Emily and Bob Entwisle add to legacy with Huron Community Foundation

By Benjamin Chase of the Plainsman
Posted 1/11/25

Entwisle Family Fund receives additional donationn

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Emily and Bob Entwisle add to legacy with Huron Community Foundation

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HURON –– When Emily Entwisle passed away on Dec. 7, 2024, a trust that she and husband Bob set up years previous was donated to the Huron Community Foundation.

The Entwisle Family Fund was set up after the Entwisles had an opportunity in 1996 to sell Welter Funeral Home after operating the business for more than four decades. The couple was able to also set up a trust that was to transfer into the fund after the passing of both Emily and Bob.

Son Jim Entwisle expressed the pride he has in his parents’ long-standing impact on the community of Huron.

“In total, my parents’ commitment to the community of Huron is $580,000,” Jim explained. “I’m very, very proud of that. I had nothing to do with it other than just encourage them.”

He continued, “This is their return to Huron for all of the good things that Huron gave to them.”

Huron Community Foundation president Steve Gohn was able to further detail how the Entwisle’s gift would impact Huron.

“From the start, that’s going to be about $22,500 that will go back into our community - at a minimum - forever,” Gohn stated. “They’re going to make a huge impact.”

The fund becomes the second-largest donor-advised fund that Huron Community Foundation manages.

Bob began his path into the funeral home business when he returned home from service in World War II. He had been inspired by interactions with a neighbor who was the funeral home director in his hometown of Adrian, Minn. growing up, and once he returned from the war, he attended mortuary school in Minneapolis and began to work for his mentor in Adrian.

Bob shared in an article about the creation of the Entwisle Family Fund that he came home from service and reconnected with a girl he knew from high school, his future wife, Emily.

To say that they were destined to be together at a young age would be misreading their impressions of one another in their high school days.

Emily once recalled, “He was a senior when I was a freshman. I didn’t like him much, and I was glad when he graduated.”

Their opinions of one another had changed in his time away, and Emily accepted when Bob asked her out on a date.

It would be a marriage that lasted 73 years, with Bob passing in April and Emily following in December, never missing an anniversary of their love together.

Emily would follow her passion in nursing wherever the couple resided, initially in Adrian, then in Mitchell before the couple moved to Huron in October 1955, when they moved to Huron, partnering with Ken Loe to purchase Welter Funeral Home at that time.

When Ken retired in 1970, the Entwisles became the sole owners of the business. Bob would always credit Emily for the success of the business, remembering that she moved to Huron and worked full-time as a surgery nurse while helping out extensively with the business.

Emily received her mortuary license in 1961, and she focused her work in the business on meeting the detailed needs of Welter’s clients.

Jim worked alongside his parents after getting his business degree. He recalled their initial gift and that it simply made sense.

“They felt a true calling to provide service to the community, and they have a lifelong history of service,” Jim stated at the time the fund was created. “It is completely in character for them to want to support the community for generations to come.”

The Entwisles were blessed to be able to see the impact of their gift for many years before they passed this past year, and now their legacy will only grow further.

Jim is now entrusted with the dispersal of his parents’ fund, and he said that one of the thrills he receives is being able to hand-deliver the checks to the charities that are funded through his parents’ generosity.

“That was a big thing of Dad’s,” Jim recalled. “When we wrote checks at the business, he always had me hand-deliver them to wherever they were going. He would say, ‘You look them in the eye and say thank you when you give them that check.’ It meant the world to me”

Gohn recalled first meeting with Emily and Bob to open the fund and their impact since.

“They were such a team, and now to witness what their gift was and the impact that it’s had on this community, it’s immeasurable,” Gohn emphasized. “They were the perfect example of wanting to give back. They have made a huge impact already in our community, and with this gift, they will continue to do so for long after you and I are gone.”