Mary Medved

Read, read, read. Be kind to each other. I had a Latin teacher say don’t judge people because you don’t know if they are carrying the world on their shoulders.

Mary Medved

My name is Mary Cathryn Erwin Medved. I was born in 1942 in the wilderness of Golden Valley, Minnesota. My parents were both from Ireland. My father was a dentist and my mother staid home with me. I am an only child.

My dad had a heart attack when I was 4 years old, so my mother and I had to move from our home to an apartment in St. Louis Park. To this day I do not like the confines of an apartment. I graduated from High School with a class of 493. Education was very important to my family.

I went to college at St. Kate’s to become an English teacher. While I was in college I was in a mission club that worked with poor people. I learned you don’t have to be wealthy to be happy. After I graduated I taught English.

My husband and I have been married for 43 years. He is from Slovenia. During World War II his family had to flee to a refugee camp in Austria. Through his experiences he learned to be quiet, unlike me whom likes to talk a lot.

We had three children of our own, but one died. Plus, we adopted two children and were foster parents for three more, which we ended up adopting too. My children’s backgrounds include: Cherokee, Lakota, African American, Irish, and French.

While my children were in school I became very involved at their schools (Silver Oak, Wilshire Park) I worked my way up to PTA president. I helped with a study on effects of television violence on children, turned the parking lot into a one-way parking lot, and helped get a stop light put in near the school.