Looking back on 100 years of life, Elgene “Gene” Lund of St. Peter has no regrets.
On Thursday, April 23 the retired nurse, Gustavus wife and mother celebrated her centennial birthday surrounded by over 200 family members, friends and neighbors she’s bonded with over the years. She considers herself blessed to have found so many loved ones and to be in good health for this landmark year.
“It feels wonderful. I’m feeling very good. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m feeling good and feeling so happy because all of my children are going to be here and what could make a mother happier?”
The only part of her health which bothers her is a bad knee, which she injured as a cheerleader in her hometown Chisago High School. Lund was at the very top of the pyramid formation when a girl at the bottom collapsed and sent Lund toppling to the gym floor with the rest of the cheerleaders.
It was in the small town of Chisago City, northeast of the Twin Cities, that Lund was born on April 23, 1924. Her family was poor, like many others during the Great Depression, but Lund persevered in her goal of becoming a nurse and was the only one of her siblings to receive a higher education. It was a dream of hers ever since she would sit out on the front porch as a young girl and play hospital with a nursing cap on.
Lund still fondly remembers the ceremony in which she received her nurse’s cap. She sent a photograph of herself in her new cap to her brother, who was serving in the Army overseas at a POW camp in Europe during WWII. When her brother opened the envelope, the pictures fell out and a German POW by the name of Fritz Stoll noticed Lund’s portrait and offered to paint her. Three weeks later, the painting arrived at Lund’s door signed by Stoll with a message at the bottom reading, “To an angel.” Lund has kept the portrait ever since.
While studying to become an RN, Lund met the man who would become her husband, Don Lund. Don was studying at the University of Nebraska when he saw Lund’s graduation picture on the desk of her old typing teacher at Chisago. Don asked who she was and Lund’s old friend arranged a date between the two of them, and Don drove all the way to St. Paul to meet her.
“This was during the war and gas was rationed,” said Lund’s daughter Rebecca Otterness. “Because he was on the youth board of the Augustana Lutheran Church and had this national meeting to go to in St. Paul, he was able to get these gas coupons. It’s sort of a blind date.”
It was the start of a lifelong love affair. Lund went on to follow her husband to Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, where he worked in the History Department for 40 years and served several stints as department head. Don was also the college’s historian and wrote books on Gustavus’ centennial and 125th anniversaries.
During their early years at Gustavus, the couple served as houseparents for the boys dormitory at Johnson Hall, which was destroyed decades later in the 1998 tornado. Lund had a warm relationship with the students and the halls were often filled with the melody of “Happy Birthday,” because the boys knew she would always bake them a cake.
“Whether anybody had a birthday or not, it didn’t make any difference. They sang ‘Happy Birthday,’ because they knew if they sang I would bake a cake. I did it every time,” said Lund. “They would do anything to get a cake.”
“That life in the dorm, even though I was the only woman in the dorm with all those boys, they would come down and they would even offer to babysit so we could go out for an evening,” she added. “That’s how good the boys were.
Lund further lent her talents as a nurse to the health service at Gustavus. She was also a member of the Gustavus Wives Club, a group dedicated to the spouses of faculty.
After several years living at the dormitory, Lund began to build a house in St. Peter in 1953. The neighborhood quickly became akin to an extended family for Lund as she made close connections with each of the residents on her street. It wasn’t uncommon for Lund to hold a spontaneous neighborhood picnic at her place, bringing together 12 sets of parents and 36 kids — including her own four children — all under one roof.
“Often through the years [she] would bake something and [she] would call the neighbors,” said Otterness.“She was like the neighborhood hostess.”
Over the years, Lund would regularly hold neighborhood Christmas parties for a neighbor whose birthday was on New Year’s Day. She would have the house so full of people one could hardly find a place to sit down, and she would invite one of the neighbors to act as Santa Claus.
Lund also known as the neighborhood nurse, and regularly helped her friends in times of crisis.
Lund further made herself known throughout the neighborhood as an expert decorator. She could often be seen keeping her home in tip-top shape, hauling out a bucket of paint any time part of the house started to peel. The ornate Christmas decorations Lund placed outside of her home around the holiday season also won her the top prize in a citywide Christmas decoration contest. Though, much to her chagrin, the plaque was written out her husband’s name when he hadn’t so much as hung a bulb.
Today, Lund remains in good health, surrounded by friends and family. What more could one ask for?
“It’s been such a wonderful life, I just cannot complain about anything,” said Lund.
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