Lowell Wadd: happy to do it

Lowell Wadd, who just celebrated his 97th birthday, is one of eleven veterans currently living at Colony Court Senior Living in Waseca. Sharing his apartment is his wife of 67 years, Jan Wadd.

Wadd was born in 1925 to Anna and Oscar Wadd and grew up on a farm just five miles north of Waseca. He was the youngest of three boys, Edgar being his oldest brother and Marvin the middle child. “I was a little squirt,” he said with a laugh. Wadd’s family also took in “a young girl,” Helen Powell, after the death of her parents and helped raise her for years. He was schooled at what he called a “regular” country school north of Waseca–a two-room schoolhouse holding four grades of students in each room. In 1942, as a seventeen-year-old finished with high school, Wadd enlisted. His brother Edgar was killed in the line of duty in Italy around the same time, while Marvin stayed home to help mind the farm. “Someone had to be there and I was just a young punk, I wouldn’t know what to do anyway,” said Wadd.

Wadd initially enlisted with the B5 Aviation program, but found this program was being phased out. He and another young man chose to join the Navy instead,  and went to the Great Lakes Naval Station for training. Wadd ended up in Japan during occupation, where he stayed about two years. He was stationed on Tokyo Bay, working out of an old garage to maintain electrical generators and keep communications open between ship and shore crews. “At that time they were using teletype communication,” Wadd explained.

“We had some help from locals,” Wadd said about their garage set-up. “You know, they’d hire a few, and there was a young Japanese boy, I suppose he was about fifteen, Tanako Tatsuo. He was just a good, smart kid, and he liked to be around us Americans, so that worked out fine, and he’d kinda clean up where we had our bunkhouse and do different odd jobs. When it came time for us to go home, I called Tanako and talked to him, said I was going back to the United States - going home,” Wadd told. “He sat down and cried. He didn’t want me to go home. Of course that wasn’t meant to be. As time went on, I had to go home.” Wadd continued, “He was pretty handy with making things: In our shop he’d find a piece of wood and he’d go out in the shop and he’d be busy – you know, if we didn’t have something for him to do he’d be in the vise with his pocket knife, and by golly he was the handiest. He took a block of wood and kept whittling on it and he made me a model P38 bomber fighter plane, carved and glued together, and placed on a stand. A beautiful piece, stuff you’d like to keep around.” 

“He loved you, Lowell, and I know you loved him,” Jan said. “Yes, I did,” Lowell replied. “I wouldn’t have minded taking him home with me. But it wasn’t meant to be.”

After returning home to the United States, Wadd worked on his family’s farm and for Birdseye for a few years before getting into heavy construction, operating bulldozers and other large equipment. It was the career he’d be in until retirement, but that didn’t mean staying in one place. “I got a little restless and I knew a lot of guys that were in construction, they’d go back overseas and work for contractors and air bases in different countries,” Wadd explained. “I had the chance to go to French Morocco, so I of course signed up. We had to sign up for a couple years, and I worked over in French Morocco then, and when I came home just shortly after that I met this lady here. And it went pretty fast, didn’t it?”

 “Well, it was two years before we got married,” Jan replied.

 “Yeah, it was only two years,” Wadd shot back lightly.

Lowell and Jan Wadd met in 1953 through mutual friends when she was still quite young. “There was this wonderful group of friends,” Jan explained. “Most of them, except my one girlfriend, were all older than me. And all of us ended up getting married within a couple years of each other and being in each others’ weddings, and that was beautiful.” The pair married in 1955 and started their married life renting an apartment in Mankato. They lived there about a year and a half before buying a house in Waseca on East Elm Avenue, where they raised their two sons. Curtis Wadd was born in 1959; Craig 18 months later in 1960. Curtis now has two boys of his own, neither of whom are married. One owns Lakes Motorsports and Marine in Waterville, and the other is studying marine biology at St. Thomas, according to the Wadds. “He comes home for a visit Monday,” Wadd said. Jan smiled at that. “We’re very anxious to see him.”

Once their children were grown, Lowell and Jan built a home on the north edge of Waseca in a line of new properties in a then-heavily-wooded area. The couple were among the first to move there. Both described that property as beautiful, with large oak trees and a walking bridge over the water behind their lot but no through-traffic. “We loved that house,” Wadd said. Wadd retired from construction work at the age of 70. “Most people retire at 65, but I kind of liked to work. I thought it might be nice to, how do you say, kind of stack up a little extra in case I live awhile,” he said of his long career. Eventually the burden of lawn care prompted them to move back into town, to a smaller property, where they lived for some time before moving to Colony Court more recently.

Jan had high praise for life at Colony Court, as her husband nodded along. “It’s hard when you have to leave your home,” she said, but expressed that the level of comfort and accommodation at Colony Court made it easier. The activities director, she said, is “one of the best” based on her own experience working as activities director at Lakeshore Inn.

Lowell Wadd is remembered fondly at the Waseca VFW Post for his long membership. He participated in the VFW’s honor guard, giving the traditional salute at funerals for those who had served for “at least” five years. “Rain, sleet, and snow,” added Jan. “It was beautiful, you’d always come home and say you were so happy to be able to do it,” He also sold tickets at steak and fish fries for years, “raising money so we would have a club of our own.” Jan also got involved with the Auxiliary there. About the VFW, Wadd said “We gotta get down there soon.”