Steven Ostlie

Steven Ostlie, 68, of Northwood, ND, passed away Thursday, October 23, 2025, at his home, rural Northwood. A memorial service will be held Wednesday, November 5, 2025, at 2:30p.m. at the Bilden-Askew Funeral Home in Northwood. A visitation will be held from 2:00p.m. until the time of the service at the funeral home.

Steven Ostlie was born August 2, 1957 in Northwood and was the youngest child of Clifford Ostlie and Ellen (Tosterud) Ostlie.

Steve was baptized and confirmed at Bethania Lutheran Church, a little over 2 miles from the home farm. He grew up tending to milk cows, hogs and chickens, grain farming, gardening, picking chokecherries and whatever else growing up on a farm entails. After graduating from Northwood High School and North Dakota State University, he returned farming. For a few years, he also baked for a Northwood bakery.

He learned to shear sheep at a two day school offered by NDSU. The Grand Forks Herald featured an article in March 2004 on his sheep shearing skills. At that time, he had been shearing for about ten years and it only took 3-5 minutes to shear each sheep. In his busy months, he could shear as many as 127 ewes and rams per day. The Herald article was titled “Not a baaaad job”, which, given Steve’s sense of humor, he appreciated.

Steve enjoyed growing heirloom varieties of vegetables, crossing varieties with each other, and saving seeds from year to year. He was an avid reader, a listener of classical music, putting together jigsaw puzzles, and both solving and creating Sudoku puzzles.

Steve was in his element when nieces and nephews started being born. He was a great teacher and mentor and loved spending time with them. When they started having children, he was delighted to be called a great-uncle, emphasis on the great. Then he became a great-great uncle, and one can imagine how he stressed his greatness.

Steven is survived by brother James Ostlie of Rural Northwood; sister Cynthia Ostlie of Moorhead MN; four nephews: Scott (Stephanie) of Northwood, Shawn and Kevin of Fargo, and Michael (Mary) of Jamestown; four nieces: Lori (Chad) Verke of Hatton, Stacy (Erick) Brekke of Fargo, Nancy (Zach) Noreen of Horace, and Jeanette (Brett) Summerville of Campbell, MN; 18 great nieces and nephews; and 4 great-great nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents; his older brother Darryl and his wife Louise; his sister in law Audrey; and his brother in law Donald Auger.