Victoria MN Newspaper-Beddors

MACKENTHUN’S Gourmet Meats

St. Bonifacius

Island View Dining

Waconia. 952-442-2956

CLICKSTART

952-902-2014

by Sue Orsen

Whether the tailor is sewing with fine silk or common cotton, he uses his strongest thread to sew on the buttons. Buttons hold together the left and right sides of a shirt, for example, and so the thread that keeps them in place must be very good thread.

Said Bill Beddor, “I think Billy has been the thread that has kept everything together for us. Billy was our ninth child. He is our Down Syndrome child but back when he was born, they called him a ‘mongoloid idiot.’ The doctors came in and told Bea he most likely wouldn’t be able to function very well and the best thing would be for us not to get too attached, and we should put him in an institution. We couldn’t do that, so we brought him home. Billy is the best thing that ever happened to our family.”

Bill and Bea Beddor (it’s pronounced like bed-door’) came to have 10 children. They’ve been married for 65 years and so they see through the perspective of a very long lens. In other words, the threads that weave through the pattern of their life together become ever more evident to them as the years pass. Some of the threads are stronger than others.

Bill and Bea are Minnesota people who became worldwide people because of their extensive and uncommon interests and activities. They met in their youth, at the age of 16, and they remain animated and vivacious people today in their late 80’s.

On September 16th, 2013, they celebrated their 65th anniversary with a special Mass at the St. Victoria Catholic Church in Victoria. They have become residents of Victoria as well as members of St. Victoria. Billy is usually with them in the pew at Sunday morning Masses. He was an altar server at their anniversary Mass.

For 50 years of their married life, Bill and Bea lived on Lake Minnetonka so they and all of their children know the lake well. Most of their time on Lake Minnetonka was lived at the end of Casamita Road, on the edge of Smithtown Bay within easy swimming distance of the city limits of Victoria.

In 2006 they sold that lake property -- one of the best locations on all of Lake Minnetonka -- and moved into the center of Victoria activity. Every room in their spacious second-floor condominium home, except for the guest bathrooms, laundry room, and walk-in closet, overlooks the tranquil and undeveloped shores of Stieger Lake. Stieger Lake, which is surrounded by Carver Park Reserve, is an amazing element of beautiful downtown Victoria. It is private and picturesque as well as peaceful.

One of the two bedrooms in their condo is Billy’s room. Billy arranges the furniture in his room to suit his own style and he doesn’t ask his mother for suggestions or permission as to the layout. The mother smiles at her son’s independent ways.

Billy, 48, lives in the Fraser Group Home in Hopkins, and most every weekend comes home to be with his parents in Victoria where he is also doted upon by his siblings and many nieces, nephews, and other family and friends. Billy doesn’t know that he is the strongest thread, but he knows he is loved.

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Bill Beddor was born in Minneapolis on September 27th, 1927, to Frank and Genevieve Beddor, the third of six children, four sisters and two brothers. “We lived on Lake Calhoun,” he said. “I lived in the same house all my life, until I got married.”

What were his parents like? Replied Bill, “My mother was very motherly. She was a convert to Catholicism. She was always taking instructions while we were growing up. She made her First Communion when her youngest daughter made her First Communion. We always thought she was a Catholic. My mother was the oldest of nine girls. I know that my mother’s dad was W.I. Nolan, the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota in the 1920’s.”

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