George Helmstetter

George J. Helmstetter, age 85, of Roosevelt, died June 16, 2007 at Roseau Area Hospital, Roseau.
Funeral services were held Saturday, June 23, 2007, at 2 p.m. from Mt. Carmel Lutheran Church in Roosevelt. Visitation was one hour prior to the service at the church. Interment is in Mt. Carmel Cemetery. Memorials are preferred to Mt. Carmel Lutheran Church.
George Julius Helmstetter was born October 15, 1921, to Martha (Porter) and Charles Helmstetter, who had acquired a homestead in Lake of the Woods County in 1908.   George grew up helping out on the family farm along with older brother Everett and sisters, Edith and Edna.   Upon the death of their father, George and Everett, at the young ages of sixteen and eighteen, took over the farm.
On December 20, 1945, George was united in marriage to Joyce Tveit. Their children, daughter Teresa and son Stevan, both graduated from the University of Minnesota. Stevan took over the farm when George and Everett retired in 1987. Teresa, married to Jerry Mathiason, teaches in Minneapolis. 
George, active in community affairs, served as chairman of the Roosevelt School Board for many years and then on the Warroad School Board after consolidation.  He also served for many years as Chairman of Northern Farmers Co-operative Exchange in Williams.
As a young man, George dreamed of learning to fly.  Eventually, in the ’60s, he realized his dream by acquiring a pilot’s license and a Piper PA12, which he, along with Everett and Steve, used to explore the less accessible areas of Lake of the Woods. George also enjoyed and committed many hours to reforesting marginal agricultural land. He and Everett planted thousands of ash, spruce, cedar and pines over a 40-year period of time.
George especially enjoyed the company of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The extended family kept a 25-year tradition of meeting at a ski lodge near Grand Rapids every year for Christmas and then gathering again in June to celebrate Father’s Day during a camping and bike trip at various State Parks.  The family deeply misses their father/grandfather/great-grandfather, George, who departed from them on the day before Father’s Day 2007.
Survivors include his wife, Joyce; children: Teresa Helmstetter-Mathiason (Jerome), and Stevan Helmstetter (friend, Becky Dornheim and son, Tanner Tibbetts); four grandchildren: Jacki, Aaron, Evan, and Reid; three great-grandchildren: Bennett, Allison and Gavin; and, one brother, Everett Helmstetter of Roosevelt.
In addition to his parents, George was preceded in death by two siblings: Edna Jewell and Edith Durand.
Arrangements by Helgeson Funeral Home of Warroad.