Bernice A. Stensgaard

Bernice Stensgaard, age 90, Moorhead, MN, died peacefully at home on January 13, 2016 with family by her side.

Bernice Arlene Bratlien was born April 21, 1925, the daughter of Christian and Clara Anderson Bratlien, on the family farm in Parke Township of southeastern Clay County, MN. She grew up on the farm, and after attending a rural school, she graduated from Lake Park, MN, High School in 1944, then worked for a time for the Clay County Superintendent of Schools office in Moorhead. She married P. Melvin Mel Stensgaard in 1949, and they lived in Detroit Lakes, MN, where Mel worked in construction for Albert Hill, and Bernice worked for the Becker County Superintendent of Schools. Later, they moved to Moorhead, and Mel worked as a salesman for Valley Lincoln Mercury in Fargo. They had two sons, Dale and Daryl. Mel died after a car accident in late 1957, about two months after Daryl was born.

She focused on raising her sons and worked occasionally at the Clay County Extension office. In the mid-1960s, she began working as a secretary in the library at North Junior High School in Moorhead. After North closed, she worked at the Moorhead Senior High, retiring in 1988.
During her many years of retirement, she enjoyed keeping busy. A long-term member of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, she was active in many church functions and traveled with her church group to Hawaii and the Virgin Islands to help build houses.

She enjoyed spending time with family and friends, and always had coffee and cookies ready just in case someone stopped by. She was an avid gardener, enjoyed knitting and baking, and made sure neighborhood birds had enough to eat each winter.

Bernice was a kind and gentle soul who also had an independent spirit and great love of life. She will be greatly missed by family and friends.

Thanks to everyone who showed her so much kindness and support during the past year after her diagnosis of leukemia. We are grateful for the wonderful care she received from the staff at the Roger Maris Cancer Center, the Palliative Care Unit at Sanford, and Hospice of the Red River Valley. We are also appreciative of the life-sustaining benefits she received from the blood donations of many volunteer blood donors.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, the Roger Maris Cancer Center, or Hospice of the Red River Valley.

She is survived by her sons, Dale, Grand Forks, N.D., and Daryl, Fargo, N.D.; and a brother, Larry, Hawley, MN. She was preceded in death by brothers, Donald, Charles, Paul, Carl, Lyle and Roy; and sisters, Alice Mrs. Ed Jacobson, and Ellen Mrs. Donald Nord.

The memorial service will be held at 11:00 A.M. on Thursday, January 28 at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Moorhead.
Interment will be at Park Lutheran Church Cemetery later in the year.