Alden Odell Droivold

DROIVOLD, LANGLIE

Posted By: M Groth (email)
Date: 1/16/2009 at 20:08:29

Dr. Alden Odell Droivold, 70, of Faribault, Minn., formerly of Allamakee County, Iowa and Rushford, Minn., died Friday, July 22, 2005 after losing a courageous battle with cancer at the Northfield Hospital and Long Term Care Center in Northfield, Minn.

Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday, July 27, 2005 at the Waterloo Ridge Lutheran Church in rural Spring Grove. Burial will be in the church cemetery. Visitation will be 5 to 8 p.m. today (Tuesday, July 26) at the Mengis Funeral Home in Mabel and one hour prior to services at the church. Memorials are preferred. Mengis Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

He was born July 4, 1935 in Waterloo Township, Allamakee County to Andrew and Gustine (Langlie) Droivold. He spent his boyhood at Waterloo Ridge (rural Spring Grove) attending a one-room public school and graduating from the Spring Grove High School in 1953. In the fall of that year he enrolled in the pre-veterinary curriculum at Iowa State University at Ames. In January, 1955 he interrupted his education to enlist in the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps to qualify for the Korean GI Education Bill. After completing his military training, he was assigned to Veterinary Inspection duties in Metz, France and Bremerhaven, Germany.

While at Bremerhaven he met and later married Gertrud Lorenz on March 9, 1957. He was discharged from the army in July of 1958, when he and his wife returned to the States and he resumed his pre-veterinary studies at Iowa State. On Sept. 18, 1959, the Droivold's were blessed with the arrival of their daughter Kathryn Elizabeth. In 1963 he was elected to Phi Zeta, the National Veterinary Honorary Scholastic Society. Mr. Droivold received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Degree from Iowa State University on May 25, 1963. In the first year after graduation he was employed by Dr. R. C. Bender in Spring Grove. On May 29, 1964 they were again blessed by the birth of their son Steven Andrew Droivold.

On July 1, 1964 he, his wife and young children were welcomed to Rushford, Minn., where they established a successful veterinary practice which was continued until August 1st of 1985. He was a member of the Rushford Lions Club and served on the Rushford Lutheran Church Council. In 1972 he was honored by the appointment to the Minnesota State Veterinary Licensing Board by Governor Wendell Anderson for a term of five years. In 1977 he was reappointed to the Veterinary Board for another term of five years by Minnesota Governor Rudy Perpich, serving until May of 1982.

In 1985 the Rushford Veterinary Practice was sold to Dr. Lee Edmiston, and Dr. Droivold embarked on a second professional career with the USDA as a Supervisory Veterinary Medical Officer with the Food Safety Inspection Service in Faribault, Minn. He was employed there until his retirement in May of 2003.

Dr. Droivold had an avid interest in travel and history. In the last 20 years he has authored a six volume series on the History of Rushford. Outside of his family, his greatest sense of pride was in 1986 with the general acceptance of his first volume of Rushford History, "Indian Trails to Iron Rails." In which the first 200 copies printed by the Rushford Area Historical Society were sold out in three hours at the book signing at the public library. In 2002 he authored, with the assistance of his sister Elizabeth Hagen and others, a two volume, 650 page history of the rural community in which he grew up, "Waterloo Ridge Remembered".

Dr. Droivold is survived by his wife, Gertrud of Faribault, Minn.; a daughter Kathryn (Fred) Kincheloe of Turlock, Calif.; a son Steven of Eau Claire, Wis.; and a sister Elizabeth Hagen of Mabel, Minn. He also is survived by his brother-in-law Kenneth Groth of Decorah; local nieces and nephews; a sister-in-law Chris Kanning; and a niece and nephew of Germany.

He was preceded in death by his parents in 1992, his sister Dorothy (Droivold) Groth in 2000, and brothers-in-law Mervin J. Selness (1977) and Charles B. Hagen (2002).

Decorah Newspapers July 25, 2005