"Then I went out to a candy company in Hopkins, but it ended up moving to Moline, Illinois.  I didn't like Moline so then I went to work for Piggly Wiggly at Rochester.  After only three to four months I was transferred to the Piggly Wiggly at Willmar and next to Sleepy Eye for nine years ...
"In 1978 I went to Juba's Super Valu in Shakopee, which was purchased and became Cub Foods.  It's been a Cub for the last eight or nine years and I'm still there!"
Tom was divorced in 1982.  He married Carol in 1983, moved into Carol's home on Lake Auburn in Victoria for a couple years, then to Jonathan for 15 years, and in 2001 they built a beautiful new townhome in Victoria where Carol put her creative juices to work. 
Carol has three sons - Bob, Jim, and Mike - from her previous marriage.  Tom's five children are Laurie, Judy, Mark, Barb, and Jerry.  Together they have 16 grandchildren.

Carol is obviously the significant and loving partner of Tom Notermann today.  She is not a ghost of the past, but an angel of the present.  She was born in Ohio and came to Minnesota at the age of 20.
Carol and her first husband moved to the Lake Auburn area of Victoria in 1974.  "I felt at home here," she said.  "I used to shop at Notermann's where I fell madly in love with Tom's daddy.  I met Tom at a Victoria Lions Street Dance."
Tom and Carol Notermann touch and hold hands as ghosts of their past appear to them.  This last year was also momen-tous to them in ways not related to the Notermann Store.
In January Carol was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  Surgery removed all of the cancer, and chemotherapy has been the year's continuing trademark.  To ensure a full recovery, she will undergo a monthly chemo treatment through 2007.
Now that Christmas is on their door-step, the Notermann's would each top their wish list with something that money cannot buy.  Said Carol, "I wish to have all of our kids and all of their kids together in one room."  Said Tom, "I wish for a cure for my grandson and his muscular dystrophy."

As sole proprietor, John Notermann
-- Tom's dad -- had sold the business in 1977.  After 78 years, the name Notermann disappeared from the streets of Victoria, to be resurrected in 2006 in the same place exactly 100 years from when the Notermann store was first built in 1906.  The building stands proud once again in Victoria, ready to open with new business and new life in the New Year.
Until then, winter is an inward look-ing season, with drifting snow outside our windows and the flicker of flames at the hearth.  Christmas also tends us toward reflection.  The ghosts of Christmas past will live in the corners and hallways of the Notermann Building as long as there are memories. 
Merry Christmas to the Notermanns and to everyone.