The humanist philosophy of Lester Mondale

Four years before his more famous half-brother became vice president of the United States in the Jimmy Carter administration, Lester Mondale left his Madison County log home to visit Cape Girardeau. Here, he spoke at the 1973 Humanities Forum at Southeast Missouri State University.

In anticipation of that appearance, the Southeast Missourian's staff writer Judith Ann Crow produced a feature on Lester Mondale, a Unitarian minister and author. The article, with photographs taken by Gordon McBride, won first place in the 1974 Missouri Better Newspaper Contest for the best feature story.

Published Thursday, Jan. 25, 1973, in the Southeast Missourian:

Lester Mondale and his huge dark border collie, Thor, blend into the woodland as they tramp toward the study and workshop near the log house he built on three shelves of solid granite on Copperhead Cliff. The 80-acre tract in northwest Madison County includes a lake at the confluence of the St. Francis River and Brewers Creek, as well as remnants of Indian occupation among the oak, hickory, pine and cedar that form the predominate forestation of the wild Ozark tree-farm area. (Gordon McBride ~ Southeast Missourian archive)

LESTER MONDALE FINDS MADISON CLIFF LIVING
VIBRANT EXERCISE IN HUMANISM PHILOSOPHY

By JUDITH ANN CROW
Missourian staff writer

Lester Mondale has carved himself into the enduring granite of Copperhead Cliff, into the rushing music of Brewers Creek 60 feet below his log house, into the towering woods and sky of 80 acres of wilderness in the northwest corner of Madison County.

In so doing, he has put into vibrant action the humanist philosophy he will speak about here Saturday at the 1973 Humanities Forum at Southeast Missouri State University.

Born the son of a Methodist minister in Minnesota, Lester Mondale received a degree from Hamline University in 1926, and a second degree from Harvard Divinity in 1929. He became a Unitarian minister, serving congregations in Hingham, Massachusetts, Evanston, Illinois, Kansas City, Missouri, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Birmingham, Michigan, before his "retirement" in 1962. (Retirement is hardly the word in view of the interim pastorates, the lectures, the writing, the travels that have followed.)

It was in 1935, during the nine-year period he pastored at Evanston, that Mr. Mondale first discovered the wild area at the junction of St. Francis River and Brewers Creek. The feel of it stuck with him, and when he and his family returned to the area in a camper in 1947 — about midway in his 13-year ministry at Kansas City — he hunted up the owner and bought the 30 acres.

From then until his retirement, the family — he has a wife and four daughters — spent summers on the place.

Quickly the copperheads for which he named the place asserted their territoriality (the granite cliff had been their home from time immemorial) and Mr. Mondale, although concerned about the safety of his young daughters, reacted as a thoroughgoing humanist. The family bought books about snakes, studied the copperheads themselves — and learned how to live with them.

"We don't pretend to be nature fakirs ... we're not trying to make a Walden out of the place. We just like it here," Mr. Mondale explained, as he sat in the comfortable living room of the log house he and his hill neighbors built of oak and pine and stone taken from the land itself.

Sunlight and the warmth of acceptant communication filled the room as we sipped good coffee, ate "Mom" Mondale's light-as-air outsize cookies baked in the big old wood range out in the kitchen, and watched Brewers Creek foaming over its rocky bed, sending up its splendidly peaceful roar to mingle itself in our conversation.

"It's an economical way of life," he pointed out; "We are rich in oak and hickory, and cut trees ruined by disease or age to give us heat; we have our own well, and the electric bill is about $10 a month... We can live comfortably, and save a little to do the traveling we like."

Many values

But the values of Mondale's chosen way go far beyond economical living.

"This bridges two glaring gaps in modern life," Mr. Mondale explained; "Most persons these days are either working with their muscles or with their brains — there isn't much chance to balance the physical and the mental output. By devoting my mornings to writing, and afternoons to working in the garden, or trading work with my neighbors (recently I wired a house, and helped put siding on another) I can use both the mind and the muscles I was born with."

Another gap the Mondales are concerned with bridging in their life here is the cultural gap. "To my mind, the racial gap, the economic gap, and all the others we hear about are minor compared to the gap between those who have education and those who don't," he said.

"There is so much exclusion hatred and sarcastic by-play among people... so many of us just can't take in our fellow man and value him for himself. If I accept and share with my neighbors, and they accept and share with me — as we do — then I'm doing my own share to overcome that gap," Mr. Mondale declared, pointing up again the basic concept of humanism — of man's responsibility of making the most of his life on Earth.

Lester Mondale — humanist, author, lecturer, retired minister, carpenter, hunter of mushrooms, player of pump organ and guitar — savors the quietude of his woodland home 17 miles west of Fredericktown. (Gordon McBride ~ Southeast Missouirian archive)

Mrs. (Rosemary) Mondale, a Kansas City native who holds a Phi Beta Kappa key and enjoys participating in county home extension club work, shares her husband's philosophy, and noted that one quickly learns the difference between education and intelligence; many of the relatively unschooled hill neighbors who are their friends have knowledge and understanding far beyond that of others who have had much more opportunity for formal education.

Speaking of education, Mr. Mondale commented, "To my mind, education has always had a most difficult time adjusting itself to the needs of the individual... Some children flower in a permissive situation while others in the same room may need a more ordered form of teaching...

"Since Sputnik and our over-response to the 'Communist threat' put so much pressure on kids in high school and college, so much emphasis on technology, it has taken the joy out of learning."

Utopia promise

By Mr. Mondale's analysis, countries that are vulnerable to communism are those that are victimized by poverty within and/or threatened by an enemy without; communism offers these the promise of safety and Utopian existence... whether it can deliver or not.

"The only sensible approach this country has ever made in its dealings with a Communist country has been with Yugoslavia," he said, describing incidents from a visit there in the summer of 1970 when he and his wife also visited Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Italy, Holland and England.

Two government employees at a tourist center, both English-speaking, one a young ma and the other a middle-aged woman, both were openly critical of certain government policies — an unthinkable action in other Communist nations. Mr. Mondale feels that the U.S. policy toward Tito and his government has been largely responsible for the greater feeling of freedom from oppression among the Yugoslav people.

Speaking of the trip abroad brought to Mr. Mondale's mind another of many occasions when his Madison County neighbors have shown their friendship. "We were getting ready for a trip abroad, and one of the neighbors said, 'Say, you folks haven't been over for a while. Come have supper with us tonight.' Well, when we got there, all the neighbors had gathered for a potluck send-off party!" he chuckled in pleasant memory.

Author of five books (from "The Missouri Still Runs Wild" in 1942 to "The New Man of Religious Humanism" in 1973) and numerous articles, Mr. Mondale (and his wife) takes pleasure in the twice-monthly meetings of the Great Books discussion meetings at Ironton. He is also active in Madison County Democratic politics, feeling this is a citizenship responsibility.

His mind is never far from those treasured wild acres, though, and he related proudly that "We eat 25 to 30 varieties of mushrooms we've identified in these woods. You know you can pick a mushroom and not wound it... I don't hold much with hunting, unless you really need food.

"I have a great respect for the wilderness around us... Once you accept the reality of both, you have much more control over that wilderness inside you."

In a recent issue of Religious Humanism, Mr. Mondale described a humanist as one who "makes you feel that you, simply because you are you, are worthy of his listening ear."

Lester Mondale is this kind of humanist.

Lester Mondale passed away in 2003, and his ashes were spread along the banks of his beloved Brewers Creek. His widow, Rosemary Delap Mondale, died in 2022.

Photographer Gordon McBride shot a whole roll of film at Mondale's Madison County farm. Here are a few more images that went unpublished.

Lester Mondale walks his land in northwest Madison County with his border collie, Thor. (Gordon McBride ~ Southeast Missourian archive)

Rosemary and Lester Mondale relax in their log house near Fredericktown. (Gordon McBride ~ Southeast Missourian archive)

Lester Mondale makes a point while standing on the banks of Brewers Creek near Fredericktown. (Gordon McBride ~ Southeast Missourian archive)

The log home of Lester Mondale sits on an 80-acre wooded tract in northwest Madison County. (Gordon McBride ~ Southeast Missourian archive)