Long-time Port Loring resident Arnold Gehrke hesitates when asked his age, finally answering, “I’m 85 years young,” when prompted by a friend. Perhaps it’s because he really doesn’t think much about it — or maybe because he knows you might not believe him when he acknowledges his eight-plus decades.
Gehrke is lively, energetic and charming with a permanent smile on his lips and a twinkle in his eye. Born in the tiny hamlet of Commanda, just a few kilometres east of Port Loring, he has called the Almaguin Highlands home for most of his life.
He did leave for a few years, heading to Hamilton at age 17. Two years later he set off on the most momentous trip of his young life: he enlisted and went overseas to fi ght with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry. Sixty-six years later his eyes still well up with tears when he thinks about the horrors of war. “It seemed like a dream, what we went through over there,” he says. “Even back then I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t real. And to think that I came back!” He shakes his head, apologizing for being sentimental. “I’m like that. I get emotional sometimes.”
Repatriated in 1946 he went back to Northern Ontario where he bought a couple of trucks and hauled lumber and gravel for a few years. In 1949 he met a pretty young Arnstein woman named Dorcas; they married and had two children, a son and a daughter. “We had lots of good times. I have so many wonderful memories,” he says of those times. “ (Today) my daughter lives in Orillia. My son just retired and lives at his cottage nearby. We talk on the phone every day.”
As a married man and young father, Gehrke worked for 20-plus years as a transport driver for Rogerson Lumber in Port Loring. During the same period he established an egg farm with 8,000 laying hens. He recalls doing three long hauls a week with his employer, then coming back to thousands of fresh eggs to be delivered. When he was on the road his father-in-law took care of the farm.
The egg business ended one Christmas morning when his helper accidentally hit a heat switch instead of a light switch as he left the barn, over-heating the hens. They died en masse.
In 1969 Gehrke began selling snowmobiles, which were just becoming popular as winter recreational vehicles. Shortly after, in a move designed to keep him busy all year long, he opened a dry-land marina offering boats, motors, sales and service.
In 2000 Gehrke, then a recent widower, went to an auction with his good friends the Thompsons. The next Friday night they went to another one where Gehrke bought a piano. “He said that if I helped him clean it up and we re-sold it for a profi t, half of it would be mine,” says Helene Thompson.
“That one purchase resulted in a new business called Antiques and Other Things.” Today they have three buildings chock-a-block with wonderful treasures waiting to be discovered and given a new life. Joanie Thompson (a niece by marriage) helps them out a few days a week.
Working hard is what Gehrke knows. “I think I’m what they call a workaholic nowadays, but working gives me a reason to get up in the morning and a reason to keep on using my brain. I get real pleasure out of starting something and seeing it through to success,” he chuckles. “My hard work would have made me a millionaire by now, if I wasn’t so vehicle crazy. I just love big, expensive cars. I’d really like to buy a new Cadillac SUV.”
Age is no impediment to thinking big for Arnold Gehrke. Gehrke appreciates women, offering that the world can’t get along without them. “If you have a job to do, ask a woman. She’ll get it done!”
When asked if he’s ever thought about remarrying, he answers with one of his trademark quips: “Well, those that are attainable haven’t been desirable to me and the ones that have been desirable haven’t been available.”
Gehrke’s life philosophy is simple: “Make lots of friends and be kind to one another.” He attributes his positive thoughts to being a born-again Christian since 1949. His thoughts on aging are likewise affi rmative. “If you feel old, you’ll be old. Don’t quit moving or you’ll seize up.” He adds, “Make sure that you have a reason to get out of bed every day and work that keeps you going.”