Oldest Southwest Texas pastor
marks 100th birthday April 12


By Rachel L. Toalson
Staff Writer
Sifting through his memories of more than 50 years in ministry, the Rev. Ben Bohmfalk marvels at the warm yet difficult moments that have colored his years.
The highlights have been tinged with heartache and the disappointments with joy.
There was his service as a chaplain in the U.S. Army during World War II. He watched soldiers desperately fight death in military hospitals but witnessed many lives surrendered to Jesus.
There was his sabbatical from ministry at Southwestern University in Georgetown in 1958. He and his wife became dorm parents while he pursued a master’s degree. But he didn’t finish because the academic work would keep him from preaching for too long.
There were his years in Lampasas and the happiness he and his wife found in retirement. But he lost her there.
Bohmfalk reached his 100th birthday April 12. He is the oldest clergy member of the Southwest Texas Conference.
He celebrated the century mark April 14 with family and friends at First UMC, Lampasas.
For most of his 100 years, Bohmfalk has had a tie to the ministry.
Born in Needville in Fort Bend County to a Methodist minister, Bohmfalk was baptized as a child in the town’s rural church. He was confirmed in Hilda in Mason County.
With three generations of Methodist pastors in his family, Bohmfalk said he felt the call to ministry early in his life—but he tried to run.
“I didn’t want to do it,” he said, chuckling softly. “I fought against it for a long time. I had been to those revival meetings with those preachers who could really preach, and I told God, ‘I can’t preach like those revival preachers.’ And I heard a voice that said, ‘You don’t have to. You know me.’”
Bohmfalk began his ministry in 1929 at 22 as a full-time local pastor in Pattison. He left the Pattison congregation to enter Southwestern University the following year. He received his bachelor of arts degree in 1932. He moved to the Southern Methodist University School of Theology in Dallas.
Bohmfalk was ordained a deacon in the Southern (German) Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1933. He served congregations in Robinhood and Arrowsic that summer and then moved to Woodville and Colmessneil for the next year.
Bohmfalk married Rubye Linde-mann from Monthalia Methodist Church in Cost June 20, 1934. He served in Denton from 1934 to 1935.
Bohmfalk was ordained an elder in 1935 and appointed to congregations in Lexington and Caldwell. The following year he graduated from Southern Methodist University with a bachelor of divinity degree.
Bohmfalk moved to Mason in 1937. He was serving congregations in Mason and Art when the Methodist Episcopal Church; the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; and the Methodist Protestant Church formed The Methodist Church in 1939. He became part of the Southwest Texas Conference.
That same year, the Bohmfalks’ first daughter, Barbara Bohmfalk Kendall, was born.
From Mason and Art, Bohmfalk went to Bronte in 1940. He served there until he joined the Army in 1942. He was almost 35 at the time.
Bohmfalk watched his parishioners sign up for the military or answer the draft. He said he knew they needed some kind of spiritual leadership.
“Methodists had a real place there (in military service),” Bohmfalk said. “Unfortunately, the peace movement kept most of them out of it. But we were fit ideally for the chaplaincy.”
Because of Bohmfalk’s German heritage, he spoke German fluently. But he ended up in the Pacific theater. He was sent twice to Guadalcanal, a Pacific island that became a turning point in World War II after Allied forces fought Japanese soldiers for control.
Bohmfalk served with Army hospital units that went in right after battles.
Kendall, who was about 4 when her father took his first trip overseas, said she remembers mostly when her father returned, back when cars could pull up almost to the airline runways and meet passengers. She was the first one to her father when he got off the plane in San Antonio, she said.
“I was very proud of him,” she said.
After his return, Bohmfalk served as a chaplain at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio for two years. He was sent overseas one last time in 1946 to a transport command that would bring back war brides.
Bohmfalk left active duty in January 1947 and became associate pastor of Laurel Heights Church, San Antonio. He was there for only six months. At the annual conference session in June, he was appointed to San Angelo’s Bethel Methodist Church, which became Angelo Heights Church in 1951. (Angelo Heights became Sierra Vista UMC in 1975).
Bohmfalk served in San Angelo until 1953. While there, the family welcomed a second daughter, Elizabeth Ruth Bohmfalk Sterling, in 1950.
In 1953 the family moved to Crystal City, where Bohmfalk served for three years. The summer before Kendall’s senior year in high school, the family moved to Corpus Christi, where Bohmfalk served Trinity Church for two years.
Bohmfalk and Rubye became dorm parents at Southwestern University, where Kendall went to college, between 1958 and 1959. In 1959, the Bohmfalks moved to Ingleside and were there for three years. In 1962 the family went to Rockport, where Bohmfalk served for six years.
In 1968 Bohmfalk was assigned to First Methodist Church, Lampasas. That same year The Methodist Church joined with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form The United Methodist Church.
In 1974 Bohmfalk was appointed to Ozona UMC. He officially retired from active ministry in June 1977 with 46.5 years of service.
Bohmfalk and Rubye returned to Lampasas for their retirement. He continued to have his hands in the ministry when preachers would get sick or die.
In June 1978 he was appointed pastor of Lometa UMC, which is not far from Lampasas. He served that congregation until 1982.
He was appointed as pastor of Lometa UMC again in June 1984. He also served Cherokee UMC that year.
Bohmfalk was Southwest Texas Conference statistician from 1947 to 1972, Kendall said.
Bohmfalk lost his “perfect minister’s wife” June 10, 2004. They were married almost 70 years.
“She really was the perfect minister’s wife,” Kendall said of her mother. “I judge Methodist ministers’ wives by my mother.”
Rubye taught school for a while and remained active in church activities until her death.
Both Bohmfalk’s daughters say he has always been an inspiration to them.
“I went into religious education partly because of him,” said Kendall, who served almost five years as a religious education director in Texas City. “Growing up, my sister and I never questioned whether we were going to church. It was just the way it was.”
Sterling said, “He’s the one who taught me about God. I never had any trouble with the fatherhood of God. My dad was a great image. He’s a very remarkable man.”
Both daughters said their father was a “teaching pastor” who used many factoids in his sermons. He was always involved in the youth work. Sometimes he would sing in the choir. Sometimes he would direct it.
Bohmfalk said he enjoyed the teaching aspect of his job.
“That was one of the big points of my ministry,” he said. “I never did get to be a big teacher, but my ministry was always a ministry of education.
“At revival meetings, people were brought in and then forgotten. Those were the ones I especially tried to help.”
Bohmfalk said he had seen many things change in the church during his years of service.
“In the early days, few of our preachers had a seminary education,” he said. “I had to go into every church and spend the first year just laying a foundation to preach on. Now there are college preachers. It’s much easier.”
He said The United Methodist Church has better training for pastors now. He said he thinks the “church has grown nicely.”
Bohmfalk remains involved in the Lampasas congregation and the American Legion. He enjoyed gardening and fixing watches and clocks for a time. But he has macular degeneration and is legally blind now.
Though a bit afraid of hitting the century mark, Bohmfalk said he believes he’s still doing well.
“Most people I know, once they reached that age, they were in bed or in a nursing home,” he said. “But I’m still up and about. I’m legally blind and can’t drive and read anymore, but I’m living comfortably.”