Gwen Hedlund

life story

Loving wife, devoted mother and grandmother, revered teacher

About Gwen

Surrounded by loved ones, Gwen M. Hedlund, age 89, passed away at her daughter’s home in Minneapolis on Sunday, July 19, 2026. We are grateful for her kindness, her creativity, and her boundless generosity.

Please join us at her memorial service on Friday, September 18, at Normandale Lutheran Church in Edina, MN. 1 pm gathering, 2 pm service. Reception following.

On July 13, 1937, Gwen was born into a working class family in St. Paul, Minnesota, to parents Louella and Gerhard Rick. Gwen’s childhood, she always said, was anchored in part by close relationships with her siblings Bob, Barbara, and younger brother Gary. We enjoyed hearing stories of the siblings’ hijinks: sliding on cookie sheets down the basement coal chute, getting lathered in mud playing front yard football, and collecting an evolving menagerie of pets. One of these pets was a squirrel Gwen delighted in apprehending at age 6 with a box, a stick, and an hours-long vigil. This feat was one of many in which--throughout her life--she would combine patience, determination, and creative use of materials to capture tiny pieces of life.

At school, Gwen was shy, though she told friends she preferred the word “reserved.” She was ebullient around family, however--as a child, her grandfather called her “the foxy one” (or, the sly and clever one, a moniker she especially appreciated in her seventies and eighties, when calling her “cute” would get you a side-eye). As a teenager, she blossomed as the craft counselor at Camp St. Croix, where she joined a community of young staff who she stayed in touch with for decades.

From a young age Gwen had imagined herself becoming a teacher. Ignoring her high school guidance counselor’s advice that she didn’t have what it took to be a college student, she enrolled at Carthage College, where she received a BA in Home Economics, earning an award in fashion design and graduating first in the department, with a minor in English. After gaining her teaching certificate, she moved to Welcome, Minnesota, population 700, where she was tasked with building the junior high home economics program from scratch and teaching classes in both home ec and English. After a year, she moved to a large school in Osseo, MN, where she taught junior high for ten more years. Respected by colleagues and revered by students, she was particularly proud of her successful efforts to put greater emphasis on home economics as career preparation, particularly in the culinary and fashion industries, and to bring more boys into home ec classes.

It was at Carthage that Gwen met Douglas, the love of her life. Although he’d made several efforts to woo her, she didn’t truly take him seriously until the day she saw him lead a campus chapel service. She appreciated the thoughtfulness of his chapel talk, and she was taken by his use of colored spotlights, which he’d borrowed from the theater department to add a bit of drama to the service. She said Doug’s combination of depth and creativity made him stand out from the rest.

Although Gwen and Doug went their separate ways after Carthage, Gwen always suspected that if she saw him again, “that would be it.” So when, seven years after she graduated, Doug showed up on her doorstep, she had a good feeling about things. After a year of dating, she spoke the truth: “I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you,” and he agreed.

A year after they married, they started a family. Keith was born in 1970 and Shawna in 1972.

As a mother, Gwen had a way of making you feel like the most important person in the world. We remember a lot of laughter and silliness, but she always took us seriously, whether or not we’d earned it.

She was the same with grown-ups. We observed the respect and love she showed her family members, friends, neighbors, and complete strangers. Perhaps this is why she made friends so easily. She taught us to be forgiving, patient, and compassionate. And to be curious about others, to ask questions.

Gwen also encouraged us to express ourselves, whether in conversation or through other means. She’d grown up in a musical home (her mother was a church organist and multi-instrumentalist), and she helped Shawna develop her singing voice, encouraged her lifelong passion for music, and even in her last years, braved blizzards to attend her performances. Having entertained her children with her stories about the “pea-picking bugs,” she was the earliest influence on Keith’s writing, and he always asked for her input; even in her last year, she gave him important notes about a short story.

She also taught us, it has to be said, to worry a bit. Some worries demonstrated her imagination: fear of earthquakes, for example (30 years before she visited California). Others worries would be more accurately described as defiant crusades against her foes: against snow, blizzards, black ice, the cold, the rain, or anything that caused a Severe Weather Advisory, Watch, or Warning.

But she also taught us to not worry: about making mistakes, about making fools of ourselves, about the dangers of trying new things.

Trying things was part of her artistic spirit. Although she never called herself an artist, her skills at design, sketching, and creative assembly were undeniable. But for her, creating things was about bringing joy, especially to others. She designed her own bridesmaids’ dresses--ones you might actually want to wear again. She developed friendships through collaboration on crafts and clothing. Once, while shopping, she looked with sympathy upon a half-broken Christmas ornament--a sad-looking snowman on clearance--and bought the snowman for the sole purpose of bringing him home to fix up and bedazzle. Her favorite memories from childhood were of Christmas and its sensory overload. She vividly remembered carefully placing single strands of heavy lead tinsel on tree boughs. Later, for almost 40 years, she hosted children of relatives and friends for an annual event at which the children would decorate gingerbread houses that she’d built in various styles.

At the turn of the century, Gwen took enthusiastically to a new passion: grandparenting. She never missed a grandson’s recital or art show. She mentored Tenny, Wilder, and Wesley in designing, sewing, and cooking. In her last years, they lived only a 10 minute walk away, and they’d show up spontaneously to show their grandmother their projects, to cook a rum cake, or just to say hello, because she was fun to be around.

As time passed, she became an even more voracious reader, with a diverse group of favorite writers, among them Louise Erdrich, Maya Angelou, Nikolai Gogol, and Alice Munro. More than ever, she stayed on top of the news. She was concerned about the welfare of her community and world. She was most relaxed when gardening, where she experimented with ever more obscure species of tomatoes and herbs.

For the last 20-25 years of Gwen’s life, she struggled with a long list of serious illnesses and conditions, several of them quite painful. Her cheerful disposition sometimes made it difficult to recognize not just the pain she struggled with but also her impressive ability to face and adapt to it. She had always been one to give of herself, and she didn’t feel as comfortable with people worrying about her. But she always accepted the love. And she appreciated the medical professionals who cared for her, especially the dedicated, loving nurses and aides on her home health care team, who she considered friends.

In Gwen’s last years and months, it can’t quite be said that she was reconciled to the end of her life. She was just too full of life--still overflowing with dreams and plans: conversations to have, people to visit, projects to start, gifts to give. But toward the very end, it was clear she had achieved a certain acceptance and peace. Visited in those last weeks by so many people who loved her, perhaps she saw, and more fully appreciated, the profound effect that she'd had on the lives of those who knew her, and found peace in that.

Gwen is preceded in death by Doug, her parents, her sister Barbara (Dick) Grace, and her brother Bob (Joy) Rick. We celebrate her life with Keith and Shawna (Jason) Hedlund; brother Gary (Gale) Rick; grandkids Tennyson, Wilder, and Wesley (Stinson); nieces and nephews Mike Grace, Randy (Lynn Taylor) Rick, Jeff (Rocky) Rick, Jennie (Tom) Voss, Bradley Rick, Marsanne Rick, Dusty (Cheryl) Hedlund, Jodie (Eli) Harvala; and many cousins who she loved.

memorial service

Gwen Hedlund's Memorial Service

September 18, 2026

1:00 PM gathering

2:00 PM service

Reception afterwards