Ernest Walter Andreas was born April 17, 1923 in Moose Jaw, to German parents who had come to Canada from the Ukraine early in World War I to avoid the political unrest. He had three full sisters and one full brother all born in Canada, in addition to three half-sisters and three half-brothers, all born to his widowed father in the Ukraine. In November 1948, Ernest married Louise Jacobs in Radville, with Wilfred Orr presiding. They purchased a general store in Gladmar, and operated it for about six years. During these years, they had two children, Bob in February of 1951 and Leila in March of 1952. After a few years, he began working for S.S.S. Mining about nine miles south of Gladmar while Louise tended the store until she had major cancer surgery 1952. They sold the store and moved to live close to the office in the mining community. In 1957, they moved to Weyburn to become the business manager for Radville Christian College, later Western Christian College. They made their home on campus until 1970 when they moved to Nashville, Tennessee to work in cooperation with Western Christian Foundation doing public relations/fund raising work on behalf of Western Christian College. While in Tennessee, he studied at the Memphis School of Preaching in 1976 following which they began full-time work with the Church of Christ in Chilliwack, BC. Louise died in a car accident in Oklahoma August 19, 1978.December 22, 1979, he married Joyce Kirkpatrick from Frogan, Oklahoma and together they began work with the Church of Christ in Medicine Hat, Alberta and later with the Church of Christ in Yorkton. After he retired from full-time employment, they moved to Oklahoma, where they resided until his passing March 5, 2014 after a 14 month battle with pancreatic cancer. Ernest did many things: farmed from 1942 to 1948; owned and operated a general store from 1948 to 1954; managed the office of a sodium mining plant from 1952 to 1957; was business manager for Western Christian College from 1957 to 1970 and did public relations work for W.C.C. full-time from 1970 to 1976 and part-time from 1977 to 1990; preached full-time for the church in Chilliwack, B.C. 1976 to 1980, Medicine Hat, Alberta 1980 to 1985, Yorkton, Saskatchewan 1985 to 1990 and back to Medicine Hat from 1994 to 1996. He served on the Board of Directors of W.C.C. for three periods from 1949 to 1957, 1966 to 1969 and from 1977 to 1982. He was on the board of Western Christian Foundation from 1960 to 1974 and was one of the four first elders of the Weyburn church serving from 1967 to 1970. He participated in four mission campaigns to Germany and Austria in 1975, 1978, 1982 and 1983. There is an expression, "jack of all tradesmaster of none" but, in Dad's case, that could be restated to say, "jack of many tradesmaster of several". A celebration of Ernest's life was held March 13 at the Weyburn Church of Christ at 2:00 p.m.
