Norma Jean Schultz

Norma Jean Schultz was born on March 27, 1929, to parents, William F. and Helen (Olson) Schultz. The event took place at home on the family farm in Caledonia Township, where siblings, Blaine and Shirley, also entered the world. There they learned the value of hard work and purposeful living. She died on Tuesday, December 30, 2025 at Pioneer House in Fargo, ND.

Baptized and confirmed in Immanuel Lutheran Church, rural Hillsboro, she was currently a member of St. John Lutheran Church in Hillsboro.

Norma attended Caledonia Consolidated School from grades 1-12, graduating in 1947. She received an Associate of Arts degree from Bethany Lutheran Junior College in Mankato, MN, in 1949. She went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree from NDAC in 1951 and a Master of Arts degree from Loyola University in Chicago, IL, in 1968.

In her first year as a full time English teacher in Belgrade, MN (1951-1952), Norma was inspired by another first timer who had just returned from a summer of youth hostelling in Europe. Norma determined to do the same. It was an experience that led her to search for teaching positions that would also give her opportunities to learn and to travel.

Learning of DOD (Department of Defense) programs available for qualified applicants of various careers, she applied for and received a position to teach junior high offspring of Army personnel in Darmstadt, Germany. She taught there from 1955-1957.

A year later she returned to Germany to improve her German language proficiency by enrolling at a Goethe Institute in Mittenwald, Bavaria. She spent the second semester of that school year teaching at the DOD school in Vicenza, Italy. Her sister, Shirley, joined her that summer for some weeks of travel in Europe.

Returning to the United States in 1959, Norma taught for two years at Walther Luther High School in Melrose Park, Illinois. She then began studies for a Master’s degree at Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois. While substitute teaching, she acquired a position in the English Department of Oak Park and River Forest High School in Oak Park, Illinois. She remained there for the last twenty-five years of a thirty-seven year teaching/traveling/learning career beginning in 1951 through 1988.

A progressive high school that offered sabbatical leaves, OPRFHS gave Norma time to finish her degree and to spend more time in Europe. She spent the 1971-72 school terms in England, principally at Cambridge University. While there, she was given permission to audit lectures and some classes that befitted her interests. She spent time in Greece in the 1980’s, all good feedback for her students. She once commented: “You don’t have to be a Rhodes Scholar to gain access to world class colleges and universities”.

Norma’s love for travel, learning and teaching was matched by the love she had for her students-mainly teenagers! Going to their reunions, hearing from and about them, she was pleased to learn of their many careers, contributions, and achievements-some outstanding.

Early retirement at age 58 gave her periods of time to be with her mother and sister in Hillsboro and to do substitute teaching there. She was also a substitute teacher at Central Valley, Argusville, and Northern Cass High Schools.
She became active in the Traill County Historical Society, in her church’s LWML, her mother’s homemakers club, and the Sons of Norway. Her mother died in 1996.

In 2010 she sold her home in Oak Park and moved to Fargo, ND where she and her sister lived together in a condominium they had purchased together in 2002. Together they enjoyed being close to cousins and old friends.

They weathered the bad times and enjoyed the good times, knowing they had been blessed. Shirley died in July, 2015.

Her parents, an infant brother, and her sister Shirley and brother, Blaine (Muriel), and her sister-in-law, Muriel Schultz preceded her death. Surviving Norma are two nephews, Larry (Joan), Milwaukee, WI, Geoffrey (Sue), Boston, MA; a niece Judy (Jeff), Tobolski, Portland, OR:: WI and great nephews and nieces: Noah, Gabriel, Ronnie, Eric, Kate Jenny, Amy, Jiliane, Moira, Nolan, Liam and Lili. She leaves many cherished cousins and friends.

Norma requested that memorial gifts be designated to a church or charity of choice, the Traill County Historical Society or the Oak Park River Forest High School Alumni Association Scholarship Foundation.

All arrangements have been entrusted to the care of Wildemann-Boulger Funeral Home in Hillsboro, ND. Online guestbook available at www.boulgerfuneralhome.com.