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Past Resident Spotlight of the Season:
Adeline Ungerman
OCT 2011 VOL. 129 ISSUE #7
Small Town GirlBold, courageous, adventurous, and a bit mischievous – all perfect words to
describe Ms. Adeline Ungerman, my grandma. We could go ahead right now and sum up
life by saying the basics: she lives in Norfolk, VA, has three sons who at this point have k
of their own, recently went back to school to get a B.A. in Business, and just celebrated h
80th birthday. Now all are major accomplishments no doubt, but the one part of her life I’
never learned about was her childhood. After all, how did she get to where she is today?
Well, Grandma Addie had a very atypical childhood, at least compared to what i
considered “normal” today. From her birth on August 27, 1931 up until her early 20s, Ad
lived in the small town of Peterson, MN with a mere population of 252. Oddly enough, hegreat-grandfather was Peter Peterson, the founder of the town, who had homesteaded ther
in 1853 when he was 24, after coming to America from Norway.
The town of Peterson was so small you could walk everywhere. Addie says that
even now, people complain to her all the time to “Slow down!” since she naturally walks
fast, and explains how she had to have a fast pace growing up to make it anywhere on tim
Living in Minnesota, the winters were especially cold – and many times you would see te
having to push cars out of snow banks. Whenever the snow started to melt, it would flood
the nearby river and cover the bridge overhead – so to get anywhere, my grandma and he
friends would have to use an alternate route through a prairie. Luckily my grandma’s hou
was near the top of the bluffs, so they never got hit by any of the flooding.
She says one of the biggest differences between growing up then and now were,
“Back then everyone did things for one another;
we never locked our door
She went on to explain how once or twice a year, an old homeless
man would knock on their door with his cane, and how her mother
would always go in her kitchen cabinet and graciously give him
some food. Also, that there were more opportunities then, which sheowed to the lack of technology at the time. The town was very
limited in its resources after all – there was no movie theater, only
two restaurants and two small general stores. She said that really,
their only forms of entertainment came from school and church –
and for her that was because of music.
Peterson Chronicle
Her mother always had lots of old records playing
as well as the radio, and that along with the hymns they
would sing at church were really what first sparked her interest in music. In 8
thgrade, Addie was a member of a
girls’ sextet, and seemed to be very popular at the time.
They were invited to sing at her school’s pep rallies, and
Addie even recalls singing “Til The End Of Time” on
the local radio station, as well as making a record. She
also was part of the school’s glee club, and played in the
band. In fact, whenever she walked down the street with
her girlfriends, they would all sing “Oh the weather
outside is frightful,” each of the girls singing in perfect
harmony corresponding to the pitch of the instruments
they each played in band.
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I asked her what role she felt she played in school, and she
responded, “Probably a leader.” She recalled how in 5th
grade, there was an
ncident where a girl in the area had been interrogated by a stranger, and
after running back to school crying, the teachers asked Adeline to sit down
with her in the gymnasium and just listen to her, and help calm the girl
down. Addie says that there were multiple instances like that where she was
put into these leadership roles, and she really enjoyed being looked up to and
seen as dependable, “one to be trusted.” It was very important to her.
Addie loved school, and strived for perfect attendance. In fact, shecan only recall being absent from school two times in the entire 12 years,
and that was when she got a bad case of the mumps in high school. Her mom
even made her own special cough medicine for whenever any of the 8
children of the household got sick.
Her mother was a hard-working housewife of 40 years, and “a
beautiful seamstress”; her father owned a hardware store. She went on to
explain that even though her father sold multiple refrigerators at his business,
heir family never had one in their own house. “We used to put all our milk
and whatever else we needed cooled on the cellar floor, and it worked just
fine. In the winter months we could just keep them in the pantry in our
kitchen by the window, and they kept.” Saturdays and Sundays, she said,
were when she and her mom would clean house together, and dusting was
Addie’s assigned duty. “Ugh, I hated dusting. But my mother never taught
me how to cook… she didn’t teach me how to dust, either.”
In fact, she says she owes a lot to her Aunt Cora, who lived in the
house next door to them. Her aunt had two kids – both boys – so she
horoughly enjoyed taking care of Adeline for a change. “She’s the one who
aught me my multiplication tables a year early,” and Cora always reminded
her, “Keep your bloomers tight!” In fact, Addie spent a good deal of her time
next door, and says, “If I had a favorite person growing up, it would be her.”
Meanwhile, Addie’s oldest sister lived in Minneapolis – what my
grandma considered the “big city” – and would always send her gifts
showing her the newest hairstyles, dresses, etc. After awhile, Addie became
embarrassed whenever she got these packages, because after all, she lived ina small town! They weren’t hip and “in the times” like the city folk, and she
really felt awkward about what people would think when they saw her “all
dressed up.” To this day, she believes this has always been her biggest
nsecurity – worrying what other people think.
She also believes one of her biggest
difficulties was when it came to getting in front of an
audience. This stage fright really didn’t help when it
came to the inevitable performances in her sextet.
Although she admits she still isn’t completely past th
fear, she sees the experience of “repetition; just doingthings over and over” as a definite push in the right
direction.
Addie had an exciting life growing up in thi
small town, and believes it made her who she is today
She graduated high school in 1949, and honored as
Salutatorian (only 1/10 point away from being
valedictorian of her class). And, standing up on her
podium in front of the entire graduating class, she
even gave a speech.
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