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Home | Local + Metro | The I-35W bridge collapse

Family of bridge collapse victim is at odds over his house

Lisa Jolstad lost her husband in the I-35W bridge collapse and now, she says, faces his angry family.

By LARRY OAKES, Star Tribune

Last update: February 2, 2008 - 10:40 PM

Six months after her husband was killed in the Interstate 35W bridge collapse, the Mora, Minn., woman who waited almost three weeks for his body to be recovered has gone to court to try to stop his mother from repossessing their house.

Lisa Jolstad, whose husband, Greg, was the final victim pulled from the Mississippi River in the submerged wreckage, disclosed in court documents filed last week that his mother, Dorothy Svendsen, has started proceedings to cancel a delinquent contract for deed he'd signed in 1991 to buy the family's farmhouse.

Lisa Jolstad, who moved there with her three children after the couple married in 1993, said that Svendsen and other members of her late husband's family are angry because they think Jolstad already has a boyfriend.

Jolstad, 44, adamantly denies that, but she acknowledges flying to New York for six days in September to visit a man she met on the Internet.

"Right after the funeral, I had to get away from the pressure and sadness," Jolstad said. "I had been sitting around a month until they found Greg, and I was about to burst.

"But the visit was purely platonic. Unfortunately, [the relatives] assumed the worst. Dorothy told me I was spitting on her son's grave."

Reached Friday, Svendsen, a Hinckley, Minn., resident who spends winters in Texas, said, "It's too bad [Lisa Jolstad] has to [talk] to the newspaper, but I don't want anything to do with it."

She declined to comment further. Her attorney, Kevin Hofstad, did not return a telephone call and has yet to file an answer to Jolstad's lawsuit.

Behind on payments

In the contract for deed, Greg Jolstad agreed to buy the white clapboard house and 45 acres north of Mora from his mother for $40,000, according to court records.

Lisa Jolstad acknowledges that her husband, a construction worker who was laid off each winter, got behind on the $300 monthly payments and didn't pay off the contract in 1996 as promised.

She said their financial problems were compounded when she lost her job as a tax assessor, and the couple filed for bankruptcy protection in 2005.

But Jolstad disputes the amount that Svendsen claims is now owed with interest: $84,704. She said the amount she owes Svendsen is closer to $40,000. Jolstad said she recently offered that amount to Svendsen to settle the matter, but was turned down.

"I have been more than willing to try to settle this," Jolstad said, adding that she can now afford to pay her mother-in-law a reasonable amount because she got $18,500 in life-insurance payouts and some additional "generous donations" from well-wishers.

Documents served on Lisa Jolstad in December said that unless she paid the larger amount within 60 days, she and her children -- ages 18, 19, and 20 --can be evicted.

To try to prevent that, Jolstad filed suit last week in Kanabec County District Court, asking for an order allowing her to pay off an unspecified lesser amount and get title to the property.

In the suit, she alleges that during their bankruptcy proceedings in 2006, her mother-in-law received notice that they acknowledged owing her $20,000 on the contract and did not object to that amount. She therefore can't claim significantly more than that now, the suit says.

A Kanabec County court clerk said no hearing date has been set on the case.

Greg Jolstad, who went by the nickname "Jolly," was one of 18 construction workers on the bridge working for Progressive Contractors Inc. at the time of the collapse. He was the only worker who was killed.

Larry Oakes • 1-218-727-7344

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