Donald “Don” Wieland, a 94-year-old man from Oakville, knows how to make a remarkable first impression.
With Don, the impression is made when he hands you one, or several, business-sized cards, featuring positive, encouraging and funny thoughts.
It’s a simple gesture, inspired by his late wife.
“I hand out message cards to everyone I meet,” Wieland said.
Wieland, who grew up in Lemay, is a veteran of the U.S. Army, having served from 1955-1957.
Don met his wife, Jean, when they were kids and lived on the same street. They married in 1955 at St. Andrew Catholic Church in St. Louis. The Wielands have five children, 15 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
Jean was a retiree of St. Anthony’s Medical Center, where she managed the print shop for many years.
“Jean was unstoppable,” Wieland said of his late wife, who died in October 2009. They had been married for 54 years. “She was a wonderful mother. She was good at her job and just so sharp. She knew me better than I knew myself. She understood others, too. She knew what people needed to hear.”
Wieland said Jean was his main inspiration for creating the cards he still hands out to this day.
“After I retired as a machinist in 1991, I became a volunteer for Meals on Wheels. I did that for 28 years,” he said. “Jean came up with the idea of giving cards to the people I served. I’d give them a meal and then a card. The cards would say something like ‘Smile, God loves you.’ I just kept doing it,” he said. “Jean always said, ‘God does not want people to frown. He wants them to laugh. Make them laugh, you’re good at it.”
Don Wieland
Wieland’s cards feature a variety of motivational messages, jokes and quotes to help encourage people to smile and spread kindness.
“All these cards, they’re not my ideas; they’re her (Jean’s) ideas. She came up with the compliment cards,” Wieland said. “My wife, early on, told me, ‘Don, you take no money for those cards. We are helping people that are going through tough times. You take no money from others.’”
Jean would help Don print the cards. After her death, Don experimented with other print shops, trying to find the right price and look for the cards he wanted to continue making. There are 10 cards on a sheet, and Wieland has 10 sheets printed at a given time. Each card is paid for and cut by Wieland. He said the time it takes for him to cut the cards differs, as he measures the time by how many country songs he listens to, ranging between 10 and 20 songs. The cards are cut to 3.5 by 2 inches in size.
“When you have that size, you can put it in your pocket. You can put it in your purse. You put it in your billfold. I wanted people to be able to carry the cards with them. The cards can make people feel more positive,” Wieland said.
He said he gets inspired to print the variety of sayings and messages on the cards from books he has read and from listening to other people share their own words of encouragement. Wieland said he has continued to hand out the cards over the years because he feels it is his purpose.
He hands out the compliment cards wherever he goes, including the doctor’s office, when he goes out to eat at Wesley Roger’s, at the grocery store and at every Leader Publications’ Senior Expo he attends.
Wieland uses the message cards not only to share positivity, but to encourage himself to open up and make connections with others.
At the expos, you can often find him conversing with fellow seniors, telling stories, sharing laughs and dancing the rest of the morning away to the live band. The bonds he makes with people are endless after a simple exchange of compliment cards.
And while the messages on the cards can be brief, the impact is strong. Wieland said his goal is to remind people they are important, loved and blessed.
“I’m so blessed. My whole life, I was so blessed to have my wife, Jean, with me. I said to myself, ‘I was in heaven, didn’t even know it,’” he said. “Why do I keep making the cards?
“Because God tells me to take care of his children, make them happy. I also love Jean, and whatever Jean says, I do.”