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Virginia Harris Continued |
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Dedicated to the sunshine of truth, the moonshine of meeting deadlines, and the starshine of Victoria. |
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After high school, she attended the college of St. Teresa in Winona, MN, then studied and graduated from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, in 1954 with a degree in Mathematics. That same year, 1954, Virginia married a man she had met when he was working a summer job with Greyhound. After marriage, they lived in the City of Chicago where Virginia worked for A.C. Nielson Ratings. “That’s when the size of a computer was about as large as a living room and they used key-punched cards for data entry,” she said. “We checked to make sure that results of machine calculations were accurate. I remember following Jack Paar ratings on the Tonight Show, but we didn’t have a TV at home. Couldn’t afford it.” What was the work of her husband? “I called him a peddler,” she replied, “but he was a manufacturer’s rep.” Because of her husband’s job, the family moved from Chicago to Indianapolis for six months (“six months too long”) and then to Bloomington, Minnesota. “We got a house with the G.I. Bill and moved to Minnesota in 1959,” said Virginia, sipping her coffee at Barnes and Noble. The Cafe that Friday morning was sparsely populated and the few souls there seemed unfazed by our conversation. “Then we started to outgrow the house in Bloomington,” continued the mother of eight children. Her husband was always talking about buying a cabin up north, but she said to him if he wanted a lake place, that it would be cheaper to buy a home on Lake Minnetonka and move there than to own and maintain two homes. They moved to Smithtown in 1964. In 1964 the Smithtown neighborhood on Lake Minnetonka -- as well as the nearby neighborhoods of Lake Zumbra and Lake Virginia -- was not part of the City of Victoria. “Smithtown was in Chanhassen Township,” said the stay at home mother on Lake Minnetonka. “I was kind of a practical person and when Chanhassen Township decided to incorporate, I thought we would be better off to stay in Chanhassen Township or be annexed to the City of Shorewood," she said. "But Victoria fought the annexation incorporation. It turned out that Victoria had a sliver of land to the east along Highway 5 that extended to the western border of Chanhassen Township. Therefore, Victoria had a say in the incorporation process.” Continued Virginia, “I remember that Pierce Thompson, a neighbor of ours at Smithtown, wanted to be part of Victoria. I thought that was ridiculous.” Conversation in the coffee shop about these early heady days in Victoria continued without pause. “I remember writing a story for Chaska paper about what happened at Chanhassen Township meetings,” she said. “The owner of the paper called me and said I couldn’t write things like that. She said I should write social news. So that was the end of that, and I never did get paid.” “So then I got a part time job with the Minnetonka Sun,” said the budding journalist, “and when they started the Carver County Sun, I became the editor, from late 1970 to early 1972. During that time, Chub Aretz asked me to work for the city. He was the mayor of Victoria. I told him I didn’t know anything about city business and city administration, and he said that I knew more than most people because of all the meetings I attended.” Victoria was still rural and undeveloped at that time, and not growing much. In fact, families had left the wider Victoria area as farms were bought in anticipation of creating a new town of Jonathan. The Creamery and Feedmill closed, and two schools -- the Victoria Public School and the St. Victoria Catholic School -- closed just prior to the hiring of Virginia Harris. After being a vibrant and bustling community serving a large rural populace, Victoria became, more or less, the proverbial town with two churches and three bars.
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The Victoria GAZETTE |
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952-474-7377 |
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Victoria’s Corner Bar. Nightly Specials and Menus. 952-443-9944 |
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February 2015 |
