an abandoned airport.
“It was way out, about 60 miles from Fort McMurray,” Art said.
“It was over 40 degrees below and they were another 24 hours after I got stuck getting me out.”
“There were no mobile phones or anything like that,” Ella added. “They sent out an aircraft to find out where he was.”
Art said, “I finally got to the well site and the fella that was in charge said to go on in there and have something to eat.
“The cook had prepared a meal for three guys and she gave me a real dirty look. I ate the food piled up there for three men,” he laughed.
“She said, ‘Don’t you ever bring another dirty trucker in here,’ and the fella said, ‘Shush, this is the guy they said they didn’t know whether he would survive the cold.’ Everybody knew that I was out there, but not where I was.’”
Fifteen years would pass and in the summer of 1970, the couple felt the call of God further north to Fort Chipewyan where they would help revive the Northern Canada Evangelical Mission.
The trip was tough and at first many of the locals rejected the couple.
“They would go ‘White man stinks’ and hold their noses,” Art said.
Undaunted, the pair took lessons in Cree and did their best to familiarize themselves with local customs.
“We had many talking sessions and I found some really nice people there,” he added.
It wasn’t until the spring of 1979 that the Hoehne’s decided to move again, this time to the Bonnyville-Cold Lake area.
“It never is wise, especially for a church-planting pastor to stay,” Ella cautioned.
Establishing a new church is a challenging process, she explained and by the time the couple had reached their late 40s, they started to settle down and instead of church-planting, did their best to help churches in need throughout central and northern Alberta.
“Sometimes these fella’s that are stuck out [working remote churches] don’t have relief and need somebody to help when they need a holiday, and we did that,” Art said.
Coming up on retirement, the pair eventually found their way to Westlock and have called the prairie crossroad home ever since.
“Westlock was welcoming,” she said.
Since arriving, the Hoehne’s have watched the millennium pass and seen their children have kids themselves — they have 15 grandchildren. And through it all they’ve never lost sight of their love for one another.
“We both had a calling,” Ella said.
“It was exciting,” Art added. “I’d do it all over again if I had the opportunity.”
