Piano man: World War II vet brings music to Edelweiss

Prior Lake American

A small child, chocolate-covered donut in hand, plopped onto the couch in Edelweiss in downtown Prior Lake.

Prior Lake resident John Helland, 94, didn’t look up from his piano, but he took notice of the child — the classical song he was working on shifted into “When You Wish Upon a Star” from the Disney movie “Pinocchio.”

For the last few years, Helland playing piano has become a regular — and popular — sight at Edelweiss.

“We pay him with Danishes and coffee; he doesn’t expect money,” Edelweiss Owner Mark Bowles said. “It just adds a warmth and family atmosphere that he brings here. It’s like a family.

“He’s the piano man of Edelweiss, the Billy Joel of Edelweiss.”

‘Nothing is forever’

Helland said he was born in July 1924 at the Swedish Hospital in Minneapolis. When he was a toddler, his father contracted tuberculosis. He and his mother would visit his father at the Glen Lake Sanitarium, a treatment center for more than 600 tuberculosis patients.

“That was when everybody had tuberculosis,” Helland’s daughter and Prior Lake resident Laurie Criego said.

When Helland was four years old, his father died from the disease. His mother worked to provide for Helland. When he was 11 years old, his mother remarried a dentist.

“My mother worked all her life supporting me,” Helland said. “She never learned to drive a car, and my step-dad waited on her hand and foot. We had a very beautiful life, but they never had any children — I was the only one.”

Helland was among one of the first graduating classes from Southwest High School in Minneapolis.

“President Lincoln and I, I think we went to high school together,” Helland said, laughing. “No, that’s a lie.”

After he graduated in the early 1940s, Helland joined the U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps in the Hawaiian islands, where he operated anti-aircraft searchlights to attempt to spot Axis powers airplanes.

“I lived on K-rations for three years up in the hills,” Helland said. “When the war was over, I came back down and joined my unit and got discharged. That’s why I never got shot.”

He returned to Minnesota after the war and met Arlynne Knigge, who was working in Minneapolis. Helland and Knigge got married in 1948 at the city’s St. Thomas Catholic Church.

In 1950, the couple had daughter Linda Rohr, with Criego to follow in 1957.

When Helland retired, he and Knigge moved to Tucson, Arizona.

“When we retired to Tucson, we thought we’d never come back to Minnesota, but nothing is forever,” Helland said. “It’s been a long time. You learn that late in life. You don’t realize how time goes. I reflect back and I think, ‘Where the hell did the last 50 years go?’ Or 60. But here we are.”

In 2005, Helland and Knigge moved to Lakefront Plaza in Prior Lake to be closer to Laurie as Knigge had Parkinson’s disease and other ailments. When she had to be in the hospital, Helland would bring her flowers. Knigge died in December 2015 at 88 years old.

“It’s tough losing somebody, especially when they’ve become ill,” Helland said. “When they become seriously ill, you become glued. You’re together 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Helland said before his wife died, the couple would talk about when it was his time to go. She said he had more music in him.

“She said, ‘Play the piano, but promise me you won’t sing,’” Helland said. “I said, ‘OK, I won’t sing.’”

An icon

After Knigge died, Bowles asked Helland if he would want to play piano at the bakery. Helland had grown up taking piano lessons as a child, which he said was “standard operating then.”

“I hated it, because I had to walk four or five blocks for piano lessons,” Helland said.

When his children were young, Helland would play piano at the Criterion when its main act, Joni Smith, was out. The Criterion is where Smith — and Helland — would meet McDonald’s CEO Ray Kroc. Smith would later marry Kroc.

“That’s how I knew Ray Kroc,” Helland said. “I screwed up in not selling hamburgers and french fries because at that time, I was making a decent living and could buy wine on Saturday once in a while and celebrate and think we had it made. How times change.”

Helland brought over an electronic piano to Edelweiss and has played at the bakery on-and-off for a few years.

“He’s part of our bakery now, like people ask for him,” Bowles said. “He’s so good with the kids. He’s just really iconic now. I think he’s found his niche in his 90s, so to say, coming here.”

When children come over, Helland will teach them a chord or two or play a familiar song. He does requests, and if he knows a person’s favorite song, he’ll play it when he sees them.

“And if they’re not nice people, you don’t have to play their song,” Helland said. “So there.”

When Helland isn’t at Edelweiss, residents ask about his whereabouts, Edelweiss Front Counter Manager Jenny Miller said.

“I think he was pretty much gone all summer, and people were asking about him and were worried about him,” Miller said.

Helland has had an impact on the staff at Edelweiss, as well. He knows all the employees by name and stops by for both the opening and closing shifts. He comes and goes as he pleases, but when he is there, Miller will make him a sandwich.

“He always says, ‘Whatever you’re long on, put in my sandwich,’” Miller said. “I have a special place in my heart for him.”

The music and the people he meets keeps him alert, Criego said.

“Music just brings him such pleasure, and it’s nice to be able to have an audience that appreciates it,” Criego said. “He meets the most interesting people here. ... I think that’s part of why he’s still so sharp is music.”

Helland is representative of small-town Prior Lake, Criego said.

“There’s something about the small town and the hometown bakery where you can have some guy who lives across the street come in and play piano,” she said.

Helland said he’s been fortunate in his life and feels grateful now that he can still play.

“I love music,” Helland said. “I think I’m starting to play better now than I ever have. Thanks be to God ... my fingers are still working as good now as ever.”