May 15, 2020
My
original letter
was created and submitted in late February but I wanted to add this after the Coronavirus took over, and to acknowledge a potential informed decision for Homecoming 2020!
COVID-19
Sending healing prayers and deepest sympathy to those who have lost family and friends in this pandemic. May God grant you comfort, strength, and peace in special memories of your loved ones.
I also want to send a super big thank you and tons of gratitude to all the heroes/first responders that you are celebrating in your own family/community - those who continue risking their lives in: health care settings, nursing home staffs, food production/trucking/sales, postal workers, transportation/auto care workers, and others who are providing essential services. Those of you staying at home, to keep yourself and others healthy, have shared multitudes of kindness, gratefulness, and creative entertainment for our fellow Americans - including our dear Luther friends. Truly each of you is helping “make a difference” in our world - for “the good of all."
Homecoming: Luther College has just announced that it is unable to host an in-person Homecoming on campus this fall
. This COVID-19 has disrupted everything, but Luther is continuing to make HUGE critical decisions for the near and distant future of our dear college. By the way, if you hear expert epidemiologist, Dr. Michael Osterholm, from the University of Minnesota being interviewed on the national TV/cable channels, he is a 1975 graduate of Luther College and a member of our Board of Regents – born in Waukon, Iowa!
Obituary:
It is very sad for me to share this obituary for one of our classmates,
Mary (Kaasa) Uland.
Mary Uland, Lake City, Minnesota, lost her year-long struggle with lymphoma on Wednesday, May 6, 2020. She was born on October 12, 1943 to Marjorie and Rolf Kaasa in Red Wing, MN, and grew up at her parent’s home just north of Lake City on Lake Pepin. She attended Lincoln High School and graduated from Luther College in 1965 with a degree in Elementary Education. While at Luther, she met Richard (Dick) Uland and they were married the following July. The couple resided in Flint, MI, where she taught kindergarten for two and one-half years, before moving to Nashville, Tenn. They also resided in Blaine and Rochester, Minn., teaching in Rochester schools as a substitute teacher for several years. In 2003, they built their dream home on Lake Pepin on the land where she grew up. Mary enjoyed quilting, pontooning on the Whitefish Chain of Lakes at their cabin, theatre, gardening, cats, and watching the constantly changing beauty of the lake, the Wisconsin bluffs, and the birds and wildlife that visited her home.
Mary decided to undergo CAR-T, a relatively new lymphoma treatment with significant side effects, to aid in the research of CAR-T’s effect on brain lesions. Mary is survived by her husband, children Hans (Kristin) Uland and Erik (Jill) Ulland, her sons of St. Paul Minn., and her daughter Kari(Jason) Makoutz, Keller, Texas. Her nine grandchildren, Anders, Mette, Osa (a current 6
th
generation Luther student), Espen, Ian, Declan, Julien, Ethan, and Saffron were the absolute apples of her eyes. Memorials in her memory may be given to Luther College or the Hiawatha Valley Animal Humane Society, Lake City, Minn.
We will miss her! God Bless her memory!
Until we meet again!
Stay safe! Stay healthy! Stay compassionate!
