by Sue Orsen
It's an action-packed adventure, a thriller, a comedy, a mystery, a drama, a romance novel.  There is suspense or surprise in every scene and the stage is loaded with color and characters.
As the play unfolds, questions are raised:  Who painted all the stars in the sky?  Which one put the twinkle in Gordon's eye?  Which one did Clara put in her pocket to save for a rainy day?  Who built the stage?  Are all the men and women merely players?
Some things are known for certain:  The main characters are Gordon and Clara Diethelm.  There are 18 supporting roles, played by each of their 18 natural-born children.  There are dozens of others in the cast.  The play is long but it moves fast.  There is no intermission.
One of the early acts takes place in Victoria, Minnesota, in the 1920's.  "All there were back then were Diethelms, Notermanns, and Schneiders," said Gordon, "but only the Diethelms got the blame -- never the Notermanns and Schneiders.  We always got blamed for something we didn't do.  Then the Schmiegs took over."
Gordon Diethelm was talking about the classrooms and school yard of the once prominent parochial school in Victoria.  He doesn't call it the "St. Victoria Catholic School."  It's the parochial school.  And it's the prison.
"They tore that prison down," said the former student.  "We only had two nuns when I started, Sister Regala and Sister Perpetua.  We called that first one Flyer.  Whenever she got excited she moved fast and her veil would stand straight up and that's how she got her name.
"That second one we called Apache.  That Apache was mean.  She never used a ruler flat.  They had a rough edge in those days, and they were 16-inch rulers, not the 12-inch ones.  She was a big woman.  Big and mean.
"Eight years and that was enough, and we didn't miss a day, I tell you.  We had to be damn near dead to miss a day of school.  One time Pa found me behind the shed and he grabbed a fishing pole and chased me up the hill."

The Diethelm drama began before the parochial school days.  It began with the early pioneers, for the original Victoria settlers were Diethelms, ancestors of Gordon Diethelm who explained it this way …
"My dad was Henry, and he was born in 1890.  His dad was Joe, and Joe's dad was Mike the homesteader from Switzerland.  Mike was my great
grandfather.  The home farm was where Wintergreen is today.  They just tore the barn down not too long ago."
Wintergreen is the residential development located on Victoria Drive across from the Deer Run Golf Course.
At this point Gordon checked a family book which revealed the dates of Mike Diethelm's coming and going from this world to be 1850 to 1922.  He is buried at the St. Victoria Catholic Cemetery, just up Victoria Drive a mile or so from the homestead.
Gordon has a vivid recollection of his great grandfather's funeral.  "I was six years old and I can just remember the hearse was a horse-drawn carriage, the only one I ever seen and the last one there ever was.  I was sitting by my Grandpa Joe's place, by where Jerry [Diethelm cousin] lives today by the ballpark across from the church, and I could see it from there.  It was cold and I was too small to go to the funeral.  It was February 9^th, 1922.  The team of horses had came up to Grandpa's the night before."

Gordon was born in Victoria on August 12^th, 1916, to Henry and Marie
Diethelm.  Henry had a carpenter brother named Eugene.  Gordon has a younger sister named Loretta.
"I was born in that house where Jiggers lives today," he explained.  Jiggers -- one of Gordon's sons whose real name is Jeff -- and his wife Joyce live in that large home on Highway 5 on the diagonal corner across from the Victoria bank. 
"At the age of four we moved from that house to the farm at Hazeltine.  It was my Grandmother Schutrop's farm.  My dad bought it to get it off her hands and he put up new buildings.  The barn is still there.  You gotta go on #117 to see it. 
"We only lived there one year.  My dad wasn't much for farming.  All he knew was to pound nails, so we moved back to Victoria across the street from where I was born, to that orange-colored house between the bank and the lumber store.  It's the worst damn color I ever saw.  That house was always white!  I lived there until I was 17, then I went to work for Joe Donlin.  I couldn't make myself pound nails.  I tried it three times.  I just wasn't no carpenter."
Joe Donlin's farm on Highway 41 near Excelsior is, today, the residential development called Longacres.
"I farmed for him as a hired man," said Gordon.  "He also peddled milk to Excelsior.  I got board and room there.  I got $20 a month in wages plus board and room.  All that woman could make was cornbread and spinach.  A guy shouldn't talk that way, but they're both dead.
"Then I went to work for Bill Molnau, the clown's dad, and there I ate seven times a day."  It might be
mentioned here that Willie Molnau, son of Bill, is a Victoria resident who dresses up like a clown for special, and even ordinary, occasions.
Gordon continued.
"That Molnau farm was a mile long, by Lake Susan in Chanhassen.  I was still 17.  I worked there until I got married in 1937.  They had the biggest herd of cows in Carver County.  Forty cows we milked and we didn't work after we got done milking.  Bill never believed in it.  So that's when I went to see Ma."

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