Kenneth Willard obituary recalls Solway roots, lifelong family ties

Kenneth James Willard was born in a cabin near Solway on June 22, 1942, the son of Roy and Antoine Willard, and grew up on a dairy farm north of the small Beltrami County city. Raised with nine siblings, he remained tied to the faith of his parents and the Solway Log Chapel.

Willard died June 19, 2026. Solway is about 13 miles from Bemidji and had 73 residents in the 2020 census.

He graduated from Bemidji High School and then attended Oak Hills Christian Training School, where he met Judy Maureen Niemoth. The two married July 25, 1962, and after the wedding Willard began working as a machinist at Illinois Tool Works in Chicago, where other members of the Niemoth family also worked. He was baptized at age 15 along with three of his older siblings at the Oak Hills Fellowship campus.

In 1972, Ken and Judy moved back to the Solway area to raise their seven children, all under age 12, on a family farm. After later selling the farm and another machinist stint, the family relocated to Colorado in 1991. There, work, horses, gardening, food and gatherings with children and grandchildren remained central.

Willard also kept interests including classic cars, old tractors, hunting, shooting sports, and horse-drawn sleighs and wagons. In 1991, he took part in the 279-mile Itasca State Park Centennial Wagon Train, which ran from June 8 to June 23 and crossed Minnesota from the State Capitol in St. Paul to Itasca State Park.

Oak Hills Fellowship began in 1925, when six men pooled $250 to buy 14 acres near Lake Marquette in Bemidji. Oak Hills Christian Training School opened in 1946 as part of that ministry, where Kenneth Willard met Judy Maureen Niemoth.