Work: Retired - Engineering Technician
Spouse: Kim Samuelson
3 Children
3 grandchildren
Information update: 09/11/2024

After graduating from Central, I attended UMD and received a BA degree in Social Science. I then went to Northwestern Lutheran Seminary and became a pastor. I was pastor at Arnold Lutheran and Bethel Lutheran Churches in Duluth. After 20 years of being a pastor, I left the ministry and attended the Duluth Technical Institute for training as a civil engineer technician.

Other than being a pastor, I have worked at a variety of jobs through my life: laborer, school bus driver, Building Inspector for Rice Lake Township, fire service instructor, and lastly as an engineering technician for St. Louis County Highway Department. I retired from county employment in May of 2010. In 1990, I retired also from the Rice Lake Volunteer Fire Department. 

In 1979, I married my wife Kim and life has never been boring since! We were blessed with two children, Chris and Jen. (I also have a daughter, Amy, from a previous marriage.) We were blessed again with three beautiful grandchildren. Chris and his wife Shawna have two children, son Zane (age 5 years) and daughter Ella (age 15 months), and our daughter Jen has one daughter Aila (age 4 months).

We have never been rich people and have always had to watch our budget, but through the years we have done things and been to places that we never dreamt we'd ever see or do. God has richly blessed us! We have traveled to 45 states and five countries (Mexico, Canada, Iceland, Finland, Norway). We have also explored all of the state parks in Minnesota. (Have you been to all of them?)

Both Kim and I enjoy genealogy research and have found much family history information and many "skeletons" in our research at home, on our travels, and abroad. While we were in Finland, we visited with lots of Finnish relatives and also found some relatives we didn't know about. For some of our Finnish relatives, WE were the relatives they didn't know about!

Through the years, our Finnish heritage has become more and more important to us, and Finnish groups and activities seem to dominate our time. We are members of the Knights and Ladies of Kaleva, Choir, Revontulet music group. Minnesota Finnish-American Historical Society, Finnish Genealogical Group, and Finlandia Foundation National Northland Chapter. We even attend a little church full of Finns.And we play Finnish instruments (kantele, jouhikko, and Sami drum).

Although we lived in Duluth for most of our lives, we now live on an old farm in Kettle River where we are surrounded by Finns! We are in the process of building another new house (even though I said after we built our last house that I never wanted to build a house again!). But I wanted this land and (according to Kim) this land needed a new house and a new garage. The new house will have room for Kim's creative endeavors (quilting, weaving, scrapbooking, photography, desktop publishing and writing), and the new garage will have room for me to work on and play with my 1948 Dodge pickup and my 1947 Farmall M tractor (plus the other old vehicles and tractors I've been drooling over). So, here we go building again!

Besides our genealogy research, traveling and individual interests, we both love to read, collect antiques and ride and explore trains. I also volunteer at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in the Duluth Depot. We stay busy at home, too, with a big garden and fruit trees, and we plan to raise some animals. But the barn building comes after the house and the garage...and the sauna! Our days are always busy, never boring!

My life has been full of precious family and friends,& joy and excitement, sorrow and tears, great adventures and wonderful memories! Like I said, life is never dull! With my two partners - my Lord God and my wife Kim - I look forward to many more exciting and blessed years.