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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.