Al Wieser: So they aren’t forgotten
April 27, 2026
| By La Crosse Community Foundation |
Al Wieser stands among the flowers in his yard, echoing the care his mother brought to the gardens at Wieser Memorial Park in La Crescent.
For Al Wieser Jr., the goal was never simply to give back.
It was to make sure two people would be remembered, not just now, but long into the future.
To do that, he established two endowed funds at La Crosse Area Community Foundation.
One fund carries the name of his wife, Karen, who was a longtime school nurse. The other honors his mother, Malinda, through a place in the community that continues to be cared for and seen.
Both were built with the same intention.
“I didn’t want it to just last for a few years,” Al said. “I wanted it to last.”
A life of care and presence
Karen served as the school nurse for La Crescent-Hokah Public Schools for more than 20 years. To her, nursing was never just a job. It was, as Al explains, something closer to a calling. “She was a very caring person,” he said.
They had known each other since first grade. Over a 50-year marriage, that care showed up in quiet, consistent ways, in how she approached her work, her family, and the people others sometimes overlooked.
Al remembers one student in particular, a child who struggled socially, one whom other students avoided at lunch because of his disabilities. Karen saw something different. She invited him into the nurse’s office each day, giving him a place to sit, to eat, and to belong.
That was Karen. Not dramatic. Just present.
Karen Wieser
From a gift to something that endures
Five years ago, just one day before their 50th wedding anniversary, Karen suffered a sudden brain aneurysm and passed away. Al received memorial gifts totaling about $10,000.
Enough to do something meaningful, but not something lasting.
He first established a scholarship through the La Crescent-Hokah School District 300 Foundation, a natural fit given Karen’s long connection to the district and its students.
But he kept thinking about the future.
“I didn’t want it just to last as long as $10,000 would last,” he said.
To ensure the scholarship would continue year after year, he chose to build an endowed fund and partnered with La Crosse Area Community Foundation to create the Karen M. Wieser Nursing Scholarship Fund.
Since then, Al has steadily grown the fund and is now nearing his goal. Since then, Al has steadily grown the fund and is now nearing his goal. At that point, annual distributions will return to the School District 300 Foundation in the sum of $4,000. The funds will then be used to award scholarships to local students pursuing nursing, providing them $1,000 per year over the course of their undergraduate studies.
Keeping that local connection through the school district mattered.
So did the purpose behind it: supporting students who have already shown a commitment to caring for others, just as Karen had.
“I want that memory, that name, to last as long as it can,” Al said.
Remembered in a different way
Malinda Wieser
Al’s second fund reflects the same idea of permanence, expressed differently.
The Wieser Memorial Park Flowers Fund supports the ongoing planting and care of flowers at Wieser Memorial Park in La Crescent, in honor of Al’s mother, who herself tended to the blooms during her lifetime.
Al’s mother raised 18 children, building a life centered on family, care, and constancy. The park itself sits on land that once belonged to his parents’ farm, a place tied to that life and all it held.
For Al, those connections matter.
The park is something people see and families use. A place they pass through, gather in, and return to over time. Supporting it ensures that his mother’s care for her family and community is not only remembered but visible, season after season.
Like the scholarship, it is endowed and designed to continue year after year.
Where one fund supports students, the other supports a place people return to again and again.
Both ensure something remains.
What continues
When asked what Karen might say to a student beginning a career in nursing, Al didn’t hesitate.
“She would say, ‘Be patient,’” he said. Then he repeated it. “Be patient.”
It’s simple advice, but it reflects the way both she and Al’s mother lived, steady, attentive, and present.
Through both funds, that presence continues. It continues in the students who will carry Karen’s profession forward, in a park that continues to be cared for and seen, and in the quiet, lasting act of making sure two lives are not forgotten.
