Obituary of Martha Vegsund

Martha Marie Johnson arrived June 19, 1915, the first of four children born to Nels Olaf Johnson and Luella Wright Johnson. She and her brothers, Warren and Robert, and sister, Bertelle, spent their childhood on the family farm in Isanti County near Braham, Minnesota, learning small-town rural values and a strong protestant ethic as they endured the Great Depression. Before graduating from Braham High School in 1932, Martha, from Maple Ridge Township, met and later married Jerrold Vegsund from neighboring Rice Lake. This union was to last 64 years, and to Martha and Jerrold were born two sons, Sherwood Allen and Richard Harvey. They were later joined by daughter, Jayne. In 1966, Martha and Jerrold sold the family farm in Stanchfield, Minnesota, and moved to Blaine, Minnesota, then called Soderville. Martha became a student at the University of Minnesota receiving her LPN degree in 1967 and continuing, at Mercy Hospital in Anoka, the nursing career she had begun as a nurses aide at the community hospital in Braham. She officially hung up her nurse's cap in 1980, but the hospital kept calling and she worked all the Red Cross blood drives so the family never noticed she'd retired. Upon their relocation to Blaine, Martha and Jerrold, who had been members of Stanchfield Baptist Church, joined a fledgling group that was meeting in a school in Ham Lake. They called them- selves Ham Lake Baptist Church (now Oak Haven) and over time grew from a few individuals into a large, thriving congregation. Martha and Jerrold together enjoyed a retirement of many years, taking trips with family and friends, gardening, fishing at their lake cabin, serving their church, and keeping their house open to whatever friend, neighbor, or relative was passing by and wanted to drop in for coffee. Martha spent her final years near Portland, Oregon, in the home of her son and daughter-in-law, Sherwood and Gloria Vegsund, who enabled her to live surrounded by family and friends up to her final departure. She is preceded in death by parents, Nels and Luella Johnson; brothers, Warren Johnson and Robert Johnson; sister, Bertelle Erickson; and husband, Jerrold Vegsund. She is sadly missed by her sons and their wives, Pastors Sherwood and Gloria Vegsund of Oregon City, Oregon and Richard and Patricia Vegsund of Santa Rosa, California; daughter, Jayne of New Brighton, Minnesota; many grandchildren and great-grandchildren; nieces and nephews; and additional relatives.