Virginia Grimes and John Albert Manders

JOHN ALBERT MANDERS was born October 16, 1909 in Milbank, Grant, South Dakota,⁷³⁷⁷ and died January 28, 1977 in Chicago, Cook, Illinois.⁸⁴⁶²

He married VIRGINIA GRIMES on December 19, 1933 in Chicago, Cook, Illinois,²⁰⁸⁵ daughter of JANE MARCIA ALDEN and GEORGE SUTHERLAND GRIMES. She was born August 30, 1907 in Minneapolis, Hennepin, Minnesota,¹⁹⁸⁷ and died February 22, 1972.⁴⁵⁶

Education
Work History
Marriage Announcements and News
Newspaper Articles
Obituaries

Census Records

Children of VIRGINIA GRIMES and JOHN ALBERT MANDERS:

Daughter
Daughter

Education

Virginia Grimes

graduated from West High School, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1924⁶⁸¹⁰
- Activities:
  U. C.; G. A. A.; Debaters; Hesperian Staff; Entertainment Committee
- Yearbook Inscription:
  "Exotic, vivacious, sprightly"
graduated from Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota in 1928⁸⁴⁶⁰

Work History

Virginia Grimes

taught French at Carleton College⁸⁴⁶¹

John A. Manders

kicker and half back for the Cihicago Bears⁸⁴⁶¹

Marriage Announcements and News

Minneapolis Tribune, December 20, 1933⁸⁴⁶⁰

Manders Marries Minneapolis Girl

Jack Manders, former University of Minnesota football star, and Virginia Grimes, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George S. Grimes of Minneapolis, were to be married Tuesday in Chicago, according to the Associated Press.

Manders, who is completing a season of professional football with the Chicago Bears, announced the couple's plans Tuesday morning in Chicago. They were to be married in a Chicago hotel.

Miss Grimes was graduated from Carleton college in 1928. Her father, a Minneapolis attorney, and Mrs. Grimes reside at the Hampshire Arms.

Newspaper Articles

Chicago Tribune, December 1, 1937⁸⁴⁶¹

This Is the Saga of Manders and Virginia, Who Helped Him

There is only one way to tell the story of John Albert Manders and Virginia. That is from the beginning. In the beginning there was only Manders, muscular, square-jawed son of a South Dakota farmer.

The Manders' place, 150 acres of productive prairie, lay down the pike from a piece from Milbank, S. D., a typical farming community with a population of 2,500. The family numbered eleven, including seven boys and two girls. John Albert was the fourth oldest, two brothers and a sister having been present when he arrived during a blizzard on Jan. 13, 1909. John Albert forgot to note whether it was Friday.

The first ten years passed rapidly and not unusually eventfully for young John Albert, who preferred to be called Jack. Then his mother died. After the first shock of bereavement, it fell to the older sister and an aunt to mother the little flock, which, with the tenacity and industry of its German-Dutch heritage, made the old homestead provide a comfortable livelihood.

Jack Was Quite a Boy

Physically, Jack progressed precociously under the rigors of farming; prodded by his sister and aunt he advanced normally intellectually. WHen he was ready for high school, he went to Milbank where he had a reputation to uphold. Manders men always had been athletic. Jack's father was a baseball player of minor league possibilities. Brothers Francis and Dutch had led Milbank High to championships in football, basketball and track. BOth acquired sectional fame as collegiate football players, Francis at the University of South Dakota and Dutch at South Dakota State.

About the time Jack entered high school an old lawyer in a small northern Minnesota town began inviting Dr. Clarence Spears, Minnesota's coach, up into the country to help organize an alumni chapter. After writing to Spears for two years the old gentleman penned a last appeal. He could guarantee Spears a good audience because he had promised to buy every one a dinner. Spears went. It was a cold, raw spring day, marred by mud and slush. While the lawyer argued a lawsuit Spears wandered out to a high school track meet.

Doc Gets an Eyeful

There a 205 pound all-around man, six feet one, was winning the meet for Milbank by capturing the 220 year dash and the quarter mile on a sloppy dirt track, finishing first in the shotput and the discus, and placing in the broad jump and 100 yard dash. The name, a spectator told Spears, was Manders. Did he play football? Why, Manders was the dad-burndest full back in the world—better than that Nagurski fellow and Joesting up at the state university! The Manders athletic tradition was being preserved at Milbank.

After Milbank Jack moved over to Minneapolis, where he lived with a brother, worked as a relief man in a filling station, and enrolled at Minnesota. As a freshman he impressed Spears more than he had Bronk Nagurski and Herb Joesting, stars in a long line of superb Gopher full backs. But he offered a psychological problem.

Virginia Enters Story

Manders had not absorbed the teachings of his sister and the kindly aunt. His head was as strong as his massive shoulders and sturdy legs. During his sophomore and junior years his individualism, his will power fired by a strain of Irish in his German and Dutch ancestry, ran rampant.

Then he met Virginia. Virginia Grimes was a graduate student in romance languages at Minnesota. About this time Jack's father was killed in a railroad accident. Little Virginia was some one to lean upon in this bereavement and soon it became a campus romance. Virginia had a comforting influence on Jack and began to straighten out the burly full back.

At the completion of his varsity career, Manders received offers from the Boston Redskins, New York Giants, Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears in the National Professional league. He was prepared to join the Packers, but decided at the last minute that he would prefer to play on the same team with Nagurski.

Boy, How He Can Kick!

Virginia went to Carleton college to teach French when Manders joined the Bears and without her guidance Jack lapsed back into some of the old ways. The Bears trained at Notre Dame that fall, 1933, and on the second day of practice Tiny Engrebretsen, former Northwestern guard, reported with a black eye. He told Coach George Halas he had received in in drill the day before. Halas later learned that Engrebretsen and Manders had gone downtown to see the sights and that an argument had ensued.

Manders was not a good full back his first few seasons with the Bears. He established himself as one of the game's greatest kickers his first season, however, by defeating Green Bay with a field goal, 10 to 7, and a point after touchdown, 7 to 6. His field goals gave the Bears a 17 to 14 victory over Portsmouth and tied Philadelphia, 3 to 3.

Halas Makes Master Move

But his appearances were limited almost exclusively to kicking situations and he complained loudly. Virginia heard about it at Carleton and put him right. Jack listened to here. Finally he began to appreciate the need and reap the rewards of application. He took an off season job with a printing company, attacked football with a new zest and purpose, and then married Virginia.

This year Halas shifted the greatest kicker of all time to right half back. Rival coaches called it a master stroke. Manders apparently always had been half back, although he had been a full back from the old Milbank days through college. At half back Manders has become the outstanding player in the league this year.

He made himself a peerless kicker; Halas made him a half back, but Virginia, the little French teacher, made him a great football player, a gentleman, and a useful citizen.

Obituaries

Minneapolis Star, February 23, 1972⁵³³³

Manders

Virginia Grimes, age 63, of 2 Meadowood Drive, Oak Brook, Ill. 60521. Beloved wife of Jack; dear mother of Gail M. Caro (Donald A.), Deborah M. Stephens (John M.), Timothy Manders (Deborah); fond sister of Betty G. Lindley (Ernest K.), Dr. Marian Grimes Collins; grandmother of Sean Timothy Stephens. Memorial service Friday, February 25th, at 2 p.m., Redeemer Lutheran Church, Kenilworth & St. Charles Road, ELmhurst, Ill. Memorials prefererred to Redeemer Lutheran Church, Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, or Brian Piccolo Cancer Fund, c-o Memorial Hospital, 444 E. 68th Street, New York, N.Y. 10021.

Bar

Minneapolis Star, January 29, 1977⁸⁴⁶²

Jack Manders Dies; 'U' Grad Pioneered Art of Place Kicking

CHICAGO (AP) — John A. "Automatic Jack" Manders, 68, a Chicago Bears pioneering place kicker, died yesterday. Manders is credited with an important role in revolutionizing the method of kicking for points after touchdown and field goals.

The Bears signed Manders after he graduated from Minnesota in 1933. Until shortly before his time, point-after and field goal tries were made by drop kickers. Manders developed a facility at kicking the ball while it was being held by a teammate.

He led the National Football League in field goal scoring four times in the 1930s, a record that stood for 21 seasons. He also held a record for leading the league in points-after-touchdown three times, a mark surpassed only by George Blanda and Bob Waterfield.

He got his nickname after he kicked 76 successive extra points. In 1934, he helped the Bears to an undefeated season by scoring 79 points.

Census Records

Date	Location	Enumerated Names
April 25, 1910⁷⁸	Minneapolis, Hennepin, Minnesota	George Sutherland Grimes Jane Marcia Alden Helen Elizabeth Grimes Virginia Grimes Marian Grimes John Alden Grimes Gordon Grimes Dorothy Grimes
January 14, 1920⁶¹⁴	Minneapolis, Hennepin, Minnesota	George Sutherland Grimes Jane Marcia Alden John Alden Grimes Jessie Gwendolyn Mills Gordon Mills Grimes Helen Elizabeth Grimes Virginia Grimes Marian Grimes
April 5, 1930⁶¹⁵	Minneapolis, Hennepin, Minnesota	Marian Grimes Virginia Grimes
April 12, 1940³²²⁸	Chicago, Cook, Illinois	John Albert Manders Virginia Grimes Daughter Daughter