By Deb Kroon
Review Staff Writer
When you walk into the basement of Jim and Mary Slater’s house, the first thing that catches your eye is the shelves of bowling trophies that line one wall. Mary, an avid bowler, has at least 70 trophies and a tapestry holding 74 bowling patches and 64 pins along with plaques and pictures attesting to her prowess at bowling. Mary’s bowling career began in 1950 as a way of getting off of the farm and socializing with other women.
Mary grew up on a farm about eight miles north of Worthington. Jim grew up on a farm near Wilmont. They met when Jim was in the hospital because of a car accident. Mary was a nurse’s aide and Jim was one of the people she looked after. “I was working as a nurse’s aide at the time, trying to decide if I wanted to pursue a career as a nurse,” Mary explained. With a grin Jim quipped, “When she met me she knew she had met her man.” Mary grinned at him and continued, “I decided not to go on with nursing.”
After getting married, Mary and Jim raised their two daughters, Vicki and Barbara on a farm 1 1/2 miles south of Wilmont, where they farmed until 1992. Mary stayed home and raised the girls and was a busy mom and farm wife. “There was only one time that I remember that I disliked what I did,” she told me. “I had a really great recipe for apple pie. I made dinner and hauled it out to the fields to feed the men. We had one smart aleck working for us. I dished up the apple pie and without even trying it, he said, ‘I don’t want that. I don’t like it.’ I wanted to throw the plate in his face.” Mary seems to be a pretty mild mannered woman, so she must have been pretty mad!
Mary began bowling in Wilmont. “The girls were real small,” Jim said. “I’d stay home with the them, and after a day working on the farm, I’d fall asleep on the couch. The girls would have a great time. Mary would come home to a mess. The couch just felt too good!”
Over the course of her career, she bowled in tournaments all over the US. She bowled in places as close as Sioux Falls, SD and Cedar Rapids, IA, and as far away as Toledo, OH. She and her teammates drove to almost all of the tournaments, except for the one tournament held in Reno, NV. The girls bowled as individuals one day of the tournament and as a team on the next. She has trophies from all the different tournaments, as well as miniature bowling pins with the name of the tournament and her score etched on each one. She doesn’t have the complete set any longer, as she has given some of them to her great-grandchildren. I asked how she kept track of all the different tournaments she had bowled in. She explained that was what the patches were for. Each patch represented a tournament (74 patches in all).
Jim reminisced about the one time she bowled on TV, on a local Sunday morning bowling show from Sioux Falls, probably in the early 1960s. “I wasn’t the best bowler,” Mary said humbly. “Rose Halburg was a better bowler. She actually beat me during the bowl-off, but she said I won fair and square and that I should be the one to go to Sioux Falls.” Jim explained that bowling uses handicaps just as golf does, so with Mary’s handicap figured in to her score, she had bowled well enough to beat Rose. “This was in the early years of bowling,” she explained. “I was nervous.” The TV cameras were right in the bowling alley with them. “I didn’t bowl well at all,” she said. “I lost.”
Mary continued to bowl with Rose for quite a long time. “The teams changed as people retired,” she explained. “I would just join another team, so I bowled with a number of different women over the years.” Mary retired from bowling in 2013, when health problems made it impossible to continue. Mary and Jim also bowled on mixed couples leagues, and there were trophies and patches for that in the mix.
Mary and Jim took up golfing in 1968. They golfed together for forty-five years, before putting away their clubs. “We started golfing in Slayton,” Jim said. It’s a tough course to start on. After a few years, they joined the country club in Worthington, where they were members until they quit. Mary went on a golf trip to Omaha as a part of a group of women. Jim commented that she was probably one of the oldest in the group. “I don’t know,” replied Mary. “I never considered myself old. We came out of the clubhouse ready to start our round, and this guy was sitting on a bench near the door. He began to give me a bad time. It went back and forth for a few minutes. I didn’t know this guy from Adam,” she said laughing. “The girls had to wait for me. It was a fun trip.”
The Slater’s daughters Vicki and Barbara graduated from high school in the early part of the 1970s. In 1970 they hosted a foreign exchange student from Finland by the name of Hannel. “She was the same age as our girls, so it worked out really well,” Mary commented. “We kept in touch for years, but Hannel is now married and has five children. She and Vicki still keep in touch, even though not as much as before.”.
Mary celebrated her 87th birthday on August 16. Mary and Jim are prime examples of two people who have spent their entire lives active and it has helped to keep them young. 60 years of bowling and 47 years of golf is a record that they are proud of and they should be!
