Honest-to-goodness Lutheran Church Ladies made sandwiches and salads for Saturday's Funeral lunch, presenting a table top of ham-in-buns as well as a colorful assortment of bowls filled with a variety of homemade salads beside trays of mixed dessert bars. At least a dozen homemade specialities were put out, but, despite the stereotype for traditional church basement offerings. . . there was no red or green jello.
Beverly Rolfsrud helped form Shalom Lutheran in 1982 and served its music ministry. These ladies remember her fondly and made their feelings known with kind words. . . and their hand-made comfort food.
Among those enjoying the lunch and fellowship was Beverly's nephew, Harold Rolfsrud from Keene, North Dakota (far right). He drove to Alexandria to honor the last of her generation of Rolfsrud/Brown aunts and uncles. He brought pictures of his summer visit with Rolfsrud relatives in Norway and shared them with his cousin Solveig Shearer, and her son, Zachary, above. Harold is the patriarch of the Rolfsrud Ranch in western North Dakota, claimed from raw prairie land and settled by our Norwegian immigrant grandparents Nils and Rebecca in 1904. The greatly-expanded acreage is still farmed by extended family members --- including Harold, who, though retired, can't seem to stay off the tractor.
