Alaska Missionary’s Descendents Gather for Reunion

ANCHORAGE, AK (July 27, 2010) – More than 150 descendents of one of the first Evangelical Covenant Church missionaries to work in Alaska gathered for a family reunion last weekend.

Ludvig E. Ost still is known as “Grandpa” by members of the Evangelical Covenant Church of Alaska. He and his wife, Ruth, had lived comfortably in Europe when they moved to Alaska in 1910. In 1914, Ost established a church and school called Elim Mission Roadhouse.

The reunion was held at the Aviation Heritage Museum on Friday. A local television news station broadcast a lengthy feature on the reunion.

Ost died in 1989 at the age of 103. His wife Ruth died in the 1950s. She suffered from crippling arthritis but managed to raise eight kids. All of those children also had large families.