Allan Mentor Soli of Rapid City, SD, departed this earth on January 5, 2021.

Visitation will be 12:00pm-1:30pm Monday, January 11, 2021 at Osheim & Schmidt Funeral Home. A funeral service will follow at 1:30pm with Rev. Bob Savot officiating. Burial will be 3:15pm at the Evergreen Cemetery in Hot Springs with full military honors.

Allan was born to George and Ruth Soli on December 19, 1924 at home on a small farm in Vang, ND.  The doctor traveled 20 miles in a horse-drawn carriage to deliver him.  His dad might have paid the doctor with a chicken.

As a boy, Allan said he liked going barefoot in the summer, but that the cow pies were squishy if you stepped on a fresh one. The shoes he got in the fall usually pinched and hurt his feet.  For electricity, he rigged up a windmill to run a car generator to charge the battery to power a radio and a small light bulb.  He enjoyed Amos and Andy on the radio.  As a 12-year-old he built a bicycle with shocks in the front fork to smooth out the bumps on a gravel road.  They had a Ford Model A on which he changed the cylinders and rings when he was 16.  He described with fervent detail how bad the bed bugs got until DDT was discovered.

He ploughed fields with horses and described how everyone used horses pulling sleighs in winter, and really hung bells on the harness at Christmas time.  He loved Christmas with weeks of visiting relatives and lots of home-cooked meals and pastries.  Everyone spoke Norwegian, even in church until the first English family began attending.  The tree in the church was lit with candles with a small bucket of water sitting near it.  Allan was frightened by the Yule Ghost who peered into their windows and sent the young kids hiding under their beds.  In later years, he enjoyed being the Yule Ghost.

He tried to enlist when he was 18, but his dad needed him on the farm.  A year later his dad relented and let him go.  When he joined the US Marines, he was plucked from his unit for aptitude he showed on a engineering test.  (He had an eighth-grade education but a lifetime of working with farm equipment.)  Because of this he missed invading Okinawa with his unit.  Instead, he was "taught how-to blow-up bridges" in preparation for the invasion of Japan.  Thankfully, that was cancelled, and the war was over.

When he returned to the farm, he bought a Taylor Craft airplane and began flying.  He did some odd jobs.   Worked installing electrical wiring in homes in North Dakota.  Worked in a coal mine in Kentucky.  Owned and operated a burger grill.  He eventually flew to Texas where he wired B-36s.  He used his GI benefits to take flying lessons to get his instrument and commercial licenses and was hired to fly airplanes for Dan Dugan Trucking in Sioux Falls, SD.

He married Marjorie in 1953 whom he met in Sioux Falls, while giving her flying lessons.  A year later their first child, Bobby, was born.  Allan was hired by North Central Airlines (which later became Republic Airlines) soon after and moved his little family to Wayne and then Ypsilanti near Detroit, MI.  Three more children were born there, Kathleen, Bryan, and Kristina.  He moved to Lakeville, MN in 1968.  Marjorie found their ideal retirement home in 1978 near Johnson Siding in the Black Hills.   Allan retired from Republic Airlines soon after but continued flying for years with his own Cessna.  Marjorie died in 2013 after 60 years of marriage. He married Eileen in 2015 and they enjoyed the final years they had together.

He traveled the world, but always came back to his home on Rapid Creek.  He was passionate about aviation, country music, golf, lefsa and occasionally lutefisk.  He loved having a warm fire in the fireplace, the creek running in his backyard, and friends and family or just about anybody over to visit with food and drink and stories of the past and present.  This large, friendly, honorable man loved and was loved by everyone.  Quote heard often: "Everybody loves Allan!"

He is survived by wife, Eileen (Eastlund) Soli, brother, Gene Soli of Milton, ND, sons, Robert Soli of Huntsville, AL and Bryan Soli of Tampa, FL, daughters, Kathleen Soli of Rapid City, SD, and Kristina Soli of St. George, UT, eight grandchildren, four great-grandchildren with one more on the way and numerous nieces and nephews.

He is preceded in death by parents, George and Ruth (Kjennerud) Soli, sisters, Doris (Soli) McLeod, Elaine (Soli) Schreier, brother, Charles Soli, and wife, Marjorie (Cox) Soli.