St. Paul cab firm owner Herman Strehlow

Herman Strehlow, who left his family's farm in southwestern North Dakota to become a leading taxi cab company owner in St. Paul, returned to his farming roots after selling the cab firm.

Strehlow, who grew wheat and raised cattle in Reeder, N.D., died March 18 in St. Paul of cancer. He was 87.

When Strehlow was 17, his father died. The Depression of the 1930s had nearly ruined his family, but with Strehlow's help, the family managed to stay financially afloat.

It still owns much of the original farm.

In 1938, he graduated from Hettinger High School. And by 1948, the farm was paid off.

Pneumonia caused by dust and the lack of marriageable women led him to work for an uncle in St. Paul, who had a few taxi cabs.

Strehlow bought the small operation, and little by little he accumulated licenses and vehicles, eventually running all of St. Paul's Yellow Cabs. There were 82 of them, plus 12 limousines, with headquarters at Western and Selby Avenues. Nearby, the family also ran a filling station and garage.

Jim Dunbar, who drove for the firm in the 1960s and is now a co-owner of St. Paul's Citywide Taxi Cab Co., said Strehlow generously helped and advised others in the business throughout his career.

"Herman was a good guy to work for," said Dunbar. "He was honest, and he called it like he saw it."

Strehlow would allow his competitors to use his dispatching system when theirs failed. In the 1950s, one of them made sure Strehlow got his cabs when he was dying.

And he found his bride, too: Sarah (Sally) Magdal of Minneapolis.

Together they raised nine children and, for many years, helped feed all those mouths by growing vegetables on a 40-acre plot in Centerville, Minn., occasionally raising livestock.

"He taught us how to weed, how to plant, and it kept us out of trouble," she said.

Sally canned vegetables, and the kids would sell some, pulling a wagonload of squash and tomatoes around their Como Park neighborhood.

In the late 1970s, Strehlow sold the cab company, telling his family he was tired of fighting with the Teamsters Union and the city licensing authority.

"He was kind of homesick" for Reeder, said his son and farming partner, Delmar of Reeder.

Back on the family farm

Strehlow, who fought cancer for 15 years, broke his leg last spring wrangling cattle.

"He knew how to work hard," said his son.

His wife of 41 years died in 1990.

In addition to Carol and Delmar, he is survived by sons Lynn of Chicago and Russell of St. Paul; daughters Sandy Strehlow of Reeder, Jane Marah of Mounds View, and Jean Strehlow of St. Paul; 14 grandchildren, and a great-grandchild.