Wetterlings to be July Fourth parade grand marshals

by Cori Hilsgen

news@thenewsleaders.com

The St. Joseph Lions Club recently announced Dr. Jerry and Patty Wetterling will be the grand marshals of the upcoming July Fourth parade.

In an interview with the Newsleaders at Jerry’s clinic, the St. Joseph Family Chiropractic office, the Wetterlings said they were honored to be the grand marshals because they feel it will give them a chance to say “thank you” to the people of St. Joseph and elsewhere who have given so much to them.

The Wetterlings have been residents of the area for 40 years. During that time, Jerry has also been practicing chiropractic medicine at his downtown St. Joseph office. Patty, a math teacher, has been very active in the area.

They were the objects of international attention when their 11-year-old son, Jacob, was abducted in 1989. That horrifying incident changed their lives instantly.

“We have always felt like we have been on the shoulders of so many people,” Jerry said.

“We were absolutely carried by them,” Patty said. “After we got answers, – not the answers we wanted, but answers – we continued to feel the support with the ‘Jacob 11’ campaign, the signs on the Wobegon Trail, various schools sending photos of things they have done, just so much broad-based support of positive energy, what we feel will build safer communities. I think St. Jo(seph) is reflective of a lot of those traits.”

The Jacob 11 campaign includes 11 traits Jacob believed in and include the following:

• Be kind
• Be honest
• Be thankful
• Be positive
• Be fair
• Be a good friend
• Be gentle with others
• Be a good sport
• Be joyful
• Be understanding
• Be generous

“The response of this community is what got Jacob’s story so much attention with the state and nationally,” Patty said. “It was like people just rallied and said ‘No, you can’t harm our kids.'”

She added Jerry has been a pillar of this area for many years and being grand marshals gives them the chance they never had to show their gratitude and say “thank you” to those who have helped them so much.

“It’s an honor to be asked to be grand marshals,” Patty said. ” So many people have been very generous to both of us and have been very supportive.”

She said she is also doing it for Jerry because he has given his life to St. Joseph, and being a grand marshal is an acknowledgement of his presence in the city.

The Wetterlings recalled the parade route used to go past in front of Jerry’s chiropractic office. People would stop in to use their bathroom.

In 1989, they won awards from St. Joseph and Albany for their “Back to the Future” walking-spine parade entry, which included Jacob and 25 other children.

Their daughter, Carmen, who has returned for the July Fourth festival, has said St. Joseph is one of the few places where she can reserve a spot for the parade with a blanket.

Patty said after Jacob’s abduction, Jerry initially did all the interviews. After a while, he needed to return to work because they had no income coming in. Since she was a stay-at-home mom, she started doing the interviews and it became her full-time job.

“It’s pretty much what I have done for 27 years,” Patty said.

Patty and Jerry met at Mankato State University. They both planned to teach mathematics and met before they did student teaching.

After graduation, Patty taught on a ship in southern Maryland. On the ship, she taught students who had dropped out of high school and were studying to become U.S. Merchant Marines.

That was during the end of the Vietnam War when Jerry filed for and was granted “conscientious-objector” status and was required to do alternative service, which involved promoting health. He was assigned service with the National Jogging Association in Washington, D.C. His service was preventive medicine through exercise.

While working with the association, he began reading and studying many of the organization’s health-and-fitness books. The books interested him because he had a physical education minor and had planned to coach. He had previously taken courses in anatomy, first aid and more.

After his assigned service, Jerry taught middle-school math for one year while also working part-time at a health-food store.

His experiences led him to the conclusion that he could be more productive working one-to-one instead of 30-1 and he attended the Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa.

Patty taught during that time. She taught one year near Washington, D.C. at a time when schools were being desegregated – a time of real and threatened violence by angry people opposed to desegregation and busing to achieve the goals of desegregation. Patty recalled the tensions caused by the threats of violence. Students couldn’t be dismissed until police arrived to escort them, and teachers also left the school premises when protective police arrived. That school is no longer a school but a police station, Patty noted.

“It was rough,” Patty said. “We learned a lot about disparities, actually. (Jerry) was teaching in a Virginia suburb, which had more resources, and I was teaching in a really rough school.”

She then taught for three years in Bettendorf, Iowa.

They decided to move to Minnesota when Jerry completed his chiropractic degree.

“Minnesota was a progressive state as far as accepting chiropractic and chiropractic coverage with insurance,” Jerry said.

He had two sisters who lived in the Twin Cities area. Patty grew up in the Twin Cities and had a sister who was living in Sartell at the time. Jerry’s family also vacationed in the Detroit Lakes area and they decided St. Joseph was kind of like a half-way point between the Metro and northern lakes area.

“I was really trying to decide between St. Jo(seph) and Cold Spring because I wanted to be in a smaller town,” Jerry said. “The college was the big draw.”

After asking around, Jerry learned the owner of Kay’s Kitchen, “Dirk” Dierkhising, might be interested in selling his house. The Wetterlings bought the house, which is where Jerry’s chiropractic business is now located. They remodeled it, lived upstairs, and he had his business downstairs.

“We just sort of fell in love with this house,” Patty said. “I love this house.”

Patty helped organize the first Parent Teacher Association at Kennedy Elementary School. Their daughter, Amy, had started kindergarten and Patty didn’t know many of the parents. She and four other families formed the organization and later formed one at North Junior High School in St. Cloud also.

The Wetterlings were also long supporters of the Millstream Arts Festival for two decades. The festival’s organizers had asked businesses if they would be supportive and Jerry said “yes.” He couldn’t attend the first meeting, so he asked Patty if she would attend. She ended up chairing the entertainment committee for more than 20 years.

On the night Jacob was abducted, Patty and Jerry were attending a post-Millstream Arts Festival celebration to discuss how the event had gone. They were with the committee that night.

Both Patty and Jerry were members of the St. Joseph Jaycees. Patty was with the Jaycees Women’s group. Jerry was past president and a member of the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce.

Both were charter members of the St. Cloud branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Jerry was president in 1989 when Jacob was abducted.

“(The organization) formed out of some really screaming need for some disparities work,” Patty said.

After Jacob’s abduction, Patty and Jerry formed the Jacob Wetterling Foundation, a non-profit organization that educates people about child safety. It was originally located in St. Joseph, including at one time in the downstairs of the current Newsleaders office, but is now headquartered in the Twin Cities area.

The organization is now known as the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center and works with assisting and educating families.

Patty said it was extremely hard for them to try to start this new organization during the worst time of their lives. She said Jerry organized it by completing applications, creating the bylaws, doing budget management and much more.

“I didn’t do that,” Patty said. “I get credit for a lot of stuff I didn’t do. He (Jerry) did the foundation work.”

Patty said she was glad she was able to work at the local office.

“It’s still really strong, and I am really proud of the work they do,” she said.

Patty was asked to be part of the Governor’s Task Force in 1990 to address the problem of missing and exploited children. She then worked on the national level with the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children since 1991.

Patty has been involved with state and federal legislation, including passage of the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children Sex Offender Registration Act and the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, a federal crime bill.

The bill requires states to create sex offender and crimes against children registries. States are required to verify the addresses of sex offenders yearly for at least 10 years and sexually violent predators must verify their addresses quarterly for the rest of their lives.

She said the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act is a good tool for law enforcement to use.

Patty helped form and was president of the Association of Missing and Exploited Children’s Organizations, which was funded by a grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

She also helped form and was director of Team Hope during its beginning years. The organization is parent-to-parent mentoring for parents searching for missing children. Through the organization, she helped create several manuals including the Family Survival Guide and Sibling Survival Guide. The organization also created a guide for children who have returned to families called You’re Not Alone, which she was not involved with.

Ron Laney, who was head of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention programs, helped develop those guides.

Patty has also chaired the board of directors of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children from 2012-2015 and has been a member of the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children from 2012-2015.

In September 2016, Danny Heinrich admitted to killing Jacob and showed authorities where his remains were buried near Paynesville.

The Wetterlings have four children: Amy, Jacob (d), Trevor and Carmen, as well as six grandchildren (four girls and two boys).

The St. Joseph Lions Club organizes the annual parade, scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday, July 4 in St. Joseph.