“Well done my good and faithful servant” were the words that Evelyn Strand Stensland Casterline heard on May 12, 2020 when she passed from life on earth to eternal life in heaven.

Evelyn was born in Big Timber, Montana on December 4, 1933 to Albert and Elsie Strand, the fourth of their six children. She graduated from Big Timber High School and attended Montana State, where she was a member of the Kappa Delta Sorority and the Women’s Student Body President.

After graduating in 1955, she married her college sweetheart, Gerald Stensland. They had four boys, Gary, Mark, Paul, and John. Jerry was tragically taken in 1963. She married Bill Casterline in 1967 and they made their home on a farm east of Culbertson. Together they finished raising their four boys as well as hogs, cattle, chicken, and crops. Bill passed away in 2006.

Evelyn loved to cook and bake. In the late 1950’s, she even had her own live TV cooking show in Great Falls in the early days of TV. She loved cooking traditional Norwegian foods; however, her boys were relieved when she stopped serving Lutefisk for Christmas Eve! For several decades she served as Foods Judge at county 4-H fairs across Northeastern Montana. She could make anything grow and always had a bountiful garden, bright flowers in the yard, and house plants that somehow never died. She loved to read and had a lifelong love of books. When there wasn’t a book in her hands, she was working on some craft. She made beautiful pieces of needlework and quilts and has the purple ribbons to show for it. She especially loved the challenge of Hardanger, an intricate Norwegian form of needlework.

Evelyn was very active in the Culbertson community, serving on the school board and hospital board. She loved her service with Women’s Club, where she served as local president, state president, and national officer. She loved the extensive traveling that came with those jobs and the wide expanse of friends she made from across the country.

There was never a time when she was not active in her faith in Jesus. She was a lifelong member of the Lutheran Church and Trinity Lutheran Church for the last sixty years, where she taught Sunday school, led Bible Studies, and gave an occasional sermon. She ministered to everyone she came into contact with.

Blessed to have shared her life were her sons, Gary and his wife, Camille, Mark and his wife, Carolyn, Paul, John and his wife, Cindy; her grandchildren, Luke and his wife, Emily, Sam, Abigail, Jeremiah, ElleAnna, Rosa, and Ada; great granddaughter, Clara; her sisters, Doris McDonald and her husband, Dick, June Gunnerson and her husband, Stan; her sisters-in-law, Shirley Monson, Vivian Pearson, and Janice Skrivseth; her brother-in-law, Ed Stensland; all of her special nieces and nephews; and all of her many amazing friends and cousins.