The Golden Link Senior Center’s Experienced Americans for July 2022 are Frank and Jeanie Lindgren. The couple has been married for 53 years and has lived in Polk County for nearly all of their lives.
Jeanie grew up on a farm about 15 miles away from Crookston with an older sister, where they both assisted in cattle and green farming. “We helped out wherever we could, I had an older sister that helped out in the fields, and I was designated to be the cook, so I helped in the house whenever I could,” said Jeanie. She began school first in a country school up to first grade before moving to the Crookston School District in second grade. After high school, she worked various jobs working at a jewelry store and a bank in East Grand Forks. Frank, in the meantime, was born on a farm just north of East Grand Forks but says that he’s a kid that moved over 40 times before he became 20 years old since they lived in East Grand Forks during the wintertime but moved back to the farm in the summer. “I went to school at Sacred Heart High School in East Grand Forks, and from there, I went to college at St. John’s University, graduated in 1968, went through the ROTC program, and went into the Army for two years,” Frank said. After serving two years, Frank spent ten months at the Dugway Proving Grounds Army facility, where he would soon get married to Jeanie before having to be deployed for a year in Thailand.
But Jeanie and Frank were actually closer than they initially thought before they met and got married as Frank’s oldest brother and Jeanie’s aunt were a married couple that lived together in California, and every two or three years, they would come back to Minnesota to celebrate anniversaries, and on the reunion for their 15th anniversary, Frank and Jeanie met each other for the first time at the anniversary party. Frank was working in St. Cloud but decided to quit his job and returned home as he was about to go back into the service soon. When he did, he and Jeanie began dating as he began being moved to different army bases around the country, first to Fort Eustis in Virginia, then to Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. Before being deployed to Thailand, the two got married in Dugway Proving Grounds before going back to Minnesota to officially be married there before Frank would be deployed to Thailand until the Fall of 1970.
Since then, both have been working in many ways to help their family and community grow in many different ways. While Frank was serving in Thailand, Jeanie moved in with her parents and continued working at Mountz Jewelers for about a year and part-time at a bank until their first son was born in 1972. They are the parents of four children and the grandparents of twelve grandchildren. “Our oldest child was born in September of ’72 and is an ER doctor in Fergus Falls. Then we have a son in the Twin Cities who is a pharmacist at Walgreens. We have a daughter who teaches in the School District in Crookston, and we have a son who was born in ’82 and is out in Arizona as a pharmacist and also has a law degree that works for a company where he’s the mediacy that approves or disapproves high-end drugs for a company,” Jeanie explained. After having their first child, Jeanie had to decide whether or not she would return to work and decided to work in daycare after a suggestion from a fellow worker at the bank, where she worked until she retired in May.
After Frank got out of the service, he went to work with Eickhof Construction, where he built bridges and commercial buildings in Minnesota and North and South Dakota and took part in many bid lettings and would travel to many different areas to put in his bids such as Brookings, South Dakota to bid on the Student Union building in South Dakota State University, and Washington D.C. to bid with the United States Department of Agriculture and other government work since he was in the Army. In 1982, Frank then got into the insurance business for nine years before becoming the service manager of Associated Plumbing and Heating for about five years. Frank also stepped into the banking business by joining a bank agency in Ada and Winger for a few years. After that, Frank chose to work closer to home and became a custodian for the Crookston High School and Washington Elementary School, and even became a grounds person, maintaining the lawns and removing snow for the schools until retiring in 2014. And during all of that, he was a member of the Crookston City Council for multiple years, first from 1996 to 2003 and then from 2006 to 2014, when he officially retired. But, retiring from the school didn’t put him out of work as Frank has since been a bus driver for the school, transporting kids in the mornings and afternoons and to sporting events like football and baseball. He also works as a custodian putting in a couple of hours at the Crookston Cathedral for Immaculate Conception, as well as the president of the Lion’s Club in Crookston in 1985 and Ada in 1990. Other organizations Frank is a part of are the Crookston Eagles Club, the Crookston American Legion, the Crookston VFW, and the DAV.
In their later years, the couple has been trying to take as much part in their family as possible, mainly in the lives of their twelve grandchildren. “We’ve tried to keep up with going to our grandkid’s activities. We’ve tried to go as many of those as we can,” Jeanie said. “Whether it’s just to drive down to the Cities to watch a soccer game for our grandsons and come back the same day, or to go to Alexandria to watch them run in different meets. Whatever it takes, we tried to do as much as we can.” They report that they have six grandsons and six granddaughters, with the oldest just graduating from college and their youngest being only seven years old, and they are very proud of all of their children’s accomplishments.
Both are honored to have been selected but are also a bit surprised to be chosen as they feel there are many deserving people that deserve the award as much as they do. “I’m very honored to have been selected, I told someone that I’m not very experienced, so I don’t know how I became an Experienced American, but it’s quite an honor, and I think there’s a lot of deserving people for this award and it blows me away that we were selected,” Frank said. Both thank the people who had a part in selecting them and say it’s very humbling to receive this award.
A reception will be held for Frank and Jeanie at the Golden Links Senior Center on Friday, July 8, from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.
