William Bickner

We’ve all heard the expression, “Jack of all trades, master of none,” but there was seemingly nothing he couldn’t figure out how to do, and do well.

Bill was born in Worthington, Minnesota, December 27, 1929, some two months after the start of The Great Depression, to William Isadore Bickner and Mary Lucille Bickner (Jackson), the oldest of what would eventually be four. It was an inauspicious time to be starting a family. His mother was a laundry worker in a hotel and fresh out of high school; his father drove a gravel truck and owned a fleet of three trucks when the depression started.  His family would experience a lot of disruption through Bill’s formative years.

Bill was also born about five years after the founding of WCCO Radio in Minneapolis. He grew up enthralled by radio and all things electrical and at a very young age immersed himself in learning about them.

Initially, the family rented a small house in Worthington, but as the economy worsened, they were forced to move back to the Bickner family farm northwest of Heron Lake. Bill’s father took ill. His mom was bringing the kids from visiting their father at the hospital in Worthington when she came home to find that her in-laws had set all her family’s belongings out in the yard. Times were tough, there was a depression going on, and there were mouths to feed and not enough money to feed them all. Bill’s mom took her young family to the area around New Richmond, Wisconsin where her family lived. During the war, she left her kids with her family and went to California to work in a munitions plant, in support of the war effort (think Rosie the Riveter). She came home from that experience flush enough for the family to be able to rent a small home in Stillwater, Minnesota. After a brief stay there, they made their way back to Heron Lake, where Bill and his two sisters would all graduate from high school. When Bill was a junior, a fourth child, Tom was born.

After graduating from high school in 1947, Bill attended one year at Worthington Junior College and one year at the University of Minnesota, majoring in electrical engineering. But after his sophomore year, in June of 1949, he returned to Heron Lake to marry his high school sweetheart, Mary Van Dam and begin raising a family.

Bill got a job in the hardware store in Heron Lake repairing radios and teaching himself to repair TVs and to install and repair furnaces and air-conditioning. He worked there for twelve years before an opportunity presented itself when Bill took a test, got the highest score, and obtained a job as a state electrical inspector for a four-county area in southwest Minnesota. In his first month on the job, his income more than doubled from what it had been at the hardware store!

Bill worked twenty-one years as an inspector before another opportunity presented itself. He was asked to join the State Board of Electricity’s administrative offices in Saint Paul. The family moved to Stillwater, a town that Bill remembered fondly from his youth. They became active in local politics, bowling leagues, sailing and card clubs. In 1992 Bill was promoted to Executive Secretary, overseeing the state's inspectors and often testifying as an expert court witness. After retiring from the Board in 1996, Bill was a regular contributor for an electrical trade magazine and was commissioned to rewrite the National Electric Code, establishing safety guidelines that are still in use today.

Outside of his professional career, Bill was an industrious man. Bill had an invention for everything, and there wasn't any problem that couldn't be solved. In the 1950s, together with a friend, he built two speedboats each using car engines. In the 1960s, he did extensive remodeling of the family’s 1890s house in Heron Lake, especially when he jacked the house up, solicited his kids in excavating from under the house, and laid a complete concrete block foundation under it. In the late 1970s, he built a sailboat from an empty hull along with a trailer to cradle it in. In the early 1980s, Bill and his family built their house in Stillwater, and Bill resided there into the last year of his life. Sailing would be Bill's great joy in life. He sailed the Great Lakes and the St. Croix River. He sailed out of Bayfield, Wisconsin, up into his 80s. Bill had a quick wit and a great belly laugh. He loved cards, a cold beer and all kinds of music. He was a loving husband and father who was always there for anyone in need. It is a near-universal aspiration of parents to give their sons and daughters a better, more stable life than the ones they knew growing up. Bill Bickner achieved that.  Bill was preceded in death by his wife of 69 years, Mary, by his mother and father, Bill and Lucille Bickner, by two sisters, Rita Fest and Ardis Turnbull, and by his son Steve. He is survived by his brother Tom (Linda) Bickner, and his son Bill and his son Aaron, son Bob and his daughter Ginny, son John, son Ken (Robyn) and Ken’s daughters Merit and Faith, daughter Pat and her daughter Iris Linder and son Guthrie Linder, son Ed and his fiancé Jill, and daughter Carole (Todd) Sauers and their daughter Rayna and twin sons Ryan and Riley.

There will be a memorial service in Bill’s honor Saturday, March 21, 2020, at 11:00 at The United Methodist Church in Heron Lake. There will be a light lunch in the fellowship hall following the ceremony. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to or joining our team in the Walk to End Alzheimer's in Minneapolis this fall (http://act.alz.org/goto/jacksonjackaroos20).