Norman Twetten didn’t graduate
from Hamline. Nevertheless, the university honored him at a football game last
fall. That’s because Twetten died serving in World War II before he could ever
collect his diploma. Before entering the military, Twetten attended Hamline for
two years and played on the football team. His name can be found on an
inconspicuous commemorative plaque hanging in Hutton Arena that lists all
Hamline athletes who didn’t survive the war. While the plaque has long served
as Hamline’s tribute to its WWII dead, the university recently started
remembering those soldiers at present-day sporting events.
Twetten was remembered at the
October 20 game against St. John’s. Even though the home team lost, Doris
Sheils considered the game a winner. Sheils journeyed from Iowa to watch the
Pipers play that day and to witness Hamline honor her big brother. As the
national anthem played before the start of the game, Twetten’s funeral flag was
hoisted high; it flew above the stadium for the length of the game. The
scoreboard called out Twetten’s name and highlighted his service.
“Norman was a sports man.
Baseball, football, any kind of ball he liked,” Sheils said. “He was a real
gentle person. A quiet type. He would have been real surprised to know he was
being honored at a game.”
The commemorative tribute
surprised Sheils as well. “I’m eighty-nine years old,” she said. “Norman’s
death happened so long ago. I didn’t know what to expect from the service. I
knew it would be special but I didn’t think it would impress me that much. I
didn’t realize how close it was to my heart after all these years. It was
heartbreaking. I’m so thankful.”
Twetten grew up in Stillwater.
He enrolled at Hamline as the school’s Methodist roots matched his own.
Unfortunately, after completing two years of study, his mother was diagnosed
with cancer. Twetten left Hamline to help care for his mom. Soon after her
death, he entered the service. It was 1940. He married and together with his
young wife, traveled from camp to camp completing military training. He was
commissioned as an officer in 1943 and sent to the European front. He fought in
the Battle of the Bulge and earned a Silver Star for his efforts. He died in
Germany on April 10, 1945.
Besides his father, sister, and
wife, Twetten also left behind a baby daughter. Linda Partridge, Twetten’s only
child, was born just three weeks before her father’s death. She never met him
and for many years wondered whether or not her father had ever received word of
her birth before being killed. She later learned through correspondence with
another soldier that he had. Partridge joined her aunt at this fall’s
commemorative football service in honor of her father. A cousin was also in
attendance; health concerns prevented Twetten’s wife from attending. As she had
never met her father, the commemorative service was especially significant for
Partridge. “I knew that my father attended Hamline, but I’d never been there,”
Partridge said. “I was really impressed. It’s such a beautiful campus right in
the middle of the city.”
For her, the most nostalgic part
of the day was watching her father’s flag flap in the wind. “My mother had
given me my father’s flag years ago and it’s been sitting on a shelf in my
house,” she explained. “You know, it’s one of those things that you can’t get
rid of, but you don’t quite know what to do with it either. I was glad to have
it flown. Now it has meaning for me.”
“Institutions don’t always have
long memories and it’s a real credit to Hamline that it’s honoring its fallen
soldiers,” Partridge said. “The entire day was perfect. It wasn’t overdone or
over the top. It was very gratifying. It was a happy day. A healing day.”
“Hamline gave me my first direct
memory of my father,” she explained. “Every other memory I have is second hand.
There are no pictures of him holding me. No stories of him interacting with me.
Nothing. When you lose someone, if you have memories, that’s what comforts you
through the pain, but I never had any memories. Now I do.”
Editor’s note: For information
on honoring an alumni veteran at a home football game, please contact Dana
Johnson, director of development for athletics, at 651-523-2754.
By: Kelly Westhoff