Roy Donald Hallgren was born July 15, 1928 in East St. Paul to Gustaf Albin Hallgren and Jenny Matilda Sperling, the youngest of five brothers. Roy's father was born in Sweden with the last name Pettersson (Swedish spelling). But when he moved to the United States, he changed his name to Hallgren. According to Roy's recollection, there were too many people named Peterson in the U.S.

Roy had four brothers. They were Herb (Helen), Arnold (Vernice), Alvin (Dorothy), and Edward (Virginia). Roy has many nieces and nephew, including great, great nieces and nephews. All of Roy's brothers and sisters-in-law have preceded him in death.

On May 16,1943, at First Covenant Church on the east side, Roy was baptized and confirmed. When he married Alice, he started attending Saint James Lutheran Church in West St. Paul. He remained faithful to God throughout his life, attending church in person, as long as he was able. He didn't give up when homebound, but continued attending church through CD's, DVD's, and finally live stream.

Roy's teenage years were difficult. His mother passed away when he was fifteen. Since his dad worked all day as a cement mason, it was Roy's job to keep house and cook meals. When reflecting on his time cooking, Roy laughed saying he was a terrible cook and hated eating his own meals. He was happy to join the army after graduating from high school in 1946, so he could eat someone else's cooking. Roy thought the food tasted great! During the enlistment process he chose several options, none of which were nursing. But nursing is what he was ordered to do. He was a nurse and served in Army hospitals in New York and Arkansas.

When he was discharged from the army, he went to a trade school in St. Paul for Radio Electronics. Afterwards he was hired by Northwest Airlines as a mechanic. Roy was sent to Chicago for further training before working at the MSP airport. He worked at Northwest Airlines for (40+) years and retired from there at the age of 62.

While working on his career, Roy met Alice Lucille Garbe at the Prom Center with friends. They danced together that night and started dating. Many dates later, they were married on January 12, 1957. They built a home on Seminole Avenue in West St. Paul and lived at this same address their entire lives. They raised their family there and had three children: Mary, Don (Betty), Jim (Tammy) and grandchildren Eli and Gabe.

Roy enjoyed traveling, whether with the entire family, with one or more of the children, or just him and Alice. He traveled to many states in the country or abroad. He also traveled with retirees from Northwest on their many bus trips to different places in the U.S.

One of his favorite trips was tent Camping/Fishing in the Boundary Waters. Roy continued going on trips with his sons annually until the age of 76. That is when he quit taking trips. He wanted to stay home with Alice, as she was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma.

Roy kept active and one way was woodworking. He enjoyed making or building anything to do with wood. Roy even built a workshop for wood working and created many beautiful things. He made anything from wood frames to cabinetry. The biggest project was building a redwood strip canoe, which still floats 50 years later. Family members were lucky to receive keepsakes made by him.

He believed in staying fit with many activities such as, down hill skiing, cross-country skiing, pheasant hunting, hiking over portages with camping gear, and similar activities. He also joined a gym. When those activities became too much, he continued exercising by taking walks around the neighborhood and riding stationary bikes in his house. As long as possible Roy would do his exercises. The doctors were always impressed with the strength and fitness level of Roy, even commenting on it for his last physical in July.

Being an outdoor person, Roy really enjoyed vegetable gardening. He took pleasure in raising all kinds of vegetables. His specialty was growing tomatoes, "Big Boy". When he needed to cut back on gardening, due to his health and arthritic knees, he still insisted on growing tomatoes, up until the age of 93.

The most impressive aspect about Roy was his attitude toward challenges; "do the best you can" and "take each day as it comes". He especially needed to put this into practice after Alice died. He knew living alone was going to be a challenge but didn't focus on how overwhelming it was going to be, but forged ahead and did what needed to be done. He had Mary teach him how to wash clothes (which he thought was the best invention ever), and keep the house clean. He learned how to cook and bake, even making meals that were edible, as well as enjoyable! His specialty was meat loaf and potatoes. For dessert it was yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Roy adapted well and even read cookbooks, experimenting with making the recipes he found intriguing. He was greatly surprised at his successes and laughed at his mistakes.

Being an avid reader, Roy read many books and has a collection of books on several topics. But his all time favorite subject and largest collection was on WWII and WWII aircraft. He would get a book on that topic and start reading immediately, to the exclusion of doing anything else. He would focus on reading every spare minute until the book was finished. The family couldn't keep up with giving him new books to read, as he went through them so quickly. As he got older, he would reread all his books, laughingly saying that he would forget what the book was about and enjoy reading it again, as if it was the first time.

As Roy aged, he developed more periods of forgetfulness and needed additional help caring for the house and himself. His daughter Mary came to live with him for a while until the family set up a live-in caregiver. Roy functioned better in familiar surroundings and said he wanted to live at home as long as possible.

Roy succeeded in living at home for the remainder of his life, using live in caregivers. He had two wonderful, Christian care givers. Robin was his first caregiver, who was with him June to October 2021. The other care giver, Yumi, cared for him from October 2021 until God called him home to heaven on August 2 ^nd , 2022.

During the last two years of his life, Roy had a succession of bladder infections in which three of them developed into sepsis, a blood infection. Each time it took a toll on Roy, yet he bounced back until the last one. The infection spread too quickly and was too strong to overcome with antibiotics. He was hospitalized at the Veterans Administration Hospital for 2 ½ days before going into hospice care. Roy passed away peacefully on August 2, 2022 at 3:30 a.m. A Christian Service will be held at Saint James Lutheran Church in West St. Paul on August 11, 2022. Internment will follow at Fort Snelling National Cemetery, Minneapolis, MN.

Beloved Husband, Father, Grandfather, Uncle and friend, he was greatly loved and will be missed by all.