Hello Jill! Can you tell us about your childhood and your background (of education, career, places to live, and everything you want readers to know about you.
I grew up in a small town in rural Minnesota, with a population of 2,000 made up primarily of descendants of Scandinavian and German immigrants. For most of my childhood, I lived in the same house that my father was born and grew up in. My grandfather, who came to the U.S. from Sweden at 18 years of age, established a general store in our town of Buffalo, a store that my father inherited and owned until his retirement.
I am the middle child of our family, with a sister four years older than me and a brother four years younger. We were always a close knit family; and although my sister now lives in Idaho and my brother in Wyoming, we make it a point to get together at least once a year.
After high school graduation, I continued my education at Macalester College, a small liberal arts school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Although Macalester was only 35 miles away from my hometown in geographical terms, it was a world away culturally and academically. I had to study hard for the first time, and I met people of different races and nationalities from around the U.S. and many countries beyond. It was a challenging and enlightening time for me. I earned my degree in English Literature, graduating in 1968.
After a year living in New York City, and a couple years in Minneapolis I moved, with my husband to Bloomington Indiana where I continued my education earning a Masters Degree in English Literature at Indiana University.
It was in Bloomington that I had my first son, Ian. In 1979, just after his first birthday, he, his dad, and I moved to Houghton, where my husband had accepted a faculty position in Michigan Tech’s Humanities Dept. And Houghton is where I have been ever since! It was here in Houghton that I had my second son Quentin in 1982. When my boys were two and six, their father died of cancer, which was of course a huge upheaval in our lives. With the help of my friends and family, we adjusted to our new lives.
Three years later, I married my longtime friend Randy Freisinger, and the four of us have been a family for almost 40 years now.
My grown sons and their partners both presently live in Chicago where Ian is an athletic trainer and Quentin is an architect. We get together every chance we can, holidays and summer get-togethers at Lake Medora.
Were there any challenges you faced during your career that shaped who you are today?
My career path has been one with lots of twists and turns. My first job after college was as an English teacher at North St. Paul High School in Minnesota. After our move to Houghton, Other teaching and tutoring jobs followed at Michigan Tech. I first worked as a tutor in Michigan Tech’s Writing Center and then as an adjunct faculty member teaching English composition classes in the Humanities Dept.
My position as station manager of WGGL Public Radio was certainly the most challenging of any job I had either before or after. My duties included overseeing every aspect of keeping the station on air, providing local news, weather, and events listings and coordinating our programming with Minnesota Public Radio and National Public Radio. I hired news announcers, engineers, and fundraising staff, but most of the day-to-day work fell to me. The technical aspects of operating a radio station were daunting. I had no prior broadcast engineering or announcing experience and was forced to learn on the job. And several times a year, I was tasked with raising the funds to keep the station on the air, which involved hours of on-air fund-raising appeals. The job was sometimes overwhelming, but other times fun and rewarding. I worked with some great people, learned to hire and supervise staff, and enjoyed being involved in local news events, even having the honor of interviewing civil rights activist Rosa Parks. This job taught me that I could meet a big challenge and succeed, through hard work and sheer determination.
My favorite job was my last one—I worked as Executive Director of the Isle Royale and Keweenaw Parks Assoc. for 13 years. I enjoyed working with National Park staff from both Isle Royale and Keweenaw Natl. Historical Park. I was able to use past writing and editing skills to help produce educational publications, including park newspapers, brochures, and full length books about the parks’ natural and historical attributes. Best of all, I was able to spend a lot of time on Isle Royale. I took the long, slow boat trip across Lake Superior out to the island several times each year and got to know the island from one end to the other, hiking, camping and staying in some of the historic cabins that were owned by families before the island became a park.
How long have you been a tutor at EBLP? What drives you to be a tutor? What do you like and what are the challenges that you find?
I had a couple other experiences tutoring before coming to EBLP. I spent a summer in Finland between my junior and senior year in college working for Finnish Chemical Company helping their employees with English language skills, both speaking and writing. And later, at Michigan Tech, I worked in the Writing Center helping native English speaking students with their writing skills. I enjoyed both of those jobs, but this volunteer position with EBLP is the most fun and rewarding for me. What’s interesting is that I am learning as much or more than I am teaching. In our weekly classes, which my husband Randy and I teach via Zoom, I learn a great deal about our students’ countries and how their cultures are similar to and different from our own. Our discussions bring me new and different perspectives on my own country and my own language.
I am aware that you’re spending most of your summer days on your cabin in Lake Medora. What do you like about staying there? What activities do you enjoy the most?
Our family cottage on Lake Medora, just south of Copper Harbor, is truly “my happy place. When I was a kid, my family inherited a summer cabin in northern Minnesota, where we spent several weeks each summer, swimming, boating, picking blueberries, playing cards and just relaxing with family and friends. When I moved to Houghton, I was immediately reminded of that idyllic place and time. I was pretty determined to find a lake cabin where I could re-live some of those summer days and give my kids that experience.
After several years of searching and several false starts, we found the perfect place. Our cottage is a gathering place for our friends and our extended family. We hike, boat, swim, fish, play Scrabble, pick blueberries, play golf, cook and eat way too much.
When it’s just Randy and me there, I kayak, walk my dog, read on the dock, and take photos of the sunset most every day. It’s quiet and peaceful with few of the duties and distractions that are part of our lives in town.
During our Zoom meetings we have talked about friendship and nurturing healthy relationships with friends. Since you have just come back from the trip with your friends, can you give us tips on what to expect as we are growing old and with our circle of friends?
I have been very lucky to have always had a few good friends. I don’t need, and haven’t had, a huge of circle of friends and acquaintances, but I’ve always had a handful of people I could count on. I’m still regularly in touch with my best friend from elementary school in Buffalo. She and I shared a dorm room our first year in college, later married, moved away, had children and sometimes didn’t see each other for years, but we were always in touch. She visits me at our summer cottage and I drive to Minneapolis every fall to spend time at her house.
I recently reconnected with a close college friend and once again shared a dorm room—this time at our 50th class reunion at Macalester. She, too, has come to stay at Lake Medora and I recently stayed with her at her house on Lake Superior in Wisconsin. I have a friend from graduate school days in Bloomington, Indiana. She has lived in Greece for many years where I have visited her three times. When my husband died, she came and stayed with me for several months to help care for my boys. And when she needed money to build her dream home in Greece, I was happy to offer her a loan.
In Houghton, the friends I made when I moved here over 40 years ago are still my best and closest friends. They have been with me through difficult times and been there to celebrate the great times. We go out for lunch, entertain each other for dinners, celebrate holidays, hike in the Keweenaw and go on women-only camping excursions on Isle Royale.
I share amazing memories with all these women. I’ve found that I value my friends more and more as I get older.
You have been traveling all around the States and the world, what is your most favorite place (in the U.S. or abroad)?
When I was growing up our family took car trips every summer. We visited my dad’s siblings in New York City and Miami Florida. We visited Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon; we camped in the Black Hills in South Dakota and spent several days struggling to understand French in Quebec City. Other than several trips in Canada, I had never ventured outside the U.S. until the summer after my junior year in college, when I boarded an airplane for the first time for a summer job in Aetsa, Finland. I spent two months there and fell in love with the people, participated in a weekly sauna, and the stayed up much of the night under the midnight sun.
I’ve traveled to Greece three times to visit my friend there, once on my own, once with my one-year-old Ian, and once more with Randy and our teenage sons. Randy planned a wonderful trip to England and Scotland with an itinerary planned to visit the homes of famous literary figures, Dickens, Wordsworth, Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters.
Randy and I have been to Mexico three times, beginning with our honeymoon, then with our sons, and a year ago for several weeks in Puerto Vallarta. We spent a couple fabulous weeks in Italy in Cortona, Florence and Rome.
Maybe my favorite international adventure was the two weeks we spent in Costa Rica, where we stayed in eco lodges, marveled at the mountain scenery, hiked in the jungle, enjoyed monkeys and sloths up close, saw birds we’ll never see again, and lounged on sand beaches.
Our next adventure, coming up in the spring will be a trip we’ve talked about for a couple years—a Viking River Cruise from Paris to Prague.
But, after all is said and done, there is really nowhere I’d rather be than Houghton Michigan and the Keweenaw Peninsula.
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The interview was conducted via email, Puti Akbar served as the interviewer. All photos are credited to their respective owners through direct links/URLs, while the remaining photos are by Jill Burkland.
Elaine Bacon Literacy Program 
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