Times Picayune - KATRINA'S LIVES LOST
The life stories behind the storm victims; Goodbye, ‘Mr. Pete’
- Angus Lind, Staff writer

Tulane graduate, day camp director and quintessential fan will live on in the memories of thousands of Orleanians Jean and Einer ‘Pete ’ Pederson were married 63 years.He died Sept.11 after a bout with cancer.

No telling how many thousands of New Orleans area kids went to Tulane Day Camp and were awed by “Mr. Pete.”

Einar “Pete” Pedersen directed the summer camp on the Tulane University campus for 20 years starting in 1952. A gifted scholarship track athlete who was a pole-vaulter as well as a basketball player, he gradu-ated from Tulane in 1939. He was also the director of the Tulane University Center, where he was employed from 1948 until he retired in 1982 at age 65.

He and his wife, Jean, who were married 63 years, were such a permanent fixture at all Tulane sporting events, it was noticeable when they were absent — which virtually never happened in all those years.

“He believed in God, America and Tulane University — and sometimes not in that order,” said his son Einar Pedersen Jr. of Enid, Okla.

It was in Enid, after he and his wife fled from Katrina, that “Mr. Pete” died of cancer Sept. 11 at age 88.

“There was a calendar on the wall in his hospital room,” the younger Pedersen said. “He looked at it, asked what date it was, was told it was Sept. 10 and said, ‘Everybody will remember me if I die on 9/11.’ ”

He kept his word.

“It worked out for the best,” his son said. “He got to see everybody in the family. He was at peace. It was a peaceful ending.”

Jean Pedersen, despite her loss, has managed to see the bright side.

“We had 63 wonderful years,” she said. “Tulane games, College Inn, Phillips, Bruno’s — we were like Velcro. I had such a great life and have wonderful children to look after me. I have no regrets.”

An accomplished musician who played piano, organ, accordion, banjo and ukulele, Pedersen “taught himself to play piano through The Times-Picayune,” said his son Leif Pedersen.

“They published a chord every week. He collected all the chords and made a book and learned the chord progression.”

Pedersen was a member of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartets and wrote and arranged a multitude of songs for campus night shows and for four-part barbershop harmony. He joked before his death about writing one titled “I Married an Albino and Lost Her in the Snow.”

“He was writing ’em till the end,” said Pedersen Jr. “We got a barbershop quartet to come sing to him near the end. He loved it.”

In its heyday, the Tulane Day Camp was held each summer for boys and girls ages 6-12 for virtually two months, and there was also a teenage program. Both attracted youngsters not only from Uptown but also from the entire metropolitan area, especially from households of Tulane graduates or Tulane fans.

It was a highly structured, competitive program with an intense baseball competition. But there was also swimming, archery, other sports, arts and crafts (held under the old Tulane Stadium on Willow Street), singing and a wide variety of activities.

After World War II, said Leif Pedersen, Tulane President Dr. Rufus Harris approached Pedersen about starting a camp because there were so many children around the campus in the post-war years.

“Tulane Day Camp was the light of his life,” said Pedersen Jr. “He had always wanted to have one. We all worked there, all my brothers and sisters and my mom.” Pedersen had been active in the Boy Scouts and Eagle Scouts. He went to Officer Candidate School in the Navy and became a lieutenant commander. “It was a natural progression for him to have a camp.”

At the beginning, all the counselors were Tulane athletes, and as the years went by, many former campers would serve in those roles. Tulane football players Tommy Warner and Terry Terrebonne were among those who were main cogs.

As director of the University Center, or student union, Pedersen was something of a hero with students because he was responsible for turning an unused portion of the basement into the Rathskeller, where students could buy beer on campus. (The drinking age was 18 at the time.)

To make it an authentic-looking beer hall, Pedersen wrote to more than 100 colleges and universities, asking each for a beer mug or stein with the school logo on it. He also asked that a bill be sent with each mug. He got 90 responses and zero bills. There was even one from LSU —a mug, not a bill.

Pedersen always had the look of an athlete, a Nordic athlete with a barrel chest and muscular arms. He was blond, had blue eyes — no surprise there — and had remarkable posture even in his later years. “He was a tough old bird,” said Pedersen Jr., “but a fair tough old bird. His values were good.

“Growing up in the ’50s, most of us had cowboys for heroes. Mine was Roy Rogers — he shot straight, always was careful just to wound the bad guy, was a straight talker and had time for a song or two in every movie. You always believed Roy. Well, that was my dad, who remains my real hero.

“He was a straightforward good guy. You might not agree with him, but you knew he believed in what he said. He could never have been a politician — taking consensus polls before speaking — that would have been contemptible to him. You knew where he stood on every issue.”

His dad also found time for music every day of his life. Everybody in the family sang. “He always had us singing, but I couldn’t carry a tune,” he said.

Brother Leif, however, inherited the talent and wound up singing with such big bands as the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, as well as Pete Fountain and Al Belletto.

“And finally,” said Pedersen Jr., “like Roy Rogers, he had a companion for life beside him every step of the way, my mom, Jean. They both bled blue and green. They attended everything together and I would venture there was only a handful of (Tulane) games that they didn’t attend over the last 40 years.”

The Pedersens lived in a house on Clara Street for years. It was ruined by Katrina. Jean Pedersen likely will move to her daughter’s house on the north shore but no doubt will come back to see New Orleans . . . and a Green Wave game.

You know “Mr. Pete” would approve.

- Oct. 11, 2005

Reprinted with permission of the Times Picayune.