A special casket crafted with love

By Larry Magrath

Editor’s Note: This article was written in the spring. The interview included Melvin Henriksen. It was set to run in the May edition but was held over because of an extra Memorial Day article that we wanted to include in that edition. Melvin passed away on May 8 at the Parkview Senior Living in Belview. The funeral was on May 14 at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Vesta. He was buried in the casket made by his son. 

Life-long Redwood County farmers Louise, Melvin, and Dan Henriksen look over the casket Dan created at the request of his father. Photo by Larry Magrath

Dan Henriksen of Redwood County got into woodworking early in life and has spent decades completing cabinet projects. The most personal project, though, came at the request of his father Melvin, a lifelong Redwood County farmer. Melvin asked Dan to design and build his casket.

The cabinet shop is located at the farm where 92-year-old Melvin and his wife Louise live in Vesta Township between Seaforth, Vesta, and Lucan. Dan lives nearby and has farmed his whole life, as well as creating custom wood projects. They built the shop in 1982 and added a finish room two years later. The shop is located near where a dairy barn used to stand. In 2013, Melvin retired from farming at age 79.

“We milked cows for about 17 years, then we got smart,” Melvin said smiling.

Remnants of the dairy barn were incorporated into the design of the casket. The clear-coat tin reminds Melvin of all the time he spent milking cows in the barn.

“They can say he was in the barn half of his life and now he can be there forever,” Melvin said. “I can be there forever.”

The casket project itself was simple enough.

“This steel was from Dad’s barn,” Dan said. “We tore the barn down to put a shed in, and he wanted me to include something like that and I decided to go with oak and then we antiqued it, glazed it to give it kind of an antique look.

“I think he first asked me in 2019, and then in 2020 he came out and he said, ‘You better get on this because I don’t know how much longer I got left,’” Dan said.

Now, six years later, Melvin said recently, “I might make it a while yet…”

Melvin Henriksen lived between Vesta, Seaforth and Lucan. He passed away on May 8 at the age of 92. His son, Dan, built a casket for him. Pictured right is a detail from the casket, a handcrafted cross.

Although he had custom built many a kitchen, bathroom, and furniture pieces during his woodworking career, he had never built a casket. Melvin wanted to keep it simple, so Dan worked up some designs and presented it to his Dad for approval. Melvin never was a woodworker so he supervised and visited the shop daily to look things over.

“It’s nice to think that your son could do that,” Louise said.

A tragedy in 1983 led the family to be more open with each other about life and death. The second-youngest of the family, 18-year-old son Jergen, was one of two people who lost their lives in a two-vehicle crash at a nearby rural intersection. Jergen was returning home from classes at a technological school.

“I think after losing my brother and their son I think as a family we were just more open about death. It’s inevitable and we talked a lot about it and I think we’re just open about it. When he first mentioned building it I was kind of wigged out, but then I thought why not make him it.”

Dan’s the oldest. Sisters include twins Janelle Stepan of St. Cloud and Jolene Bergner of Chaska, Lynn Flesch of St. Paul, and Sonja McGivern of Rosemount. The Henriksen’s have 14 grandchildren.

In addition to the barn siding providing a touch of home, a cross sits atop the lid as Melvin’s testament to his Lutheran faith, a member of St. John’s Lutheran in Vesta.

“All through our farming career,” Dan said, “if you get a rain he’d say, ‘Well the Good Lord looks out for us.’ Or he’d come in the shop and he’d say, ‘Well the Good Lord is looking out for me today because this happened and I was saved.’”