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Holmstad to Dedicate New Ekstam Residence Center
BATAVIA, IL (October 16, 2002) - The Holmstad, one of 15 campuses affiliated with
Covenant Retirement Communities (CRC), will celebrate the dedication of the
Harry J. Ekstam Assisted Living Residence Center at 4 p.m. on Thursday,
October 24.
Speaker for the event is David A. Dwight, president of Covenant Ministries
of Benevolence, which oversees CRC and other Ministries of benevolence.
Guests will include Batavia Mayor Jeff Schelke and Grant Erickson, an
attorney who helped found The Holmstad in 1975.
Ekstam served from 1977 until 1984 as executive director of The Holmstad
after spending 10 years as administrator for The Samarkand of Santa
Barbara, California. He served as an officer in estate planning for
Covenant Trust Company in Chicago before recently retiring.
A native of Moline, Illinois, Ekstam earned his undergraduate degree from
nearby Augustana College in Rock Island. He attended North Park Theological
Seminary in Chicago, receiving a theology degree in 1944. He became an
ordained Covenant pastor that same year.
While serving his first pastorate at Covenant Congregational Church in
Beverly, Massachusetts, Ekstam studied at Harvard Divinity School and
earned a Master of Theology in 1946. During the next two decades, Ekstam
served as an administrator at Kallman Home for Children in New York; as
pastor of Hillside Covenant Church in Naugatuck, Connecticut; as
administrator of Covenant Children's Home and Family Services in Princeton,
Illinois (11 years), and as pastor of Trinity Covenant Church in Oak Lawn,
Illinois.
Ekstam accepted a position as administrator for The Samarkand in 1967 and
spent 10 years there until coming to The Holmstad. He lives at the facility
and a daughter, Kathryn Milbourn, serves as an administrative
assistant for The Holmstad.
The Holmstad's new assisted living center is one of many improvements made
as part of a $13 million construction project that began in June 2001. An
open house of the Center will follow the dedication. For more information
about the facility's recent construction projects and upcoming dedication
and open house, call Milbourn at 630-879-4000.
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