Biography

Letter written by Ed to his parents.  It is primarily about the Kretchmer’s rescue of P.O.W.s from Formosa, and it is a rather significant historical document . (7/3, Box 12:02)

A military citation given to Ed and the members of the Kretchmer for evacuating the P.O.W.s from Formosa.  (7/3, Box 8:02)

Ed’s transcript from Harvard University’s Navy Supply Corps training.  (7/2, Box 2:01)

A photo of the Kretchmer crew  (7/2, Box 2:04)

Ed’s Naval Reserve appointment  (7/3, Box 8:02)

Certificate confirming Ed’s appointment to the Navy Supply Corps (7/3, Box 8:02)

An essay written by Ed about his experiences in wartime London.  This is a very significant historical document.  (7/2, Box 2:05)

An essay entitled “July 1945 – Hawaii: A Rest Stop In War Time,” that is about Ed’s visit with a priest at a small Catholic church in Hawaii. (7/2, Box 2:05)

An essay about Ed’s wartime experiences in Italy, particularly Naples.  (7/2, Box 2:06)

Two photographs, presumably of Ed in his Navy uniform at home in St. Cloud.   (7/3, Box 8:02)

A copy of Ed’s resume from 1984.  This document that details most of Ed’s numerous professional accomplishments.  (7/3, Box 8:07)

A syllabus from Ed’s History of Political Thought class that he taught at St. Michael’s.   (7/2, Box 3:10)

“An Introduction to the Political Science Department at St. Michael’s College.”  This document that shows the workings behind a political science department in the 1970’s/1980’s.   (7/2, Box 3:25)

Some pieces of literature from Ed’s mayoral runs.  (7/3, Boxes 8:04 and 8:05)

A telegram from the White House inviting Ed to meet with the president to discuss foreign and domestic affairs.  (7/3, Box 8:12)

A mid-term exam from Ed’s Public Administration course.   (7/2, Box 3:30)

A syllabus from the Public Administration class Ed taught at St. Michael’s  (7/2, Box 3:29)

Ed’s teaching contract with Saint John’s from the 1950s.  (7/3, Box 8:14)

A later contract with SJU from the 1970s.   (7/3, Box 8:10)

The letter and contract confirming Ed’s appointment as president of St. Mary’s.  (7/3, Box 8:10)

Ed’s transcript from Cathedral High School (7/2, Box 2:02)

A picture of Ed on the football team.  He was a left tackle on the Cathedral football team during high school.  (7/3, Box 11:02)

Ed’s transcript from SJU  (7/2, Box 2:02)

“Does the Contemporary American Enjoy Greater Human Freedom and Fulfillment Than His Forebears?”  Ed’s primary thesis in this address is that the contemporary American enjoys greater levels of freedom than ever before.  Part of this is due to the installation of the welfare state, which has helped people use freedoms that were previously stifled by deprivation and other factors.  Also, the economic prosperity of the entire society has allowed freedom in the economic realm to flourish.  Overall, this is an excellent example of Ed’s writing; it perfectly summarizes his pragmatic philosophical views.  This is a very valuable piece of writing to get an insight into Ed’s political personality.  (7/2, Box 3:09)

“Is Moral Virtue Obsolescent as the Primary Goal of Education?”  an address at Belmont Abbey College on November 15^th, 1980.  Ed argues that moral values seem to have gone out the window in this country, and he places the blame on education failing to create good and virtuous citizens.  He says that liberal arts institutions especially need to be aware of their role of trying to mold good citizens rather than to simply prepare students for jobs.  (7/2, Box 5:06) 

“Making New Athens Out of Old Towns,” an address given on February 20^th, 1974 at North Manchester, Indiana.  Essentially, this speech is a philosophical defense of the city, with Ed quoting Plato and Aristotle repeatedly.  He argues that the small city offers the best chance to achieve the goal Aristotle had for cities-to help people live the good life.  He praises North Manchester repeatedly and hopes that this city can achieve the full potential of a smaller sized city and allow unlimited human flourishing.  (7/2, Box 5:06)

 “Moving Forward With Title V And The Rural Development Act Of 1972: The Role of Small Private Colleges,” which was given to the Des Moines Conference on Rural Development dated November 26^th, 1973.  Ed talks of the ability of colleges to tackle the problems of the rural areas, and he also takes an inventory of the work the CSLG did at SJU.  At the back, there is a list of the various programs and initiatives undertaken by the CSLG.  It is very valuable as an overview of the Center’s work.  (7/2, Box 5:07)

“Regionalism in the Countryside,” an address given to the National Service to Regional Councils Fourth Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on March 16^th, 1970.  Ed talks of the need of rural governments to adapt and change but notes the deep apathy that exists throughout the nation at large.  He notes that many townships have institutions that could barely be called governments.  There is also a lack of a viable bureaucracy in these areas.  He hopes that a sort of “new Federalism” will be established in the small towns that can address the problems facing small towns these days and in the future.  (7/2, Box 5:04)

“Role of the Small City as a Growth Center,” an address given to the National Municipal League’s 79^th Conference on Government at Dallas, Texas on November 15^th, 1973. Ed notes that there has not been a federal program of population redistribution since 1862.  However, he argues that one is needed today, since cities are overcrowded.  He notes the conditions that are essential for growth, one of the foremost among these being job creation.  He argues that, to truly achieve all of these goals, a massive federal effort of population redistribution would be necessary, something that appears impossible in the current political climate.  Instead, he offers that individual political leaders in small communities can start to implement policies of change to improve their own communities.  (7/2, Box 6:01)

“Saint John’s And The Liberal Arts Tradition,” a lecture.  Ed details familiar arguments of the importance of a liberal arts education to form a good citizen.  He then goes on to extrapolate this to the educational experiences of the Benedictines throughout history.  He comments that St. John’s has to face, in the future, a tension between upholding its liberal arts tradition and the demands of the marketplace that call for increased vocational training and smaller staff sizes.  (7/2, Box 6:02)

 “Small City Problems,” an address which was delivered at the Habitat/Agenda for the Future in Bolton Valley, Vermont from May 17-18, 1977.  Ed is talking about the problems of outmoded governments and also the importance of the government acting as a corrective agent to the inequities of society.  (7/2, Box 5:07)

“Sponsorship/Partnership of Catholic Higher Education: President as Middleman,” an address for symposium.  Overall, it is an examination of the relationship between lay administrators of colleges and those in the religious orders who often feel a sense of “ownership” over the Catholic colleges they founded.  Ed seems to come down on the side of hiring effective and competent presidents for Catholic colleges, even if these colleges have to go outside of the ranks of the religiously ordained in order to find one.  (7/2, Box 5:03)

“The Creation of the Anti-Poverty Program Otherwise Called ‘The Community Action Program’ in the Three County Metro Area of St. Cloud,” an address given on April 16^th, 1981 at St. Cloud on the anniversary celebration of Tri-Cap.  The organization was founded in 1964 in order to take advantage of President Johnson’s programs to fight poverty.  Ed lists the accomplishments of the program: “Youth corps, work study, head start, medicare alert, project share, farm family counseling, home health aides, Vista, etc.”  This program “attempted to alleviate poverty by directly involving the poor in designing and operating programs for their own benefit.”  He adds that thousands of people in the area were positively impacted by CAP.  It had a stimulus effect on the larger St. Cloud economy as well.  The quality of life in the area was improved drastically as well.  He criticizes the Reagan administration and its philosophy of letting problems of poverty be mostly solved through supply-side economics.  This is a wonderful document that details Ed’s fervent liberalism and commitment to fighting poverty.  (7/3, Box 9:10) 

“The Public Responsibility and Community Goals,” an address given to the Statehouse Conference on Aging at Bismarck, ND on November 21^st, 1969.  It is an address primarily on the issue of housing for the elderly and the needy.  It is another vigorous defense of Ed’s liberalism in regards to programs to fight poverty.  (7/2, Box 6:03) 

“The Role of Ethics and Prudence in Politics,” an address given to Winchester Academy in Wisconsin on September 30^th, 1988.  This address synthesizes Ed’s thoughts on both political theory and public administration.  There is a lot in here about the virtues of political pragmatism and how moral trade-offs often have to be made by elected officials.   (7/2, Box 5:05)

“The Tension Between Quality and Equality in United States Higher Education,” an address given before the Conference on Excellence and Equality in America Culture on November 12^th, 1977.  Ed argues that the relentless drive for egalitarianism in colleges has led to a diminishing of academic quality in these institutions.  He also argues that, historically, colleges were not established as egalitarian institutions, but rather as places were the best students could be educated to become leaders in society. (7/3, Box 8:14) 

Edward Leroy Henry lived 89 years, raised a family of nine with his wife Betty (Reiten), and had a wide-ranging professional career, serving as mayor in his hometown, as an innovative developer of public service organizations and as president of four Catholic colleges around the country.

Ed was born to John and Mary (Kraker) Henry in St. Cloud, Minnesota on March 31^st, 1921, the third of five children. His father, John Achilles Henry, came from Benton County, where Edʼs grandfather, John B. Henry, and grandmother, Mary (Parent) Henry, were prominent turn-of-the-century farmers, owning as many as 700 acres and hundreds of cattle and horses. Included in the archive is extensive family tree research in book form, completed by a relative of Edʼs in the 1980s.

Edʼs father moved to Albany and was elected Representative to the Minnesota House in 1912. While in Albany, he courted Rosemary Kraker, one of 13 children born to prominent Melrose merchant Joseph A. Kraker and his wife, Maria Bohmer, the adopted daughter of a frontier blacksmith.

John and Rosemary married, moved to St. Cloud, and eventually opened Henry Drug, a pharmacy on St. Germain Street. John Henry served on the Board of Directors to several local banks, volunteered at a variety of civic organizations, and in 1934 became Postmaster of St. Cloud, a patronage appointment of Franklin Roosevelt for service to the Democratic Party of Stearns County.

In addition to Edward, the couple had four other children: Mary Louise (1917), John Jr. (1919), Fr. Charles, (nee William, 1924) and Robert (1926).

Ed attended St. Maryʼs Parochial school in St. Cloud, a short walk from his family home, through the 8th grade. Rites of passage included First Communion and First Confession, a ten-cent-an-hour stint at a pickle factory, and the purchase of a Chevrolet Coupe at age 14 — an assist to Edʼs interest in picnics, dating and fishing holes. The collection includes several original school projects from this era.

Ed Henry attended St. Cloud’s Cathedral High School (CHS) in 1936, and he excelled academically while finding time for track, football, journalism, debate and student government. The collection features original newspaper clippings Ed collected in a scrapbook tracking Cathedral football and debate of this era, and the issues of a school publication, Chimes, which chronicles life at CHS from 1936-1939.

In Fall 1939, Ed matriculated at St. John’s University in nearby Collegeville. This began a long association with the Benedictine-founded institution, an extremely fruitful one for both parties. It was here Ed honed skills at debate, established a life-long devotion to liberal education, developed a keen interest in public service, grew himself as a writer, came to maturity as professor and administrator, and, best of all, met a College of St. Benedict student, Elizabeth Anne (Betty) Reiten, on a blind date in 1943.

Betty Reiten was the 1939 Valedictorian of tiny Petersburg High School, on the Dakota prairie. She was the eldest of eight children in a family of modest means headed by Nelson Anton Reiten, a prize-turkey farmer and rural mail carrier. Nelson had been a World War I pilot-trainee and frontier hunter in Montana before courting and marrying a rural teacher, Lillian Andrews, in nearby Michigan, North Dakota.

Like many, the Reitens grew up without access to electricity or water. They made do growing poultry and vegetables at a summer farm, taking in dust storms and grasshoppers, prizing Saturday bath night as much as Sunday church service. Betty honed practical arts-children, gardening, cooking-but also sublime ones: philosophy, literature and performance.

Their marital union was delayed by Ed’s service as a Supply Lieutenant in the United States Navy during World War II. In 1943, Ed enrolled in Officer Training School, and was accepted at Harvard University for the study of Business Administration; his transcript is in the collection. By 1944, he was stationed on the U.S.S. Krechmer, a destroyer escort which saw action in both Atlantic and Pacific theaters.

As a supply officer, Edʼs work included going to port in search of food and supplies from local merchants. Thus, he witnessed first hand the good, bad and ugly of newly liberated Italy, as well as the evacuation of Bataan Death March survivors from the island enclave of Formosa (now Taiwan). His accounts, written on the backs of used Navy Supply paper, constitute a rare personal and journalistic glimpse into an assortment of scenes from World War II. (See World War II Documents and Essays.) He strung news reports for both AP and UPI. Also in the collection are a series of original photographs and negatives taken with his own camera, along with other Navy realia relating to his duties as the Kretchmer Supply Officer.

Returning to St. Cloud after discharge in 1946, Ed followed his interest in journalism by purchasing an interest in the St. Cloud Statesman and becoming a lead writer. The venture was short-lived, and in 1947 Ed left Minnesota to pursue graduate work at the University of Chicago. He did not, however, let go of his affection — or the address – of Betty Anne Reiten, now a secondary English instructor in Melrose.

The collected letters between Edward Henry and Betty Reiten from the period 1945-47, just prior to marriage, are an intriguing glimpse into hopes, fears, dreams and desires of two idealistic, intellectual and energetic protagonists in what was to become known as the Baby-Boom Generation. Their letters, hand-typed by Ed and hand-written by Betty, were saved separately by Edward and Betty for over 60 years. (Their availability for scholars is at the discretion of the collection archivist, in consultation with the Henry Family.)

Edward L. Henry and Elizabeth Reiten were united in marriage on September 10th, 1947 at St. Lawrence O’Toole’s Catholic Church in Michigan, North Dakota, witnessed by dozens of friends and relatives. Edʼs brother John served as best man; Margaret Reiten, Betty’s younger sister, was bridesmaid. A variety of photographs and their Mass Program survive in the collection.

Ed was enrolled in a Master of Philosophy Program at the University of Chicago, and the couple settled in an apartment in downtown Chicago. He completed his M.A. in 1948, and, building on the Business Administration courses he took at Harvard in 1943-44, he added an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago that same year. With continuing graduate work in later years and successful defense of his thesis, Ed earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1955. The collection houses Edʼs M.A. thesis, Harold Knutson and the Sixth Congressional District of Minnesota: A Study of Political Techniques (1948), and his Ph.D. thesis, A Politico-Administrative Appraisal of Government Organization for Monetary Policy Formation (1955), both in their original bound, hand-typed edition.

In 1948, Ed Henry received his first appointment at Mount St. Scholastica in Atchison, Kansas, where he would teach Economics and Political Science through 1954. For the last two years, he served as an Assistant to the President and also as Political Science Department Chair. During this time, Ed and Betty produced four children: Anne (in Chicago, 1948), Paula (1949), Steven (1951), and Susanna (1952).

In 1955, the Henry Family moved back to St. Cloud, bought a station wagon and began a 17-year tenure in Edʼs hometown. It began with Ed’s professorship at St. John’s University, where he chaired the nascent Political Science Department.

Responsibilities grew quickly for the 34 year old St. John’s Alumni:

• In 1956 he was asked by the University to establish its first Development Department.
• In 1957 he was granted full Professor status, co-founded and directed a Tri-College Honors Program, and started a Great Books Study Program for adults and youth in St. Cloud.
• In 1958 he was elected to the St. Cloud School Board and added Assistant to the President to his work portfolio at St. Johns.
• In 1964 he was elected Mayor of St. Cloud, a city then of almost 40,000, and co-­founded the first Community Action Program in Minnesota, involving three different counties.
• In 1965 he was selected Vice-Chair of the Minnesota Municipal Commission
• In 1967 he was selected President of the Minnesota Mayors Association.
• In 1968 he co-founded and directed the Center for the Study of Local Government at St. Johns, was re-elected Mayor of St. Cloud and was selected President of the League of Minnesota Municipalities.
• In 1969 he established the Rural Criminal Justice Institute as a subsidiary to the Local Government center.
• In 1971 he founded the Central Minnesota Public Service Consortium.

Ed also volunteered widely with organizations in and around the community of St. Cloud, including the YMCA, Catholic Charities, St. Peterʼs Parish School, United Way, Retarded Day Care Center, and Parent Assisted Childhood Program. In addition, Dr. Henry, as he was widely known, published extensively during these years, delivered a series of public addresses, and edited two books: Metropolis (1967), and Micropolis in Transition (1971).

Ed and Betty also contributed generously to the baby boom by delivering five more children while living in St. Cloud: Michael (1954), Mary Beth (1956), Rebecca (1958), Peter (1960) and John (1963), for a total of nine.

In 1972, after a national search process, Ed was offered the presidency of St. Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana. St. Maryʼs had just fallen out of an attempted merger with sister-school, Notre Dame, and sought to re-establish its institutional identity and fundraising base. Edʼs work there lasted until 1974. The collection features a series of newspaper clippings, letters and institutional realia from that tenure.

From 1974 to 1976, Ed returned to St. John’s, from which he had been granted a leave of absence, and continued teaching, directing and volunteering, adding Vice President for Institutional Development to his portfolio.

In 1976, with three children still at home, Ed chose to relocate to Vermont, where he was offered the presidency of St. Michael’s College at Winooski. The Catholic liberal arts college, adjacent to Burlington, featured 1200 students, major theatre and arts performance centers and a myriad of challenges with facilities, fundraising and recruitment.

For nine years, Ed Henry worked at St. Michael’s turning around the climate, culture and campus. This was a singular opportunity, bringing together his experience in institutional planning, development, and fundraising. While in Vermont he was, as always, extremely active in civic and volunteer organizations and as a writer and speaker. The collection contains a large binder of materials, news clippings, articles, editorials and personal notes from Edʼs nine years as President of St. Michael’s.

The collection includes Ed’s lengthy 1984 Vita. He retired in 1986, but only on paper. He was to receive two more appointments as interim President at small Catholic liberal arts colleges: Marian College in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin (1986-89) and Belmont Abbey in North Carolina (1989-90).

In 2007, an alumni gift to St. John’s University from Dan Whalen (SJU class of 1970 and its interim president in 2008-09) established the Edward L. Henry Professorship, recognizing Ed’s many years of leadership in Catholic education, public service and academia.

Edward L. Henryʼs life and professional work are well-represented by the Collection and testify to the active intellectual life Ed pursued and worked hard to create for young people across the United States. He was deeply immersed in the traditions of Western political philosophy as well as the structure of United States constitutional government. His faith in the Catholic Church and belief in the liberating power of free inquiry are hallmarks of his life’s work.