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The Globe
Saturday, October 19, 2019 C1
For love of the game For Fern Anderson, baseball remains a lifelong passion By Ryan McGaughey rmcgaughey@dglobe.com
School south of Madison. She went on to study at a teachWORTHINGTON — Though er’s college in Madison before Fern Anderson hasn’t been to moving on to Bethel College in a Major League Baseball game St. Paul for one year. After that, for the past couple of years, her she arrived in Worthington as love of the game is as fervent as a sixth-grade teacher. It was 1955. always. Walk into the apartment that Fern and her husband, Lee, Midway through the game While Fern is unable to share at Worthington’s Ecumen Meadows, and it’s impos- remember the precise year she sible to miss the voluminous retired from teaching, she’s amounts of baseball memora- quick to note how long she has bilia. She admits to the place been married to Lee — 45 years. being a mess, yet she’s eager to Lee and Fern were wed some show as many of her collectibles time after Lee’s first wife passed to which she has easy access. away; Lee already had four chilAnd, she’ll talk baseball — and dren, with the last one a senior the Minnesota Twins — with in high school at the time. It’s safe to say that baseball the knowledge of someone who has been a huge component of takes mere occasional glances at their marriage. standings and box scores. “We were both interested in baseball, so we went to almost The early innings Fern is 87 now, and her pas- all the ballparks (while we sion for baseball goes way back could),” Fern said. “We missed to her youth, when she grew two or three of them. We were up on a farm approximately 25 able to go to the World Series when the Twins won both times miles south of Madison, S.D. “My dad played baseball — he (1987 and 1991).” So, considering all the bigwasn’t a professional at all, but he loved to play,” Fern recalled. league stadiums she has visited, “He took us to watch the Madi- does she have a favorite? “We thought the Twins’ new son Broncos (an amateur baseball team) in the summertime park (Target Field) was a nice — he’d take my four brothers park,” Fern stated. “We went to all the old parks, but not some and myself.” There were no varsity high of the new ones. school sports for girls during “I retired early so we could Fern’s teens, but she still loved taking to the diamond and the travel,” continued Fern, adding that she had worked as a teacher basketball court. “I was always encouraged to while Lee farmed their property be in sports,” Fern said. “Girls south of Rushmore. “We went to couldn’t do this and couldn’t a lot of games on weekends; we do that, but we’d always do took one bus tour out east and sports as a family. You could went to eight ball games in the play intramurals … and even time out there. And we went to did that when I went to college. spring training for many years It wasn’t too long after college in Florida.” Fern also remembers going that I came to Worthington, and I could listen to the Iowa girls to the old Metropolitan Stadiplay basketball on the radio — um, the Twins’ old Bloomington even though it was that screwy home, back in the day. She said three-on-three. she went to a game by herself “We could never afford go “while waiting for a friend to to a (professional) game when get off a plane from Europe,” we were younger — it was the and liked the fact that the staDepression — but my brother dium was easy to get to. Tom, who was a year and a half “I went to that ballpark more older than me, and I loved to go times than the Mall of Ameriout and play ball and play catch ca,” she asserted, referencing until it was time to come in what currently sits on the forand do the dishes and milk the mer Met property. cows,” she added. Fern attended a country Seventh-inning stretch Considering Fern’s love of school that she remembered usually having about 15 stu- baseball and the hundreds of dents, then ended up graduating games she has attended, it from Arland Consolidated High shouldn’t be surprising that a
Ryan McGaughey / The Globe
Anderson holds a baseball signed by Minnesota Twins great Tony Oliva.
Ryan McGaughey / The Globe
Fern Anderson stands in the den of her Ecumen Meadows apartment in Worthington with a small portion of her collection of baseball memorabilia. good-sized array of memorabilia has been amassed. Plus, Fern admits not to not being very good at throwing things out; she’s a saver. The habit dates way back to growing up on the farm during the Depression, when Fern began an unusual collection that’s now on display outside the door to her Ecumen Mead-
ows apartment. “When I was in fifth grade in country school, we’d go to town in Madison ... and that year and probably the next year I collected gum wrappers you can’t find anywhere now,” she said. “I suppose it was because it was cheap — I couldn’t afford to buy anything else, really. I liked to buy books, but I couldn’t buy a book very often because it was
the Depression. We lived on the farm, and things were pretty rough for a few years.” Fern said she found her collection of wrappers not long ago and thought it would be fun to share it with others. That spirit of sharing dates back to her teaching days, too. “If they did something good,
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Ryan McGaughey / The Globe
Anderson, now 87 years old, began collecting these candy wrappers and boxes when she was in the fifth grade.