Linda J. Wallevand

Linda’s service will be livestreamed below starting at 7:00 PM Friday, October 2, 2026 and 2:00 PM Saturday October 3, 2026:

Memorial Service:

Prayer Service:

“Maybe you better not kiss me then,” Linda Wallevand told her husband Joseph after he mentioned a possible cold. These were her final words.

“Sometimes not kissing is an act of love,” he later told his family when he shared the heartbreaking news of her passing. “Acts of love” were the defining aspects of their 56-year marriage.

Born in St. Paul, MN, on January 19, 1949, Linda Josephine Wagoner was the second of two children born to Lowell and Gertrude (Kowalske) Wagoner. Jacqueline Wagoner was her older sister.

She grew up on Lake Josephine in Roseville, MN, where her family ran a private beach. It was also where she made lifelong friends, Karen Anfang and Christine Storm.

As Linda grew, a passion for music bloomed. After graduating from Kellogg High School in 1966, she attended Concordia College in Moorhead, MN, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in music and religion in 1971.

At Concordia, she met a quiet Vietnam veteran from Wadena, MN: Joseph Helmer Wallevand. They fell in love, he proposed, and she said yes. And then his friends threw him into a campus pond.

They married on August 8, 1970, in Roseville. For the entirety of their marriage, they described each other as the love of their life. While it was simply a part of their vocabulary, in the wide world, it was still a rare and precious thing to witness.

When Joe’s brother Jerry and sister-in-law Dorothy introduced her to nephews and a niece – Jonathan (1963), Jennifer (1968), and Graham (1970) – she became Aunt Linda.

After graduating college, Linda and Joe were both eventually hired as teachers in the Richland 44 school district: Linda in elementary school music and Joe in high school science. They lived in Colfax, ND a few years before building a house in Christine, ND, where they would spend more than 50 years raising a family, making music, tending garden, entertaining friends, and serving as community and church leaders.

It wasn’t long before Linda transitioned to her proudest role: that of mother to Michael (1974), Stephen (1977), and Debra (1981). The house continually rang with the sounds of music, play, and laughter.

Linda didn’t leave teaching behind, however. In 1974, she started offering piano lessons in her home. Over 50 years, she inspired hundreds of students and fostered a love of music in them (some more willing than others).

Nor was she idle, keeping active in softball and bowling leagues, tending garden, and directing the church choir. Joe and Linda also participated in Christine’s community theater. She occasionally enjoyed experimenting on her children’s hair under the watchful eye of her father-in-law Helmer, a 60-year barbershop veteran. In later years, she became friends with members of the Vietnam Veterans of America. Her children shared many of these passions, which followed them to college and into their careers.

In 1998, she walked Mike down the aisle at his wedding to Kirsten (Bjorkman), a young woman with whom she had much in common, especially teaching.

This added to the expansion of family that continued when Jonathan and Kenis (Calderon) introduced them to great-niece Katherine (1997) and great-nephew Frederick (1999). Then grandchildren started to arrive: Samuel (2000) and Benjamin (2009) to Mike and Kirsten, and Elizabeth (2007) to Steve. She doted on them as only a fond grandmother can, and she and Joe were constant fixtures at birthdays, concerts, sporting events, Scout ceremonies, and graduations. Many, many, many family dogs visited and got special rubs from Linda.

In 2025, Linda delightedly welcomed even more people into her family. Deb married Macie (Viets), and then Sam married Abby (Wollin), with their baby Delilah Joy Aisling arriving before the year was over. Linda was now an over-the-moon great-grandmother.

Linda was not one to pass through life without impacting others. Her life and legacy live on. They live in the gardens where her flowers have been transplanted. They live in the houses where her students played piano. They live in the music, videos, and books her children create. They live in the love that passes between the people who knew her. And in this way, she is honored and missed and loved.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Christine Fire Department, Fargo Memorial Honor Guard, and Maȟpíya Lúta school in Pine Ridge, SD.