Marian Bemis Johnson’s life work has been spent looking for answers to a question that so many girls and women have faced throughout the decades: “Why wasn’t I allowed to play?”

Bemis Johnson graduated from Waterville High School in 1948 in a time when there were no opportunities available for girls and women to play sports at the high school or collegiate level. This didn’t make sense to Bemis Johnson, who grew up hearing about her mother’s time on the girls’ basketball team in Faribault in the 1920s.

In her quest to find answers, Bemis Johnson started doing research. She learned that basketball came to Carleton College in 1892 shortly after its inception, and it was an instant hit. Girls’ basketball teams popped up around the state – boys’ teams came later – and by the 1920s, most schools had girls’ teams competing against one another and playing in local, district, and regional tournaments.

In the 1930s, however, the national attitude changed, and sports were deemed too risky for women. By 1942, all Minnesota girls’ basketball teams were gone – leaving girls like Bemis Johnson wondering why they couldn’t play for decades.

Bemis Johnson found a way to help bring athletics to girls and women throughout her career. She started the competitive synchronized swimming team at Stillwater High School in 1953, and she coached synchronized swimming at Hamline during her time there from 1957-64. During the years 1968-88 she developed the women’s sports program at Lakewood Community College – now Century College – and she served as the Women’s Athletic Director as well as the head coach of the volleyball, basketball, softball, and tennis teams.

While she was building opportunities for women, Bemis Johnson decided she wanted to learn more about the women who competed on those early sports teams in Minnesota – and to share their stories. In the 1980s she traveled around the state and interviewed women who had competed in the 50 years that girls’ basketball was played before being shut down in 1942.

Marian heard stories about girls traveling by train and horse drawn sleighs to get to games and having to heat gyms with wood-burning stoves. She listened and took notes as these women – now senior citizens – got teary eyed talking about how they were told that they no longer had a team, because running and jumping was not healthy for them.

Bemis Johnson teamed up with Dorothy McIntyre. They formed their own publishing company, wrote and published “Daughters of the Game – the First Era of Minnesota Girls High School Basketball, 1891-1942.”  The 396-page book was filled with all the stories and photos provided by the women who had played.  Since the book was published in 2005, Bemis Johnson has traveled around the state sharing stories from the book with schools, libraries, and historical organizations.  The book received a national award for preserving local history.

Because of Bemis Johnson’s lifelong curiosity and determination to find out why she couldn’t play, and her detailed storytelling, the first era of girls’ basketball in Minnesota has been preserved and will be remembered for generations to come.