Catherine K. Carlson

Catherine Carlson, beloved teacher, mentor, mother, and friend left this world as quietly as she could. She died on October 11, 2025 at Eventide Senior Living facility in Moorhead, MN, while quietly resting in her bed. Funny thing is that her death was opposite of who our Mom or Mrs. Carlson was. She was a woman who loved the attention, accolades, and adoration she would receive whether it came from sharing her talents as a musician for a variety of groups or organizations, including the church choir, Eastern Star, or her classroom. Whether it be with a group of like-minded individuals singing with her in the church choir, or a group of nine year old 3rd graders surrounded by her at the class piano, belting out “You Oughta Go Ta North Dakota” or “This Land is Your Land”, or twinkling the ivories on her Eastern Star chapter’s piano in their twice a month meetings, she loved to entertain and lead the people in her lives with music.

Catherine’s musical “career” began on March 20, 1939, in Burr, Nebraska, born to Arnold and Sarah Beckmann, she became quite literally the center of her parents’ universe. She lived an idyllic childhood surrounded by extended family, her beloved dogs, and anything and everything she wanted. As the only child in her parents’ life, she asked for the stars in the sky, and her father, Arnold would pluck them out of the sky and give them to her. She freely admits that Daddy and Mother gave her a childhood that rivaled even the best 1950’s family sitcoms. During her childhood, she and her beloved best friend and cousin, Martha Stilwell Brown, traveled with her parents across the United States. She often tells stories of who and what they saw on those trips, including meeting a local in Brainerd MN, who gave them directions to “go Nort on Turd Steet” (translation: “go north on Third street”) but because the local’s thick Scandinavian accent was so hard to decipher for them, they just heard “Nort and Turd street” they fell apart. As the kind reader can see, Catherine’s life was an idyllic childhood including adventures travelling with her beloved Daddy, Mother, and Martha. However, not all childhoods are perfect, and Catherine’s childhood and her life ahead of her changed in 1956, when she lost her beloved Daddy to cancer. Now, it was just Mother and her navigating their world with each other, and it would remain that way until her mother’s death in 2008 at the age of 107.

Eager to break away from the small town of Burr after her high school graduation, she left in 1956 for Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. Away from home for the first time in her life, Catherine took full advantage of what a small town Lutheran college in the middle of Iowa can offer a person: independence and opportunity to see the world, more. At Wartburg, Catherine continued to find her path in life which was music and education. Music came from her commitment to singing with the Wartburg College Choir, and education came from her choice to pursue an Elementary Education degree. While attending Wartburg and singing for the college choir, Catherine was able to travel to Europe and see the world beyond the United States.

After graduating from college in 1960, Catherine began her teaching career in the big city of Fridley, a suburb of Minneapolis, at Rice Lake Elementary. In those early years of her teaching career in Minneapolis, Catherine embraced everything that a large metropolitan city in Minnesota could offer her. Her single life in Minneapolis was a wonderful experience for her filled with adventures with friends at piano bars, singing into the early hours of the morning, attending football games at Memorial Stadium, leading the Young Singles group at Central Lutheran Church, attending symphony concerts, and living her best single life. Looking back at her life in Minneapolis, Catherine would always smile and say it was one of the most important parts of her life.

During her time in Minneapolis, more specifically her time as a member of Central Lutheran Church, she met someone who would eventually become the father of her two girls. After a six-month courtship, Catherine married in 1964, and she moved back to Nebraska. During her early lifetime back in Nebraska, specifically in 1968, she gave birth to her “little red headed baby” who she would name Kjrstin, and two years later in 1970, she would give birth to her “little black hair headed baby” Sarah. Her girls became the love of her life. All the while she continued to teach during this part of her journey in Nebraska, teaching in Lincoln, Beatrice, and Shickley. Small town teacher with a large impact on any group of students she taught in her career as a teacher in Nebraska, including having her daughter Kjrstin in class. Who else can raise her hand and say, “My mom taught me long division, cursive handwriting, and phonics, all the while calling her mother Mrs. Carlson?” Well, Kjrstie can and did.

While she and her family were in Shickley, she taught at the local school and embraced all that came with teaching there. She was a fourth grade teacher, but she was also Pep Club Sponsor and other “volunteer” gigs she had as a teacher there. Because as any of us who have taught in a small town know that teaching in small towns includes other duties assigned in the school can create a busy and active teacher in the district. Life outside of the classroom in Shickley gave her and her family a picture perfect life that included gardening a football field sized garden, membership in book clubs and the American Legion Auxiliary, and worshiping at a small country church.

In 1979, she and her family were on the move again, for the last time. Packing up their shared lifetime in Nebraska, she and her family moved to the “big” city of Moorhead, MN, and that is where she has been up to her death. It took Catherine a while to acclimate and understand how life works in the Great White North of Minnesota. As a teacher, she began the second part of her teaching career as a substitute teacher in Fargo-Moorhead, and it was a tough start for her as a teacher. She can tell you that she worked hard to get where she would eventually end up as a teacher, Longfellow Elementary in Fargo. Once she was established at Longfellow, in 1981, she began the last 38 years of her career as a teacher for the Fargo Public School district. “Carlson’s Cool Cats” can tell you that they had a great third grade year with Mrs. Carlson, but they worked hard too, learning their times tables, developing their cursive handwriting skills, and building her now legendary gingerbread houses with all the third graders of Longfellow.

While living here in Moorhead, Catherine embraced all what Moorhead and Minnesota could offer her. She sang for the Trinity Lutheran Church choir, rang bells for the bell choir and Master Chorale, and played the piano for her Eastern Star Chapters both in Fargo and Moorhead. In 1985, she changed her status from “married” to “single” and continued to live her life according to her rules. She raised two daughters and saw them become women that she was proud of: strong, independent, and successful women. Both of her daughters graduated from MSUM with degrees and went on to build successful careers and lives as any daughter of Catherine Carlson would. In addition to her teaching at Longfellow Elementary, Catherine worked part-time at Herbergers for 25 years. While at Herbergers, she added to an already large wardrobe of clothing that eventually became an even larger collection of clothing in her closet. (Just imagine what it is going to be like for her daughters cleaning out her closets, NOW?)

Finally in 2018, she decided that her teaching career needed to come to an end. Catherine Carlson finally retired from the classroom. Life as a retired teacher was a tough adjustment for Catherine because as she said, “That’s who I am, I am a teacher, it has been my calling, all my life.” This part of her journey had its struggles and adjustments for Catherine, but she took it on with her usual strong mindedness and independence and learned to be “not busy” anymore, and for the first two years after retirement, she and her new life were doing well. She traveled and spent the winters in Florida with her daughter Sarah and her son-in-law, Benny, and it was, for the most part, good. Then, in March of 2020, COVID hit the world, and like the rest of the world learning to adjust to the new normal, so did Catherine. She adjusted to life six feet apart, but it wasn’t easy for her. After surviving the pandemic, Catherine slowed down more. She spent her days puttering in her garden, keeping an watchful eye on her beloved neighbors, Kami, Kori, Shelly, Hunter, Grace, and Harrison, and Dean, Deb, and Ella, attending her 1001 doctors’ appointments, watching her beloved Timberwolves and Judge Judy, griping about the current politics of the world, navigating her way through the “SOCIAL MEDIA” universe (that included texting and FACEBOOK), lunching with her dearest friend Mary Ellen, and talking on her phone to friends and family near and far.

As we all know, all good lives must come to an end, and Catherine’s life came to an end on October 11, 2025 at Eventide Senior Living Center. She passed away quietly and peacefully in her sleep after a long six-and-a-half-month battle with her wounds she sustained when she fell in her bathroom in May of that same year. She was just tired of all of the poking, probing, and pushing that she endured during her recovery and decided it was time for her to join her family and friends who had gone before her to Heaven. It was time for her to teach the angels how to sing with gusto “This Land is Your Land” and “Albuquerque is my Turkey”, to write cursive handwriting with flair, and to read “Bunnicula” the vampire rabbit to them. She will be missed, and she was loved by those around her who were lucky enough to call her Mrs. Carlson, Mom, Katie, Cathy, Catherine, and Friend.

She is survived by her daughters Kjrstie (Moorhead, MN), Sarah and a son in law, Jeff (Benny) Kragerud (Fargo, ND), three beloved grand cats Hemingway, Maggie and Tiki and many other people who were fortunate to call her neighbor, friend, relative, or their teacher.

A visitation will be held on Thursday, October 16, from 5-7 p.m. with a prayer service beginning at 7:00 at Wright Funeral Home, Moorhead, MN.

A Celebration of Life with Livestream will be held Friday, October 17, at 11:00 a.m. with a visitation one hour before the service at Trinity Lutheran Church, Moorhead, MN.

Livestream will be available below beginning at 11:00 a.m.