Gert Solum was persistent promoter of Christ to the end

Contributed By Roxane B. Salonen Today at 7:00 AM Listen Comments Share Share this article Opinion Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. The Trust Project What is this? MOORHEAD, MINN. — While sharing prayer space for years in the intimacy of an Adoration chapel — with the Eucharistic Jesus exposed in the host — a deep bond began to grow between Brenda Posch and Gertrude “Gert” Solum. Often, they’d begin their weekly hour at the chapel at St. Joseph’s Church by exchanging prayer requests. ADVERTISEMENT So when Solum passed away at 94 on Sept. 13 after experiencing a serious stroke, Posch grieved as one might upon losing a beloved family member. Contributed “When she ended up in the hospital, it rocked my world,” said Posch, recalling how, at their last visit, she kissed Solum’s forehead and said she loved her. After receiving the same words back, Solum’s characteristic missionary spirit, despite bodily weakness, sprang forth. “As I was leaving, she told me to ‘Get ’er done!’” said Posch — marching orders to help finish the work she’d labored over since the late 1950s. The world needed to hear about Jesus, including through the heart of his beloved, local friend, Sister Annella Zervas, a Benedictine nun who died 100 years ago in August. Adventurous spirit To understand Solum’s relentlessness in spreading the story of the young nun from Moorhead who, at 26, succumbed to an excruciating skin disease, it’s helpful to look back. Contributed Her son, Jeff Solum, of Excelsior, Minnesota, paints the picture of a lively daughter of German immigrants, fastidious in faith and a consummate teacher, writer and adventurer. “She went to school in a one-room schoolhouse — their farm was about a mile away,” he said of his mother's childhood in Dazey, North Dakota, where she’d either walk or ride horse to school. ADVERTISEMENT Eventually, Solum would teach in such a school herself, but first, an adventurous itch needed scratching. After a year at Valley City Teachers College (now Valley City State University), Solum and her friend Karen Arneson headed west in a “jalopy” comprising Chevy and Dodge parts that Solum’s mechanic brother built, Jeff said. They’d spend a year each in Montana and Colorado to finish their education. Upon returning, his mother began pilot lessons, but a joy ride with a cousin, Rudy Everly, that included several harrowing tailspins ended the quest. “There were no more small planes for her,” he said. Years later, when she was 90, Jeff invited her to check out his amphibious plane at their lake place. Coaxing his mom to take a spin on the water, he said, when he “put the hammer down” and the plane took off, Solum, initially startled, admitted she loved every minute of it. Contributed But for most of her decades, faith and teaching took precedence. Jeff recalled his mother grading papers late into the night. “She was a teacher’s teacher,” he added, having trained many others in the profession. In the 1990s, Solum experienced two pilgrimages to Međugorje, Bosnia, he said, which only cemented her faith further. ADVERTISEMENT Quiet persistence Solum’s daughter, Katie Hornstein, of Alexandria, Minnesota, said her mother’s faith was lived quietly but persistently. In her later years, she’d collected quite a crew of “helpers” — friends who’d assist with groceries and other tasks, but would rarely allow compensation. “They would say, ‘Oh no, it was our pleasure,’ or ‘We got more out of it than she did',” Hornstein said. Mass on Sunday and holy days was non-negotiable, Hornstein added, along with fasting before Communion, including in recent years. “She was diabetic, so it probably wasn’t healthy to go on a Friday fast, but she would do it anyway,” she said. Her mother taught by example, modeling Jesus’ teachings by bringing food to local pantries and other charitable acts, she said, with the saints guiding. “Her faith was rock solid — nothing could shake it,” Hornstein said, adding that her mother was constantly praying for people, then proclaiming, “It’s all in God’s hands.” ADVERTISEMENT Contributed Even after the stroke, she never complained, living out a deep humility. “She wouldn’t want anyone to be writing a story about her,” Hornstein said, chuckling. “But she was always writing other people’s stories.” A face on a card Long before the opening Mass in Crookston in October 2025 which set Sister Annella on the path toward sanctity, the young Gert Amann, newly returned to Moorhead, picked up a small prayer card at the back of St. Joseph’s after Mass, reading about the nun who’d died in 1926. She couldn’t get the gentle face on the card out of her mind. After finding a used copy of Sister Annella’s life story, “Ticket for Eternity,” in a box at a garage sale, Solum became invested in sharing the account. Posch, who, as part of the Sister Annella Guild, has obtained a file of Solum’s writings, said it was the “gruesome suffering” the young nun endured, and how she “cheerfully offered it up to Jesus,” that held the gaze of Solum, who likened the nun’s deep suffering “from a loathsome skin disease that invaded her whole body and even tormented her soul,” to the Biblical story of Job. Learning the details, Posch said, such as how fluids would ooze from the young nun’s flesh, causing her family to fear she might lose her mind, both haunted and heartened Solum, driving her to want others to be similarly inspired by this little nun’s big faith. ADVERTISEMENT She felt Sister Annella should be canonized, but few seemed to hear her. However, after decades of persistence, Solum learned of another advocate 160 miles away. Patrick Norton claims to have seen an apparition of a young nun wearing a traditional, old habit while doing maintenance work in 2010 at the cemetery where Sister Annella was buried in Collegeville, Minnesota. Upon learning the nun had died in the Crookston Diocese, Norton said, he prayed to Sister Annella, asking for help in making a connection with Moorhead from his home in the St. Cloud Diocese. He soon received a call from Solum, explaining her long promotion of Sister Annella, with seemingly little effect. “She was so sad,” he said, but at his suggestion, Solum formed a prayer group to pray regularly at the cemetery in Collegeville for the nun’s canonization. Contributed About a year later, Bishop Andrew Cozzens, recently named as Crookston’s new bishop, took up the cause, much to both their joy. “I think it happened with Gert’s help,” Norton said. Evangelistic heart Virgil Koehler, a fellow parishioner who attended the early Mass at St. Joe’s with Solum regularly for years, said whenever he talked to her, she’d always mention the nun. “Sister Annella couldn’t have had anyone better speaking for her,” he said, noting that the well-natured Solum seemed to reflect similar characteristics of the saint she so eagerly promoted. ADVERTISEMENT Deacon Rob Thom of St. Joseph’s agreed, saying Solum’s untiring efforts have been “instrumental” in bringing the cause to the attention of locals “and even, at times, the wider national community,” adding, “Her unwavering dedication and perseverance have been a shining example to us all.” Amanda Zerface, postulator for the cause of Sister Annella’s canonization, said Solum once told her that she prayed regularly about the nun’s life while studying Sacred Scripture, and had even connected with a local friend of her mother, Emma Zervas — Lucille Sauvageau DuVal — who provided additional details. Solum once shared with Zerface that her efforts had seemed inadequate. “I assured her that God would use her own faithfulness” in the ongoing efforts, Zerface said, noting, “We can already see the fruit of her perseverance: the story she shared continues to draw the people of Moorhead … closer to God, teaching us how to live in friendship with him, even amid our suffering.” Zerface remar