Quentin Burdick: The Gentle Warrior

Quentin Burdick: The Gentle Warrior is based on interviews with Burdick, his family, Senate colleagues and many North Dakotans. As the son of Congressman Usher Burdick, Quentin Burdick became the first Democrat in North Dakota to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, in 1958. Two years later, he won a surprise victory over Governor John Davis for the U.S. Senate, where he served continually until his death in September 1992. The book reveals many tragedies in Burdick’s life: the pain of his parents’ divorce, the crippling football injuries, the death of his first wife, the mental breakdown of his first son and the tragic loss of his second son in a freak accident in Fargo at age 16. Late Democratic Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana called Burdick “the quiet senator.”

Quentin Burdick

Quentin Burdick was born on June 19, 1908, in Munich, N.D., the son of a leading Fargo lawyer, Usher Lloyd Burdick. The father was a Republican who served 10 terms in the House of Representatives before his retirement in 1959, when Quentin succeeded him as the first Democrat whom North Dakota had ever sent to Congress.

Quentin received his undergraduate and law degrees at the University of Minnesota. Admitted to the bar in 1932, he joined his father's firm, whose clients included the left-leaning Farmers Union. As a rumpled young man of great energy, he traveled all over the state during the Depression to advise farmers threatened with foreclosure. That role allowed him to gain wide recognition and a foundation on which to build his popularity.

In 1958, the year his first wife, the former Marietta Janecky, died of cancer, he ran with Democratic-N.P.L. backing for the House and won the race to succeed his father. He quickly built up a voting record rated highly by organized labor and the liberal Americans for Democratic Action.
In 1960 he won a special election to fill the unexpired term of the late Senator William Langer. He won election to a full term in 1964 and in each of his four bids for re-election since then. In 1986 he was named chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Quentin's career in the Senate was notable in part for its duration, serving more than three decades on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Burdick died of heart failure in 1992 in his hometown of Fargo.  Mr. Burdick was survived by his second wife, the former Jocelyn Birch Peterson, whom he married in 1960. He had six children, Jonathan, Jan Mary, Jennifer, Jessica, Birch and Leslie.

About the Author

Dan Rylance, a Fargo native, is a longtime student of North Dakota history. Rylance headed the Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special Collections and taught American history at the University of North Dakota from 1967-1989. In 1973, he co-authored The Years of Despair: North Dakota in the Depression, and in 1982, wrote Ever Westward to the Far East: The Story of Chester Fritz. In 1989, he became the editorial page editor for the Grand Forks Herald. Rylance taught American history at Idaho State University and worked as a landscaper.  Rylance returned to education in 2003, first as an ad hoc professor at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia, Bulgaria, and second as special events coordinator at Webster Stanley Elementary School in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He serves as adviser to the Webster Wave, the first elementary school newspaper in Wisconsin.

Website Links:

Quentin Burdick Papers, Chester Fritz Library, UND