NORTH MANKATO — For the regular attendees of the Taylor Library Community Read program, the attention for the evening’s primary guest speaker was a pleasant surprise. Getting the attention of the public is something with which author Patty Wetterling has experience.
Patty Wetterling, mother of the late Jacob Wetterling, whose story of his abduction gripped Minnesota and the nation for many years, has returned to Mankato for two speaking engagements.
Patty, author of “Dear Jacob: A Mother’s Journey of Hope“ published in 2023, spoke in North Mankato at the Spring Lake Park swim shelter Wednesday evening to a standing-room only crowd of about 160 people.
“This is a bigger crowd than usual,” said DJ Williams of Rapidan. She’s a regular to the book discussion opportunity through the library, having attended seven to eight previous occasions.
The crowd and attention signified the type of response Minnesota and the entire country had when Jacob Wetterling was abducted in 1989.
“I was in shock,” Patty Wetterling said to the crowd. She said she was advised to get Jacob’s picture out in the media and in public as much as possible. It was natural for Patty to talk about Jacob, her family and the response in Minnesota through photographs displayed on a screen.
Even though she was able to recall every photo, Wetterling was equally shocked and appreciative when her memory was jogged. She never lacked humor as she looked at herself. “I was 39 then. We were so young,” she smiled. “I’m 76 now.”
“I’m so proud of the way Minnesota responded,” Wetterling said. “We did as much media as we could.”
Several of the people in the audience remembered what it was like to support the Wetterlings, even in seemingly small ways. “We (my household) kept the porch light on for Jacob,” said North Mankato resident Jean Anderson about one of the ways Minnesotans expressed solidarity with the Wetterlings.
Anderson said she was familiar with the area where Jacob was abducted, as her son graduated from St. John’s University in Collegeville. She felt a connection with Patty and admired her after she read the book.
Patty Wetterling also spoke about her writing process for her book.
“I started out by writing letters to Jacob,” she said. “When Jacob was found (in 2016), it became a different book.”
Lisa Wellner of North Mankato has attended every Community Read event since she moved to North Mankato in 2022. In reading Wetterling’s book, Wellner admired Wetterling’s “sense of purpose and resilience” after experiencing something as “horrible as her son’s death.”
Wetterling’s resilience is what propelled her to be a tireless advocate for missing, exploited and abducted children, speaking both in the halls of government and to groups about Jacob and her family as they grieved and worked together.
Wetterling will also speak at Minnesota State University 6 p.m. Thursday in Ostrander Auditorium as part of MSU’s homecoming programming. She met her husband Jerry at MSU, and she proudly announced she was a “Mankato State” alumna.