Walter Fredrick Rogosheske ⁸³⁸⁸

   Cause of his death was heart attack after battling pneumonia in a hospital.

Star Tribune
Minneapolis, Minnesota
May 16, 1998

Longtime Judge Walter Rogosheske dies
Former state Supreme Court justice legislator loved teaching law

Walter Rogosheske loved the law and politics and so fervently that despite lying in the hospital for three weeks with pneumonia, he engaged one of his sons in a debate Friday morning about the legal battle between the state and the tobacco industry.

"We had a pretty rousing discussion. Dad enjoyed it," said Paul Rogosheske. Then, a few hours later, the man who had served 38 years as a judge -- 20 of them on the Minnesota Supreme Court -- and six years as a Republican legislator, died quietly.

"His heart just couldn't hold out," Paul said. "He'd had a major heart attack some years ago and then the pneumonia just left him so weak." He was 83.

Rogosheske was the confidant of governors, once was chairman of a committee of the American Bar Association that set standards for prosecutors and defense attorneys, was father of the state's vocational school system, and an acquaintance of Charles Lindbergh, the native of Little Falls, Minn., who was a permanent place in history for being the first to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Rogosheske also grew up near Little Falls and went to school at St. Cloud State Teachers College and Valparaiso University in Indiana before going to the University of Minnesota Law School.

He was in the Army in World War II and delighted in telling anyone who asked that he served with distinction by "cleaning latrines with a toothbrush in New Jersey."

Shortly after the war broke out, he was elected to the State House and served during 1943's 90 day session before resigning at age 29 to join the Army.

In 1944, the was reelected to the House without opposition and was released from the Army in time to serve in the 1945 session.

In the Legislature, Rogosheske wrote the bill that created vocational schools in Minnesota. He did it after being convinced by a close friend, who was a teacher, that many youngsters needed an alternative to college.

In the 40s, slot machines were ubiquitous in Minnesota's bars and they weren't regulated by the state.

Rogosheske became convinced that anyone playing the machines was unwittingly being duped by the owners and operators of the machines. So he pushed a bill that outlawed them.

That ended his legislature career just when he was in line to become speaker of the House. A pro-gambling candidate beat him by 12 votes in the next election. Fliers were put on cars depicting him as a Nazi storm trooper smashing slots beneath his boots. "We still have the flier," Paul Rogosheske said.

Gov. Luther Youngdahl, who occasionally visited the Rogosheske's summer cabin, made Rogosheske chairman of the committee that picked the site for what is now Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. And the governor made his friend the district judge.

In 1962, Rogosheske was elevated to the state Supreme Court by Gov. Elmer L. Andersen, another friend.

Rogosheske's mother, Tilly, attended the swearing-in ceremony to the Supreme Court and, with complete candor, mentioned that she really had hoped that her son would be a dentist.

The judge conducted moot court sessions at the University of Minnesota Law School for many years because "one of his great skills was teaching trial skills to law students," his son said. When Rogosheske died, he was working with scholars from New York who were writing a book on legal ethics. They are using a opinion that Rogosheske wrote in 1962 that dealt with lawyers' responsibility to reveal information obtained while investigating a pending court case.

Survivors include his wife, Dorothy, of Little Canada; sons, Jim, of New Brighton, Paul of Mahtomedi, and Mark, of West St. Paul; a daughter, Mary Alice Stoehr, of Maplewood, and 13 grandchildren.

Services will be 7 p.m. Tuesday at Pilgrim Lutheran Church in St. Paul with visitation from 4 to 8 p.m. Monday at Willwerscheid and Peters Mortuary in St. Paul.

Memorial are suggested to Pilgrim Lutheran Church or a charity of the donor's choice.

  Events

• He had a residence in St. Paul, Ramsey County, Minnestoa.

• He worked as a lawyer.

• He was a Lutheran and a member of Zion Lutheran Church.

• His funeral was held Pilgrim Lutheran Church in St. Paul, Ramsey County, Minnestoa.

Walter married Dorothy Ellen Heywood, daughter of Henry Randall Heywood and Alice Maude Sartell, 29 September 1940 in Stearns County, Minnesota.⁸³⁸⁴ (Dorothy Ellen Heywood was born 8 July 1917 in Minnesota.)