Couple Still in Each Other's Corner 60 Years Later

When longtime Grand Terrace resident Pete Petersen was a teenager in Minnesota, he competed four years in Golden Glove boxing competition. In 1950, he earned a Southern Minnesota Golden Glove featherweight championship. Following the upper Midwest finals, world heavyweight-boxing champion Jack Dempse, hung a pair of golden gloves on a purple ribbon around Petersen's neck and said, “Good luck, pal, and keep throwing those punches!” After Petersen’s Korean conflict U.S. Army discharge, he got his old job back where he was working at the Sioux Army Ordnance Depot in Sidney, Nebraska, before he was drafted. He continued to box with the Base Boxing Club. He met and fell in love with Darlene Anderson, a base employee and Chapel organist. On a date in October 1954, Petersen hung his hard-earned golden gloves around Anderson's neck and asked her to be in his corner the rest of their lives. Her answer was, "Yes - if you will quit boxing." They were married Jan. 8, 1955, moving to California in 1957 right out of college on Petersen's G.I. bill. At the Gonzales Center in Colton on Saturday, Jan. 10, 50 guests celebrated the couple's 60th wedding anniversary, hosted by their daughter Lori McCarver. Petersen re-hung the golden gloves around Darlene’s neck at the reception and kept his word to quit boxing, but serves as vice president of the Colton Boxing Club.