One of the stories that my father, Warren Stutzman, used to love to tell was about growing up on the family farm in Woodbury during the 1920s and 1930s. He would regularly walk home from the one-room schoolhouse (District 28) with his good friend, Orville Bielenberg.
After a long school day, they would stop at the Bielenberg farm and were greeted with several slices of freshly baked bread slathered with homemade butter. Now, as the mother of two boys, I remember how hungry they can get at that time of day and can only imagine what a treat that was for those young men
Bielenberg eventually became mayor of Woodbury from 1967–1982, while my dad worked as an engineer at Honeywell for over 40 years. They remained good friends even though my family moved and settled in Richfield. Bielenberg’s son, Tom Bielenberg, and I are both board members of the Woodbury Heritage Society, and we usually go for a bite to eat before or after our monthly board meetings. We like to think that our fathers would be pleased that the two of us have also become good friends and are serving Woodbury in this capacity. The tradition of “breaking bread” together continues!
Patty (Stutzman) Paulus is a board member of the Woodbury Heritage Society. Learn more at woodburyheritage.org.
