Gladys Kathryn (Vogel) Nicol

Gladys Kathryn Nicol passed away peacefully Thursday, March 5, 2026, at Goldpine Home, Bemidji, Minnesota. 

Gladys was born September 5, 1932, to Dick and Harriet Vogel in Worthington, Minnesota. Their family lived in Bigelow, Minnesota. Their home was converted from a shelter her father had originally built as a place to grow chickens to sell as young fryers. But in the Great Depression no one had money to buy chickens, so this business collapsed and with the help of a cousin he converted part of this building into living space with a kitchen, a tiny living room, two tiny bedrooms, no bathroom. Eventually they’d convert the rest of the shelter into a second apartment to rent out. In telling about her childhood, Gladys often spoke with a smile of living in a chicken coop with her parents and four brothers. There was no steady work to be had in those days, but she gave great credit to her parents for their thrift and industriousness. Her father would take jobs no one else wanted, like painting high flag poles and church steeples. In 1937 they moved to Hull, Iowa, for her father to open a branch of his brother Andrew’s paint business. They lived in the back of the store. That business went okay, but after a few years it seemed he could make more money delivering dairy products from the Hull Creamery to houses in Sioux City, Iowa, so they moved to Sioux City for what turned out to be only six months. 

Dick had been drawn to the beauty of northern Minnesota during fishing trips there. He saw the possibility of the family feeding itself by hunting, fishing, and gardening. He also thought the fresh air would help relieve Harriet’s hay fever and Gladys’s asthma, and property prices were low, so in 1942 they moved to Tenstrike. Tenstrike was a welcome change, a good place for a family. Gladys later remembered, “There was no end of fun things to do there with the lake in the summer, and the snowy hill for sliding in the winter. . . . We skied out in the woods across the road, even building our own ski jump. I remember winter evenings as a family with the radio on, each of us busy doing something else while listening. Puzzles, color books, model planes, even reading. Lots of books went in and out of that house on the hill. Mom was usually mending - she never got to the bottom of the basket. . . . I read in bed, in an unheated room where I could see my breath. . . . I did not feel deprived or poor in my younger years in that house. There was so much to do that pleased me that the idea didn’t enter my head.” 

She went on to the Swedish School of Nursing in Minneapolis, graduating cum laude September of 1954 with a degree to be a registered nurse. She began her career as a labor and delivery nurse. 

In 1955 she married Earl Stuart Nicol. Their son David was born in 1957 and daughter Susan in 1960. But by the time of Susan’s birth Earl had, as Gladys put it, “lost interest in family life,” and they formally separated soon after and divorced the following spring. She struggled with the conditions of being a single mother. Because of ill health she was unable to work for a year and a half and the family was supported by Aid to Dependent Children. For a few years they lived in subsidized housing in a low rent housing development in Minneapolis. Then they moved to Bemidji, where her parents had settled. In Bemidji she had a house built on Cedar Lane, a house that was her home until she moved to assisted living in 2024. Looking back at her years raising her children, she often spoke of the challenges and struggles that were so hard, the times that she fell to her knees in tears, but said, “During those days we had very little money, but we always had enough. God blessed us in many and various ways to help fill our needs. Although according to federal guidelines we were poor, we were not poor because we had food and shelter, clothing and warmth, friends and family, and a good church.” 

She wondered how she could ever send her children to college, saying, “Every penny at our house was pinched at least twice before it was kissed goodbye.” But through a series of events that she always credited to answered prayer, she did send them both to Shattuck-St. Mary’s prep school and then to Carleton College.

Meanwhile, when she first moved to Bemidji she worked at a nursing home on Bemidji Ave, then later at Bemidji State College health center. For the last twenty years of her nursing career she worked for Minnesota State Quality Assurance and Review, traveling to nursing homes throughout northern Minnesota. And in the middle of her career she also returned to college, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Community Service from Bemidji State University in 1978. 

Over the years she landscaped her yard, twice built additions onto her house, and grew flowers and vegetables in her gardens. One of her additions became her favorite place to sit, a sunny room with large windows overlooking her gardens. Her hobbies included sewing, knitting, reading, doing jigsaw puzzles and crosswords, and shopping at thrift stores. She was devoted to her seven grandchildren, whom she called her “angels.” She had them call her “Beppa” in honor of her Dutch roots. She visited them regularly, including traveling alone to Albania seven times to visit her daughter’s family when they lived there. In later years after her retirement, she volunteered holding babies in the hospital nursery. Her Christian faith was an integral part of her life. She was an active member of Chapel in the Pines, then the Evangelical Free Church. She was a prayer warrior for her family. 

Gladys was preceded in death by her father Dick, mother Harriet, and brother Richard. She is survived by brothers David, Kenneth, and Harold, sister Marilyn, son David (Elizabeth) Nicol, daughter Susan (Von) Golder, grandchildren Caitrin (Adam) Keiper, Thomas Nicol, Galen (Laura) Nicol, John Nicol, Adam (Anna) Golder, Daniel (Jill) Golder, Sarah (William) Springer, and ten great-grandchildren. 

Memorials may be directed to www.freedomfirm.org, www.swharvest.org, www.wycliffe.org or www.oakhills.org.

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