Adlore and Ellen were both 39 years old when Ellen gave birth to their 11^th child, Gordon (Gordy) Francis Vadnais, on November 20, 1928 in their home located at 1309 (now 1979) Fourth Street in White Bear Lake.¹  At the time of his birth, he had 8 living siblings: 18 year old George, 17 year old Charles, 11 year old Florence, 9 year old Dick, 7 year old Mona, 5 year old Leona, 3 year old Jack and 2 year old Marguerite.  Gordy’s other 2 siblings, Lawrence and Henry, had already passed away.

Ellen operated the gas pump located at the family home on Fourth Street and according to a story printed in the White Bear Press in 1984, “Mrs. Vadnais pumped gas the day before giving birth to son, Gordon.  The day after the birth, she was out there again.²

Father John Fahey baptized Gordy at St. Mary of the Lake Church on December 2, 1928.  The record lists his godfather as his brother George and his godmother as Lilly Halley, a person unknown to me.  Additionally, the baptismal record shows his given name as Francis Gordon instead of Gordon Francis.³

Gordy was about 16 months old when his mother gave birth to his sister, Anna Mae Ruth on March 27, 1930.⁴

Gordy, during an oral interview at the White Bear Lake Area Historical Society, talked about one of his favorite childhood memories.  He said, “My dad had this little oil business, he had a little oil truck and he used to have, they have a tank in the middle but on the inside they have compartments because they would put stuff in cans.  Maybe kerosene or something or lube oil or something else and then they would take that along or a can of white gas cause they used to have stoves that would burn white gas and that.

He’d take all those cans off and he’d put us in those racks, and then he sat and we would go to my grandmother’s house (Celestine Peltier).  And the kitchens like that little farm house, there, the kitchen is probably half of the house.  You know, that’s the biggest room in the house by far.  And we would sit down at the table.  My grandmother, she was just a little bitty thing she didn’t weigh ninety pounds I don’t think.  She’d give us each a big bowl and then she’d put little pieces of bread that she sliced on the table and then she’d put pitchers of cream, she had her own little jersey cows and that and bowls of sugar.  So, we’d take a piece of bread, tear it up in the bowl, pour the cream on it and put the sugar over it.  That was our Dairy Queen back then.”⁵

Gordy started school at St. Mary’s in 1934.

1943 marked Gordy’s graduation from the 8^th grade at St. Mary’s School.

Gordy’s future wife, Susan Ross Metzinger, was born to George and Harriet (Koyen) Metzinger in Phoenix, Maricopa County, Arizona on July 6, 1933.⁶  At the time of her birth, her father was 34 years old and her mother was 30 years old.  Susan was their first and only child.

By 1935 Susan and her parents are living in St. Paul, Minnesota where George is the general manager at Kindy Optical, which by this period of time had 22 stores across 5 states, with St. Paul being the location of the corporate offices.⁷  By 1950 Susan’s father was the executive vice-president of the company.⁸

Once Susan reached school age, she was enrolled at Summit School, an all girls K-12 private liberal arts school founded in 1917, on Goodrich Avenue in St. Paul.

I could only locate 2 years of The Flame, the yearbook for Summit School.^{9, 10}  Based on what I found it appears that Susan was athletic and involved in extra-curricular school activities.

To be continued…

Thanks for visiting, come back soon,
Cynthia

© 2026 Copyright by Cynthia Vadnais, All Rights Reserved

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Footnotes for Gordon Francis Vadnais (part 1 of 3) post