Art Hemmerling

Arthur Hemmerling (Art), died July 24. He was born to Christian and Marie on August 11, 1935 in Lichtental, Romania, which became part of Russia after WWII. Today the town is called Svetlodolinskoye, Ukraine.

The Hemmerling family was part of a generation of German farmers that had been invited in the 1700s by Catherine the Great to teach the local people there to farm.

Christian and Marie had a total of nine children but only seven survived childhood. Art was born the seventh of the nine.

In 1940, all of the residents of Lichtental were ordered by Russia to evacuate due to the war with Germany and they were escorted to the Romanian boarder where the Danube River empties into the Black Sea.

From there, the women and children (including Art) were loaded into barges and the men followed with their belongings by covered wagon.

Over the next five years the Hemmerlings were war refugees, being moved several times to different settlements until arriving in Poland. Eventually they had to flee again to an area that would become East Germany. After several years, they escaped the east, being taken in by relatives in West Germany.

Art met his future wife Katharina Schmid (Katie) working at the same machine factory in Nurtingen, West Germany. They were married in 1956 and then immigrated to the Odessa area with most of the Hemmerling family that same year.

After arriving in the US, Art worked as a farm hand and then farm manager on various farms in the Odessa, Lind (Gering farm) and Ritzville area until taking a job with Loomis Truck and Tractor in Lind, in 1971.

Art remained a mechanic and shop manager there for 22 years until he and Katie moved to Seattle to work with his son at the ExOfficio apparel company between 1993-2007.

Art was preceded in death by Katie in January 1994 and is the last of his siblings to pass.

With all of his children and grandchildren living in the Seattle area, Art was able to become very involved in their lives and he will be greatly missed as a father and opa.

Art is survived by his 3 children – Cornelia Kromm (Bob), Richard (Rick) Hemmerling (Pam), and Heidi Lowe (Lon) and their families that include 10 grandchildren (Katrina, Karli, Mackenzie, Blake, Lana, Mikhael, Asia, Matt, Haley and Nathan) all living in the Seattle area.

A service to celebrate Art’s life will be held at the church he attended in Seattle, City Calvary Chapel, 15211 15th Ave. NE, Shoreline, WA 98155, on Friday, August 21, at 1:30 pm.

A graveside gathering, to lay his ashes to rest next to Katie’s, will take place in Lind on Friday, September 4, at 11:30 am. Anyone is welcome to attend.

Remembrances in Art’s name can be made to the Alzheimer’s Association at: http://act.alz.org/goto/Hemmerling.