Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020
Bror Folke Persson (Pearson) was born on a farm in southern Sweden July 30, 1906. Bror Folke, meaning “brother of the people,” was a particularly apt name for a man who devoted his life to his family, parents, and communities. He was kind and had a good sense of humor.
Dr. Pearson immigrated to America in 1919, and became a doctor for 42 years in Shakopee, starting in 1934. Dr. Pearson used to come directly to homes any time of the day or night, whenever called. He delivered more than 2,500 babies in Shakopee.
Gwen Johnson Humphrey remembered when Dr. Pearson “brought [me] into the world, then in the next few years brought four of my six brothers also. He was always at our house it seemed tending to either one or all seven and never left without giving someone a shot, Through measles, German measles, chickenpox, [tonsillectomies], stitches and owies he was always there.”
In 1939, Dr. Pearson, a local priest, and the editor of the local paper visited the convent of Franciscan nursing nuns and asked them to take over the decrepit county poor house and run it as a hospital and a home for the elderly.
By 1952, the little hospital was no longer big enough, and Dr. Pearson led the effort to build a new hospital with 120 beds, an emergency room, and a full services laboratory.
Dr. Pearson married Elizabeth Stephens in 1935, and after 40 years, Beth died in 1976. They had three daughters and a son. Pearson retired from his Shakopee practice in 1976, the same year Beth passed away.
Dr. Pearson received the 18th annual Franciscan International Award. The honor goes to someone whose humanitarian efforts and singular devotion to others live up to the ideals of St. Francis. Other recipients have included Dr. Billy Graham, Dr. Charles Mayo of the Mayo Clinic, and Harry Reasoner, nationally known ABC Television news anchorman. In 1976, it went to a little-known doctor from a small Minnesota town.
In 1980, he wed Dr. Dora Zaeske, and they were together for 22 years, traveling the world and working as humanitarians.
Dr. Pearson worked as a physician in locations in South America, the West Indies, and Taiwan, and a Navajo Reservation in Ganado, Arizona. He also led an effort to sponsor a leprosarium in Zambia, Africa.
In 1970, a new elementary school in Shakopee, B.F. Pearson Elementary School, was named after him. It is located at 917 Dakota Street South.
In 1995, Central became the fifth- and sixth-grade building, with Sweeney and Pearson elementaries serving grades kindergarten through fourth. As the number of students grew, the five other elementary schools in Shakopee continued, while in 2011, the school was converted to Shakopee’s Pearson Sixth Grade Center, which opened in 2012.
Pearson Sixth Grade Center served all public school sixth graders in Shakopee which included about 650 students. About 43% of the students were people of color.
In 2018, the school was closed for budget reasons. The sixth graders were moved to the two middle schools with other seventh and eighth graders.
In 2020, Pearson Sixth Grade Center became the Pearson Early Learning Center.
After a brief illness, Dr. Bror Folke Pearson passed away Aug. 24, 2004, at Sunrise of Mercer Island, Washington, at age 98.