Betty Lou Petersen

life story

Creative, Activist, Loving Mother and Beloved Wife

Betty Lou (Maynard) Petersen of Edina, MN, died peacefully in her sleep on February 22, 2022. She was preceded in death by loving husband of 64 years, Glenn L. (Skip) Petersen and parents Benjamin Curtis and Mary V. Maynard. She is survived by children Denise Olson, Becky Petersen (David Johnson) of Minneapolis, Lee Petersen (Heidi Foley) of Stillwater, and Kimberly Petersen (David Smythe) of Edina; grandchildren John, Matthew, and Kristin Olson, Elizabeth, Britta, Tesla, Inna and Curie Petersen; and Lauren and Heather Smythe.

A Life Well-Lived - 101 Years

Based in part on Skip and Lou's handwritten notes circa the 1990’s

Betty Lou was born in Bonesteel, SD, on March 28, 1920, to Benjamin Curtis and Mary (Sedlacek) Maynard, joining big brother Benjamin Curtis, Jr. Her father was a prominent banker in Bonesteel, having acquired an interest in the State Bank of Bonesteel 5 years earlier. Her mother was a homemaker, settling her growing family into a newly built home, one of the largest in town distinguished by its stucco exterior (501 Pettigren Street). Betty Lou was born at home. The “Lou” in her name is for her mother’s brother, Lou Sedlacek (Louis H.).

Bonesteel, located in Gregory County by the Nebraska-South Dakota border, is situated on the eastern edge of the Rosebud Indian Reservation just west of the Missouri River. Its population in 1920 was 625.

In 1928, the family moved to Minneapolis, MN, when Betty Lou’s father was offered a position at a bank in the city. They moved first to an apartment around Franklin and Park Avenue, then to another apartment on the east side of Powderhorn Park, and finally they purchased a home at 5217 Knox Avenue, just blocks from Lake Harriet and the streetcar line. Betty Lou attended Burroughs Elementary School and remembers well sledding down the hills at Powderhorn Park and becoming a serious student of ballet.

In 1932, the family moved to Washington DC when her father was recruited by Lou Sedlacek to work at the Treasury Department with him, helping the nation recover from the Great Depression. The family lived on Veazy Street near many foreign embassies. Betty Lou attended Alice Deal Junior High. Her fondest memory of Washington DC was a trip to Woolworth’s (referred to as a dime store) a few days before Christmas. In front of the store, a lady had a box of puppies she was trying to sell. Ben Sr. said she could pick one to takehome. It was a little black and white mixed breed they named Bubbles, who quickly became the delight of the family.

The family returned to Minneapolis in 1934, again living in the family home on Knox Avenue. As a teenager attending Washburn High School, Lou developed interests in the arts, including painting, sewing and clothing design. She continued her ballet studies and especially loved outings with her father, playing golf and tennis, and going shopping with him.

Tragically, when Betty Lou was in her first year of college, her father died suddenly of complications of diabetes. On the morning of February 23, 1940, her father woke feeling a little under the weather, she went off to classes as usual and her mother said she was going to run her father by the doctor's office. By the time Betty Lou got home from the U her father was gone. It was sudden and unexpected.

The family was left bereft and Ben Jr., who had just enrolled in Grinnell College in Iowa, returned home to help support the family. In addition, her mother went back to work as a bookkeeper, a job for which she was well suited after serving as a deputy in the office of county auditor in Gregory County, SD, before she married.

In 1938, Lou (she had dropped the "Betty") graduated from Washburn High School and went on to attend the University of Minnesota where she received a BA in Art Education. She followed that with postgraduate study in drafting and a semester at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. While in college she worked part-time as a clerk at Donaldson’s Department store during the school year. Summers she worked at Glacier National Park in Montana, first in the laundry and then in the kitchen as a vegetable/salad girl. This is where she met Glenn Petersen, better known as Skip, soon to be her husband.

Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park is a vast wilderness area in Montana's Rocky Mountains, with glacier-carved peaks and valleys running to the Canadian border … and a very romantic place to meet. Imagine living two miles apart in Minneapolis, both attending the University of Minnesota and traveling by train over 1,000 miles to meet one another. That’s exactly what Skip and Lou did.

During his summer vacations from college, Skip was the kitchen fireman at Glacier Park Lodge, where he chopped all of the wood for the wood-burning stoves used in the vast lodge kitchen. Lou showed up the second summer and worked first in the laundry and subsequent summers as a vegetable/ salad girl.

Skip first noticed Lou as she disembarked along with other new employees from the Empire Builder, a train that traveled daily between Chicago and Seattle. Early in the season everyone would go down to the train station at noon to meet the westbound train and welcome new employees. Truthfully, the young men were eager to check out the new girls and, of course, vice versa.

Another way to meet the “newbies" was to attend late evening pow wows after their work day was done. Skip spotted Lou and got to talking to her. He said, "She was a very lonesome young lady whose father had just recently died." That and many other things drew them together. The more they talked the closer they got and soon became a couple. By summer’s end they were known as king and queen of the bush and given trophies by the other employees.

Skip came home from the park earlier than Lou and according to him, “I knew by that time she was the lady of my life.” He surprised her when she arrived back at the Minneapolis train depot and they went directly to her home so her mother and brother could meet Skip.

Finishing at the U of M

Lou graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in Art Education, and took postgraduate courses in drafting. She remembers taking the streetcar daily from Lake Harriet to campus along with all of her Washburn High School girl friends who traveled the same route. These close friendships have lasted a lifetime. Upon completion of her coursework, Lou took a job with Cargill working as a draftsperson for an engineering group while Skip finished medical school.

Skip and Lou often studied together. Imagine Lou’s surprise when Skip’s anatomy lesson was to learn the bones and muscles of the arm. He unlocked the trunk of his car, pulled out a cadaver arm and the study commenced.

The last 6 months Skip was in medical school the US Army drafted all medical students into the ASTP (Army Special Training Program), a fast-track program to get new doctor’s quickly into the military during World War II. He earned a Private’s salary of about $180 a month and lived at home. After graduation, Skip received a medical administration commission and was put on inactive duty in order to complete a 9-month internship at Baltimore City Hospital.

Wedding, Baltimore and Army Service

Skip’s marriage proposal to Lou was somewhat indirect. He asked her if she was going to Baltimore with him and, of course, she said “yes.” Skip and Lou were married on December 22, 1944, at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis, an event that was only a few weeks in the planning. The following morning they boarded a train to New York City along with best man Dick Zarling. Nothing like sharing your honeymoon with a good friend. He planned all kinds of sight-seeing for the threesome. Following a few days in New York the couple headed, this time just the two of them, to Baltimore for the start of the internship.

Upon completion of the internship, Skip’s Medical Corps commision was activated and the couple headed to Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, PA, for 6 weeks of Medical Corps basic training. Next Skip was dispatched to Fort Snelling, MN, before finally being assigned to Madigan General Hospital at Fort Lewis, WA, where they stayed until discharged in 1946. First daughter Denise (Denny) was born in Washington. Her first baby bed was the bottom drawer of Skip and Lou’s dresser.

Some of the places they lived along the way:

(1) 406 Folcroft, Baltimore, MD (while doing internship at Baltimore City Hospital)

(2) Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, PA (while doing Basic Training - it was a room in someone’s house)

(3) 5217 Knox Avenue South, Minneapolis (in Lou’s family home with her mother while stationed at Fort Snelling)

(4) Day Island, Seattle, WA (a house shared with two other couples - the husbands were doctors who were eventually shipped overseas and the wives returned home)

The Family Grows

The family of 3 moved back to Minneapolis and lived in Lou’s family home for several months while they looked for a home of their own, which turned out to be 2101 West 57th Street in the new Penn-Warren subdivision filled with families of returning WWII veterans. Skip joined what had been his father’s medical practice and also the staff of Fairview Hospital as a general surgeon. The practice offices remained at 1111 Nicollet Avenue after Skip’s father’s death in 1945. Orchestra Hall now sits on that block of downtown Minneapolis.

Soon to follow Denny were Becky (1948) and Lee (1953). The neighborhood was filled with tons of kids and stay-at-home moms. The Petersens fit right in. Lou was a Brownie troop leader and the kids attended Armatage Elementary School. Skip was on the steering committee that led the building of Susan B. Anthony Junior High (now a middle school).

The older kids remember long family car trips to Pompano Beach, FL, over Christmas vacation and to Seattle, WA, for the 1962 World’s Fair. The Seattle trip included a stay at Glacier National Park where they hiked and the elders showed off where they met.

A Move to the Suburbs

In the late 1950’s Skip and mostly Lou started looking for land to build a new house, motivated by the need for more space and better schools, plus providing an opportunity for Lou to use her drafting skills and creativity. Though an architect drew up the plans, she was involved in every aspect of the design and building of a new family home in Edina.

Only a few houses bordered Lake Cornelia at the time. Farmer Cornelia had just turned his farm over for development. There was no Southdale Shopping Center or Fairview Southdale Hospital back then. The field across 66th street was a riding stable, not yet a city park and swimming pool. The Crosstown Highway (62) did not exist. France Avenue was filled with rock and sand quarries.

They moved into the new house in 1958. Lee would start kindergarten the next year, Becky was in 5th grade and Denny in 7th. Kim was born 3 years later in 1961.

From Surgery to Anesthesia

Through the 1950’s and 60’s Skip continued his practice in general surgery. He served as the youngest ever Chief-of-Staff at Fairview Hospital, and was the first elected Chief-of-Staff at Fairview Southdale. He was a beloved family doctor and delivered hundreds of babies during these years.

In the late 1960’s Skip developed a severe allergy to latex, a serious problem for a general surgeon. He decided that anesthesia would be a better specialty for him so he returned to the University of Minnesota for a two-year stint. The family had just moved into its new house, Kim was new on the scene, Denny would soon be off to college, and no income for two years. The timing may not have been perfect but a quest for better health was all important.

Everyone tightened their belt. No fancy food, no nights out, no family trips. Denny and Becky learned to sew their own clothes. In the end it was a great lesson in humility and self-sufficiency. Lou taught her kids the valuable lesson of DIY - do it yourself - now an important part of all of their lives.

Skip came out of it as a board certified Anesthesiologist and became well-known in the Twin Cities for his expertise in administering anesthesia to all ages, including the tiniest of pediatric patients.

Golf and Causes

Skip, through the years, was an inveterate golfer, a lifelong member of Golden Valley Golf Club. Summers he spent Wednesday afternoons and most weekends on the golf course. When asked about his most memorable golf game, he recounted hole-by-hole the day he hit every green with 2 strokes left to make par. Unfortunately, his putting that day was lacking - a total of 41 putts. His best score at Golden Valley was 69. The most birdies in 18 holes was 7.

Winters he played a mean game of water polo, often coming home with a black eye. After work the docs at Fairview took command of the therapeutic pool at the hospital. It’s the same pool that Skip dropped the kids off at every Saturday morning during their growing up years. He did his hospital rounds, the kids swam and Lou got a break from kid duty. The best part was when Dad stopped at the Convention Grill on the way home and fed the kids hamburgers, malts, and fries.

Professionally, Skip was a longtime contributor to the Minnesota medical community. He served as Chief of Staff at both Fairview and Fairview Southdale hospitals. Skip helped form the Academy of General Practice, Hennepin County, and served as its first president. He was also president of the Minnesota Society of Anesthesiologists and served on the Board of Trustees for the Minnesota Masonic Home for 12 years.

Lou became quite an activist in her later years. She worked tirelessly for organizations that advocated for gender equality, womens’ rights and peace in the Middle East. She was an active member of the League of Women Voters and Grandmothers’ for Peace. Every Independence Day she marched in Edina's 4th of July parade with fellow grandmothers carrying flags that declared peace in 8 languages.

Hitting the Slopes at Breckenridge

In 1972, Skip and Lou purchased property in Breckenridge, CO, in the heart of Summit County, home to 4 major ski operations. At the time Becky was living in Colorado, Lee and Kim had taken up skiing, and Lou was looking for a way to invest an inheritance left by her mother in something the whole family would enjoy. Voila - a "cabin" in Breckenridge. It started out as the mere shell of a two-story house in need of major finishing work - electric, plumbing, drywall, paint. Talk about a DIY project!

Collectively, we were just getting started on all of the work when, on Thanksgiving Day, the structure burned to the ground after a generator caught fire. The cabin was a total loss, but, thankfully, no one was injured. One major oops - the Breckenridge Volunteer Fire Department ran out of gas as their fire truck barrelled up the mountain to fight the fire.

There was a silver lining, though. Skip had the foresight to add the cabin to his Minnesota homeowners policy at its full furnished value. The following summer the cabin was rebuilt and finished with much less of a DIY effort. The four Petersen kids now own the cabin in a family partnership and it has been the site of many family vacations by younger generations.

Travel

Together, Skip and Lou traveled to many fascinating places. They spent a year in Granada where Skip worked with local teams of doctors and nurses practicing/teaching anesthesia and helping to rebuild their medical systems after the Granada War of 1983. Granada was a very beautiful island with warm and welcoming locals and an abundance of antiquated medical equipment.

They traveled with Jo and Andy Anderson (Skip’s sister and brother-in-law) to Scandinavia to visit Petersen relatives in Denmark and Andy’s relatives in Lund, Sweden. They visited Kim when she was an exchange student in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and the family’s two foreign exchange students, Liliana Wainberg in Buenos Aires and Mercedes in Columbia. They traveled to China and Japan and Egypt and took a cruise through the Panama Canal. Lou says, “I love to travel to see and experience new things and to learn as much as I can about these places.”

Life Well Lived

Skip passed away on May 23, 2008 at the age of 89. Lou passed away on February 22, 2022 at the age of 101. They are (or will be) buried in the Petersen family plot at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. Kim and her husband, Dave Smythe, now own the family home on Lake Cornelia.

memorial service

Memorial Service

April 2, 2022

Chapel Hills United Church of Christ 6512 Vernon Ave S, Edina, MN 55436, USA