Serving in all seasons

Ed Kaelberer, 92, leads singalongs at the assisted living community where he resides in Parker, Colo., for an hour every Friday afternoon. A retired church worker, he served as minister of music in congregations in Minnesota, Illinois and Colorado. (Sandy Hiltman)

By Morgan Consier and Cheryl Magness

Two seasoned LCMS Lutherans are demonstrating, in their local communities, that God’s faithfulness never ends, nor does His call to serve one’s neighbor as He enables.

‘The room is always full’

Ed Kaelberer, a longtime minister of music in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), retired from church work years ago but still serves through music by leading singalongs in his assisted living community in Parker, Colo. Kaelberer’s son, Jon Kaelberer, says his father’s “love for music and serving others runs deep.”

Kaelberer, 92, didn’t set out to be a church worker. In high school, he was involved in music, but when an admissions representative from the Gale Institute in Minneapolis (formerly the Electronic-Radio Institute) came to talk to his class, he decided to enter the school’s program to become a railroad telegrapher. “It was a good job,” Kaelberer said. “I enjoyed it. But I missed music.”

Kaelberer enrolled at Concordia University, Nebraska (CUNE), Seward, Neb., where he studied organ, played trumpet and sang with the concert choir. He would go on to graduate from CUNE and serve as a minister of music in congregations in Minnesota, Illinois and Colorado — more than 25 of those years at St. John’s Lutheran Church, Denver. He earned a Master of Music from University of Colorado, Boulder, and, in 1969, served as musician for the 1969 LCMS convention, which was held that year in Denver. “Paul Manz was the featured performer,” Kaelberer said. “I just oversaw the daily worship.”

After retiring from music ministry, Kaelberer continued to maintain an active schedule for many years as a performer for special events and concerts in the Denver area. He is no longer able to play in the broader community but finds joy in bringing music to his retirement community, where he moved after the death of his wife, Ruth, in 2020. Each week, on Friday afternoon, community members gather for an hour of singing, led by Kaelberer.

“The room is always full,” Kaelberer says. “I pick a theme — hymns, patriotic songs, Christmas music, country/western — and we sing those songs for a half hour. Then I open up for requests for another half hour … or sometimes longer,” he says with a smile.

But with all of his varied musical experiences, Kaelberer says his most important musical contributions were to the church. “Music is so important to the church. It helps people with their faith. It’s the words, the message.” He is encouraged by the Synod’s Set Apart to Serve initiative, which seeks to build a culture of church work recruitment across the church. “We need more young people to go into church work.”

Asked what was, for him, the most rewarding aspect of being a church musician, Kaelberer said it was leading congregational singing from the organ. “People love the organ. It can do so much.” One of his most cherished memories is attending the farewell recital of a retiring organist he once taught. “I only got him started,” Kaelberer said. “He went on to study with Charles Ore [former organ professor at CUNE] and become a fine musician. But he dedicated the first piece on his recital to me because I was his first teacher. That meant a lot.”

Kaelberer acknowledges that church work is hard. “Everyone has an opinion. It doesn’t pay very well, and you don’t get many breaks.” But he says he’s “never been sorry that I did what I did. If I had a chance to do it all over again, I would.”

Ruth Werning, 103, is pictured at American Family Field in Milwaukee, where she threw out the first pitch before a Brewers game on Aug. 15, 2024. (TMJ4 News/Brendyn Jones/Used by permission)

‘The blessings are countless’

On Aug. 15, 2024, before the start of the Milwaukee Brewers–Los Angeles Dodgers game at American Family Field in Milwaukee, 103-year-old Brewers fan Ruth Werning threw out the first pitch, marking yet another item off her personal bucket list. It’s a list that included things like “become a Lutheran school teacher,” “marry a pastor” and “have children,” all of which she has also checked off. Through it all, the constant in Werning’s life has been her faith, which she continues to share with anyone she meets, especially her neighbors at Harwood Place in Wauwatosa, Wis., where she has lived in an independent-living apartment since 2006.

Born in 1921 to devout Lutheran parents and raised in the Milwaukee area, Werning got her two-year teaching degree at Concordia College (now Concordia University Wisconsin, Mequon, Wis.) and served as a Lutheran school teacher. She continued to teach until she and the Rev. Waldo Werning were married in 1945 and moved to his first pastoral call. The couple went on to have five children, and Ruth stayed home with them until they went to school. As the family moved for Waldo Werning’s calls, Werning found ways to serve those around her as a pastor’s wife. “I was part of the connection [with the congregation], and it was a very important part of my life,” Werning said.

Once her children were in school full time, she returned to school herself to obtain her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Her particular area of interest was in special education, both for children with learning disabilities and for gifted students. She loved to help them learn each in their own ways and at their own paces. She was a listening ear to those who might have felt like others didn’t want to hear what they had to say.

Werning credits her love of serving others to the example her parents set for her in childhood. When she was a child, her parents took her to every Sunday and midweek service at church. They were active in serving their congregation and with organizations such as the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League and Milwaukee’s Kinderheim and Altenheim homes (now The Lutheran Home).

Throughout her life, Werning has continued to watch for opportunities to serve others and share the blessings God has given her. After she retired from teaching in 1989, she continued to work with gifted students at Concordia Lutheran School in Fort Wayne, Ind. She then worked with a group called Future Problem Solvers of America within that school until moving to Wisconsin and continuing her work with Future Problem Solvers at Divine Savior Lutheran School in Hartland, Wis. Even before she moved in to Harwood Place, she was volunteering at The Lutheran Home, leading a program for seniors with early-onset dementia. Since becoming a resident, she has been an active volunteer, even emceeing the annual Christmas program put together by residents.

Werning never thought she would end up living to be over 100, as her mother died at the age of 88. Her sister, however, lived to be 104, so that is Werning’s next goal.

When asked for her advice for living to be over 100, Werning said: “No. 1 is all praise and glory to God. I say that, and I mean it. There would not be one thing going on without Him leading and guiding me. The blessings are countless.”

“If I can witness just by my daily living, just by being God’s child in all that I do, then I will have completed my purpose in life, because that’s the only reason I’m here, to be a servant of the Lord,” Werning said.

Werning takes each day as an opportunity to serve and build community with those around her.

“So many people say, ‘I don’t know why the Lord hasn’t called me home yet. I don’t know what the Lord wants me to do,’ said the Rev. Derek Wolter, chaplain at The Lutheran Home and Harwood Place. “Ruth is taking that gift she has of making connection and continuing, even with her prayer life, to keep a connection with people and letting them know ‘You are important to God.’ ”

Werning feels content with what she has accomplished in life.

“I have accepted [God’s] blessings for so long in my life,” Werning said. “And when it’s time for Him to call me home, I’ll accept that blessing too, by God’s grace.”

Werning’s second piece of advice, as someone who has lived over a century, is telling people to always choose joy, no matter their circumstances or what obstacles they might be facing.

“They may not see any joy in their life right now, but it’s there because the joy of salvation in Christ doesn’t change.”

That joy of salvation shines through Werning, especially to those at The Lutheran Home.

“She is full of joy and happiness. And reaching out to others,” said Sheri Polczynski, executive director of Harwood Place. “She walks the common areas each day. She’s stopping in at staff doors and checking in on them, making them laugh, making them smile.”

“The joy is definitely there. It’s not forced. The joy is … present in Ruth because she is … so grateful for God’s presence in her life,” Wolter said. “It just springs forth.”

Werning’s faith has sustained her throughout her life, and she encourages people of all ages to keep the Lord at the forefront of their lives, whether they are young or old.

“Keep the Lord with you no matter how old you are. It’s not a case of ‘I’ll live my life without worship, without God, because later on when I get older then I’ll spend more time in worship,’” Werning said. “It doesn’t work that way. Eternity may start today, this moment, for anyone.”

Every morning, with her coffee thermos in hand, Werning sits in her recliner to pray. She prays for those close to her, including five children, 10 grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, one great-great-grandchild and the staff at The Lutheran Home. With all those people to pray about, it takes her a while to get to everyone’s names individually.

“By the time I get down to the youngest great-grandchild, sometimes I have to stop and think, ‘Did I get all five in that family by name?’” Werning said. “Not that the Lord wouldn’t know if I said, ‘Bless all my grandchildren.’ ”

Werning tells those about whom she is praying that she is doing so, because she wants them to notice the work that God is doing in their lives through those prayers and to encourage them to keep people in their lives in their prayers as well. She continues to live her life, thanking the Lord for the countless blessings He has given her.

“I am so blessed. It’s the last thing I say at night, in the middle of the night, and in the morning. I am blessed by the Lord. … And I thank God every day for everything, all by God’s grace.”

Morgan Consier (morganconsier@wccta.net) is an editor and writer who lives with her husband and children in central Iowa.

Posted Jan. 30, 2025