Stella M. Kuschel

Stella (Mudick) Kuschel, of Menahga, Minnesota, passed peacefully on August 21, 2025, at the age of 102 and 8 months at the Green Pine Acres Nursing Home in Menahga. The funeral service will be at 11:00 AM on Thursday, August 28, 2025, at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Sebeka, with a visitation at 10:00 AM. A private family burial will follow at Bethlehem Lutheran Church Cemetery in Backus. Wevley Funeral of Sebeka has been entrusted with arrangements.

Stella was born on December 4, 1922, to Frank & Mary Mudick on a farm in Ansel Township in Cass County, Minnesota. Stella was one of fourteen children. Her dad operated a sawmill, and her mother milked cows, had chickens, and a large garden.

When she was four years old, she went to live with the Wisneski family in Rice, Minnesota. For many years Herman and Liza tried to adopt Stella, but Stella’s family would never sign the papers. Herman and Liza had two sons, Eugene and Arnie. The Wisneski’s milked cows and farmed. Stella attended rural school along with her “brothers” and attended a nearby Lutheran Church, where she was baptized and confirmed.

She was seventeen when she met Morris Kuschel. They would go to the movies and dances. They were married on September 10, 1941. Morris was drafted into the army in 1942. While they were stationed in Wisconsin, Stella worked for the Wisconsin governor’s daughter.

While Morris was assigned duty in France and Stella was pregnant with their first child, she moved back to the Wisneski’s. She later moved in with Morris’s brother Paul, who was living in Ansel Township. Morris sent home money every paycheck and told her, “You can buy food, or you can buy land.” Stella could grow her own food, so she saved the money and bought forty acres in Ansel Township.

Morris was honorably discharged from the army in 1945, and they started dairy farming. Morris went to work for a factory in the 1960’s in Pine River, Minnesota. They saved their money and bought land each time they had enough. In 1955, Morris and Stella took in an 18-year-old boy, Bob, who helped them out until Bob’s passing in 2008.

In 1978, the dairy barn burned down, so they switched to beef cows and successfully ran a cow/calf operation until they moved to an apartment in Wadena in 2013.

Stella was continually active at the Bethlehem Lutheran Church in rural Backus. She was in the Ladies Aid Group. She helped organized the Annual Hunter’s Supper, with Sunday School, and Vacation Bible School. She also sewed and pressed altar cloths, baptismal cloths, and church banners. Similarly, Stella served on many committees as well as the church council. She was also a founding member of the Minnesota Cowbells. She was also involved with the local 4-H group and helped at the county fair.

Stella was an accomplish seamstress and could darn & patch with the best of them. Stella loved to paint and gifted family members with her pictures. She could play the piano and guitar by ear. Stella was a great cook, known for baking bread by hand, her orange Jello salad with shredded carrots, her mock angel food cake, and her “shipping” sandwiches. She would cook a homemade meal from scratch three times a day for Morris’s cattle crews. Stella had a large garden complete with raspberry bushes, and her yard was adorned with many flower beds. Once she moved to the apartment, she learned how to play Bingo and enjoyed putting puzzles together.

After Morris passed away in 2015, Stella continued to live independently at the apartment until just after her 100th birthday. She then moved to Sebeka and finally to Green Pines in Menahga.

Stella is preceded by her husband of 74 years, Morris; her parents, Frank and Mary; her thirteen siblings; a granddaughter, Lacey; and one great grandchild.

Stella is survived by her four children: Patricia (Tom), Wallace, Londale (Betsy), Douglas (Paula), and Thomas (Linda); nine grandchildren, nineteen great-grandchildren, and eight great-great grandchildren (with one more on the way).