Tuesday, May 4, 1954: Caught in a mixer
Posted on July 15th, 2008 – 7:03 PMBy Ben Welter
Another in our series of stories on children who narrowly escaped serious injury: 5-year-old Roberta Sandgren of Robbinsdale was watching her mom make a cake when her “flying pigtail” got tangled in the mixer. Thanks to a quick-thinking parent and a patient policeman, no harm was done and the little kitchen aide went on to earn a degree in home economics at the University of Minnesota. Following this report from the Minneapolis Tribune, you’ll find an update based on an e-mail exchange with her and a phone conversation with her mom.
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| Minneapolis Tribune |
| ROBERTA SANDGREN, 5, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. Sandgren, 3659 Halifax avenue, Robbinsdale, was truly unhappy Monday after her flying pigtail became involved with a whirring electric mixer. Roberta was helping her mother mix a cake when her hair got into the recipe. The youngster’s right thumb and left ear also became entangled. Robbinsdale police were called to pry the pigtail from the mixer gears. The cake? It was a mess. But such mishaps are annual with Roberta. She swallowed ant poison at 2, was hit by a car at 3 and swallowed a penny at 4. First aid fixed her up each time. |
JULY 2008 UPDATE: Roberta Hemley turned 60 this month. She lives in Germany and works in the marketing department of Innogenetics, a biotechnology company. Her parents, Robert and Violet Sandgren, still live in Robbinsdale. It’s been more than 54 years since the mixer incident, and neither mom nor daughter remembers much about it.
Roberta Hemley in 2008 “I was baking something, a cake, and you know kids,” Violet said. “She stood on a little chair and was going to help. I had my back turned for a second. Then she leaned over [and got her hair caught].”
Did she cry?
“No, I don’t think so. I doubt it was painful.”
Violet turned off the mixer and called the police for help. She credits the officer who responded with saving her daughter’s locks: “The policeman tried to undo it by twisting hair out of it. If he hadn’t been so patient … I bet another policeman would have just used a scissors to cut it.”
Roberta has lived in Germany since 1971. She and her husband, an Englishman, have two children, Valerie, 26, and Adrian, 24. Roberta is fairly sure her mother was making an angel food cake that day.
“And like most kids,“ she wrote, “I used to stand on a chair and watch her. I must have turned my head abruptly and that’s how my pigtail got entangled in the mixer. Mom said that it took the policeman about half an hour to free the pigtail. After that I didn’t have any more childhood mishaps!”
3 Responses to "Tuesday, May 4, 1954: Caught in a mixer"
I laughed when I read this story, as it could have been about me! I’m a few years younger than Roberta and lived in rural Minnesota but, at about the same age, I too was standing on a chair watching the cake mix go round and round, with my long hair hanging where it shouldn’t have been, and it got tangled up in the beaters. I don’t remember how mom got me separated from the beaters, but some hair was pulled out of my scalp. Mom took me to the local doctor who said not to worry, that it would grow back. It did. I too, graduated from the U of M with a home economics education degree. Is there a pattern here?!?
Good job tracking down the mother and the girl in the original story. I find it interesting that they remember little about this incident. If it had happened to me or my child, I would have remembered it vividly.
I ate taro ant poison when I was 1.5,got my arm caught in the beaters at age 4 and graduated from UW-Stout with a degree in Home Ecoomics. Yes,I think it is a pattern. Nice story.
