Beverly Diane Finken

Beverly D. Finken passed away on the morning of Monday, May 3rd at her home in Litchfield, MN. A visitation will be held from 4:00 - 7:00 PM on Friday June 4, 2021 inside the Episcopal Church, Litchfield, MN and also outside of the church. She is survived by her husband of 49 years, Gary, her son, Andy (Rachel) of Austin, Texas, two grandchildren, James and Grace, one sister, Joanne Foley (Paul) of Richmond, two brothers, Ron Anderson of Litchfield and Jerry Anderson of Apple Valley, and many friends and family members. She is preceded in death by her father, Andy, Mother, Louella, two brothers, Robert Anderson (Janice) of Darwin, and Eugene Anderson (Angela) of St. George, Utah, and one sister, Carol Servin (Ron) of Dassel. Bev was 73 years old. Bev was known by many as the owner and operator of Bev’s Beauty Salon. It was on the corner of Sibley Avenue and Ripley Street since 1988, and a previous location for 15 years before that. Bev’s Beauty Salon was one of the longest-operating-same-owner businesses in Litchfield. Much like her reliable professional presence in the community, she was the foundation and focal point of her family and her circle of friends. Both her home and her business were always open to anyone that needed either to lower their ears, or to bend someone else’s. A beauty shop often becomes a community space, and since the 1970s, an untold number of strangers undoubtedly became friends with Bev’s scissors hovering just above their heads. Those who knew Bev learned quickly that she was quite independent. She didn’t follow a mold or have a doctrine or care much for expectations. Rather, she trusted her intuition and chose activities and a profession she thought were interesting and friends she thought were kind. Many of her closest friendships persisted from high school, and she was close with many of her immediate family members. As a girl, Bev was very athletic, and she spent her time playing sports with the neighborhood boys. She graduated from Litchfield High School in 1965. As a young woman in the 1970s, she learned a trade, styling hair, and started a business. She loved working with new people all week long but could then spend the whole weekend alone in her garden, pulling weeds, watching birds, and listening to the Twins on a pocket radio in her wheelbarrow. She loved old homes, antique furniture, and baking bread, seasonal pies, and cookies from generations-old recipes. Every cookie or pie she made, and every dish she cooked, came from an aunt or a past client from the beauty shop. The first part of every meal was a brief discussion of the person from whom the recipe originated. And she loved eating one of those cookies in her screened porch on a cool night with a steaming cup of coffee. Or listening to the rain with buttered popcorn and more coffee. Or watching the birds eat breakfast and take baths in the morning, with yet more coffee. Bev was one of those people who would casually mention the name of a bird if someone pointed one out. She kept a specific bird house in her garden very close to the porch for a family of wrens that arrived every year in early May. They were always loud, and very fussy, but they loved the garden. And there was always a type of flower blooming in the garden, somewhere, spring until fall, as if they took turns waiting for each other all season long. That peace and nature carried on and thrived so blissfully just behind a business and a highway wasn’t so surprising once you sat down in the porch. Like the beauty shop, it was a place you could go, and a person you could talk to, and the rest of all of it didn’t matter so much. She will be missed.