Obituary of Weldon Ray Hultgren

Weldon Ray Hultgren, XC skier, tennis player, inveterate do-it-yourself-er, sun worshiper, woodcarver, and singer, passed away Wednesday, September 18, 2024. 

Weldon was an introvert who loved people, a gifted athlete who put family before sports, an honest man who (we learned this later in life) had the pool table skills of a shark. He took up wood carving in his 70s and carved beautiful, Swedish figures and Dala horses. He joined the Swedish men’s choir where he was careful to always stand next to someone who he thought sang better. He loved dogs, Dixieland jazz, choral music, and Swedish hymns. He hated skim milk and margarine, insisting on whole milk and butter. He loved watermelon and fresh tomatoes and hated lima beans (who doesn’t?). He loved homemade lemonade, and candy (often hiding in a coat pocket or a pants pocket or a desk drawer), and pancakes with real maple syrup, and he was a master at making mashed potatoes and frying up Spam.

Weldon, born June 22, 1932, to Robert and Alice (Johnson) Hultgren in Negaunee, Michigan, grew up mostly in Rock Island, Illinois, alongside his older brother Don and twin sisters Anita and Wanita. When he wasn’t out killing it at sports, he worked in his parents’ grocery store (where he honed his pool skills playing on the store’s pool table).

He ended up in the navy, not quite on purpose, where he spent 2 years on Kodiak Island, Alaska, during the Korean war. He was first put in care of weapons, but cleaning guns all day didn’t appeal to him, so he petitioned for a change and became the librarian.

After the navy he headed home to Rock Island, where he attended Augustana College. In addition to his studies, he helped turn the campus dome on Old Main into a giant teapot with his fraternity brothers late one night, and even better, met his future wife, Marilyn, in Philosophy 101.

After marrying in 1960, Weldon and Marilyn moved to the Minneapolis area where their twosome became a family of five, after they added three children: Deborah, Martin, and Sarah.

Weldon worked for the Soo Line Railroad as an industrial engineer until the 1980s when he shifted careers and counseled out-of-work men at Catholic Charities.

Weldon was a natural athlete, good at every sport he tried — football (in the 1940s when helmets offered no more protection than wrapping a towel around your head, and when the coach, seeing his broken nose, yelled at him to get back on the field), basketball, figure skating, cross-country skiing (serving on the ski patrol well into his 70s), track, tennis, biking, ping pong, and of course being a kind-hearted pool shark.

He cherished the family cabin on Ten Mile Lake and maintained a parcel of woods out back christened Weldon’s Woods. He was always fixing, raking, mowing, hauling, building, painting, doing what needed to be done to make it an oasis for him and Marilyn and their children and grandchildren for more than 50 years.

Weldon loved many. He loved his parents and his brother and his sisters. He loved his wife and children, and Ruth, the foreign exchange student who lived with their family for a year in 1984 and became like a third daughter.

He didn’t say much, but he loved people, enjoyed their company, appreciated their differences and always lit up when a familiar face appeared before him. He was kind. Never judged. Loved unconditionally.

He was fascinated by birds — feeding them, watching them, building them homes, learning about them. At Covenant Living in Golden Valley, Minnesota, where he and Marilyn lived for several years, the pond and creek beside the residence teemed with ducks. Whenever they saw him coming, dozens would race up the banks to the feeders to greet him.

In his last days, his family gathered around him. We told him how much we loved him, how much we learned from him, how much we will miss him. He didn’t want to go, we sensed. But he believed there is a life after this, which gives us comfort that he is happy and safe and now surrounded by those he lost over the years.

Weldon is survived by his wife, Marilyn, daughter Deb (Stanley) Koleski of Ashland, WI, son Martin (Camille Verzal) of Minneapolis, MN, and daughter Sarah (Josh Lund) of Pittsburgh, PA, and grandchildren Noah (Minneapolis), Avery (Seattle), Myles (Los Angeles), Ben (St. Paul), Natalie (St. Paul), and Ingrid (Pittsburgh), and his sisters Anita and Wanita (St. Petersburg, Florida), as well as many nieces and nephews and his exchange student “daughter”, Ruth Lau (Florida). He is preceded in death by his parents and brother.

A service will be held at a later date.

If you wish to make a memorial contribution, please consider one of the following:

https://tenmilelakemodules.growthzoneapp.com/ap/donate/zLE6myr1

James W Schwartz Environmental Preservation Fund (Ten Mile Lake Association)

Friends of the Boundary Waters

https://www.friends-bwca.org/donate/

Arrangements are under the direction of the Cremation Society of Minnesota.