Lillian A. Wilson

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Lillian A. Wilson, 87, of Dell Rapids passed away Thursday, November 10, 2016 at Dells Nursing and Rehab Center.

Funeral services will begin at 10:00 AM Wednesday, November 16, 2016 at East Nidaros Lutheran Church, rural Baltic, SD. Burial will be in the church cemetery.

Visitation with the family present will be from 5:00 to 7:00 PM Tuesday, November 15, 2016 at Minnehaha Funeral Home in Dell Rapids.

Lillian was born April 17, 1929 to Dina Louise (Wold) and Torsten Brende at the Dell Rapids Hospital. She grew up on the family farm near Renner until her family moved to Baltic where she graduated in 1947. After her dad passed away in 1951, she moved to Dell Rapids with her mom and worked in the Dells Café. She met her husband, Henry while hanging wallpaper for his mother and they married in 1955.

As a young mother, Lilian worked for Campbell Soup Company and over the years worked for Dakota Industries, Litton Industries and Hutchinson Technology where she was affectionately given the nick name “Silly Lilly”. When her co-workers would ask her age she would reply “Age is just a number and mine is unlisted.”

Celebrated for her rhubarb cake, she was a true homemaker. Lillian enjoyed baking, gardening, sewing pajamas for her boys and dresses for her daughter. She loved to draw and read movie star biographies. She especially liked Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett and watched their classic TV shows as well as “The Walton’s”, “Little House on the Prairie” and of course, Lawrence Welk on Saturday nights. Lillian also played the piano and having grown up in a home filled with music and laughter; she enjoyed polka music and loved to dance. She also enjoyed traveling and as a chaperone traveled to Washington DC, touring the Smithsonian and other sites with her daughter’s high school band.

Throughout her life Lillian proved time and again “that you are never too old to learn something new.” She taught herself to perm and style her own hair, and of course did so well her mother and aunts requested she do theirs also. She learned how to ride a bicycle at 41, taught herself (that’s right) to drive a car at 45 and rode her first motorcycle at 80. She set a great example for the rest of us, “don’t stop learning and don’t stop moving!”

Grateful for having shared her life are her children, Terry Wilson, Sioux Falls, SD, Tom Wilson, Dell Rapids, SD, Charles Wilson, Volga, SD and Cindy Wilson, Houston, TX; brother, Orlene Brende, Sioux Falls, SD and many other relatives and friends.

Lillian was preceded in death by her parents; husband, Henry in 2001; brother, Joe and sister, Marilyn.