Rev. Armand O. Ramseyer

1914 - 1976  (61 years)

• Name	Armand O. Ramseyer
  Prefix	Rev.
  Born	29 Jul 1914	New Hamburg, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1]
  Gender	Male
  Interesting	religion
  Occupation	minister
  		Ramseyer,ArmandO.-0001-ServiceAdvert-FindAGrave.jpg
  Eby ID Number	Waterloo-203891
  Died	28 Jan 1976	Concord, Contra Costa, California, United States   [1]
  Buried	Saint Peter's Lutheran Cemetery, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1]
  Person ID	I203891	Generations
  Last Modified	12 May 2024

  
  

  Father	Joseph L. Ramseyer,   b. 27 Apr 1871, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada ,   d. 21 Jan 1930, RR2, New Hamburg, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 58 years)
  Mother	Mary Roth,   b. 21 Nov 1887, East Zorra Twp., Oxford Co., Ontario, Canada ,   d. 12 May 1961  (Age 73 years)
  Married	13 Jun 1912	Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
  Family ID	F39024	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Hilda E. Weicker,   b. 21 Jul 1913, Edmonton, , Alberta, Canada ,   d. 7 Aug 2002, Concord, Contra Costa, California, United States  (Age 89 years)
  Children	1. Armand Richard "Bud" Ramseyer,   b. 25 Dec 1935, , Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada ,   d. 12 Sep 2005  (Age 69 years)   2. Jan Ramseyer,   b. 16 Sep 1938, , Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada ,   d. 24 Apr 2019, Tampa, Hillsborough, Florida, United States  (Age 80 years)   3. Paul Daniel Ramseyer,   b. 14 Nov 1940, , Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada ,   d. 24 Dec 2020, Rose Hill, Butler, Kansas, United States  (Age 80 years)   4. John Mark Ramseyer,   b. 30 Mar 1946, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada ,   d. 19 May 2000, Concord, Contra Costa, California, United States  (Age 54 years)   5. Timothy Robert Ramseyer,   b. 1 Oct 1952, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada ,   d. 2 Sep 2016, Banchory, Aberdeenshire, Scotland  (Age 63 years)
  Last Modified	13 May 2024
  Family ID	F57116	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  If you tuned into Kitchener's CKCR radio on a Sunday afternoon in the early 1940s, chances were good you would hear the singing of 20 or so children from the village of Doon, a few kilometres south of the city. The Happy Half Hour singers were led by Rev. Armand O. Ramseyer, their pastor at the Doon Gospel Tabernacle. Each show opened with the theme song, We're A Happy Lot of People Yes We Are. Last week's "mystery" photo, snapped in about 1943, was often given to listeners who made a donation to the group, one of many church organizations broadcasting on CKCR at the time. Last week we knew next to nothing about the photo, but readers had plenty of information. Most of the children in the picture are still living. So is the piano player, Ruth (Krogman) Schwindt, now in her 90s. That's Rev. Ramseyer in the top left corner, beside his wife, Hilda, who played the violin and assisted with the ministry. Standing on the right in the front row are their three oldest children - Paul, Janet and Armand Jr. (Buddy). Ramseyer, born in 1914, grew up on his parent's farm outside New Hamburg, one of 11 children and blessed with a good singing voice. "When I think of him, a big smile comes on my face," Janet (Ramseyer) Pergola said by email from her home in Tampa, Fla. As she tells the story, her dad was a young man working at the Merchants Rubber Co. in Kitchener (where he met his future wife, Hilda Weicker of Kitchener) when he became very ill with blood poisoning caused by a glue used to make rubber dinghies. At one point, when he wasn't expected to live, he vowed to God he would go into the ministry if he survived. And that's what happened. In 1940 the Ramseyers moved to Doon where Armand had been invited to start a church. Doon Gospel Tabernacle members would later build a chapel \emdash today it's the Doon Chapel wedding venue at 1222 Doon Village Rd. \emdash but in the early 1940s the church was next door in a former general store. The Ramseyer family lived upstairs. Every Sunday the Doon group travelled to Kitchener where The Happy Half Hour was broadcast live from the CKCR studio, then upstairs in the Waterloo Trust building at King and Ontario streets. In addition to the Ramseyers and Schwindt (Krogman), the children shown in the photo were: Eldon, Esther, Shirley and Helen Leis; Alice, Doris, Mary and Stella Bewick; Beryl, Faith and Grace Hosie; Ralph and Ruth Smith, plus Beatrice Seftel, Joyce Stewart and Isobel Sapsworth. "They are all still living with the exception of my dad, my mom, my brother Buddy and Mary Bewick," Pergola said. "The youngest one is my brother Paul, who is 72." Paul Ramseyer, now living near Wichita, Kan., charmed audiences because he could sing tenor parts as a three-year-old, she recalls. The Toronto Star wrote about the three Ramseyer children, calling them the country's youngest trio singing in three-part harmony. The Happy Half Hour children also sang in area communities. Bernice (Yause) Ramseyer of Tavistock (her husband may be distantly related to the pastor's family) phoned to say she remembers seeing a performance at the Tavistock library in the 1940s. "They were cute kids," she said. Hilda (Merlau) Shiry remembers listening to The Happy Half Hour and saw the group perform at the Wellesley fellowship hall. "I still know the words of their theme song to this day," she said. In 1945 the Ramseyers moved into Kitchener and Armand started a Waterloo church, which first met in a Masonic hall at 6 Princess St. W. (behind today's Huether Hotel), then in a roofed-over basement at 235 King St. N., just north of University Avenue. This hall was later the first home of the Waterloo Pentecostal Assembly, now at 395 King St. N. Over time, The Happy Half Hour had many participants. Laverne Hurst of Kitchener married one of the Doon singers, Stella Bewick, and sang on the show for a time. He can recall "street meetings" Rev. Ramseyer held on an empty business lot on Arthur Street in Elmira, across the road from where Hurst's father, John, had a barbershop. Other readers recalled that Ramseyer also held outdoor "revival" meetings off Spring Valley Road in Kitchener, near today's Woodside National Historic Park. In 1954 the Ramseyers and most of their six children moved south to the first of several U.S. church posts Armand took on, first in Lynn, Mass., then Bay City, Mich., then Aberdeen, Wash., and then, in 1965, to the Open Bible Chapel in Concord, Calif. Over the years he wrote a few books and got a master's degree in theology. While The Happy Half Hour children were well known to CKCR listeners, it never went to their heads, Pergola said. "My dad kept us humble, and my mother, too. . . We were part of the ministry and their mission in song was to uplift spirits." Her father had a second radio ministry in Aberdeen, but never ventured into TV, Pergola said. "Our family travelled quite a bit and we all harmonized in the car," her sister, Beth (Ramseyer) Whitworth, wrote by email from her home in California. "I think all of us loved to sing." Rev. Ramseyer was just 62 when he died in 1976. Hilda Ramseyer died in California in 2002. Her remains were returned to Kitchener for internment at St. Peter's Lutheran Cemetery. A tribute headstone for Armand was also installed, carrying the words Keep On The Firing Line, the title of a favourite Christian song. According to an online history at the website of the Canadian Communications Foundation, CKCR radio is a direct forerunner of today's 570 News Radio (CKGL-AM) and 96.7 CHYM FM. Guelph Mercury Friday, February 22, 2013

  
  

• Sources

  [S3231] Find A Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/222254610.

  
  

• Event Map

  Born - 29 Jul 1914 - New Hamburg, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Died - 28 Jan 1976 - Concord, Contra Costa, California, United States Buried - - Saint Peter's Lutheran Cemetery, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  = Link to Google Earth