These stories can also be heard on Sunday mornings around 10 am on WILD 102’s “Look Back in Time” program. Each week’s radio story will be posted here on our website.
Weekly radio stories are researched, compiled, and read by Sheila Winstead, RCHS Board Member.
April 19
, 2026
In the Roseau Times-Region of March 28, 1946, appeared this column about a wedding in Badger 80 years ago.
The headline was, “Miss E. Rose is Bride of L. Meier. Marriage is Solemnized at St. Mary’s Rectory at Badger Sunday Afternoon”. Here’s the story:
“Miss Evelyn Rose and Lawrence A. Meier were united in holy wedlock Sunday afternoon. The ceremony was performed at the St. Mary’s Rectory at Badger, and Father Monroe officiated. The ceremony took place at 2 o’clock.
Mrs. Marcel Novotny of Badger, sister of the bridegroom, was matron of honor and Marcel Novotny, brother-in-law of the groom was best man.
The bride was attired in a beige woolen gabardine suit with powder blue accessories. She had a gladioli corsage. Her matron of honor wore a navy-blue two-piece dress with matching accessories. Her flowers were yellow jonquil corsage.
A dinner and reception followed the ceremony at the home of the bride’s parents for members of the two families and intimate friends.
Following a short honeymoon the newlyweds will make their home on the farm managed by Mr. Meier near Badger.
The bride is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Worth Rose of Roseau. She is a graduate of the Roseau high school and has been teaching since her graduation from the training department. At present she is teaching at Ross. She has lived here nine years. The bridegroom is a son of Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Meier. The father died some years ago. He was born near Badger and has lived there since and attended the Badger school. He is now engaged in farming near Badger.”
To share more about them, I’ll read their story that was submitted by Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Meier for inclusion in the Roseau County Heritage Book, published in 1992 by the Roseau County Historical Society.
Lawrence Meier was born in 1912, in Stokes Township on the farm his father, Ernest, homesteaded and three miles from where his grandfather, Andrew, had homesteaded when the Meiers came to Roseau County from Ortonville in 1893.
Lawrence attended Badger Consolidated School. His father died during the Depression when many people were losing their farms and it was up to Lawrence, at age 21, to take over and make a success of things.
In 1939, he bought his own place half-way between his parents’ and grandparents’ farms. He was a farmer his entire life, except for one winter spent driving a semi for B. J. Borgen, hauling pulpwood to the paper mill in International Falls.
In 1946, he married Evelyn Rose, who with her family the Worth Roses, had moved from Kansas to Stafford Township in 1937. She took teachers’ training in Thief River Falls and taught in rural schools before their marriage. During World War II, she was an aircraft inspector in Wichita.
The Meiers have eight children: Lois (Dostal), Ernest, Sharon (Vacura), Douglas and Colette (Kjersten), Badger; Richard and Dwayne, Champlin; and Sheldon, Anchorage. All were active in Badger School and 4-H.
Lawrence was a 4-H adult leader and served on the following boards, Stokes Township, Two Rivers Watershed, ASC, Farmers Union, St. Mary’s Church, and Stokes-Nereson-Barnett Telephone Company.
He worked for the telephone company twenty years and was known as “The Telephone Man”. There was no money in it – wages were 25 to 40 cents an hour, but he felt rich from meeting so many good people. All wires then were overhead and some poles were tamarack and hard to climb. He wore out many pairs of pants before Wikstrom Telephone Company took over in 1969.
In 1983, the residents of Stokes Township awarded Lawrence a plaque for “30 years of untiring service” as a board member.
In 1989, the couple sold their farm to their son and daughter-in-law, Douglas and Debra, and retired in Badger. They are enjoying their 16 grandchildren.
To follow up on their story, Lawrence lived 10 more years until 2002, and Evelyn lived until 2007. Their descendants’ numbers grew to 19 grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren, and 7 great-great-grandchildren. Since the original story was written for the Heritage Book, their son Richard (also known as Rick) moved to Cambridge, Minnesota, and son Sheldon moved to Hawaii.
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