His father worked at an automobile dealership and also had an interest in a savings and loan institution. The family was active in a conservative Missouri Synod Lutheran congregation. Erv attended a public elementary school and then a Missouri Synod Lutheran high school. As a teen Erv started asking a lot of questions about his church which he thought were not answered very well. He studied one year at St.
Olaf College and then came home and got a job at the American Can Company; he was more interested in earning money at that time. Erv enlisted in the U. Navy in as the Korean War was heating up. After two years he went to sea on a destroyer escort, serving on the staff of the Pacific fleet admiral and chaplain. After Erv returned to Chicago and he returned to the the American Can Company and was offered a position in a pilot management training program.
He wrestled with feeling a call to be a minister. Erv decided that working in a funeral home might be closer to a ministry vocation, so he enrolled and graduated from Worsham School of Mortuary Science.
He served an apprenticeship at a Jewish funeral home on the South Side of Chicago, eventually becoming the general manager. He learned a lot about Judaism and integrated it into his Judeo-Christian framework and it became a significant element in his theological development. During this time, Erv meet Ross Walker through a mutual friend whom they had both dated a bit.
They become good friends and after five months they entered into a committed relationship and moved in together. Erv and Ross mark November 30, as the beginning of their life together. Ross Walker was born in Chicago in into a large and loving extended family, the middle child of three. He grew up in a two-flat with a small basement apartment that was filled with relatives.
