Brandsoy's Wedding Photo

This groom made it to the wedding on time, but he missed most of the reception.

Dale and Portia Brandsoy were married on July 19, 1969 at Dell Lutheran Church, near Frost.

“First off, it was the hottest day of the year, the temperature was in the upper nineties easily, and there was no air conditioning in the church,” Dale said. Portia agrees, noting that one of the groomsmen in the wedding had sweat constantly dripping from his chin to the floor during the ceremony.

Earlier that day Dale did not feel well. On the way to the church he and his sister stopped at Doc Hanson’s office in Frost. Doc Hanson gave Dale a shot, to help him feel better.

“He knew it was my wedding day, but he thought the ceremony was in the evening,” Dale said. “But actually it was in the early afternoon.”

Brandsoy's Today

Everyone at the wedding wondered if the beet-red groom was going to pass out during the ceremony. He didn’t.

However, the reception was another case altogether. It started at three in the afternoon and was outside at Portia’s parents home, at 745 No. Main. They made Dale sit in a chair in the shade. But eventually he went in the house and napped. “I didn’t get up until after six, and missed a lot of the reception,” he said. “But after that I felt great.”

It seems Doc Hanson had given him some type of tranquilizer to make him rest. It worked.

“Everyone spent most of the day worried about me,” Dale said.

Dale and Portia both grew up in Frost and were high school sweethearts.

“We’ve known each other since first grade, but we actually started dating as juniors in high school,” they both said.

Dale is the superintendent of schools at Blue Earth Area. Portia is a kindergarten teacher at BEA.

Dale came to BEA five years ago, from USC where he was a middle school principal. He had been a high school principal at South Central at Bricelyn also.

Dale and Portia call their wedding pretty good sized, because they both come from large families. “We had 250 to 300 guests invited,” Portia said.

They also call theirs an “econo-wedding”.

“We did a lot of the things ourselves,” Portia said. “I made four of the bridesmaids dresses – and my own wedding dress.” She estimates that the cost of the dress was less than $30.

Her family also made all the food for the reception.

Portia’s uncle, a missionary home on leave, performed the ceremony at Dell Lutheran. “This was the old beautiful white church,” Portia said. It burned down in the 1970s.

For a honeymoon, they traveled around northern Minnesota. “Lots of people did that back in those days,” they said.

It was a nice trip until they checked into a cabin on Lake Superior. It had looked nice in the brochure when they booked it, but in reality it was pretty bad. “I said that I was not going to spend my honeymoon in a dumpy, yucky cabin,” Portia said.

They checked out and went to a nicer place in Two Harbors instead.

After the honeymoon it was back to school for Dale, and a job for Portia at Dayton’s Toy Department.

They lived in Northfield for a while also, because Portia could get a good job there, and Dale could commute to Mankato.

“We didn’t have a lot of money early in our marriage, but we survived and have had a great time,” Dale said.

The Brandsoys live in Frost, in the same house that has been in Portia’s family for many years.They have four grown children, three daughters and a son.

And as far as being high school sweethearts, both said they still are sweethearts.