A Winter Wedding in Faribault
On December 28, 1969, Rodney John Stadum married Kathy Anne Nienow in Faribault, Minnesota, just months after he completed his degree at St. Olaf College in Northfield.
Rodney and Kathy met during their time at St. Olaf College, where they were both students in the late 1960s. By the time Rodney graduated in 1969, the two had decided to build a life together. Faribault — a Rice County town south of the Twin Cities — was where Kathy had family connections, making it the natural setting for their winter wedding ceremony.
The timing placed their marriage at the intersection of two defining eras: Rodney was about to begin his service in the United States Air Force, and the couple would soon be living far from Minnesota's familiar landscape. Within months of their wedding, Rodney's Air Force enlistment took them to Okinawa, Japan, where he was stationed from 1970 to 1972, followed by a stint near Beale Air Force Base in Yuba City, California.
Despite those years of movement, the marriage established the family nucleus that would eventually settle in Cambridge, Ohio, where their three children — Amy (b. 1972), Kristin (b. 1975), and Scott (b. 1977) — spent their childhoods. Kathy and Rodney remained married for many years before parting ways, and both remained devoted parents and grandparents. After remarrying, Kathy settled in Faribault — the same city where she and Rodney had exchanged their vows — and built a second chapter of community service at Trinity Lutheran Church.
The wedding represents the founding moment of the Stadum family's third generation: the branch that carried Palmer's stories across Ohio, Washington D.C., and Minnesota, and into the digital archive that now preserves them.