Ted Natus was driving back to Montana from a job picking cotton down South in 1967 when his car broke down in St. Paul.
Out of money and with holes in his shoes, the young vagabond decided he needed a job. Though he’d fought forest fires and mined for copper since leaving home at age 14, he settled on a paint store job on Rice Street.
He has stuck with the North End ever since.
“I didn’t feel like I had much of a future until I came to St. Paul,” said Natus, 74. He found family — a wife, Lynn, and eventually their five children — and security in the form of Hamernick Decorating Center, the business he bought in 1980.
His latest bit of St. Paul good fortune?
Natus was named King Boreas LXXVII for the 2013 St. Paul Winter Carnival during a ceremony Friday night, Jan. 25, at the RiverCentre.
The full-blooded Finn from northern Minnesota said his motto for the next year will be “Sisu,” which he describes as “strength in a time of adversity” or “the power within.”
He said he wants to reach young people ages 14 to 20 during his reign, youth who might “think they have no hope; think they don’t have a future.”
“We all have that power within us,” he said. “Some of us don’t use it, some of us don’t know it’s there, but we’ve got to keep plugging, working to succeed.”
But does Natus have the strength to take on one of the busiest roles of his life?
He said his six-day-a-week schedule at his recently expanded paint and carpet complex on Rice Street — “I’m in the public eye everyday,” he said — has prepared him for the rigorous schedule of King Boreas.
Over the next year, in addition to all of the appearances at local and state schools, nursing homes and parades, Natus will visit festivals in Canada, California, Florida, Georgia, Texas, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
He said he has a great prime minister, excellent Winds (four “princes” who are King Boreas’ brothers and represent each of the four directions) in the royal family and, more than anything, an incredible wife.
“(Lynn) is very supportive,” he said. “I think she’s done more getting ready for this than I have.”
Plus, there are the lessons passed on during secret meetings with past Boreases.
“They’ve been tutoring me endlessly,” Natus said.
Since accepting the role in October, Natus said, he has been rehearsing the public pageantry required by the post. Less than two weeks before Carnival, though, he was still working on titles.
“Last night, I said, ‘Here’s your Queen of Snows,'” he said, “and they stopped me. ‘No, it’s THE Queen of Snows.'”
“It’s an obligation that, until you get into it, you don’t know how serious of a commitment it is,” he said.
It shouldn’t be too much for someone who’s gone through as much as Natus, though.
At 14, he came home one afternoon to find out his mother died. Instead of going into an orphanage, as some people suggested, he hit the road.
He lied about his age out West so that he could join a wildfire fighting crew, he said, and then depended on the kindness of a Duluth shop owner who gave him a pair of slacks and a white shirt so that he could land a job at the Flame nightclub.
He went on to spend four years in the Air Force, he said, and got out just before turning 21.
“And then I resumed my rambling ways,” he said.
Next came the mining and cotton-picking stints, with a brief layover running with daredevil Evel Knievel in Butte, Mont., Natus said.
“We helped him build one of his first jumps,” he said. “He wanted to jump a school.”
Now, said Natus, comes this Winter Carnival adventure, and it should be unique.
“I don’t think I’m a run-of-the-mill Boreas,” he said.
John Brewer can be reached at 651-228-2093.
2013 ST. PAUL WINTER CARNIVAL ROYAL FAMILY
Boreas LXXVII: Ted Natus of Maplewood
Aurora, Queen of Snows: Melissa Hoffbeck, native of South St. Paul, now from Burnsville
Prime minister: Matt Wallace of Eagan
Titan, Prince of the North Wind: Mike Maranda of North Saint Paul
North Wind Princess: Jill Volkert, who grew up in White Bear Lake and now lives in Hammond, Wis.
Euros, Prince of the East Wind: Mike Canine of Minneapolis
East Wind Princess: Shannon O’Brien of St. Louis Park
Zephyrus, Prince of the West Wind: Ryan Rutzick of Minnetonka
West Wind Princess: Carrie Paetow of Eden Prairie
Notos, Prince of the South Wind: Chris Stout of Minneapolis
South Wind Princess: Megan Erickson of West St. Paul
Klondike Kate: Anita Mack of St. Paul
Guard Captain: Bryan Johnson of Bloomington
Guard Sergeant: Christopher Villella of Little Canada
Guard: Tom Kreuser of Maplewood
Guard: Jeff DeKuester of Roseville
Guard: Chris Kruse of Anoka
Royal coordinators: Kelly Karwoski and Brent Reykdal of Minneapolis
Copyright 2013 Pioneer Press.
