Willard Friesen

OBITUARY FOR WILLARD FRIESEN Willard Friesen, 90, of Mountain Lake, died on Sunday, February 27, 2011, at the Good Samaritan Village nursing home in Mountain Lake. He was born May 26, 1920 to J. John and Mary (Hiebert) Friesen in Mountain Lake, MN. His family lived in Mountain Lake, Freeman, South Dakota, and Glendale, California before settling on a small acreage just west of Butterfield, Minnesota in 1931, where his mother died two years later. After graduating from Butterfield High School in 1938, he worked for his cousin, Roland Friesen. During World War II he served as a conscientious objector in Civilian Public Service in a mental hospital in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. He attended Bethel College in North Newton, KS, for one year, where he met and later married Helen Elisabeth Wiebe on December 2, 1947, in the Emmaus Mennonite Church in Whitewater, Kansas. They made their home in Butterfield, MN, where they raised their three sons. In 1948 he started his own heating air conditioning business, Willard's Heating. After retirement he continued to do sheet metal work for several local businesses. He was baptized at Bethel Mennonite Church in 1941 and became a member at that time. He was active in the church as a Sunday school teacher, deacon, church moderator. He also served on the Northern District Conference Mennonite Men, Social Concerns, Home Missions committees. He is survived by two sons, Douglas (Sandra) Friesen of Goshen, IN, and Alan (Charlene) Friesen of Sioux Falls, SD, his daughter-in-law Patsy Friesen of Sartell, MN, 10 grandchildren, and 11 great grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife, his son, Donald Friesen, and his sister, Magdalen Friesen Kim. Memorials may be given to Mennonite Central Committee.