The architects designing a new Bayport City Hall in the early 1990s envisioned a building with two glass towers.
Bev Schultz, the former mayor of Bayport, died Sunday, June 15, 2025, of complications related to pneumonia, at the New Richmond, Wis., Health and Rehabilitation Center. She was 87. (Courtesy of the Schultz Family)
The towers could be lit at night, they said, to signal to the community that a meeting was being held there. Citizens of Bayport would see the light and know they could come, listen and speak their piece.
But Mayor Bev Schultz, who served from 1991 to 1996, had a problem with that design. The towers, she said, would be a maintenance headache.
“Just think of all the time and energy that would have to go into washing that glass,” Schultz told the Pioneer Press in 1991.
Schultz, 87, died Sunday of complications related to pneumonia. She had been in hospice care at the New Richmond, Wis., Health and Rehabilitation Center.
Schultz was a longtime volunteer and public servant in Bayport. She was a Girl Scout troop leader. She made quilts for fundraisers. She helped out at St. Charles Catholic Church. She worked at Croixdale, the senior-living facility. She was active in the Bayport Community Action League. She supported the Bayport Public Library. She drove the school bus. She took in ironing.
She also served for four years on the Bayport City Council and then ran successfully for mayor for two terms.
Some people questioned her qualifications for public office during her election campaign for mayor in 1990, Schultz told the Pioneer Press in 1991.
“They spread the word that I was `just a housewife’ and that that should be reason to vote for the other candidate,” she said. “Being `just a housewife’ shouldn’t be a barrier to being mayor. Spending 34 years as a housewife — all of it in Bayport — was a fantastic learning experience for me. Some housewives learn by mixing in the community. They do volunteer work for the Girl Scouts, the church, the local school and civic groups. In the process, they get a handle on the public pulse, and what better way to train for the mayor’s job?”
‘They believed in doing what … was right’
Her husband, Al, a longtime Bayport police officer, was elected mayor in 1996. He ran for the office after Bev had to bow out because of health issues, said the couple’s eldest son, Charlie Schultz, who lives in Lake Elmo.
Bev and Al Schultz.(Courtesy of the Schultz Family)
“There was so much reading involved, and she was having some trouble with her eyes and headaches,” Charlie Schultz said. “He said, ‘I’m not doing anything. We’ve got all the campaign signs. We’ll just change the ‘Bev’ to ‘Al,’ and put them out. He won by a landslide.”
Al Schultz, who died in 2015, served one term.
“They believed in doing what they thought was right for Bayport,” Charlie Schultz said. “They had kind of an old-school view on what should be and shouldn’t be.”
Bev Carlson grew up on a farm in Mahtomedi. When she was around 12, she nearly lost her right foot while playing in the hay near a sickle mower, Charlie Schultz said.
“Her foot was literally cut off and hanging from the skin,” he said. “A farmhand carried her to an Army surgeon that he knew who, luckily, was home on leave. The guy reattached her foot and was able to save it.”
‘Ma did everything’
Carlson graduated from Mahtomedi High School in 1956. That same year, she married Al Schultz, whom she had met while dancing with friends at the Withrow Ballroom.
“He was with friends, and she was with friends, and sparks flew,” Charlie Schultz said. “It was love at first sight.”
The couple settled in Bayport, where Al “Packey” Schultz had been born and raised. They had four children.
Bev Schultz loved her adopted hometown. “It’s a small town, and everybody knows everybody,” she told the Pioneer Press in a 1994 interview.
“Ma did everything,” Charlie Schultz said. “She made quilts, she baked coffee cakes, she was active in the church. She planned the Girl Scout trips to a ranch in Montana. She took the Girl Scouts on bike trips in Wisconsin. She didn’t do anything halfway. She just loved the kids, and she knew them all. She helped my dad with all of our sports and hockey and building a hockey rink. They would sharpen the skates for all the kids in the neighborhood.
“It was basically Mayberry, you know?” he said. “But I think Bayport had Mayberry beat.”
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Bev Schultz was an outdoor enthusiast who hiked many sections of the Appalachian Trail and backpacked on Isle Royale National Park. She often rode her bike to waitressing jobs at the Lake Elmo Inn, Afton House Inn and the White Bear Yacht Club, said her youngest daughter, Toni Kotz, of Rocky River, Ohio.
She also was a talented artist who specialized in pen-and-ink drawings of historic buildings in the area, including the Warden’s House Museum in Stillwater, the Bayport Public Library, all the churches in Bayport, Bayport Village Hall and the old post office. “The Church of St. Charles still uses the picture she drew of the church for their stationery and everything,” Charlie Schultz said.
Schultz served as the Girl Scout leader in Bayport for many years, including for her two daughters, Kotz said.
“She went all out,” she said. “She also did a lot of things behind the scenes, like, say we had a million spaghetti dinners and raffled the quilt and all that, but still maybe came short for our big trip that we had planned. She would go to the Andersen Foundation and places like that and get them to donate, so that we could all go. She went over and above a lot of times”
Schultz is survived by her four children, Debbie Dillard, Charlie Schultz, Toni Kotz and Andy Schultz; nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Services have been held.
