Walter Mondale

Walter Frederick Mondale was born on January 5, 1928, in Ceylon, Minnesota, to Theodore Sigvaard Mondale, a Methodist minister, and Claribel Hope (née Cowan), a part-time music teacher. Walter's half-brother Lester Mondale became a Unitarian minister. Mondale also has two brothers, Clarence, known as Pete (1926–2014), and William, known as Mort. His paternal grandparents were Norwegian immigrants, with some distant German ancestry. Mondale's paternal grandfather Frederik Mundal had emigrated from Norway with his family in 1856, eventually settling in southern Minnesota in 1864. The surname Mondale derives from that of Mundal, a valley and town in the Fjærland region of Norway. His mother was born in Iowa, the daughter of an immigrant father, Robert Cowan, who was born in Seaforth, Ontario; she was of Scottish and English descent.

In his youth, Mondale's family thought the names "Walter" and "Frederick" were too stilted for a boy, so they called him "Fritz", a common German and Scandinavian diminutive form of Friedrich or Frederick. Due to the Great Depression, Mondale grew up in poverty. His family moved from Ceylon to Heron Lake in 1934, and to Elmore in 1937. Throughout his youth, Mondale was influenced heavily by his father's religious beliefs, including support for the civil rights movement. In 1948, his father died of a stroke.[14] Mondale attended public schools and then Macalester College for two years before transferring to the University of Minnesota, from which he graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1951.

As Mondale could not afford to attend law school, he enlisted in the United States Army in 1951, shortly after graduating. He served with the 3rd Armored Division Artillery at Fort Knox, Kentucky, during the Korean War, first as an armored reconnaissance vehicle crewman, and later as an education programs specialist and associate editor of the unit's newsletter, Tanker's Dust. He attained the rank of corporal and was discharged in 1953.[16] Mondale enrolled at the University of Minnesota Law School, aided by the G.I. Bill, and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Laws in 1956. In law school, he served on the Minnesota Law Review and as a law clerk for Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Thomas F. Gallagher. In 1955, Mondale married Joan Adams, whom he met on a blind date. He then practiced law in Minneapolis for four years before entering politics.

Mondale's wife, Joan Mondale, was a national advocate for the arts and was the Honorary Chairman of the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities during the Carter Administration. On February 3, 2014, she died at a hospice in Minneapolis surrounded by family members.

The Mondales' eldest son, Ted, is an entrepreneur and the CEO of Nazca Solutions, a technology fulfillment venture. He is also a former Minnesota state senator. In 1998, Ted Mondale unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for Minnesota governor, running as a fiscal moderate who had distanced himself from labor.

The Mondales' daughter, Eleanor, was a television personality. She also had radio talk shows in Chicago and a long-running program on WCCO (AM) in Minneapolis. She died of brain cancer at her home in Minnesota on September 17, 2011, at the age of 51.

Their younger son, William Hall Mondale, is a former assistant Attorney General of Minnesota.

Mondale had a residence near Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis. He was a Presbyterian. He enjoyed fishing, reading Shakespeare and historical accounts, barbecuing, skiing, watching Monty Python, and playing tennis.

Mondale was the recipient of numerous distinctions. He was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa as an honoris causa initiate at the University of South Carolina in 1981. Mondale also maintained strong ties to the University of Minnesota Law School. In 2002 the school renamed its building Walter F. Mondale Hall. Mondale contributed cameo appearances to the law school's annual T.O.R.T. ("Theater of the Relatively Talentless") productions and allowed his name to be used as the nickname of the school's hockey team: the "Fighting Mondales".

Mondale had deep connections to his ancestral Norway. Upon entering the Senate in 1964, he took over the seat of vice president Hubert Humphrey, another Norwegian-American. In later years, Mondale served on the executive committee of the Peace Prize Forum, an annual conference co-sponsored by the Norwegian Nobel Institute. On December 5, 2007, Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre announced that Mondale would be named Honorary Consul-General of Norway, representing the Norwegian state in Minnesota.

In 2015, Mondale was awarded the Public Leadership in Neurology Award from the American Academy of Neurology for raising awareness for brain health, having lost both his wife and daughter to brain diseases.