Introduction

It was the look in their eyes when they told their stories! Each woman remembered games, opponents and scores as if it had happened just yesterday. It was, in fact, eighty or more years ago!!

The recollections of women who played high school girls basketball during the era from the late 1890s to the early 1940s turned into a fascinating story. They are stories nearly lost except for the curiosity of Marian Bemis Johnson of White Bear Lake. Marian was one of the generations of women who did not have the opportunity to play high school sports during the decades from the 1940s to the early 1970s. And she wondered why she wasn´t allowed to play.

Women in the early 1900s and their daughters found girls basketball teams in their schools. Why did these high school girls have interscholastic teams, only to lose that opportunity to play as early as the late 1920s and early 1930s? Why did some teams continue as late as 1942? And why didn´t parents, players, or school administrators object to the announcements by their school boards that the girls´ teams would be discontinued? What could cause such a drastic change in attitude toward girls and women in sport?

Marian began by searching through the boxes stored in the Minnesota Historical Society to find the answer. She discovered amazing original correspondence that provided a trail of correspondence by state and national figures, each pointing toward the close-down of girls basketball in Minnesota and in other states across the country.

With that information, Marian began searching for women who had played on the early teams. She began where she lived in White Bear Lake. One woman´s story led to another, and that woman´s story led to another. One school´s season would provide names of other schools that they had played. The network began to grow. Marian´s map soon had pins marking communities throughout the state.

Marian´s car began to tally the miles as she found women in their 80´s, 90´s, and two women who were 100 years of age, all ready to tell their stories. Marian´s tape recorder continued to spin, recording the vivid memories of the women. Soon, questionnaires were sent to women who shared their memories. When their handwriting was challenging, family members wrote down their stories and sent them to Marian. Preserving their memories was important to them all.

Like a treasure hunter, Marian began to unearth trophies won by girls´ teams at various tournaments. Miraculously, some women had kept their uniforms, carefully folded and stored in boxes, and in one case, in a "hope chest." Letter sweaters were worn once again with pride. Scrapbooks filled with photographs and newspaper articles were lovingly opened and shared.

Marian contacted the Minnesota State High School League and offered to share her information. Dorothy E. McIntyre offered to help gather more information. Little did they anticipate the statewide program of high school girls basketball that would unfold before their eyes! Little could they anticipate the delight of locating and meeting so many real, very lively women who could tell them first-person stories of their playing days during this first era of girls basketball

It was time to "put out the call" for information. The first opportunity came when Janet Karvonen Montgomery, the premier player of the New York Mills team of the mid-1970s, interviewed Marian during a televised game at the MSHSL State Girls Basketball Tournament. The screen showed the League´s telephone number and asked the audience to call if they had information about this era of girls basketball

The next day the telephone rang "off the hook." The callers were women who played on the teams during those years and wanted to tell their stories! If their call wasn´t returned the next day, they called again!!

Many of the women said that they watched every year, wishing they could have been playing as high school athletes for a state championship on the floor of the Met Center or Williams Arena.

Information began to arrive. It came from the women and from families of women who had played and left mementos in their family archives. It came from schools that had opened their yearbooks and dug deep into trophy cases. It came from local historical societies that had archived photos and newspaper articles of local teams. A picture began to take shape that was much larger than anticipated. It pointed to a conclusion that nearly every community had sponsored a girls basketball team at some time during these early decades. Over 350 teams were identified and more are waiting to be discovered.

Many women commented that their families had never shown much interest in their basketball career. Others said they just never mentioned it to anyone. Some families regretted never knowing that their mother or grandmother had played basketball, on occasion discovering this information after her death.

The authors wrote articles and participated in radio and television interviews, asking for more information. Marie Keeler of Belle Plaine, Luella Anderson of Arlington, Irma Foley of Montgomery, Mabel Erickson of Mabel, and Jean Frarey Walters were featured as speakers at the 1999 MSHSL Women in Sports Leadership Conference. They "wowed" the audience with their tales and humorous stories of their high school days. They became sixteen year-old athletes again.

Now we are ready to tell their stories!

The reader is encouraged to review family records, to ask their women about their sports history, and to dig through those school yearbooks and historical files. Preserve and share the information with your local historical societies and schools.

There is more information yet to be discovered. But for now, here are their stories and what has been shared…so far!