March 1951: The United States was at war with Communist forces in Korea. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were on trial, accused of conspiracy to commit espionage. And an estranged Minneapolis couple were fighting over the custody of their two teenage children. An interview with their son follows this front-page story from the Minneapolis Star:

Alleged Red Mother
Wins Custody Fight

Everett and Sigrid Pierson, early 1930s.

A Minneapolis mother’s alleged Communist party activities were ruled insufficient ground for denying her custody of her two children in Hennepin county district court Wednesday.

The ruling was an outgrowth of a divorce suit brought last month against Everett R. Pierson, 43, 2630 Colfax avenue S., by his wife, Sigrid, 39.

In contesting the action, Pierson said his wife’s alleged Communist affiliations would make her an unfit guardian for the children, Marjorie, 16, and David, 13.

Pierson said both he and his wife had become Communist party members in 1931, but that he withdrew a few years later. His wife, he said, continued to be active in the party.

Pierson filed affidavits alleging his wife has charge of subscriptions for part of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota for the Daily Worker, Communist party organ. He said she attended party meetings two or three evenings a week, and had told him she “would go to jail before she would give up her activities.”

He said the alleged activities had the effect of “developing leftist thinking” on the part of the children.

In awarding custody of the children to their mother, District Judge Levi M. Hall said, “So long as this is a free country, I don’t see why the court should take your children away from you because of your political beliefs.”

“If this were Russia,” the judge told the woman, “they’d no doubt take the children away if your political thinking was democratic.”

MARCH 2007 UPDATE: I interviewed Dave Pierson, now 69 and retired, at his apartment in Bloomington. He worked as platemaker and stripper at union printing companies in the Twin Cities for more than 30 years. He and his wife, Judy, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary a few years ago. They have five children, 13 grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. Pierson’s sister, Marjorie, is a retired homemaker and librarian. She lives in Brandon, Manitoba.

Pierson’s parents grew up on farms in rural Minnesota in the 1910s and 1920s. Sigrid Rosenquist was the youngest of 12 children. At 16, she earned $5 a week (plus room and board) as a dishwasher, chambermaid and waitress at Ted’s Place restaurant and hotel in Cambridge. She met Everett Pierson on a blind date in 1930. They married two years later.

Dave Pierson has fond memories of growing up. Because his dad was a union carpenter, “we were always able to take vacations — lots of trips to the North Shore.” His mom was a Cub Scout leader. During the summer, she would take him and three or four friends to swim at Lake Calhoun’s 32nd Street beach nearly every day. It was about a mile walk from their home on Colfax Avenue.

Sig worked as a clerk at the Daily Worker office in downtown Minneapolis in the early 1950s. She lost “job after job” after that, Pierson said. The FBI had her pegged as a subversive because of her opposition to nuclear arms and the Korean War. “Whenever I found a job,” she said in an interview with one of her grandchildren in the early 1990s, “they saw to it that the boss knew of these activities and prevailed upon them to end my employment.” She eventually landed a union job at Robitshek-Schneider Co., a clothing manufacturer in Minneapolis. She worked for there 20 years, retiring in 1973.

Marjorie and Dave Pierson, December 1952.

“I was always scared that my mom was going to be thrown in jail because of her activities,” Dave Pierson said. At age 17, while playing catch on the sidewalk with a friend, he was approached by two FBI men. “Are you Dave Pierson?” they asked. “Would you like to come down to the office and talk to us about your mother?” He declined, and they left.

Pierson said his mother’s political views had a bigger impact on him than his parents’ divorce. She was an independent thinker at a time when independent thought was not always welcome. “All that time made me more aware of what was going on in the world, such as war, racism in the United States, civil rights,” he said.

His father was more of a traditionalist. He was raised in a big family on a farm near Princeton. That’s where he learned electrical work, carpentry and plumbing. “We never talked politics,” Dave Pierson said. “I’m sure he always voted Democrat, and he was always a union man.” Everett worked as a carpenter in Minneapolis and St. Paul for many years before moving to Oregon. He died in about 1977. Sig Rosenquist Sharp, who remarried two years after the divorce, died in 1998.

Back in 1951, Everett Pierson worried that Sig’s ties would instill “leftist thinking” in the children. How would Dave describe his political views today? “Leftist. Liberal,” he said. He likened the “anti-Communist hysteria” of the 1950s to that of today’s “war on terror.” He’s a lifelong Star Tribune subscriber. He likes the editorials (”I see a lot of good ideas there”), but overall he considers the paper to be “business-oriented, looking at the bottom line.”

Delegates for President Benjamin Harrison and James G. Blaine of Maine cheered in the corridors of the West Hotel. (Engraving courtesy mnhs.org)

The last Republican National Convention to descend on the Twin Cities attracted a horde of politicians, delegates, pickpockets and reporters — and notables such as cartoonist Thomas Nast, suffragist Susan B. Anthony and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. President Benjamin Harrison bested James G. Blaine and William McKinley for the nomination, and Whitelaw Reid of New York got the nod for vice president.

But what we all want to know, even now, is: How did Minneapolis do? This Tribune story suggests that the city was, well, magnificent. So why did it take more than a hundred years to attract the next GOP convention?

WHAT THEY THINK

Visitors Who Were Here Attending
the Convention.

They Are All Pleased at the Way They
Have Been Treated – Minneapolis
Complimented.

The great convention and the greatest, busiest week of Minneapolis are both ended and every one is happy. True the crowds were not so great as expected and many are disappointed who made extra preparations to feed and lodge the thousands who never came. But for all this Minneapolis demonstrated that she could accommodate many thousands more than she did and without any discomfort. At the West Hotel alone there were unused accommodations for many more than came and the great hotel was at no time full.

This does not argue that there was not a large crowd here. The statistics of the railroad companies tell the story of the thousands who ate and slept within the city’s gates and went away satisfied. The committee on accommodations did its work so well in procuring rooms for delegates in private homes that there was no grumbling about a lack of beds. In fact it is estimated that Minneapolis could have taken care of

20,000 MORE PEOPLE.

None of the hotel rooms were crowded. There was no putting of cots in the hallways as is the case at most conventions in other cities. No man could be found who had any trouble or seriously long wait for his meals.

The restaurants, with a few exceptions, did not raise the prices to the extortion limit and the food furnished was as good as at any other time. In many cases the restaurants had overstocked, expecting a greater rush, and this may account for the extra large steaks and heaping dishes of food which astounded the convention guest. Col. John T. West said yesterday morning: “We had only one-third of what we expected and I think the same condition holds good all over the city. Our largest day was when we had 1,000 persons for lodging and 1,200 for meals. We had beds for 1,600 and had prepared to feed 2,500 at a meal.”

Thus the outside cities can see that Minneapolis can take care of any crowd that comes and do it well.

There has been nothing but

PRAISE FROM EVERYBODY,

not only for the treatment and care they were given but for the splendid hospitality of all citizens. Everyone praised the system of electric cars, the grand buildings and the beautiful streets, and many have lingered to visit further other points of this great Northwest.

	Nomination Hall, Republican National Convention, Minneapolis. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)

But the great crowds have gone. They made a rush for the outgoing trains last night, after the nomination of Harrison, caring nothing as to who was put on for vice-president. At midnight the special trains were pulling out Eastward, Westward and for the sunny South. There was remarkable good feeling and good nature over the result. In fact the harmony was surprising, after what had promised to be a mean and embittered strife. But had Harrison been nominated by acclamation, as was proposed several months ago, there could not have been any more quiet acceptance of the result. This it was which caused such a profound peace about all the headquarters Friday night. The delegates were too busy gathering up their baggage, packing away pictures, badges and souvenirs of the trip to talk much, but all agreed that they would go home and begin the campaign immediately.

Around the West from midnight on there were signs of

A GREAT HOUSE CLEANING.

An ad touting this souvenir spoon appeared in the Minneapolis Tribune during convention week. The Convention Hall and Exhibition Building are depicted in the bowl; a bag of flour tops the handle.

The headquarters of Indiana were soon striped of Harrison’s pictures which were in demand as souvenirs. In a few minutes the walls were bare of flags and banners and the room was given up to the committee on the notification for a preliminary session in the headquarters of the busted Alger boom there was no great activity save as to packing up and getting out. Yesterday it, too, was in the hands of hotel employes, who will have in all the headquarters a long siege of work for some time. The entire hotel will have to be cleaned from top to bottom, but the proprietor is happy. He expected to make much more than he did, but he accepts the result. The great men got away yesterday. Depew walked about the corridors in the early morning looking happy and cool. He would chat pleasantly about the result, about which he was so confident from the start.

Ex. Gov. Foraker went home at midnight with the Cincinnati Blaine Club.

The members of that splendid organization went home sorrowful, as they were intending to have a tremendous blow-out all along the line and a glorious reception in Cincinnati had Blaine been the nominee. But not a man among them sulked or criticized the nomination. “You will hear from us in November,” they all said and they all meant it.

	This Thomas Nast cartoon appeared on the front page of the Minneapolis Tribune on June 7, 1892, the first day of the convention.

Gov. McKinley was tired out and waited until yesterday. He will be joined by his wife in Chicago, and go straight to Columbus.

The newspaper correspondents were not in a hurry about going, as they will take in the Democratic convention at Chicago before they go East or to Washington. All of them prefer to stay in this glorious country for a week of rest before going to smoky and dirty Chicago.

The story closed with quotes from more than a dozen distinguished visitors, all gushing about our fair city. Here is a sample:

Judge Barrett, Utah – The city did splendidly, better than I supposed any Western city could do.

Charles Williams, Manchester, N.H., (the Tom Lowry of his state) – I have attended every convention since Grant and Colfax were nominated, and on the whole I think the accommodations are the finest I ever saw. The crowds were handled finely. The hall full of people was a magnificent sight, one of the grandest ever seen in a national convention. The street car system has no equal so far as I know. It furnished transportation prompt and satisfactory to a most exacting public.

Rhode R. Shiel, Indiana – Excellent conveniences in every respect. I don’t think the delegates were more crowded than they were at Chicago, and the accommodations were better than they were at Cincinnati at any time. The West Hotel lobby is the finest place in the country for a convention crowd, the convention hall was the finest, and the nominee is the best man for the party.

Murat Halstead – Minneapolis has done the handsome thing in this convention. I have enjoyed all the comforts and most of the luxuries of life, and was not inconvenienced in getting them. The hall was the finest I have ever seen for a national convention.

The lobby of the West Hotel, Hennepin Avenue at Fifth Street, Minneapolis. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)

A Tribune editorial, also published Sunday, June 12, gets the final word on the 1892 convention:

BUSINESS LIKE.

The Republican delegates are to be congratulated for showing the country just how a convention should carry on its deliberations.

Hitherto, conventions have been wild, disorderly assemblages, abounding in long hours of meaningless flapdoodle and platitudes. This convention however got down to work in short order and dispatched its business with energy and promptitude. Men who really had something to say of value to the community, said what they thought without any needless wandering from the point. People who had nothing to say but simply wished to talk were choked off with pleasing and commendable celerity. Thus the convention was able to transact its business in a business-like manner without the undue loss of time and patience.

It is to be hoped that all succeeding conventions will follow its commendable example.

Arriving delegates march up Nicollet Avenue toward the West Hotel in orderly fashion. Love the umbrellas, gents! (Engraving courtesy mnhs.org)

Minnesota issued its first driver’s license in 1934. A single 25-cent fee covered licenses for every member of a household. You didn’t have to prove you were a good — or apparently even sighted — driver: No test was required.

A Mr. Inky Campbell of Minneapolis called attention to the situation in this persuasive letter to the editor of the Star. Within two years, Minnesota began testing prospective drivers. But vision was not part of the renewal process until 1972.

EVERYBODY’S IDEAS

To the Editor: The other day I saw a man attempting to park his car. He was making a considerable hash of the effort, and it took him a full five minutes.

Any person incapable of parking a car properly may well be incompetent to drive a car under any conditions. The man who cannot judge distance at a snail’s pace becomes a serious menace at higher speeds.

But in Minnesota how are we ever to know who these bumbling drivers are?

We need a driving test in Minnesota. The legislature has refused time after time to do anything about it. We should begin right now to hammer away on this driving-test business. We can’t afford to pass up the next opportunity for putting some sort of check on unfit, unqualified motorists.

Inky Campbell, Jr., Minneapolis

This 1946 photo of S. Fifth Street, looking south toward Nicollet Avenue, illustrates the challenges faced by Minneapolis drivers 60 years ago. Imagine trying to navigate your hulking Chevrolet through this bustling maze of automobiles, streetcars and pedestrians. (Minneapolis Star photo)