Olga Berndt

Olga Berndt,100, of Minnesota City passed away peacefully at home with her daughters by her side on December 19, 2018. Olga was born to Emil and Ida (Lehrke) Wieczorek in Little Falls, Minnesota on November 15, 1918.
After attending rural school, she left home at age 15 to be able to attend high school and graduated from Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis. She attended Winona State College where she met Alfred Berndt and married March 29, 1941.
After Alfred returned from serving in the Pacific on a naval ship in WWII, they started a family and raised four children. They lived on Latsch Island and moved to Minnesota City in 1969.
Olga was exceptionally creative and active. She was a very good seamstress and sewed many dresses and outfits for her daughters. While living on Latsch Island, she would take her children swimming, fishing, hiking, exploring the back sloughs by boat, picnics and camping on different sandbars and islands. In the winter they would go skating, sledding, ice fishing and collect maple sap in the spring. She was a Girl Scout leader for years and always had creative projects and fun adventures. In Minnesota City, she and her husband had a huge vegetable garden including grape vines, raspberry bushes, flowers and bittersweet. She would take her grandchildren hiking and had them convinced there was a troll under the bridge. Olga worked many years at Choates department store as alterations seamstress and later at Camera Arts. When they both retired, they loved traveling especially to Washington state and Canada in the summer and Florida in the winter.

Survivors include children Jeanne (William) Russ of Montgomery Minn., Dianne Berndt-Connors of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Gayle Berndt of Weaver, Minn. and Roger (Debbie) of Friday Harbor, Wash.; grandchildren Greg (Vicki) Russ and Kathryn (Daniel) Sprenger; great grandchildren Brenna, Veronica, Catrina, Anthony and Dayne Russ, Ryan and Danyka Sprenger; sister-in-law Esther Berndt; along with cousins, nieces and nephews.

Olga was preceded in death by her husband Alfred of 75 years; siblings, Gordan, Erwin, Lucille and Jeanette; son-in law John Connors; granddaughter Caroline Hirschman.

Funeral service will be held at 12 p.m., Saturday, December 29th with visitation starting at 11 a.m. at the Hoff Celebration of Life Center in Goodview. A reception will follow. Olga will be laid to rest at Woodlawn Cemetery.