At 102 years old, Marian Alinder finds that it’s never too late to make new friends your own age. On May 14, the longtime Le Sueur resident got to chatting with fellow centenarian Margie Cooney, age 101, at her St. Peter home. The pair went out to lunch with Alinder’s children and reminisced about their long lives together.
It had been around 50 years since Alinder and Cooney last saw each other. Many decades ago, Cooney taught Alinder’s four children John, Steve, Gary and Jane at Cleveland Public School. Conney started her teaching career at Cleveland in 1946 and served as a Home Economics instructor for around 35 years at Cleveland and Le Center before her retirement.
Cooney remembered Alinder well from her involvement in the school’s 1976 bicentennial production. The staged student performance celebrating the 200th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence took viewers on an in-depth journey through the history of the city of Cleveland. In addition to student readings on the community’s history, the production featured antique clothes, furnishings and accessories from Cleveland’s early days.
“We had put everything together and made it a history of Cleveland,” said Cooney. “The oldest dress we could find and the oldest quilts we could find and chairs and rockers and so on.”
That’s where Alinder, an avid antique collector, entered the picture. When her son Steve, then 14-years-old, took an interest in the pieces which belonged to her great-grandmother, the mother and son began a lifelong journey delving into local history. They collected antiques from local auctions and bought pieces from the Harkin’s General Store in New Ulm — back when it was still a general store and not yet a museum. As a result of their passion for history, the Alinders had plenty of antiques to contribute to the bicentennial showcase.
Cooney and Alinder never knew each other well outside of their teacher-parent relationship, but that all changed this month when a mutual friend Deb Dixon of St. Peter reconnected the pair of centenarians. What was initially planned as a lunchtime meet and greet stretched on to 3 p.m. as the two traded stories from their lives.
Both had ancestors who were early settlers in Minnesota. Cooney recalled the stories her great-grandparents used to tell her of their encounters with Native Americans while living near Savage Lake when the state of Minnesota was still young. Alinder’s maternal grandparents, meanwhile, established themselves in the Welsh settlement in the Big Woods.
Cooney spent much of her life on a farmhouse about a mile west of Cleveland. She found love when she met Robert Cooney, then a young man from Le Center who went to serve his country as a Marine during World War II. Her husband was wounded during his service in the Battle of Iwo Jima and one of the last marines taken aboard the hospital ship.
As an educator of 35 years, Cooney left an impact on a generation of students in the Cleveland and Le Center area. For most of her teaching career, Cooney’s primary subjects were home economics and science. In her free time, Cooney liked to paint. When Cleveland’s superintendent found out about Cooney’s artistic talents, he made her the school’s new art teacher as well.
Cooney said she loved being an art teacher and the classroom was well equipped to allow students to flex their creativity. Each student had their own drawing board to work off of, and the classroom had pottery wheels and a kiln for clay sculpting. Cooney even used the equipment on her own time to fashion clay jewelry pieces
Alinder spent parts of her early life in South Dakota and a farmhouse outside Cleveland before moving to Isanti County. She met her husband Edward Alinder at Cambridge High School, and the young couple picked up and moved to Pasadena, California after graduation. The husband and wife both had jobs working on P-38 fighter planes for the Lockheed Corporation during WWII. Alinder was one of two women who worked the swing shift in a mostly male dominated field, assembling parts for the escape hatches.
The Alinders eventually moved to the Cleveland farmhouse once owned by Marian’s grandparents. There, they raised four children and shucked sweet corn for Green Giant.
In addition to collecting antiques, Marian spent much of her free time collecting dolls. The oldest in her collection was a gift from her grandmother, given to her in 1933. Her husband, on the other hand, liked to procure classic cars, which they would ride in the St. Peter Fourth of July Celebration.
When asked about the biggest changes they’ve seen in their lives, Alinder answered that it was all the new gadgets that have come out — more specifically smartphones. Growing up, Alinder recalled very few people had phones at all. Her family had a phone since her father worked as a mortician, but there were so few houses with home phones that she had no one to call.
“All my girlfriends who lived in the town and the country, nobody had a phone and couldn’t call anybody,” said Alinder. “They hardly knew how to use a phone. “
What’s the key to living a long life? Alinder said one reason for her longevity is that she never smoked or drank. Another reason is the love of a supportive family. While Alinder has four children to look after her, Cooney has her nieces to help take care of her.
“I feel grateful for all that I was given and all the people that I got to know,” said Cooney. “I’m very thankful for that wonderful part of my life.”
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