Elmer L. Andersen - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

He was born on June 17, 1909 in Chicago, Illinois. Andersen's father was Arne Kjelsberg, an immigrant from Solør, Norway, who changed his last name to Andersen after arriving in America and settling in Chicago. Elmer's mother was Jennie Olivia Johnson, of North Muskegon, Michigan. Her father was a seaman from Luleå, in northern Sweden, who came to America as a young man and worked in the timbering business. Elmer's father was a streetcar motorman in Chicago, operating on the Halsted streetcar line out of the Ashland Avenue car barns. "My earliest memory," Andersen wrote in his memoirs, "is of riding with him on the streetcar and being permitted to clang the bell as we came to street crossings." At about the age of six his parents separated. Elmer moved with his mother and infant sister, Caroline, to Muskegon, Michigan. His two older brothers, Arnold and Marvin, arrived in Muskegon at a later date. At the age of nine Andersen contracted a mild form of polio, but was able, through exercise, to regain his strength.

Andersen's brothers worked for E. H. Sheldon and Company in Muskegon, a manufacturer of specialty school furniture. Too young to work in the factory, Elmer's first job was helping his mother, who took in washing. From there he moved on to selling newspapers, vegetables, specialty products, candy bars and soft drinks. He also carried travelers bags from the boat docks to the train station. "I love selling," he wrote. "I love the interchange with people. A good salesman gains influence on another person's mind. That makes selling quite a serious undertaking." At the age of fourteen, Elmer joined his brothers at the Sheldon furniture factory (while simultaneously writing short essays on birds that were published in the Muskegon Chronicle). "The thrill I had seeing those columns in print was the start of an abiding attraction to the newspaper business."

Andersen's mother was devoted to church work and saw to it that the children were raised in the Lutheran church; Elmer was confirmed at Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Muskegon. During the winter of 1925, when Elmer was fifteen, his mother contracted a cold that developed into pneumonia. She died at home on March 3, 1925 with Elmer at her bedside. Within a year, Andersen's father was gone as well, dying of a heart attack on a street in Chicago.

Andersen graduated from high school in 1926 and became a member of the first class of the newly established Muskegon Junior College. On graduating, two years later, he received the first diploma from the school. While in college, he held a sales job with J. J. Fagan and Company, a real estate firm, and also worked as a stringer for the Muskegon Chronicle, while starting a newspaper, the Bay Window, for the junior college. Not long after, Elmer and his brothers started their own company, Muskegon Realty, which also sold casualty insurance for the Mercury Insurance Company. "I matured fast in those years. I was selling homes and farms. I was selling insurance. I was editing a college newspaper and stringing for a daily newspaper. I was studying and learning about things I had never known existed. It was almost an incredible time."

Elmer graduated from junior college in 1928. For the next year he worked as a salesman for the Sheldon Company, working out of Minneapolis. "A year in Minneapolis left me convinced that I wanted something more. I wanted to enroll at the University of Minnesota. I usually approach a new venture with specific objectives. In aiming for the University of Minnesota, I had three: I wanted to get a degree for reasons of job protection. I did not want somebody to push ahead of me because he had a degree and I did not. Another object was to meet a woman whom I might marry. I was beginning to long for a home life and a family. I was lonely. I discovered that being a traveling salesman, on the road all the time, was no way to meet the kind of women I wanted to meet….My third objective was to have a good time! I had been a fairly successful salesman and quite frugal with my earnings....So, having fun, finding a girl, getting a degree—those were my objectives. If I was able to learn anything along the way, that would be purely incidental!" Andersen graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1931.

Elmer met Eleanor Anne Johnson at Grace University Lutheran Church while they were both students. They were married September 1, 1932, almost three years from the day they met. Eleanor decided to leave the university when they were married, and postpone the completion of her degree. After their honeymoon the Andersens settled in the Twin Cities. By the summer of 1934 Andersen was growing dissatisfied with life as a traveling salesman. He heard through an associate that H. B. Fuller Company in St. Paul, a manufacturer of school paste, was looking for someone to hire in sales promotion. Andersen discussed the position with owner and president Harvey B. Fuller Jr. and on October 8, 1934 he joined the company.