Margaret Duevel

Margaret Florence (Lindborg) Duevel passed away peacefully with her family present and under the loving care of the Little Falls Care Center staff and CHI Hospice Care on October 28, 2018. Margaret was born July 1, 1918, to the proud parents Carl Ludwig Lindborg and Mia Rodmann Esselstrom. She was born at the home farm in Culdrum Township, seven miles northeast of Swanville. Margaret is survived by her husband, Arnold, of over 72 years of marriage, children Christine Baron (James), Williamsburg, Virginia; Edward (Janet), Little Falls, Minnesota; John, Royalton, Minnesota; Leonard (Linda), Tananger, Norway; Michael (Sherry), Royalton, Minnesota; Mary Duevel-Banoub (Albert), Porum, Oklahoma; and Elaine Kramer (David), Corcoran, Minnesota; 23 grandchildren, 38 great-grandchildren and sister Doris (Cliff) Sawyer. Margaret is preceded in death by her grandparents Johan August Johansson and Ida Kristina Eriksdotter/Eriksson of Småland, Sweden, and grandparents Johan Jonasson Storkung Esselstrom and Maja Greta Johansdotter Rundbacka of Finland, parents Carl and Mia Lindborg and brothers Clarence and Paul.

Margaret personally witnessed changes in a most dramatic century during her 100 years. She found herself in the Great Depression and made the most of life. Margaret was born in a two-room frame home and grew up on a small dairy farm with horses, before there were tractors. Entertainment was playing with dolls, using sticks and boards to make pretend houses and laying out floor plans, a game that would turn to reality of their new home years later. There was no television or even radio until she was 17, and even then they did not listen often. Margaret played games like Skip to My Loo, tag, catch ball and later basketball indoors, swimming or skating on a pond nearby. She was known to get up early and run across the road in her pajamas to Frieda, her fellow 100-year lifelong friend who visited Margaret just a few days ago. When entertaining family and neighbors, they had cake and ice cream, sometimes with strawberries, Margaret’s favorite. Margaret’s parents were interested in education and sent her off to start school with Swedish fluency and a keen interest in learning English. Margaret attended a one-room school near the farm and even though Margaret lost her father when she was a teenager, she graduated from Swanville High School in 1936 and Twin City Business School in 1939.

Margaret worked for Montgomery Ward in St. Paul for one year and then was the Morrison County Deputy Treasurer for five years from autumn 1940 to April 25, 1946, before marrying Arnold H. Duevel on May 6, 1946, at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Swanville. World War II separated this young couple just getting to know each other. The separation also provided a platform to document a love story in letters. Margaret and Arnold had exchanged over 700 letters each while Arnold served in the US Army Air Corps. Letters brought Margaret and Arnold together in thoughts and prayers and solidified their affection as it turned to love. Margaret preserved the treasure of love letters from wartime years and re-read them when she was 96, finally finding time in a busy life to gain insight into their shared experiences separated by the Atlantic Ocean. Their letters now constitute two volumes of 500 pages of a book entitled Prairie, Planes, Peril and Plans: A Love Story in Letters . After marrying in 1946, the couple moved to Duluth and Margaret worked in a bank in Morgan Park for some months and later worked with the language precision documenting land titles and deeds as an abstractor. Margaret dedicated her life to her family in the role of mother for seven children and community volunteer over the next 70 years.

Love was a long-awaited gift that offered a long and fruitful life. The five-year discussion in letters of their religious difference resulted in respect for each other’s religion. After marrying in 1946, they moved into their home in Duluth, the first of three houses they bought and remodeled there. Three children were born between 1947 and 1950 in Duluth. Margaret liked living in the city with electricity and a telephone but Arnold dreamed of the countryside. They found their new home outside Royalton on a farm ten miles south of Little Falls, with 160 acres of sandy loam and about 80 acres of woods with a river running through it, for 6000 dollars, but without electricity or telephone. The first year’s crops were leveled by a storm, so they would have been better off financially if they had never planted. But they persevered. After they bought the farm, they found out they were expecting their fourth child in August, 1951. Three more children were born while they lived on the farm in Langola Township. Arnold initiated a move among neighboring farms to install electricity and telephone service. After their seventh child was born, Margaret and Arnold tore down the farm’s century-old house and built a new home on the foundation. While Arnold built the house in the winter, the family moved into a two-car garage they had built. The garage was insulated and heated with a potbelly wood stove and had water on one wall with a kitchen sink, but the toilet was an outhouse around the corner, even when it was 40 degrees below zero. It was luxury to move into a new 1200 square-foot home with four bedrooms. Margaret and Arnold set up a construction business and Margaret used her business background to run the accounting.

Margaret was actively involved in Culdrum 4-H, Swanville High School Church Youth Group, Morrison County Rural Youth, Baptist Church of St. Paul, Langola Birthday Club, American Legion Auxiliary, Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary, Royalton PTA, Book Club, Mission Church, Episcopal Guild of Royalton, First Baptist Church in Little Falls, church organist for Grace Episcopal Church of Royalton and Graham United Methodist Church of Rice. Even though she shied away from public speaking, Margaret held offices in the organizations from a sense of civic duty.

Margaret and Arnold traveled extensively to see relatives and friends spread around the United States and Europe. They spent over twenty winters in southern Texas as snowbirds. While never visiting places Arnold was stationed during the war, Arnold and Margaret traveled to Europe four times to visit with relatives in Germany, Sweden, Finland and Norway.

Margaret and Arnold hosted regular family gatherings for the extended family; the family farm was a magnet for hospitality, sense of family and space in the country.

After 30 years on the farm, Margaret and Arnold bought a few acres in Royalton and built the first of three houses they would live in until they were almost 99. They moved into assisted living so they could stay together, never apart for more than a few days in over 70 years of marriage. They enjoyed visiting and playing cards and dominos. Their 7 children, 23 grandchildren and an ever-growing number of great-grandchildren (38 and counting) were frequent visitors. Sightings were often reported of Margaret and Arnold holding hands at breakfast, lunch, dinner and while falling asleep at night.

Looking forward to their upcoming marriage, Margaret wrote on March 21, 1946, to Arnold of planning to take him to a night shift. “A couple of months from now I hope the moon comes out like now because at 10:30 I’m going to walk with you to the gate and that hike might just as well have moonshine & starlight added to make it perfect for a lover’s parting.” Margaret loved and was loved. On Sunday, October 28, 2018, Margaret parted through a gate with generations of love.

Margaret’s family would like to thank the many loving caregivers for extraordinary kindnesses over the past years. To celebrate her life a visitation at 1:00 PM followed by a funeral service at 2:00 PM will be held at Graham United Methodist Church, 2255 135thSt NE, Rice, Minnesota on Saturday, November 3, 2018. Luncheon will follow. The family invites memorial donations to Graham United Methodist Church or Little Falls Care Center.