Victoria MN Newspaper-Beddors

“He pulled over the car and handed me a box and I opened it and here it was a ring,” said Bea. “I wanted to know if it was an engagement ring. It was, and I said, ‘Yes.’”

“She was skating with a show in Minneapolis and I was working and I thought we should get married,” explained Bill. They were married on September 16th, 1948, at St. Thomas Catholic Church. After the wedding they stopped at Bea's friend’s home in Illinois and then drove up to Beddors’ place in Wisconsin for their honeymoon.

“His mother had left all kinds of food to reheat and recipes for me to take home,” said Bea. “That was so thoughtful of her."

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Where did the newlyweds live? “It was after the War and there weren’t many places to live,” said Bill. “There was an old lady who had a room to rent for six months, then we had an apartment for about a year, and then we bought a house in Richfield where we lived for three years. After that we found a house in St. Louis Park.”

Bill was managing the laundry business and then working at Japs Olson. Bea was skating nights and weekends. “She was making big money, more than I was making,” said Bill.

“That’s why he married me,” smiled Bea.

“She was with the Dorothy Lewis Ice Show, skating at the Nicollet Hotel. It was a spectacular show,” said the still proud husband.

But more spectacular than the ice shows was the arrival of their first six children in five years, “none of them twins,” as Bea said. “I stopped skating professionally when I was four months pregnant and started working harder than ever at home. We had our ten children in 19 years, so for 20 years I was either nursing or pregnant. After ten children I figured they wouldn’t take me back to the Ice Follies so I took up dancing after the children completed their schooling and began to marry and have careers.”

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“But first we got into running, to stay in shape,” said Bill. “We did a lot of competitive running. We started at the age of 45 and ran for about 15 years. It took us all around the country and we traveled overseas -- to Russia, France, the Triathlon in New Zealand."

“We became long distance runners for about ten years,” he said. “Some people play golf or tennis. We ran. And then I got into the ultra-marathon. A marathon is 26 miles. The ultra-marathon is anything over 50 miles”

Said Bea, “Bill ran his first marathon a week before his 50th birthday and his first ultra-marathon a week before his 51st birthday.”

Bill explained how the ultra-marathon got started. “Out in California, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, there was a 100-mile race with 100 horses. One of the horses became lame and the rider continued the race on foot and finished in 54th place. That was in 1973. Now there are races all over that are more than 50-mile races.”

Bill mentioned his participation in an Iron Man Triathlon when he was 60 years old. The race took place in Hawaii, on Oahu, and included a 2.4-mile swim, 112 miles of biking, and a 26.2-mile run. Bill did it all.

He related that Bea ran many of her own marathons including the Twin Cities Marathan when she was 58, Grandma’s Marathon when she was 59, and the Hawaiian Triathlon at the age of 60.

Together the Beddors ran hundreds of races that took them all over the country and the world. “One time we were invited to Russia where we did ten marathons in ten days, one every day for ten days,” said Bill. “It wasn’t pretty. None of them are. They’re nitty gritty, sweaty, tiring, dirty. You don’t look good after running, and there was no running water. After that marathon, Bea sat me down and said, ‘I’m done with this. I’m going to do something that I’ve always wanted to do -- dance.’”

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