Ted Chell was regarded by many to be a luminary of the Lutheran Church in Western Canada, but you wouldn’t have known it from speaking with him.
Born Theodore Emanuel Chell on Dec. 22, 1937, in Benson, Minn., he graduated from Augustana Seminary with a master’s degree in divinity in 1963 and was ordained a minister later that year. He and his wife Janet then moved their young family to Canada, where he helped found Holy Spirit Lutheran Church, one of the first Lutheran churches in Edmonton, and remained there until 1967.
Chell briefly returned to work in the U.S. in the late 1960s, serving a parish in Indiana before returning to Canada in 1970 to serve the Prince of Peace parish in Winnipeg. That was followed by a stint in Saskatoon at Augustana Lutheran Church before returning to Winnipeg for good in 1978, when he was selected assistant to the president of the Man-Sask Synod, a role he served in until 1985, when he returned to parish work at First English Lutheran in downtown Winnipeg.
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Chell and wife Janet in the Montana mountains; the couple loved to travel.
While many of his pastoral colleagues considered him a leading light of the church, his son Dave says his dad always maintained he was simply a servant.
“He was a giant in other people’s minds, in that he volunteered and he got so involved in things outside of just running a parish at church,” he recalls. “Even though he was very successful, he never saw himself as that. He just saw himself as a regular guy. He lived his life very humbly.”
It didn’t come as much of a surprise to those who knew him as a child when he announced he would be attending seminary school. After all, his father Arthur and his older brother Jim were already pastors with the Lutheran Church and were hugely influential figures in his life.
“He just said he just had a love for the church as a kid growing up,” Dave recalls, “because his dad was a pastor and his dad loved being a pastor.”
The other love of his life was his wife, Janet. They first met in 1958 while both were attending classes at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn. Janet worked part-time on the switchboard in the school’s front office, where Ted would deliver mail. The two quickly hit it off and were married a little over a year later.
The couple moved to Rock Island, Ill., in 1960 where Chell began his seminary studies. The following year they moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., for Chell’s internship year.
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The fledgling pastor (left) did an internship with Pastor Parkiander in St. Petersburg, Fla.
While all of those moves might have worn down some folks, their son Dave says they energized his dad.
“A lot of people thought I was a military kid because we moved around so much,” Dave says, laughing.
“The good thing is one of dad’s gifts was he was an extrovert. He has such a gift for meeting people. That wasn’t work for him. Making new friends, starting up a new parish or getting some new (assignment) every couple of years was something that drove him. I think it kept him going.”
Pastor Ken Kuhn first met Chell in 1963. At the time, he was interning at a church in Calgary, while Chell was helping organize the new parish in Edmonton. They became friends soon after they both moved to Winnipeg in the early 1970s.
Kuhn says one of the things he remembers most about Chell was his sense of kindness and hospitality. When Kuhn needed a place to stay during his pastoral exam, Chell and Janet immediately offered to take him in. Chell was also extremely collegial in his approach to most things, Kuhn recalls; that was reflected in his decades-long participation in a multi-faith pastors curling league.
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Ted and Janet at their home on Stracona Street in the West End
“He was also very committed to the church, very committed to his faith. Everything he did arose out of his faith commitment,” says Kuhn, adding Chell played a lead role in helping bring a sense of social justice to the Canadian Lutheran church.
Even though Chell was born in the U.S., he was as Canadian as maple syrup or back bacon. In the 1980s he and Janet and their three boys (Dave, Andy and Luther) all became Canadian citizens.
Dave says his dad was eager to come back to Canada, as America had become extremely divided as a result of ongoing racial tensions and the war in Vietnam.
“When a call came from Winnipeg for a pastor, I think he jumped on it because his heart was already feeling like ‘I really kind of miss Canada.’
“I think that call … was a real game-changer. He sensed ‘This is my home’ and Winnipeg became our anchor.”
Chell served as the assistant to the president of Man-Sask Synod for seven years. It was one of the most powerful positions in the Lutheran Church in Western Canada at the time. However, he returned to ministering in 1985 following a restructuring of the church’s administration.
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Chell’s trip to Israel in 1997 was a foundational event in his life.
While some might have seen it as a demotion, Chell saw it as opportunity to return to the work he loved and joined First English Lutheran Church on Maryland Street. He remained there until his retirement.
“Those were probably dad’s happiest years in the ministry,” his son says. “His love was being with people in the church. It wasn’t being a big-shot executive. He wasn’t caught up in titles. He said in God’s eyes this is where he was called to be and he absolutely loved it.”
That might explain why even though he “retired” in 2000, Chell continued to serve as an interim pastor for a number of parishes in Manitoba for another seven years, until officially retiring in 2007.
While his work kept him busy, Chell always managed to make time for his family. One of Dave’s fondest childhood memories was the camping trips their family used to take each summer. He jokes they probably camped in every state and province in mainland North America.
Later in life, Ted and Janet travelled several times to Europe, including a trip to their ancestral home of Sweden, as well as multiple trips to Hawaii, Mexico and the Caribbean.
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Ted and Janet were proud to become Canadian citizens in the ’80s.
Perhaps the most memorable voyage they took together was a pilgrimage to Israel in the late 1990s. That journey resonated with Chell for many years after.
“Being a pastor and knowing the Old Testament the way he did, he loved going to see where Christ was born,” says Dave. “Whenever I hear people talking about dad’s preaching, he often was able to relate back to that trip to Israel as a foundational piece in his life that he wanted to share with others.”
One of the other passions in Chell’s life was sports. He was a member of the high school football team in Canon Falls, Minn., where he lined up at tight end, a position no one else.
“Dad always said coach called him more of a loose end than a tight end,” Dave says, adding his dad always had a self-deprecating sense of humour.
The elder Chell also had a couple of brushes with hockey greatness.
One of the students in his confirmation class at his ministry in Edmonton was Phil Russell, a bruising forward who went on to play in more than 1,000 NHL games with the Chicago Blackhawks, Calgary Flames and Buffalo Sabres. At the time, Chell thought Russell had the makings of a good pastor. Little did he know that Russell would go on to amass more than 2,000 penalty minutes before hanging up his skates in 1988.
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Chell as ‘pope’ at Luther Village family night
He also got to know a young Mark Stone, who would go on to become captain of the Vegas Golden Knights. The Manitoba-born Stone played several years with Chell’s grandchild Kristian, Dave’s son, in the minor hockey ranks.
Chell was also a huge baseball fan. Dave recalls travelling with his dad from their home in Indiana to Cincinnati to watch the Reds play a home game against the visiting San Francisco Giants and star outfielder Willie Mays, whom the elder Chell idolized. The pair even got to meet Mays after the game.
“Willie Mays was his hero,” Dave says. “Next to meeting God and Jesus, that was probably the ultimate.”
Chell died peacefully in his sleep on June 28, 2024, at Luther Court Senior Home in Victoria, B.C., where he and Janet had moved four years earlier after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He was 86.
Dave says he hopes his dad is remembered as someone who cared about everyone he encountered, regardless of what their lot in life was.
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Ted Chell with his grandchildren outside his family’s church in rural Minnesota.
“He was somebody that judged people from the inside, not the outside. He didn’t care about your religion or if you were tall, short or fat. He just had a gift to see the inside of people and see the good in people.”
fpcity@freepress.mb.ca