Ramsey County History – Summer 2005: “Growing Up in St. Paul: I Remember My Aunt: Frances Boardman—Music Critic, Who Covered an Archbishop’s Funeral”

Growing Up in St. Paul: I Remember My Aunt: Frances Boardman—Music Critic, Who Covered an Archbishop’s Funeral 
Author: Alexandra (Sandy) Klas

Written by the niece of Frances Boardman, the memoir starts with the background of the family. Boardman graduated from Central High School and became a pioneering woman in the newspaper world. First, she did odd jobs of writing, but she soon took over theater and literary criticism and then was given a special job to update the obituary for Archbishop John Ireland, who was near death. The author describes the procession and dignitaries at Ireland’s funeral. She lived in an apartment at 235 Summit that was filled with Victorian furnishings and hundreds of books. Because of the death of her mother, Klas spent a great deal of time in Boardman’s apartment, listening to her stories and accompanying her to concerts. When Boardman passed away in 1953, her friend James Gray wrote that she was “the very embodiment of a gentlewoman” and “a creature of myriad insights and the little candle of her wit lightened up everyone.”
PDF of Growing Up in Saint Paul