Pictured is Steven with the upper part of the dialysis machine in the background. His blood passes out of his body and through a filter in the machine during the six hours at a time he spends on it.

MINNEAPOLIS — Shirley Lindquist spent the night thinking about a dead 14-year-old she doesn’t know.

It is because that boy died Friday, Mrs. Lindquist points out, that her son Steven was given a new life Saturday.

AFTER WAITING four months, Steven, 10, has a new kidney. The word that a transplantable organ was available came Friday afternoon, causing a rush to the University of Minneapolis Hospitals.

The operation began 10 p.m. Friday;it finished at 2:15 a.m. Saturday.

Mrs. Lindquist,of 405 19th N. in New Ulm, was able to see the kidney before the operation.

“We think that it’s very interesting, and really rather amazing that they can stitch those fragile tubes together,” she said.

Steven is doing well, Mrs. Lindquist said Saturday afternoon. A nurse has been assigned to him round-the-clock for the time being. He is to be in the hospital for at least two weeks.

MEANWHILE, Mrs. Lindquist said she could not get her mind off the young donor as her son was being operated on overnight.

She hasn’t been told anything about the boy,except that he was 14.

“Sometimes, I think it’s best that we don’t know any more than that,” she observed.

But, Mrs. Lindquist said, she hopes the donor’s parents can somehow be aware of what their son’s kidney means to her.

“My thoughts were for the mother of the 14 year-old child last night,” Mrs. Lindquist said. “It’s kind of emotional.

“This woman was crying for her child last night while he was giving my son a new life.”

New Ulm Daily Journal

May 9, 1976