Taking stock of blessings
Born into the German baking dynasty that founded Winona’s Mahlke Baking Co. in 1895, Dean Mahlke
was legally blind from a young age. Vision problems dogged him at school and everywhere.
“I shouldn’t even be here. I should have been hit by a truck,” he said.
But it would be a bus, not a truck, that played a large role in his life. After he started working in the bakery, Dean began taking bus tours because he couldn’t drive. Years later, that wanderlust led him to Nell. The pair met on a bus trip to Canada.
“She helped me with a lot. She was my eyes. We were married eight years. I met her five years before that — probably the best years of my life,” Dean said.
Nell passed away last year, a profound loss for Dean. A shelf in the couple’s St. Paul apartment holds scrapbooks of their adventures — a cruise through the Panama Canal, 21 days in Hawaii, riding a river barge from Memphis to New Orleans.
“Nell spent a lot of time writing up our trips and matching the pictures,” Dean said. “I’m thankful for the memories.”
Despite hardships in his life, Dean knows he is surrounded by goodness. Choosing to see that is not always easy, he admits.
“I’ve had so many blessings. You know, I don’t always think of them,” Dean said.
He counts among his blessings an ability to make a living for himself throughout life in spite of his vision. At first, Dean seemed destined to bake. After completing a course in baking at Dunwoody College of Technology in Minneapolis in 1952, he worked for the family bakery for about 20 years.
But finance was another area he enjoyed. Dean’s childhood savings helped fund World War II.
“You’d buy savings stamps until you’d get enough for a bond. I really thought that was something. I’d save my dimes and quarters,” he said.
After leaving the bakery, Dean took a job with the Internal Revenue Service in St. Paul for 27 years. As he prospered, Dean looked for WELS organizations to support. A fellow member of Mount Olive Lutheran Church, where Dean has worshipped for more than 40 years, pointed him to The Lutheran Home Association (TLHA).
“I knew I wanted to help people with intellectual disabilities,” said Dean, who has gladly watched that ministry grow. Some of Dean’s support included gifts of appreciated stock. A stock transfer to charity can offer more tax savings than a gift of cash.
“God has done so much for me that this is just like paying him back, giving all I can,” Dean said. A donor for more than a dozen years, Dean keeps giving because “there’s still those people there that need the help and need the care. That’s never going to end.”
And neither will God’s blessings.
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