| William Wieland’s Long Biography | (created at the request of my students) | William Wieland |
| North Dakota | I grew up on a livestock and small grain farm near Dazey, ND where my brother and his family still live. My wife grew up on a similar farm near Kathryn, ND. We and our children enjoy spending time on the farms and continue making fond memories with those rural communities. The church of my childhood was St. Mary's Church, Dazey, ND. | ||
| Farming, Math, & Music | Though I took piano lessons from the 3rd grade through college, during high school I wanted to be a dairy farmer and had not chosen a major when I enrolled at Valley City State College in Valley City, ND. After declaring a math major, I gradually decided that music classes were easier and more fun for me and changed to a music major. I still earned a minor math minor and my calculus professor, Roger Rand, was my advisor until I graduated. Playing piano in the late 70s | ||
| Mary Ann | Mary Ann and I met at VCSC in choir. (choir tour bus ride) To satisfy half of our phy ed requirement, we enrolled in Social Dance and Raquetball together. Fast forward a quarter century—my middle-school-aged daughter and I enrolled in Daughters and Dads Dancing through the Aberdeen Parks and Rec. | ||
| Twin Cities & Badlands | I lived in Minneapolis, MN for two years while working on my master's degree at the The University of Minnesota, spending the summers in Medora, ND, next to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I played keyboards in the Medora Musical (192 shows). Mary Ann worked for a time in both Minneapolis and Medora. | ||
| Skydiving | While studying in the Twin Cities, my cousin, Mike, and I went skydiving in Baldwin, WI. I had never flown before skydiving. For several months I could say that I had taken off in a plane, but never landed in one. | ||
| Wedding | After I graduated with a Master of Arts, we enjoyed a hot air balloon ride as our early wedding gift to each other. We celebrated a traditional country wedding in Kathryn, ND with over 200 guests. Marvin & Solveig Nelson, Mary Ann and me, Peggy & Jack Wieland | ||
| Chicago | After our honeymoon in the Canadian rockies, we moved to Illinois and for six years lived eight blocks north of Chicago in Evanston, IL while I worked on my doctoral degree in music composition at Northwestern University. Mary Ann's job paid the bills. We frequented ethnic restaurants, museums, theatres, Orchestra Hall, and Lyric Opera of Chicago. | ||
| Peace Corps | In 1990 we decided to join the Peace Corps. This was a dream of mine for many years. After completing the lengthy application and interview process, the Peace Corps turned us down because of my heart condition. We asked them to return our file. “Laos couple” was handwritten on our application. | ||
| South Dakota | In 1994 we moved to South Dakota and I began paying the bills. We had three children in Aberdeen, SD. Fortunately, Mary Ann was able to stay at home with our kids. | ||
| Teaching | The courses I teach and most of my course materials are on my homepage. I teach first-year music majors and minors every day of the week. This fosters great camaraderie among the music students. I teach piano lessons and class piano. (Every music major must demonstrate keyboard competency.) I also teach music composition (I complete about one commissioned composition per year.) and upper level music theory courses including an online class. Educators at small universities wear many hats. | ||
| German | I speak only German to my children. When they were young, our favorite books included Usborne's vocabulary/picture book First Thousand Words in German, Eric Carle's Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt, and Marcus Pfister's Der Regenbogenfisch. We also watched the animated film, Muzzy in Gondoland, (in German) many times. When they were a little older, we enjoyed several books by Janosch including Oh, wie schön ist Panama, Post für den Tiger, and Ich mach dich gesund, sagte der Bär. When they started school we enjoyed Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Langstrumpf and Otfried Preußler's Der Räuber Hotzenplotz. Later, we read the first Harry Potter book in German. How I Learned German | ||
| Literature | I enjoy listening to my wife read aloud. I tried reading to her, but put her to sleep. My wife does great voices. I suspect that few have read all of Moby Dick aloud! We particularly like Jane Austen as well as series like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Books Mary Ann has read aloud to me. Books recommended by Joe Stickler, a retired VCSU science professor. | ||
| Health | If you're unhealthy, you can't do anyone any good. Better health is one of my top priorities. I exercise, eat right, and get enough sleep. | ||
| Exercise | Every date evenly divisible by 3 or during inclement weather, I do calisthenics. I have had no lower back pain since I started this regimen. Mary Ann and I both walk for exercise, though not together since we walk at different speeds. (She says walking with me is like walking a golden retriever. She wants a leash.) I walked my kids to elementary and middle school almost every school day from 2002–2014. Now I go rucking with 20 pounds for 30 minutes before breakfast on the days without calisthenics. | ||
| Eat Right | I eat vegetables, fruit, whole grains, protein, and a dairy food at every meal. My breakfast is a small bowl of Cheerios with skim milk, frozen beans (just thawed), a little canned salmon, and half of an orange. I eat protein at every meal and snack on unsalted peanuts, unsalted sunflower nuts, and raw pumpkin seeds. I consume almost no pop, candy, dessert, or fast food. I enjoy a single, low-carb alcoholic beverage only on special occasions. I seldom eat between 7:00 pm and 7:00 am. Menu (ideas) | ||
| Sleep | Getting a good night's sleep is more challenging as we grow older. I have scheduled a power nap most days of the week. Mary Ann benefits from morning sleep, so I try to be quiet in the morning. | ||
| My Heart | I had open heart surgery in June 2014. I was born with a heart condition and today I have two artificial heart valves. Please read more at My Heart Story. | ||
| Conservation | We are conservationists. Reduce, reuse, recycle, renew! On long trips, we drive a hybrid which gets about 50 mpg. In town, we drive an electric vehicle. We have owned two: a 2015 Nissan Leaf and now a 2023 Chevy Bolt. We compost, mow with a rechargeable electric mower, and have no dryer. Mary Ann hangs all of our clothes to dry. For many years, we invited family and friends to our basement after the first hard frost to press apples into juice. Our press is the Homesteader from Happy Valley Ranch. During summer vacation I use a solar oven which I designed and built: 2007 Solar Oven. I learned much from the Solar Cookers International website. We also installed Solar Panels. | ||
| Clothes |
To keep my life simple, I have four categories of clothes.
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| Smartphone | I resisted buying a smartphone until the summer of 2021 when we realized that we would save about $1,000 if we disconnected our landline and I joined my family’s plan. For many years I did not get a flip phone, cell phone, or smartphone because I have a phone in my office, we had a landline at home, and I was not interested in phone calls while walking or teaching. | ||
| Philanthropy | My wife and I give money and time to many organizations. My wife assisted with our local elementary school so often that the secretary who buzzed her in once said, “We need to get you a badge!” BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator, and Charity Watch, among others, can help you choose reputable national charities. | ||
| Church Music | In about the seventh grade, I began playing the organ at St. Mary's, a rural church next to our farm. I still lead the music at their Corpus Christi celebration every summer as well as Christmas every even year. The summer before ninth grade, my wife began playing organ at St. Paul's in Kathryn, ND. While studying at the University of MN, I played a keyboard at the Newman Center and, during the summers, at St. Mary's in Medora, ND. In Evanston, Mary Ann and I sang at St. Nicholas Church. I also played organ for a year at St. Paul's German church and substituted at churches in the Chicago area. In Aberdeen, we sing and play at St. Mary's. Since 2009, I have led the “Latin Choir”. We sing mostly Latin, a cappella polyphony once a month during the school year. Since 2013, I have sung and helped accompany the All-Faiths Chorus in Hoven, SD. They present the “Christmas on the Prairie” concert with the SD Symphony. | ||
| Summers | Since 2006, I have joined over 100 music theory instructors from across the country for one week each summer and correct over 18,000 AP Music Theory exams. We have met in Ewing, NJ; Lincoln, NE; Cincinatti, OH; and Kansas City, MO. Most summers from 1995 to 2024 I taught piano at the International Music Camp (week 4) on the Manitoba/North Dakota border. I was the piano camp coordinator from 2012? to 2024. My youngest son was a piano camper from 2015–2019. It was wonderful to share that time with him. (I missed summer events in 2014 because of my open heart surgery as well as 2020 and 2021 because of COVID-19.) | ||
| Exchange Students | Though I am a fourth generation German-American, I still keep in touch with my distant cousins. From August 2009 to March 2010, we hosted a German foreign exchange student, my 3rd cousin Franz-Georg Wieland. From September 2024 to June 2025, we hosted another German foreign exchange student. | ||
| Travel |
My mother-in-law, father-in-law, wife, and I drove to Alaska in 1996—8000 miles in 4 weeks. Mary Ann and I have traveled to Germany and Norway several times including a train trip from southern Germany to Bodø, a Norwegian city above the Arctic Circle where we visited Mary Ann’s relatives. I took my eldest son to Germany for a month when he was three. My wife grew up taking a family trip each summer. Our immediate family continued this tradition and adopted a three-year cycle: regional trip, national trip, and international trip. (Don't overlook what is in your own backyard.) Now our trips are mostly visits to our grown children. Jet Lag Experiment | ||
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2003 — Seattle & Port Angeles, WA 2004 — Sioux Falls & De Smet, SD 2005 — Iceland, southern Norway, southern Germany, & Salzburg |
2009 — SD Badlands & Black Hills 2010 — Washington D.C. (Amtrak) 2011 — Iceland, northern Norway, southern Germany, & Alsace |
2015 — Omaha, NE 2016 — Rocky Mtn. Natl. Park 2017 — southern Germany and a day trip to Switzerland | |
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2006 — Winnipeg & northeast ND 2007 — Chicago 2008 — Seattle (Amtrak), Port Angeles, WA & Victoria, BC |
2012 — Twin Cities & central MN 2013 — Yellowstone Natl. Park 2014 — Minneapolis, Chicago, Interlochen, & Terrace Bay, ON |
2018 — Mason City, IA & Chicago 2019 — Boston 2020 — COVID-19 Pandemic (no family trip) | |
| Miscellany | For almost 2 decades, I was a board member of the Aberdeen Community Concert Association. For almost a decade I was the Lincoln Maids and Spaids 4-H Club leader and served a term as the Brown County 4-H Leaders Association Secretary. I belonged to the local Pax Christi group, a peace organization, from ? to ?. I am currently a member of the Friends of the Aberdeen University/Civic Symphony. | ||
| You've read my story. Please tell me about yourself sometime! | |||
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Bill and Mary Ann Wieland 1521 South Main Street Aberdeen, SD 57401 | Wieland Genealogy Old Photos |
2013 Peggy Wieland Interview:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3 2012 Ray Arbuckle Interview: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 | |
| Family Crests: Wieland (Larger) Berger (Larger) Wieland/Eberle Rist/Wieland History Book of Heraldry (2 examples) | |||
