Karen Kaye Bodelson

Karen Kaye (née Danielson) Bodelson, 82, died peacefully Sunday, April 21, 2024.

Karen was born in Lake Bronson, MN, on January 3, 1942, to Silas and Alice Danielson, the fourth of five children. She earned a degree in Education from Concordia College in 1964 and moved shortly after to a suburb of Chicago. She taught elementary school there before meeting her husband, Mike, in 1968. They wed on January 18, 1969, and were happily married for 35 years, so long as Karen stayed out of the kitchen. They were residents of Fargo for most of it.

Over her working career, Karen was a teacher, a stay-at-home mom, a librarian, and an administrative assistant at the VA Hospital in Fargo, ND. After her retirement, she volunteered for AmeriCorps, helping kids become better readers.

Karen had many hobbies and interests, including traveling the world, reading, gardening, knitting, going to the theatre, drinking tea and wine, doing yoga, and dominating others in Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit. She was politically active and an advocate of women’s rights, devoting time, energy, and money to those causes. She loved all her cats, but particularly the weirdest one, Elvis. She loved her family, and to the end, she would tell anyone how lucky she was to have them.

She is survived by her children, Dan (and Amery, of La Crosse, WI), Josh (Scottsdale, AZ), and Kate (Fargo, ND), and her siblings Byron Danielson (and Virginia, of Fargo, ND), Marcene Bakken (Sun Prairie, WI), and Renee Spence (Kamloops, BC, Canada), as well as numerous nephews, nieces, and cousins. She is preceded in death by her husband Mike, brother Jim Danielson, cousin Danny Langehaug, and parents, Silas and Alice Danielson.

Karen, like her mother Alice before her, wanted her flowers when she could “smell and see them,” so donations would be welcomed to Minnesota Public Radio, Prairie Public Broadcasting, Planned Parenthood, and Homeward Animal Shelter.