When Alden Sheffield graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in the mid-1930s, he headed to rural Redwood Falls to open a private practice. But, in the midst of the Great Depression, farmers in the sleepy town didn't have much money for lawyers or anything else.

After several years of struggling to pay the bills, Sheffield packed up and headed west for a job with the FBI, smoking out German agents and sympathizers in defense-industry-heavy Los Angeles during World War II.

The Springfield, Minn., native worked in Western and Midwestern FBI offices for two decades, tracking white collar criminals and bank robbers, before serving 14 years as a Hennepin County Juvenile Court judge.

Sheffield died Nov. 17 at Friendship Village, a Bloomington retirement community. He was 99.

At a time when traffic citations could land a teen in juvenile court, Sheffield's son, Daniel Sheffield, fretted about friends and classmates standing before his father.

"When you're a teenager, you worry about your parents being cool," said his son, a lawyer in Colorado Springs. "People thought he was just fine."

With an FBI agent father, Daniel Sheffield said, he always won the "my dad's job is better" playground debates.

Alden Sheffield's final stop with the bureau brought him back home to Minnesota, where he worked out of the Minneapolis office. He often joked with family and friends that he had a decent career because he never was assigned to the Helena office in Montana, his son said.

Sheffield remembers his father, while working a high-priority case in Duluth, bringing home a briefcase equipped with a hidden camera. Possibly considered commonplace now, the gadget was James Bond-esque in the late 1950s, his son said.

When he wasn't chasing bad guys or handing down sentences, Sheffield often played cards, especially cribbage, performed with dance clubs and listened to classical music. As a law student, he ushered concerts at Northrop Auditorium to watch shows for free, his son said.

The elder Sheffield belonged to Colonial Church of Edina and several civic organizations, including the Edina Lions Club and Edina Freemasons Lodge.

Sheffield wrote his own obituary at age 92, soon after his wife, Martha, a former English teacher at Edina High, died. Two days before his death, father and son chatted about the Minnesota Vikings' woes.

"He was sharp right until the end," his son said.

Sheffield's son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren survive him. A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Jan. 15 at Friendship Village, 8100 Highwood Drive, Bloomington.