Researching Nick Coleman

Born in Saint Paul, Coleman served as a Signalman 2nd Class in the United States Navy during World War II. He entered politics as a volunteer for the 1948 congressional campaign of Eugene McCarthy, then a professor at the College of St. Thomas (now the University of St. Thomas), where Coleman was a student. He was later Minnesota chair for the 1964 presidential campaign of Lyndon Johnson.

While in the Senate, Coleman served as an assistant minority leader from 1967 to 1970, as minority leader during the 1971–1972 biennium, and as the first Democrat in 114 years to become majority leader—a position he held from 1973 until leaving the Senate in 1981. The Democrats held the majority in that chamber of the Minnesota Legislature until January, 2011. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the DFL Party's endorsement for governor in 1970, and for the U.S. Senate in 1978.

Coleman was a founder and partner of the advertising agency Coleman-Goff Advertising, later known as Coleman and Christison. He was the father of Chris Coleman, the former mayor of St. Paul, of Minnesota journalist Nick Coleman, and of the Acquisitions Librarian at the Minnesota Historical Society Library, Patrick K. Coleman. Prior to his career in advertising, he was a high school teacher for two years in the rural town of Tyler, Minnesota.

Coleman was married twice. He left his first wife, the mother of his seven children, to marry Deborah Howell, who was 14 years his junior. The divorce and betrayal cost him his relationship with then-governor Rudy Perpich, who was a devout Catholic.

Coleman died of leukemia on March 5, 1981. His body lay in state in the Minnesota State Capitol before burial in Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis.

In his 35-year newspaper career, Coleman reported on Minneapolis and St. Paul city government, business, out-of-state issues, media, and general news. He has had published more than 3,000 newspaper columns and 300 television commentaries. Politics, Native American issues and the Northern Ireland peace process are his favored themes. He also hosted two radio talk shows.

Coleman was the eldest child of the late Nicholas D. (Nick) Coleman, who served as majority leader of the Minnesota Senate from 1973 to 1981, and Bridget Finnegan. He is also the oldest brother and godfather of Mayor Chris Coleman of St. Paul and was the stepson of Deborah Howell, ombudsman for The Washington Post. Howell was editor of the Pioneer Press when Coleman was hired there in 1986. Coleman died at a hospital in Saint Paul, Minnesota after suffering a massive stroke.