Thankful for our Troops…Thankful for Norm
Avis Tetrault, Vicki Busbeem, and Marjorie McIntosh helping me at the Post Office
Recently we sponsored a “Stuff a Christmas Stocking for the Troops Program” where we invited the community to help us stuff Christmas stockings full of goodies and ship them to American Soldiers all over the world. It was great to see the participation from schools, nursing homes, and individuals either knowing service men and women or going to anysoldier.com and randomly choosing a soldier, as we sent candy, books, DVD’s, lip balm and other basic necessities.
The phone would ring and the name on caller ID would come up as “Tolzmann, Norman”, and I knew that I should sit down and plan on a least a 30 minute conversation. Norm would talk family, local politics, happenings at Faith Lutheran Church, and whatever else was on his mind or would like to vent about. I especially enjoyed the stories he would tell about old Forest Lake as he was the communities official historian. After fighting cancer for about a year Norm passed away last Friday at the age of 85, the same day we were to send the 65 boxes over seas. As I stood in line at the post office I couldn’t help but think of Norm as he would have been the first to pick up a stocking to help us with our program. The Norm stories were flowing as over two hundred people packed Faith Lutheran Church on Monday to say goodbye to Norm. “He would give you the shirt off his back”, said his friend Bob Beattie. We give thanks to Norman Tolzmann for making our Community a better place. Happy Thanksgiving!
Kelly
