Covenant News

Memorial Service Set for Herman Anderson

GOLDEN VALLEY, MN (May 19, 2004) - A memorial service will be held at 2:30 p.m. Friday in the Fellowship Center at Covenant Village for 94-year-old retired Covenant pastor Herman Anderson, who died Monday.

A service of internment will be conducted at 10 a.m. Friday at Vista Evangelical Covenant Church in nearby New Richland, where Anderson served as pastor from 1967-75.

Born September 15, 1909, in rural Dassel, Minnesota, Anderson was ordained by the Evangelical Covenant Church in 1944 after attending North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago and completing course work in Arts and Theology. He married his wife, Alpha, on September 7, 1940.

After beginning his full-time pastoral ministry at a Covenant church in Odebolt, Iowa, Anderson was senior pastor for Covenant congregations in Tomahawk, Wisconsin (1944-1951); Litchfield, Minnesota (1951-60); Dawson, Minnesota (1960-67); and at Vista Evangelical Covenant Church before serving as the visitation pastor for Powell Valley Covenant Church in Gresham, Oregon, from 1975-78. He later served several interim pastorates before he and his wife moved into the Covenant Manor/Covenant Village retirement facility in 1991. Along with being a pastor, Anderson was an avid horseshoe competitor, once winning a national tournament in his age group, and also loved gardening, hunting and nature.

"The quality that characterized him was that he was a pastoral person - he cared for people," said Anderson's son, Tim, a Covenant pastor at First Covenant Church in Red Wing, Minnesota. "He really knew how to deal with the needs of people on a one-to-one basis and enjoyed spending time with people in their homes. I've been a pastor for 30 years and I find my own ministry reflecting in many ways the model I saw in my dad."

In addition to his wife, survivors include two sons, Lee (Dawn) and Rev. Tim (Linda) and their families. The family suggests memorials be directed to either Vista Evangelical Covenant Church or the Covenant Village Benevolence Fund.

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