JOAN MARIE FAGERLIE, PH.D. (1930-2017)

Often I come across a topic for an article while I am searching for something else. In the case of Joan M. Fagerlie, my inspiration came from a highly unexpected source.

She was the author of Late Roman and Byzantine Solidi Found in Sweden and Denmark, published by the American Numismatic Society in 1967 as Numismatic Notes and Monographs No. 157. This was revised from her Ph.D. thesis for the University of Washington.

Joan was born in Minneapolis with her twin sister Jean on November 9, 1930, the daughters of Paul Olsen Fagerlie (1891-1962) and Ella Fredericka Lindberg (1900-1988) Fagerlie.

She graduated from (Minneapolis) Roosevelt High School in 1949. She received a BA cum laude in 1953 and MA in history and an MA in library Science in 1955 at the University of Minnesota.

In 1957, Fagerlie was one of ten students who attended the American Numismatic Society ten-week Summer Seminar of Numismatics. These seminars are intended for graduate students and junior instructors at universities.

While a graduate assistant at the University of Washington in 1958, she received a graduate fellowship from the American Association of University Women. This funded her study of early medieval history at museums in Germany, Denmark and Sweden.

In 1961, she joined the staff at the American Numismatic Society as assistant curator of Roman and Byzantine coins. She participated in ANS activities as a lecturer at the summer seminars and contributed articles to the ANS Museum Notes.

In 1962, she was an adult education instructor for a class on coin collecting at Montclair (NJ) Adult School. This included a December 1, 1962, field trip to the ANS in NYC. The course had an impressive list of instructors including Dr. George C. Miles, Miss Margaret Thompson, Henry Christiansen, Henry M. Oechsner, Henry Grunthal, Dr. Julian Blanchard, John R. Francis, and Hans Schulman,

Another class was given in 1965 with instructors Julius Turoff, William Anton, Hans Schulman, Joan Fagerlie, and David McClymont.

She resigned from the ANS in 1974 with some health concerns. She returned to Minneapolis to work as a reference librarian at the University of Minnesota. She lived in a condominium in Saint Anthony Village for thirty years before moving to a different condominium in 2006.

Fagerlie died on December 6, 2017, while living at Cherrywood Pointe in Roseville. She is buried at Hillside Cemetery in Minneapolis.

My condominium held a New Years event recently. After some discussion, it was decided to hold it on the evening of December 31, 2025. I thought that was a good choice. The event also became a 20th birthday party for our building. This was built on the former site of the Apache Plaza Shopping Center during 2004-2005. The first residents moved in during January 2006.

One of the original residents has a scrapbook with photos she took every week during construction. I went through that scrapbook to select photos to be shown on our TV screen during the program.

 

One photo showed fourteen people participating in a groundbreaking ceremony in 2004. The photo caption included the names of a couple of people who still live in the building. It also included the name of Joan M. Fagerlie. I did not previously know that she lived in our building.

The attached image is cropped from the larger photo. Joan Fagerlie is the second woman from the left.

I learned that Joan was the first person to sign a purchase agreement for the new building then under construction. Everyone I talked with from the group of original owners remembers her.

When I learned that Joan was working at the University of Minnesota, I called her. I asked her to speak to our local coin club but she declined. She and I were both volunteers at the Minnesota Historical Society at the same time but I never met her at an event.

Our building is not designated for senior living. Our current residents range from an infant who has not reached his first birthday to a woman who recently celebrated her 102nd birthday. The original buyers twenty years ago have become senior citizens.

I moved in during COVID when the building had no social activities. When those activities resumed, I met a group of six women at our Monday coffee group. These women have all left here to go into assisted living. It is quite common.

At the New Year's Eve event, I talked with the woman who bought Fagerlie's condo. Joan moved out at the end of 2014 and the new owner moved in during January 2015. Another resident said that her memory was failing.

Joan was living at Cherrywood Pointe in Roseville at the time of her death. This is an assisted living facility. The cemetery is nearby. Most weeks I drive by there at least once. Now that I know she is there, I may visit the gravesite after the snow melts.

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