Sauk Rapids Herald - July 22, 2023

OF celebrating life

Williams Dingmann Family Funeral Homes serves families for 150 years

BY HANS LAMMEMAN STAFF WRITER

The story of Williams Dingmann Family Funeral Homes tells a moving chapter of central Minnesota history, one of celebrating life and comforting families for 150 years.

While the business is now owned and operated by the fourth generation of Dingmanns, the funeral home company’s history is spread across ve families, nine locations and 15 decades.

With a cabinetmaking background, Swiss immigrant Aloys

Tschumperlin opened Tschumperlin Furniture Company in downtown St. Cloud in 1873. After selling the business to his son, also named Aloys, the store relocated to a nearby building on St. Germain Street and expanded to include undertaking.

“The Tschumperlins (ran) a furniture store and a funeral home,” Doug Dingmann Sr. said. “They were already making furniture, so it was natural for them to start making caskets out of wood.”

Bernard “Barney” Williams Sr. purchased the Tschumperlin Funeral Home in 1949 after moving to St. Cloud from Minneapolis, renaming the business Tschump-

erlin-Williams Funeral Home and serving as its president until retiring. His son, Tom, joined the operation in 1967, playing a major role in managing the company until retiring in 2014.

The Dingmann family has served Minnesota in the funeral industry since 1907 when John Dingmann started offering funeral services in Clear Lake. This spurred several generations of his

descendants to follow in his footsteps, including four sons and two grandsons who served as licensed funeral directors.

Doug Sr., one of John’s grandsons, purchased the Sauk Rapids Funeral Home from Larry Veeser in 1974; the Ross family initially opened the location in the 1920s.

Williams Dingmann page 10

PHOTOS BY HANS LAMMEMAN

(Left) The Williams Dingmann Family Funeral Homes building on Veterans Drive, St. Cloud, is one of nine locations. The Dingmann family has been the sole owners of the business since 2014.

(Right) The Williams Dingmann Family Funeral Homes location in Sauk Rapids was initially opened by the Ross family in the 1920s. Two generations of Dingmann families have grown up at the Sauk Rapids funeral home location.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Two men stand near a melon cart on Main Street in Rice in 1939. The cart sign indicates the melon farm was east of Little Rock Lake.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BENTON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Esselman Brothers General Store is placed at the crossroads in the Mayhew Lake community. The building was constructed in 1897 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Williams Dingmann

Doug Sr. and his wife, Karen, lived and raised their four children – Dan, Deb, Doug Jr. and Dawn – in the Sauk Rapids funeral home.

“I was in the rst grade when we moved in there,” said Deb, who occupies the home with her family today. “It was nice living there because we got to see Dad more, and Mom helped in the business too.”

Doug Jr. started in the industry at a young age, waking up before school to clear the driveways of snow and spending the summers mowing grass and washing cars for the business. He held several positions and directed thousands of funerals in the family business before assuming the co-owner role alongside

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his sister.

“I was around (the funeral industry) my whole life; I grew up with it,” Doug Jr. said. “It has changed a lot, even in my short career. When I rst started, 90% of the funerals had caskets and vaults, and it was a burial. That has changed now to more than half cremation.”

The company adapted to increased demand for cremation by introducing a crematory to the Sauk Rapids location in 2000.

In late 2008, the Williams and Dingmann families merged to form Williams Dingmann Family Funeral Homes. The Dingmanns became sole owners of the historic business in January 2014.

Today, John Dingmann’s great-grandchildren, Doug Jr. and Deb carry the family tradition of running the business. Despite serving as a funeral director for 50 years before retiring, Doug Sr. visits the Sauk Rapids location each weekday.

“He helps us out,” Deb said of her father. “He knows everybody. He has served these families, so he knows who is related to whom. People enjoy seeing him when they come to plan services, or he will just stop in and say hi.”

Doug Sr.’s brother, Al, continues to work in the family business as the of ce manager at the Sauk Rapids location.

Williams Dingmann Family Funeral Homes operates nine locations

today, holding an estimated 350 to 400 services annually, up to seven days a week. Doug Jr. said the mergers did not result from an aggressive expansion phase; instead, they resulted when a rm was simply ready to sell its location and looking for new owners.

“Burnout isn’t like it was back then,” Doug Sr. said. “It used to be, if you were in town when a call came, you went to work. You were on call 24/7; the only time you weren’t was if you were gone out of town. With the merging, there were more people to share the positions, which makes it a lot easier for people to (share the responsibilities).”

have three children interested in carrying on the family business, emphasizing caring for the families they serve. A fth generation of Dingmanns has entered the picture with an interest in carrying the torch of running the family business even further into the future.

current owners of the business.

Doug Sr. said he considered himself lucky to

Dan’s children, Jordan and Skylar, lend a hand in running Dingmann Funeral Home and Cremation Services in Adrian. Doug Jr.’s daughter, Abby, worked at funeral homes while growing up and expressed interest in the company as a place of employment after school. Deb’s son,

Blake, works as an intern at funeral homes, hoping to eventually have a hand in running the company.

“It makes me proud that he wants to follow in his grandpa and mom’s footsteps,” Deb said. “He grew up in the business as we did. Serving those families for generations is quite respectable and something that you would want to carry on in your family business.”

34 Years

32 Years

PHOTO BY HANS LAMMEMAN

The Dingmanns – Doug Sr. (from left), Deb and Doug Jr. – stand together in the lobby of the Williams Dingmann Family Funeral Homes location July 7 in St. Cloud. Deb and Doug Dingmann Jr. are the

PHOTO SUBMITTED

Doug Jr. and Deb Dingmann stand in front of a Williams Dingmann Family Funeral Homes horse-drawn hearse. The horse drawn hearse is still available for service upon request.

PHOTO SUBMITTED Jordan (left) and Dan Dingmann ride the Dingmann Family horse- drawn hearse in 2005. Five generations of Dingmanns have been involved in the funeral business.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BENTON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY The Watab Pulp and Paper Company operates in Benton

along the Mississippi River. Originally slated to be built in Sauk Rapids, the mill was moved upstream to Sartell due to costs of construction.

PHOTO

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BENTON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Workers stand inside the Watab Pulp and Paper Company.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BENTON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

A Sauk Rapids street scene shows dirt roadways in 1917.

lead to:

All roads Cold Spring

Throughout

Love for nostalgia leads to new ice cream shop

BY TOM FENTON | STAFF WRITER

Call it a feeling.

When Bob and Julie Sabo rst rolled into Cold Spring 17 years ago to do some house-searching, something struck Julie when they passed by an old and vacant Main Street building. She cannot pinpoint exactly what drew her to it, but she knew it could become something special.

“I looked at Bob and said, ‘Someday we’re going to buy this building,’ and he looked at me and said, ‘You’re nuts. Why would we buy that building?’” Julie said. “We found out it’s 130-year-old building, and we’re pretty passionate about bringing old things back to life. So, we eventually went for it.”

That is the short version of how Red Truck Ice Cream became reality.

There obviously is more to the story to the new place for sweet treats that opened May 6 in downtown Cold Spring, but Julie’s vision for the future nearly two decades ago was how it all started.

To this day, Bob remains amazed how a quaint but also rundown old building eventually turned into what they hope will be a destination in the community for years to come. Though they always had ideas how the building could be transformed, it was not for sale.

A bit of sweet-talking soon led to serving sweet treats.

“Our kids are older now, and we were looking for another project,” Bob said. “We discussed it with the previous owners, agreed to terms and we started working on it immediately. We

closed on it Nov. 3 (2022) and opened six months to the day later.”

The logo was designed by Julie’s niece, a Wisconsin-based artist. The red truck name also comes with a family are, stemming from a restored and impeccable-looking 1978 red and white Ford pickup that sits next to the entrance.

Love for the building aside, it needed a ton of work to be business-ready. It already had the advantage of being located on a busy downtown street – not to mention being across the street from a popular splash pad located in Alexander Park – but making the dream reality meant hundreds of hours of physical labor.

It had no plumbing, needed new electrical and ooring along with a furnace and air conditioning. During the refurbishing, Bob and Julie along with sons Rylan and Nolan and daughter Brynn kept discovering little nuances that quickly gave the building even more meaning.

Upon removing a pegboard wall on the building’s east wall, natural wood –albeit rundown and a bit nasty-looking according to Julie – was revealed. The now-smooth and shiny wooden wall is a big part of the building’s charm, along with repurposed church pews for seating.

“We gured it’s probably 150 hours we put just in sanding the wood wall,” Julie said. “The wood didn’t look nice once we started removing the pegboard, but once we started sanding it, we were like, ‘We can actually make something out of this.’

Red Truck page 13

PHOTO BY TOM FENTON

(Above) Bob and Julie Sabo stand inside Red Truck Ice Cream July 17 on Main Street in Cold Spring. They bought the 130-year-old building in November 2022 and spent hundreds of hours refurbishing it into an ice cream shop that opened May 3.

(Left) Three types of waffle cones – sprinkled, walnuts and plain chocolate – are a popular item at Red Truck Ice Cream in Cold Spring. The e cones are freshly made daily.

PHOTO BY TOM FENTON

There are 16 flavors of hard-scoop ice cream available at Red Truck Ice Cream in Cold Spring. The new business also features three types of soft serve.

Editor’s note:

June, July and August, the Sauk Rapids Herald will feature interesting people and places

from our

neighboring cities.