APRIL 22, 2024 – In a sleek, elegant, modern, low-profile house with a well-maintained lawn that swept down to the Mississippi River lived the Benzians—Dick and Margaret and their three sons, Peter, John, and Stephen. From the street, the house was all but hidden by trees that separated the dwelling from the open half of the lot, where the kids in my crowd—the Joslyns, Casey Ward, Bobby Snyder, Jeff Anderson, the two youngest Coleman kids, who lived right next door to the Benzian lot, and I played classic sandlot baseball.
Dick Benzian owned Richard’s, one of the two big furniture stores in town. Ironically, his competitor, Harlan Thurston, lived right next door to him—in the swanky colonial-style house that likewise had a commanding view of the river on one side and an acre of land stretching in the other direction to Rice Street. Moreover, Thurston’s was just down the street from Richard’s in downtown Anoka.
Margaret Benzian was the most glamorous woman on Rice Street. She reminded me of pictures of Cleopatra that I’d seen in books in our den. For a dash of color she wore headbands in her straight black hair. She drove a late model black Thunderbird. I figured that since her husband didn’t drive, and therefore didn’t need a car, she lucked out with what amounted to essentially one nice car for the price of two average cars. I always wanted a ride in the fancy car, but it seemed that the closest I’d ever get was a battery-operated toy aqua Thunderbird (with a cream-colored convertible hardtop that with the push of a button, slipped into the trunk) that Uncle Bruce gave me for Christmas one year.
If Margaret looked rich and aristocratic, however, she never failed to smile and wave from the Thunderbird, though we were often trespassing all the way to the river in front of the house. In the winter, the shallow ravine that separated Benzian’s lot from Thurston’s offered an excellent sliding opportunity. The best launching point was just a few yards from the Benzian’s front door, but again, Margaret never seemed to mind.
On one especially cold morning as I walked alone up Rice Street on my way to Anoka Junior High on the other side of the Rum River, Margaret and Dick pulled up in the Thunderbird. Margaret was chauffeuring Dick to his store, as she did every day. She lowered her window and asked me if I wanted a ride.
I liked walking to school, even in the extreme cold. The 20-minute journey gave me time to think, and the bracing air was invigorating. But Margaret’s offer of a ride in the Thunderbird was a dream come true. I readily accepted. Apart from saying “Hi,” Dick left all the talking—as well as the driving—to Margaret. She was friendly and engaging, and affirmed the impressions that I already had of her.
When Tyrone Guthrie was conducting his national search for a location of a leading new American theater, Margaret Benzian was one of a handful of people who persuaded him to give the prize to Minneapolis. She was a member of the initial board of directors of the Guthrie and heavily involved thereafter.
Dick Benzian was invisible. Except for that chance ride in the Thunderbird, I never had any interaction with him; no smile or wave from the car, as Margaret drove him to and from the furniture store. And I never set foot inside Richard’s to see him talk with customers. But maybe he never mingled with customers; perhaps he just pulled the business strings behind the scene. Clearly, Richard’s was a thriving enterprise (as was its competitor, Thurston’s), but according to my brother-in-law, who in modern times heard it directly from one of the sons, Dick hated the furniture business.
Dick’s obituary, however, told a story of a man heavily engaged in the community—concerts, Halloween Festival, the chamber of commerce, and the Mercy Hospital fund drive[1]. Preferred memorials were to be given to the Anoka Public Library—a reflection, no doubt, of Margaret’s own involvement in the cause of public libraries: she served as president of the Minnesota Public Library Trustees Association.
I might’ve seen the sons once or twice, but only as they walked between the house and the Thunderbird (or was it their sports cars?—I can’t be sure). Two of the brothers, John and Peter, graduated from Dartmouth and became lawyers. John became a muckety-muck at National Car Rental and a competitive sailor. Peter was a 35-year partner in the L.A. office of the high-powered, inter-galactic law firm of Latham & Watkins. John and Peter, both now deceased, were heavily involved in a range of volunteer and charitable works. The third brother, Stephen, graduated from Tulane Medical School and is a radiologist in California.
Little did I know of any of this until recently, when Garrison gave me the run-down on the Benzians. He was a friend and high school classmate of Peter and a friend of John, who was three years younger. Garrison had reconnected with each before their untimely deaths and was a big fan of both; said they were remarkably smart, well educated, kind and community minded. According to Garrison, Margaret had no formal education beyond high school in Nebraska and that Dick was Jewish and from Manhattan (which former residence would explain why he didn’t drive). Margaret’s obituary revealed that she was from Montana, not Nebraska and that she’d found her way to Minnesota by way of a marketing job on the radio and later at Dayton’s department store. Garrison and I were left to guess how in the world Dick had found his way to Minnesota, but without knowing my mother’s background, one could ask the same of her disembarking in the Land of 10,000 Lakes—and on Rice Street in Anoka along the Mississippi River.
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
[1] My parents were heavily involved in fund-raising efforts for a new (“Mercy”) hospital in Anoka. That was but one of their extensive civic involvement—most notably the Anoka Public Library (my mother) and the Community Concert Series, which brought the Minneapolis Symphony (now called the Minnesota Orchestra) to town. Benzians were likewise active in community organizations. But so were lots of people in Anoka during that era.
