FOREST LAKE, Minn. —

2023 UPDATE:

We have now entered the season of giving, which comes as the perfect time to update a story about a gift delivered three years ago.

The Christmas after this story first aired in the fall of 2020, Rudy Olson delivered to Haiden Hildre a custom-built door with an “H” cut out, just like the old “R” door that once hung in her room. Haiden and her brother painted it to suit her tastes. 

Now, the door is about to get another re-paint, as Haiden moves to a new bedroom and her brother takes over Haiden’s room. Good news: Haiden’s brother’s name is Harrison. 

This time, the “H” can stay.  

Near the end of WWII, two young parents cut their toddler’s first initial into his bedroom door. Seventy-five years — and several homeowners later — that door has come full circle.

It’s back in the hands of the former toddler, now 77 years old.

“That’s for Rudy, that’s for me!” Rudy Olson beams as he stands next to his former bedroom door, still displaying the “R” his parents cut at eye level.

The door came to Rudy gift-wrapped, a present from the current owners of his boyhood home on Forest Lake.

Rudy didn’t know the new owners when he saw them in the yard, while out walking with his wife.

He stopped to ask if the door with the “R” might still be hanging in his old bedroom, since converted into a closet. Told that it was, Rudy’s face lit up.

He explained to the new owners that his parents cut the “R” in the door as way to look inside without disturbing their sleeping toddler.

Think of it as a 1940s baby monitor.

“When we first toured the house, it was one of the interesting things that caught my eye. What’s that door? I was just so curious,” Ben Hildre, the home’s current owner, says. 

Ben’s 7-year-old daughter, Haiden, now occupies the bedroom where the door hung for 75 years.  

“I thought it might be for rainbows,” Haiden says of the “R.”

When her dad suggested removing the door as a gift to Rudy, Haiden wasn’t so sure. 

“That’s the door to cover my closet,” she told her dad.  

“After like, a day, I told them, ‘OK,’ since it was already gone,” Haiden says.

Rudy plans to hang the door in his current home, mounted with a plaque recognizing the family who gave it to him.

“I say it’s the greatest gift,” he says. “And we need that in today’s world, people caring about other people.”

Things seem to be working out for Haiden, too. After all, the empty doorway to her closet will need to be filled.

“I want a door with an ‘H’ on it,” Haiden says.

“I’m working on getting that ‘H’ done for her,” Ben says.

Haiden’s parents hope the customized door will hold as much meaning for their daughter 75 years from now, as the old door does for Rudy.  

“It’ll be hers to have growing up,” Jessica Hildre, Haiden’s mom, says. “We don’t plan to leave the house for quite a while.”

Why would they leave, living as they do in a multi-storied house?

Boyd Huppert is always looking for great stories to share in the Land of 10,000 Stories! Send us your suggestions by filling out this form.

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