Homer John Stensrud

Celebration of Life: https://vimeo.com/event/4383258

Tribute Video: https://www.tributeslides.com/tributes/show/PM35CYKQTLSZ8D2R

Homer Stensrud, 91, of Fargo, N.D., passed away Tuesday, June 11, in his home.

Homer John Stensrud was born September 23, 1932, in Ortonville, Minn., to Sophus and Leona Stensrud and was baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran faith. He grew up in Milbank and Watertown, S.D., before moving to Sioux Falls, where he graduated from Washington High School.

Homer’s childhood home was filled with music as he and his sister sang in choir and played in band, and the whole family sometimes gathered to sing accompanied by Homer’s mother on piano. Homer grew up fishing and hunting all over northeastern South Dakota, and from those adventures developed his lifelong love of the outdoors. With a grandpa who was a carpenter and a father who was an electrician, Homer could seemingly build and fix almost anything. In his adult years, he involved the whole family in building a canoe and a sailboat, becoming an expert sailor after first learning from books.

After his father died during Homer’s freshman year at Augustana College, Homer and his mother pooled resources in a shared bank account while he continued to study and work. He attended his first two years of medical school at the University of South Dakota and graduated from Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago in 1958. While interning at Minneapolis General Hospital, he met Helen Hallanger, a nursing student. They were married July 12, 1959, in Roelyn, Iowa.

During their first two years of marriage, Homer (or Stens, as Helen always called him) served with the U.S. Navy as a battalion and regimental surgeon attached to the First Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, Calif. He and Helen made their home in San Clemente and started their family with the birth of their son Paul. They moved back to the Midwest in 1961, and Homer served a year of internal medicine residency in Minneapolis. Their family then settled in Madison, S.D., where Homer established his career in family practice medicine. The next 25 years were spent in Madison, where daughter Karen and son Andy were born.

Homer was a devoted husband and father, always ready to go for a walk or a drive (with detours for ice cream) and game for tossing a football even after long hours taking care of patients. Andy died in a car accident in 1981, and Homer often reminisced about this dearly missed son. Homer and Helen were very close to Homer’s mother and Helen’s parents, and Homer considered himself lucky to have had both sets of parents living near them in Madison for many years.

Homer was known in the medical community as a compassionate physician, an expert diagnostician, a teacher and a mentor who counseled and inspired many medical students and interns. He and Helen were active members of Trinity Lutheran Church, and Homer also served on the Madison Housing Commission at the time the community planned and built Lake View Tower, a 12-story senior housing project. During Homer’s years in medicine he delivered 2,000 babies, and he made house calls on patients well into the 1980s. Homer “eased into retirement” by working at a mall clinic in Sioux Falls and then at student health in Brookings, S.D., where he truly enjoyed meeting and talking to students, especially foreign students who were far from home.

In retirement, Homer and Helen realized his dream of living in the north woods. For 26 years, they lived year-round on Pickerel Lake near Effie, Minn. Until he suffered a stroke in 2021, Homer regularly hiked anywhere from 2 to 7 miles on nearby roads and trails. Along with fishing, hiking, home projects and travel, Homer valued Effie and Deer Lake friends and his faith community at Effie Fredheim Lutheran Church. After Homer was diagnosed with metastatic cancer in June 2023, he and Helen moved first to Rochester, Minn., and then to Fargo, N.D. Homer continued as much as possible to take pleasure in observing birds and nature, eating good food and sweet treats, watching sports, and reading voraciously. He also greatly enjoyed and appreciated visits from family, friends and his new neighbors.

Although Homer was often “the quiet man in the corner” thanks to his natural reserve, he was good at meeting people and sharing stories. He delighted children with the funny faces he’d practiced since childhood, and his wit and silly sense of humor made him fun to be around. He was a devoted husband who was grateful each day for Helen and the love they shared from the day they first met. He was a loving, supportive and comforting presence – a person of great faith who lived with joy and gratitude for each day and the people he spent it with.

Homer was preceded in death by his son Andy, his parents and grandparents, his sister Rhoda, and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins. He is survived by his wife, Helen; children, Paul (Judy) of Rochester, Minn., and Karen of Fargo, N.D.; grandchildren, Andrew of Minneapolis, Minn., and Erica of Durham, N.C.; many beloved in-laws, nieces, nephews, and cousins; and extended family and friends.

A Celebration of Life will be held Monday, June 17, at 1 p.m. at Hanson-Runsvold Funeral Home in Fargo. Interment will be held at a later date in Graceland Cemetery, Madison, S.D.

The family deeply appreciates the care and love shown to Homer by the staff of Sanford Hospice Fargo. Memorials suggested to Madison (S.D.) Regional Health System, Effie (Minn.) Fredheim Lutheran Church, Doctors Without Borders, or Sanford Hospice Fargo.