2008-02-12 Gretchen

Gretchen Mitchell Anderson had the good fortune to celebrate her 100th birthday in December. Masses were held in her honor at local Catholic churches, she had a birthday lunch with friends and family, and many came to offer birthday greetings at an open house at Holy Angels Church.

When I was growing up, Gretchen lived across the street from me. I’ve recently discovered that she has many interesting tales to tell and I love listening to her stories. Her family has been in Aurora a long time - both of her parents were born here. A couple of interesting facts are that Mitchell Road and Hermes School were named after her relatives.

Gretchen was born on December 4, 1907 to John F. and Anna (Hermes) Mitchell in a house on Forest Avenue, on the north end of Aurora at the time. When she was just three months old her family moved to New York Street, where she grew up with her older sister and two younger brothers. Dr. Dreyer was a neighbor and he made house calls for her frequent bouts with bronchitis, which was sometimes very serious.

Gretchen attended Sacred Heart School and graduated from the all-girls St. Mary’s High School. When she was in school the children walked from school to the Fox Theater downtown for programs for Civil War veterans. It is incredible to think of this time when there were many surviving Civil War veterans and yet World War II was still decades away.

One of Gretchen’s great loves in life was the theater. She enjoyed participating in plays and shows at school. After high school she directed plays with the Lafayette Players, sponsored by Sacred Heart and drawing participants from all over the area. Even now she says one of her favorite memories is that of coaching plays because she loved bringing words to life.

She has always spent a lot of time with her relatives. They went to dances and parties and took vacations together. She enjoyed the many recreational opportunities available in Aurora and lately has been enjoying the “Entertaining Aurora” book that brings back these memories.

After the deaths of Gretchen’s parents, she moved from her childhood home into an apartment at her brother’s home on Mountain St. She became a surrogate grandmother to her nieces and nephews. One great-niece was named after her. She continues to enjoy relationships with generations of nieces and nephews and she appreciates them greatly.

At Detweiler Conservatory she helped children with speech impediments. There became less need for this as public schools took over this function so she went to secretarial school and entered the business world. While Gretchen had hoped to go back to working with children and directing plays, she wound up taking the train to work in downtown Chicago instead.

When Gretchen applied for her Social Security card she found out she didn’t exist! Her birth certificate had not been properly registered by the doctor (it simply said female, without giving any name) and getting this straightened out was complicated by the fact that she had been baptized as Margaret Mary Mitchell, a name she had never gone by. At the time, her mother was still living and able to attest to Gretchen’s identity.

For some time Gretchen worked in automobile financing at Northern Illinois Finance. (Ironically, she had never yet driven a car at the time she held this job and she first drove in the 1950s.) Her boss left to work at Old Second National Bank and she stayed for several weeks working discontentedly for the new boss. Eventually she could stand it no longer and resigned without having a new job in place. That very day on her lunch break she happened to run into her former boss, who offered to take her out to lunch. Amazingly, it turned out there was a job opening at Old Second and he walked her right over to get her set up.

Her first job at Old Second was checking securities in the trust department. She was a dedicated employee and many times worked late hours, especially during the war. She was promoted several times and eventually became one of the first female trust officers in the area.

One day there a party was being held for an attorney and the bankers were required to attend. It was a beautiful September day and Gretchen really didn’t want to spend her day there. Her sister told her to go and even told her which clothes and jewelry she should wear. This turned out to be a life-changing decision. There she met Ture Anderson. They hit it off from the start and enjoyed each other’s company at the party. She and some of Ture’s relatives went over to his house afterward, and his sister-in-laws drove her home.

Ture called and asked her out to dinner the next Saturday night. Though she was in her fifties and rarely dated, she already had a date for that evening. On the third attempt Ture was able to get a date with her for a Sunday. Ture promised Gretchen’s nephew, whom he had known previously, that he would have her in by midnight. They had dinner at a place on the river in Oregon, IL and arrived home four minutes before midnight. Ture apparently thought this was too early since he’d promised 12, and drove around until he could bring her home at exactly 12:00.

They had a New Year’s Eve date in New York City. Shortly after that he romantically presented her with an engagement ring at her home. They were married in May of 1963 and moved into the home where Ture had been living for several years on Fourth Street. They were unable to go on a longer trip to Europe due to work commitments so had their honeymoon in Williamsburg. Gretchen recalls spending one day learning about early American history and the same evening watching news about the space program.


The following year they had the first of their trips to Europe together. Over the years they visited many places including Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, Copenhagen, England, and Ture’s homeland and family in Sweden. They had good times on their trips and encountered many interesting people and places in the course of their travels.

Although Ture had grown up Lutheran, he converted to Catholicism before he met Gretchen. She came to Our Lady of Good Council with Ture and has loved it there ever since.

Their priest had written to The Vatican and Gretchen and Ture hoped to have a visitation with Pope Paul VI while they were in Rome. Each night when they returned to their hotel they hoped to have received in invitation. Finally on the fourth night a small gold box inviting them to a reception with Pope Paul VI had arrived. The man at the hotel had already arranged their transportation to St. Peter’s for the visit the following day. Gretchen wore special shoes on this trip due to a back problem and was not able to battle the crowds to get a close spot inside. Lo and behold, when she made it to the room behind everyone else, a woman from Wales whom she’d never before met waved her over and said she’d saved her a seat because she noticed her difficulty.

In Paris Gretchen had a chance encounter with a nun she’d met on a family trip to Colorado decades earlier. Once they took a boat from New York to England and while there they visited Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. In the airport in Milan they met a woman whose husband was working on the German trials. His family had been killed in the concentration camps and somehow he had survived and wound up living in Canada.

After Ture’s death Gretchen and her good friend Helen Redding enjoyed many winters in Florida with a group who traveled together by bus. Gretchen has been able to remain living in her own home with the help of her caregiver, Pepa.

Gretchen’s family and friends have always been and still are an integral part of her life and she continues to enjoy life because of them. We should all be so lucky as to live such a long and healthy life full of rich experiences and rewarding relationships.