BALLAD OF MAGGIE LEDD Written by Scott Richardson (set to the Rawhide tune) Rolling, Rolling, Rolling, Keep those presses rolling Keep those presses rolling, Maggie! News and information, Your readers are waiting Hungry for what you’ve got to say. City Council’s steaming, School board is dreaming Opinion is what you try to sway. CHORUS: Get the news, make it sing, type it up, paste it up Turn the press, hit the street, Maggie. Eat a bite, check the mail, pet the cat, get some sleep Back to work…Back to work, Maggie! Clickin’, clickin’, clickin’ Keep those keyboards clickin’ Keep those keyboards clickin’, Maggie. Always deadlines loomin’ No time for snoozin’ PMTs are still an hour away That waxer is cloggin’ Photon lens is foggin’ Why can’t those writers make some hay! CHORUS (above) Strolling, Strolling, Strolling Division she is strolling, Division she is strolling---Maggie! Broomball shoes protect her The cart is her collector Gathering news and goods she finds on sale. Shops and keepers need her/ Her stories they are feeders She never tires of telling Northfield’s tales. CHORUS: Get the news, make it sing, type it up, paste it up Turn the press, hit the street, Maggie. Eat a bite, check the mail, pet the cat, get some sleep Back to work…Back to work, Maggie! Purple, purple, purple What’s the deal with purple? Why’s it always purple, Maggie? First a fashion respite, Now her fans expect it. Regal in every swish and sway. Accessorizin’s easy, Oft’ a wee bit cheesy, Now you know the secret so they say. Chorus: Get the news, make it sing, type it up, paste it up Turn the press, hit the street, Maggie. Eat a bite, check the mail, pet the cat, get some sleep Back to work…Back to work, Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! (Shouted) Maggie! 3fe80298-3480-487e-ba1c-eaa479b884ee
Few had a better chronicled life than Northfield’s colorful, career journalist Maggie Lee.
Lee, whose 68-year trailblazing career at the Northfield News began with a brief stint as a bookkeeper, then a longtime reporter and ultimately an editor for 19 years, kept boxes of her personal artifacts. In a prescient move, Lee donated dozens and dozen of the boxes to the Northfield Historical Society, a local organization she helped found, in the years prior to her death in 2013 at the age of 92.
Today, 11 years after her death at age 92, the contents of those boxes have been catalogued, examined and carefully curated in preparation for the upcoming exhibit showcasing Northfield’s persistent community advocate and hardworking local journalist.
Historical Society curator Alexus Kreft and student intern Elleanna Gisvold began pouring through boxes of Lee’s personal items, from her wigs, pantsuits and big glasses to her typewriter, costume jewelry and valedictorian speech she delivered during her Northfield High school graduation.
The pair sorted through her numerous cat figurines, purple clothing and reporter notebooks. They read her column called “Long Division” about downtown retailers, as well as her columns about city history and residents titled “Maggie Says” and “Do You Remember.”
Kreft, who is pursuing her masters in library science at the University of Illinois, and Gisvold, a history major with a minor in women’s studies at Luther College, said they “had a lot of fun” going through Lee’s well-lived life, box by box.
The exhibit, which opens March 1 at the Northfield Historical Society, will document Maggie Lee’s impact upon Northfield by looking through the lens of history, journalism, culture and women’s roles in society.
“She was a walking history lesson,” said Kreft. “She had her hand in everything.”
Kreft said the idea for mounting the exhibit came directly from NHS director Sean Allen, who was a neighbor of Maggie Lee’s when he was growing up.
“Sean used to shovel her drive in the winter,” said Kreft. “He said she was such a big character for a small town. She was an institution, an icon.”
To give visitors a feeling of who Maggie Lee was, the exhibit will feature a replica of her desk at the Northfield News. Lee started at the paper first as a bookkeeper, then quickly as a reporter, and for 19 years as editor. Lee was the paper’s first woman editor, starting in 1967 until she “semi retired” in 1986.
After reading many of the articles and columns Lee wrote for the Northfield News, and looking through boxes and boxes of photos, Gisvold, a Northfield native said, “I felt like I knew her having never met her.”
At the time of her death, many peers in the newspaper industry who knew Lee’s dedication to the her job and her many contributions as a pioneering female journalist celebrated her remarkable grit and grace.
“She was an amazing woman and journalist,” said Lisa Hills, executive director of the Minnesota Newspaper Association. “The newspaper industry has lost a colleague and a dear friend.”
Two community members who knew Maggie Lee quite well were local historian Susan Hvistendahl and longtime friend Marie Gery. The women said they had so many classic Maggie Lee stories to tell; it was difficult to decide which ones to share.
Gery said she first met Lee during a Northfield HIstorical Society home tour of the Archibald House in Dundas.
“Maggie never touched the steering wheel of a car except by accident,” said Gery. “She also had narcolepsy and would fall asleep during plays and at downtown stores that were open late on Thursday nights.”
Gery remembered moving Lee’s many keepsakes and collections in 2004 from one second floor apartment on Division Street to another across the street. She also recalled the sad day Lee’s favorite cat Jiggs died and a new kitten miraculously landed at her doorstep.
In those days, Lee was known for working 90-hour weeks and being one of Northfield’s most passionate boosters, Hvistendahl wrote in her local history book “Historic Happenings: Third Edition.”
Hvistendahl chronicled two community events celebrating Maggie Lee: one on June 5, 2011 at the Grand Event Center that was emceed by Rev. Will Healy and featured performances by Marilyn Sellars and Johnny Western, as well as the “Wear Purple for Maggie Lee” day on July 26, 2012, which featured a community singalong of “Purple People Eater” and “The Ballad of Maggie Lee” written by former Northfield News editor Scott Richardson.
“Maggie is devoted to Northfield, a town of ‘very intelligent people,’” wrote Hvistendahl.
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