LaVonne JoAnn Nelson passed away peacefully on January 4, 2024, after a brief but swift battle with Alzheimer’s, she was 81.

LaVonne Nelson

LaVonne was born to Orley and Mildred Allen in 1942 in Alden, MN. She attended Alden High School, was one of the first to participate on their women’s basketball team and was named Homecoming Queen in the same year in which she graduated in 1960.

1960 was a wonderful year for LaVonne as it was the same year, she married the love of her life David Nelson. David and LaVonne bought property and eventually built their existing home in rural Glenville, Minnesota. LaVonne was a notable farm wife, driving the tractor for baling, running grain trucks, and working the field in Spring on their over 400 acres of farmland all while daily preparing breakfast, dinner, lunch, and supper. David and LaVonne also raised cattle and chickens until David hung up his farming hat to retire in 2015.

LaVonne loved her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchild deeply and was an incredibly generous, and kind person. She enjoyed trips to their cabin on Hanging Kettle Lake in Aitkin, MN, baking and gardening. LaVonne also loved animals, was an avid Nascar fan and in her earlier years never missed an opportunity to host what was unofficially the area’s greatest trick-or-treating stop on Halloween. On many a night, you could find her and her husband David watching America’s Most Wanted, 60 Minutes, or Dateline and enjoying popcorn. A woman of quick wit, even in her final days LaVonne seized every opportunity to make her loved ones laugh. Her sense of humor, kindness, and tenacity will be dearly missed.

Lavonne is preceded in death by her infant son, father, and mother; Mildred and Orley Allen. She is survived by her husband David and her children Danny Nelson and Michelle Rayman and her husband Jeff; her grandchildren Cassie Rayman and Chase Rayman, his wife Jenny Rayman; and her great-grandchild Braylon Rayman.

Memorials are preferred to St. Croix Hospice.