lit a candle 3h agoSaw this come up on the St. Cloud paper's site this morning, my uncle worked the line at DeZurik in the seventies and used to mention Jim Boelz by name, said the man never once cut a corner in thirty six years. Sending this out to Grace and the family from all the way down in Florida.
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James Warren "Jim" Boelz was a U.S. Navy veteran and longtime Central Minnesota manufacturing craftsman whose life ran from St. Cloud to Becker by way of Wausau, Wisconsin. He died on Saturday 5 September 2026 at St. Cloud Hospital in St. Cloud, Minnesota, at the age of 83. Boelz was…
James Warren "Jim" Boelz was a U.S. Navy veteran and longtime Central Minnesota manufacturing craftsman whose life ran from St. Cloud to Becker by way of Wausau, Wisconsin. He died on Saturday 5 September 2026 at St. Cloud Hospital in St. Cloud, Minnesota, at the age of 83.
Boelz was born on 17 September 1942 in St. Cloud to Lawrence and Priscilla (Jackson) Boelz. On 29 July 1963 he married Grace Allen at St. Augustine's Catholic Church in St. Cloud, beginning a marriage that would last 63 years. Friends later spoke of that partnership as the steady center of his adult life. He served in the United States Navy from 1966 to 1970, a period his family marked with military honors at burial.
For 36 years he worked for DeZurik Corp of Sartell, Minnesota, a maker of industrial valves, as a manufacturing craftsman. That long tenure placed him among the generation of factory workers who steadied the region's industrial economy through decades of shift work and skilled hands-on production. Colleagues and relatives described a quiet reliability rather than a public profile: a man who showed up, did the work, and went home to family and workshop projects.
Away from the plant he enjoyed woodworking and very old cars and motorcycles, hobbies that matched a practical temperament and that friends associated with his careful, patient manner. Those pastimes, together with Navy service and the DeZurik years, formed the public outline of a private life centered on Grace, their son Robert, and an extended Minnesota family.
He is survived by his wife Grace Boelz; son Robert (Jill) Boelz; brother Arthur (Mary Jo) Boelz; sister Susan Lott; three grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents and by brothers Melvin and Thomas.
Funeral services were held at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday 16 September 2026 at Benson Funeral Home in St. Cloud, with visitation one hour prior. Burial with military honors followed at the Minnesota State Veterans Cemetery in Little Falls, Minnesota. Local coverage by WJON's Paul Shea remembered his Navy years, his long DeZurik career, and the quiet passions that filled his free hours. Arrangements were by Benson Funeral Home.
Biography adapted from WJON Paul Shea obituary feature (11 Sep 2026); Benson Funeral Home arrangements notice.
36 years at one plant is its own kind of quiet heroism