Photos courtesy of the Pearson Family
Design by Jack Silberman
Mel Pearson holds court every day
after practice in his office at Yost Ice
Arena.
Usually he talks about hockey.
But on Nov. 6, he was asked about his
high school years, and another thought
resurfaced: Susie, his wife, and how
they met.
As he finished up his story about her,
he got up from his couch and headed to
the exit. While he put his hand on the
door, another person walked through
the entrance. All eyes turned to her.
“Here’s Mrs. Pearson!” Mel said.
It was a coincidence Mel’s wife was
there, but he made the most of it.
“Here, they want to interview you,”
Mel said. “This is my wife Susie. They
want to know how we met in high
school.
“ … I just told him you wouldn’t leave
me alone.”
He didn’t wait for a rebuttal, instead
opting to leave the room chuckling. She
plopped in his empty seat and looked
each person in the room in the eye. She
smiled before asking a simple question
that perked every ear.
“Do you really want to know the true
story?”
***
Mel was from Flin Flon, Manitoba;
Susie was from Atlanta.
But the two of them moved around
the country. Mel spent a large portion
of his childhood shifting through Los
Angeles, Baltimore and Portland. Susie
stayed South in Atlanta with a brief stop
in California before eventually ending
up in a hockey town in Minnesota —
Edina, where she and Mel crossed
paths.
“It’s kind of a miracle that we even
met,” Susie said.
The two of them were transplants
due to their fathers’ work.
Mel’s dad, also Mel, was a
professional hockey player. The
Pearsons had jumped from city to city
due to his job — his last team was the
World Hockey Association’s Minnesota
Fighting Saints based in Edina. Upon
getting cut, the elder Pearson decided
the family should go back to Flin Flon
for good. But Mel’s mother, Ruby,
pushed to keep him in Edina for his
education and hockey career, leaving
him with a billet family and eventually
the Andersons.
Instead of going back to Canada, he
stayed in Minnesota, attending Edina
East High School.
Susie’s dad accepted a job in St. Paul,
Minn. at 3M the
summer before Susie’s
sophomore year in high
school. Before they moved in,
Susie’s parents researched good
schools in the area. One, in particular,
caught their eyes — Edina East, a half-
hour drive from St. Paul. Rather than
buying a house closer to his job, Susie’s
dad bit the bullet and took the long rides
every morning so that his daughter
could get a better education.
Instead of living in St. Paul, Susie’s
family bought a house in Edina so she
could attend Edina East.
And in study hall, the two of them
met.
***
At Edina East, study hall was held
either on the third floor of the library,
or the study tables in the cafeteria.
Normally, the sessions were split by
class. Since Mel was a junior at the time
and Susie a sophomore, they were split
into different sessions. Mel spent a lot of
time in the cafeteria, while Susie would
be in the library. But he passed through
the library every now and then, and she
caught his eye.
“Here’s the true story,” Susie said.
“He switched his study hall so that he
could be in my study hall.”
Now sharing a period, he pulled out a
chair one day and sat next to her, asking
for help on an assignment.
To her, he was a hockey player
with an unmistakable look. He had an
afro, a halo of red curls that extended
several inches from his head, and wore
bell bottom corduroys with clogs. He
talked funny, but so did she. He had a
Canadian accent, and she had a bit of a
southern twang.
To him, she was a tennis player who
was similar to him, new to the school.
Most kids had their own cliques. They
were the transplants.
“We sort of came together whether
it’s fate as we were new kids on the
block,” Mel said. “So she was a good
looking young lady, and I was attracted
to her.”
They gravitated toward one another.
He found she had an infectious
personality, and she thought he had
the same. Moving around constantly,
Mel learned how to be sociable. He was
sarcastic but, at the same time, kind.
“That’s what kind of drew me to
him,” Susie said. “If you look at him or
just kind of the way he dressed and his
hairstyle, he has a warm heart, and he
always had a warm heart.”
Even though they clicked from the
start, they didn’t start dating right away.
In fact, Mel was with another girl at the
time. But that relationship was already
reaching its end. When Susie came into
the picture, it was the start of a new
story.
“How do you know that the love of
your life is the person when you’re 15?”
Susie asked. “But that’s kind of how it
became obvious to both of us.”
***
When Susie’s dad first laid eyes on
Mel, he didn’t like what he saw.
There were no cell phones back then,
so to contact one another, Susie and Mel
would just knock on the door.
Mel did that, and upon seeing him,
Susie’s dad immediately disapproved.
Her mom was more accepting. She was
always the more kind and loving of the
two. But her dad was a hardass, and
frankly, Mel was scared. He had been
nervous to meet him, and now that they
finally met, Mel was off to a bad start.
“He basically said ‘I love my
daughter, and I don’t know if you’re
the right guy.’ or, ’You can’t fool me,’ or
something like that.” Mel said
There was no warm welcome or
“come back anytime.” Susie’s dad was
protective. He drew the line and set
ground rules. Mel appreciates that now
that he has two daughters of his own
and understands what her dad was
trying to do, but at the time, he was
anxious.
Luckily, he didn’t have to see much
of her dad. Susie’s dad traveled a lot for
work, so instead, when he came over,
he’d be greeted by just her mom. And
she knew what was up — his frequent
visits gave it away too easily.
But eventually, her dad warmed
up to Mel, too. Susie noted he became
Mel’s biggest fan. He just had to get to
know the teenager first.
“Once (he) got to know me,” Mel
said, “obviously I wasn’t that bad a guy.”
And while Mel would spend every
holiday with the Andersons, his billet
family, he would make an exception for
one holiday. He spent Thanksgivings
with Susie’s family.
“He did have the Anderson family,”
Susie said, “but then he kind of quickly
became a part of our family too.”
***
With a year difference, Mel
graduated high school first and had
already committed to playing hockey
at Michigan Tech in Houghton. Susie
stayed behind to finish high school.
The two of them knew what they
wanted, though.
They wanted to stay
together, so they decided
to not date anyone else.
When he could, Mel would
try to see her. During school breaks,
he would come back to Edina and
stay with the Andersons. But John
Anderson, his billet brother, knew the
real reason Mel would return so often.
“We’d like to think that we really had
a nice family,” John said. “But I think it
was really Susie that kept him around.”
And whenever the Huskies played
the University of Minnesota, Mel would
break off from the team to try and get
lunch with Susie, even if it was only for
an hour or two — anything to catch up
and spend time together.
After Susie graduated high school,
she attended Minnesota. Her parents
paid for her first year, and so Susie
and Mel’s permanent reunion was
prolonged a year. But she didn’t
know what she wanted to do. She
did know, however, that she wanted
to be with Mel. Both of them were
tired of long distance. And upon Mel’s
encouragement, after her freshman
year, Susie dropped out from Minnesota
and worked before moving up to
Houghton to spend Mel’s last year there
with him.
“We knew that we were the ones for
each other, and it was getting kind of
tiring to be apart,” Susie said.
It was a leap of faith. While Mel
attended classes and played hockey, she
worked at the bookstore. She moved in
with a girl she had known from high
school, the girlfriend of a teammate of
Mel’s. Mel lived separately with two
other teammates. But the two of them
were fully committed.
And Mel made that clear the winter
of his senior year.
He had thought about it for a while.
The summer before school started,
when he was still in Minnesota, he
scouted for a ring and bought it. The
decision was easy. He knew proposing
was the right thing, but he was still a
little scared.
“You’re nervous if she’s going to say
yes or too young or whatever,” Mel said.
But she was ready for the
commitment. And he was too. So when
winter rolled around, he hid the ring
in a medicine cabinet in his house,
and she stumbled across it. It wasn’t
picturesque or sappy; he didn’t get
down on one knee. Mel jokes that’s how
they teach it in Flin Flon, where they’re
simple people. But it got the point
across.
“It was not anything big and
romantic,” Susie said. “But it didn’t
downplay that it wasn’t a big deal.
“It would just seem like the natural
progression. And I know it’s hard
because we were still young, but we just
knew we were the ones for each other.”
***
The summer before Mel’s senior
year in college, before he and Susie got
engaged, he went back to Flin Flon to
spend time with his real family.
Flin Flon is a small town 500 miles
north of Winnipeg, the nearest big city.
Because it is so far north, the days seem
to never end. The sunlight carries over
until midnight, and comes back at 4 or
5 a.m. It’s a scenic place that attracted
some tourism. But above all else, it’s a
mining town, and when Mel got back,
naturally, he mined.
Susie had pleaded with her parents
to let her visit, and to her surprise, they
agreed.
“I can’t really believe my parents let
me do that,” Susie said. “Because, now
that I’m a parent, I look back and think,
‘Wow, they were kind of trusting but
sent me on a plane.’ ”
Though she arrived and stayed for
a couple weeks, Mel still had work
at Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting
Company. While he stripped away the
zinc, sharpened drill bits in the steel
shop, worked underground, she spent
time with his mom and sister. Susie
did get to see him during the day once,
when she took a tour around the plant.
But it wasn’t really until after he
got off work late that they were able to
spend time together.
And luckily for them, the days never
got dark.
***
The fact that Susie could spend time
with his mother, Ruby, that summer
meant a lot to Mel. Ruby was a driving
force in Mel’s life, determined for him
to have the best. And like Susie, Ruby
was outgoing and sweet, so when they
met, they hit it off right away.
“It’s very important for me to meet
all my family,” Mel said. “So it’s nice
that she came up and met Ruby.”
Susie had moved to Edina after the
Pearsons had moved back to Canada.
They had met a couple times briefly in
Minnesota, but that summer in Flin
Flon, they really got to know her. And
they adored her.
“I think they really enjoyed her,
enjoyed her company,” Mel said. “And
how could you not?”
Sports
Sports
8A — Friday, February 14, 2020
michigandaily.com
TIEN LE
Daily Sports Writer
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