Jerry Peltier named parade’s grand marshal

“I’m really honored to be asked to do that. It means a lot when you’ve been in an area all your life,” Peltier said. 

Peltier was born in 1938 and raised in Hugo. He went to school primarily in the White Bear Lake district, but he had relatives who lived in Forest Lake, and would often spend more time in Forest Lake than at home during the summers. The town, he said, has changed greatly since then. 

“When I was a boy, there were almost as many wagons and horses along the streets as people, mostly for the feed mill and the hardware and lumber store,” he said. “While they were here, the men would go to the hardware store, stop and have a couple of cold beers, and the women would go to the dry goods or grocery store.” 

He recalls spending summers taking the train from Hugo to Forest Lake for a dime as a young boy.

“That’s how we went swimming,” he said. 

He often would celebrate the Fourth of July with his family in Forest Lake, and would help where asked. The parade – and the 100-plus-person marching bands in it – he said, were always a highlight. It’s one of the reasons why he ended up as a drummer and musician, he said. The fireworks, which used to be shot off of the beach at Lakeside Memorial Park, were a favorite memory for him, as well. There was one year he helped set them off, laughing now at the danger of having a young child help shoot off explosives. 

“A lot of good memories,” he said.

Military service, and a return to Forest Lake

He was just three when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, but he said he can still remember the faces of fear and anger on the adults around him. 

“It crushed my heart to see everybody so concerned,” he said. “That doesn’t leave you.”

As a young boy, he’d scour the dump for tin cans and other materials to help with the war effort. Growing up under the cloud of war, he said, was a big reason he’d later sign up for military service.

He joined the Minnesota Army National Guard in 1955, and three and a half years after that, started flight school. After nearly four years with the guard, he went into army aviation. Upon completion, he went into the Army reserves until 1963. He wasn’t allowed into the military flight school because they weren’t taking anybody that had more than one dependent, and he had adopted three boys with his wife Darlene, who he married in August 1962. 

Also in 1963, he fulfilled a childhood dream by moving to a house on Forest Lake with his wife Darlene. 

“From a young age, I always had it in my mind I’m going to live like my uncle – on the lake in Forest Lake. By golly, I was able to pull that off,” Peltier said.

He returned to civilian life as a pilot, spending 35 years as an international jet pilot. He also became an entrepreneur on the side, keeping his hands busy with a number of businesses  – some of which he owned, some in which he was a partner – and assisting local ministries by helping them manage finances or volunteering, from helping Maranatha Church navigate land purchases for their facilities, or volunteering with Christian teen ministry Young Life.

“I found that to be really fulfilling and rewarding, to help churches and ministries come into large amounts of money to grow what they wanted to accomplish,” he said. He still has a “finger in that pie,” he said, something he enjoys doing. 

He’s also became active in helping promote the health of the lake, beginning with a major effort in 1966 to clean up the water quality of Forest Lake by rounding up area residents and finding funding for projects.

“When I was flying, I’d get a lot of days off between international trips. I’d have stretches of 10 to 12 days off. I always found plenty to do in Forest Lake area. One of the main projects I saw through the years, I spent 20 years helping develop the recovery of the lake from heavy weeds and pollution,” he said. 

He also helped steer the vision for the sewer system around the lake. It became his vision in the 60s that Forest Lake would have a sewer system that wouldn’t dump directly into the lake, and could also support development. 

“The old mayor, Jere Noreen, he saw the vision. He stood by me,” he said. “I think we saved the lake. Once the word was out we were going to care for it, the sewer system financing became easier. People didn’t want to put homes on some modest sewer system; it didn’t work. So that was a big item. I gave it 20 years of my life and now I can sit back and say I’m really glad I did it.” 

Jerry and Darlene raised their five children in Forest Lake. They now live on a house off Clear Lake and are grandparents to 16 grandchildren and 32 great-grandchildren. He has been an active member of the Forest Lake American Legion for 16 years, and has been a color guard member for nearly nine years, currently as one of the bugle players, playing taps at funerals and services, of which they did 106 in the last year. He said he appreciates the reverence given to a fallen legion member, and watching as younger family members hear their grandparent’s stories of service. 

“Some of these guys were the second world war, they’ve never heard their grandparents story,” he said. A recent anonymous donation for new uniforms for the color guard brought tears to his eyes. 

He has marched in parades in recent years, and a few years ago, also grabbed a ride on one of the AT6s, the airplanes that fly overhead at the beginning of the parade.  This year he may not have a birds eye view of the parade, but he and his wife will be getting a front row seat, instead.

“How fortunate, pushing 85, to come back and look down on something you’ve given great appreciation to,” he said.  “I felt very honored to be asked.”

[A previous version of this story noted incorrectly his wife's name was Charlene. The name has been changed to the correct name of Darlene. The Forest Lake Times regrets this error.]