FEATURED RESIDENT- JANUARY, 2010- ANTHONY JOHN FORNENGO

FEATURED RESIDENT- JANUARY, 2010- ANTHONY JOHN FORNENGO

Members of the wonderful and extended Fornengo have lived in our community for many years.  This month we are featuring a longtime contributor in many ways to our township.

Anthony John Fornengo was born to Doris and Tony Fornengo, who lived here in New Dosey, at the Siren, Wisconsin, hospital on April 28, 1951.  He was the last of their six children.

John attended the Cloverton Grade school for grades 1-8, then went to the Sandstone High School, from which he graduated in 1970.  During his senior year in high school, John started working for the railroad in Superior, Wisconsin, and went back to work there upon high school graduation.

John was drafted into the U.S. army in January of 1971.  (He recalls that he and his family were gathered listening to the numbers and his was the last number called!)

He served 2 years in Frankfurt, Germany, as a Railway MP.  He was one of a very small number of MPs serving in the entirety of Europe at that time.

Upon getting out of the Service, John picked up his job with the Canadien-Pacific Railroad and has worked there for over 42 years.  In the meantime, he had met Robin Merritt, from California, when she was staying with friends in Sandstone and attending school in Duluth.  They met at the old A& W Root Beer stand in Sandstone.

John and Robin were married in his mom and dad’s backyard under the lilacs on September 11, 1971.  They have  two adult children, Jason and Brannan, and three grandsons.  Jason and his wife Erika and sons Dominic and Adam live next to John and Robin right here in Cloverton, while Brannan and her husband and son Elijah live in Finlayson.

Carrying a strong religious faith, John has been very involved in church activities for many years.  He and Robin are members of the Siren Assembly of God congregation.  John is part of a Men’s Group that meets every Thursday evening to discuss and deal with many issues, including addiction and recovery.  A recovering alcoholic, John is proud of the fact, and rightfully so, that he took his last drink in January of 1981 and met the Lord during the same month.

Spending time with Robin, his children and grandchildren is another joy of John’s life.

John served on the New Dosey town board for 12 years, six of which saw him in the role of Town Chair. He laughingly recalls the crisis in the early 1990s when a supervisor election came in as a tie and he, along with Clerk Dave Baker, made the call to draw straws to determine a winner.

John hopes to retire in about 18 months and add hunting and fishing to the list of activities that he enjoys.

A grateful and admiring township wishes him well in all that he does.

FEATURED RESIDENT-JUNE 2009-DON MISHLER

FEATURED RESIDENT-JUNE 2009-DON MISHLER

It is doubtful that New Dosey Township would be governed and operated in the fine fashion that it is without the work that is done by Don Mishler.  As a town board supervisor, the grader operator, the township mechanic and the “go-to “guy in general, Don is responsible for most of the “nuts & bolts”, day by day functions of our township.

Donald Darold Mishler was born on his father’s birthday, February 26, 1939, to Joe and Lydia Mishler.  He was the middle child of three sons.  His parents lived in Cloverton at the time and he was born in the Pine City Hospital.  Don attended the first 8 grades of school at the Cloverton School, then went to high school in Sandstone, graduating in 1957.

Upon graduating from high school, he worked for one year on the Great Lakes as a seaman, then, in 1958, he worked for a few months at the only job he was ever fired from.  That’s right, Mr. Work Ethic himself was actually fired from a job.  It wasn’t his fault- he was in a  minor accident on his construction job in Sherbourne, Minnesota, caused by an inattentive driver in another vehicle.  But company policy was that one accident of any kind was a fireable offense.

In 1959, Don went to work as a lead-man setting up machines for Cornelius Company (later IMI Cornelius) in Anoka County.  He worked there for 42 years until his retirement in 2001.

Don married Adeline Oehrlein in 1959 and they had 2 children Diana and Brian and they adopted a third child Jason in 1970.  Don and Adeline had another child who only lived for four hours. Diana works for Anoka County, while Brian works in construction and Jason is at Central Sand Blasting Co.  Don and Adeline were divorced in 1980.

A young widow named Marlene Bowman had worked with Don at Cornelius for 12 years and in the early 1980s, a relationship was sparked. Don and Marlene were married in 1982.  Marlene had a daughter Pam who joined the family. Tragedy stuck the Mishler family in 1984 when Pam’s daughter Nicole at age 6 was murdered, and again, in 2004 when Diana’s daughter Cassie,18, died in a car accident.

Don and Marlene had been coming back to Cloverton for many years as weekenders in the cabin he owned next to his mom Lydia’s farm.  They worked on the cabin continuously to turn it into the beautiful home it is today.  They moved up here permanently after Don retired in 2001.

Don has been a town board supervisor for 8 years.  He is the Board delegate to the Tri-Township Disposal District meetings.  As mentioned before, he is also the town mechanic and grades the roads.

As a member of the Board of Directors for the East Pine County Wanderers, our senior group, he is also active in senior activities.  He is also a member of the Seven-County Senior Federation and the Duxbury Volunteer Fire Department.

As much as Don enjoys hunting, fishing and four-wheeling, he is an even more avid fan of both the Discovery and the History Channels.

All of the work done by Don Mishler for our community is very much appreciated.

FEATURED RESIDENT-JEANNIE EDDY- MAY 2009

FEATURED RESIDENT-JEANNIE EDDY- MAY 2009

Not many people out here in the little hamlet of New Dosey Township may be aware of it, but we have a published author among our midst.  She is a quiet, gentle and talented woman who spends most of her time reading, writing, editing and playing with her grandchildren.

Jeannie Eddy was born in September, 1955, to William and Pat Nash in St. Paul.  She has one sister and 2 brothers.  Jeannie attended the local Polish parish elementary school- St. Abalbert’s and then continued her Catholic education at St. Agnes High School, graduating in 1973.

Upon high school graduation, she took a job as a secretary with the State of Minnesota and worked there for 5 years.  She met the young man who would become her husband when he was the neighbor of her best high school friend.  Jeannie and Don Eddyd were married in 1976.  They lived in St. Paul for 3 years, then moved to Eagan, Minnesota..

Jeannie is mom to 2 sons- Nick and Jack.  Nick at age 31 works for a CNC tool & dye company.  He also heads up a program department for a company that specializes in medical devices.  Jack at age 30 works as a realtor for Coldwell Banker Co. and as a partner in a recording company Wake the World Records, and as a waiter.

Jack is the dad of 2 sons- Tyler, 20 months, and Brody, 4 months.  These children are the highlight of Jeannie’s life these days.  Since they live in the Twin Cities, many trips are made to spend time with them.

Jeannie went back to work as a secretary for Independent School District 196 in Apple Valley and Eagan and worked there for 17 years.  Then she took a job again with the State of Minnesota in the State Fire Marshall’s office. When Don retired from his job as a fire fighter, she quit her job and moved to Cloverton.

It was then that she began to pursue a lifelong ambition- that of writing.  An avid and long time reader, it seemed a natural progression to try her hand at writing also.

To learn the craft, Jeannie joined 3 writer’s groups (1)  the Lake Superior Writer’s Group in Duluth (2)  the Northern Lights Writer’s Group in Forest Lake and (3) The Lake Havisu Writer’s Group in Arizona.   She says she learned so much about writing from the other members of these clubs.  Members would read and critique each other’s work.  It was in one of these groups that she was encouraged to submit some of her short stories for publication.

She has had several stories published- both in print and on-line periodicals.  FIFTY SOMETHING MAGAZINE, A LONG STORY SHORT MAGAZINE AND APOLLO’S LEAR MAGAZINE have all published some of Jeannies’s work.

While in Arizona, she was asked to teach at Book Fair Workship.  With a class of 40 students, she taught the “Do’s & Don’ts of Getting Published in Short Fiction.”

During her early years in our township, Jeannie began writing a novel set in Superior, Wisconsin.  Shortly after that, however, she took a position as an editor for and on-line magazine. She did this work for three years and found it to be an excellent experience.  She had to “back burner” her novel while doing this job because she would have as many 500 short stories to read and edit in a quarter.  She is now back to dedicating herself full-time to working on her novel.

Jeannie has also started her own on-line business.  It is entitled the Superior Editing Service.

Being married to Don, reading, writing, traveling and spending time with the “little munchkins” all bring a lot of joy to Jeannie Eddy’s life.  We enjoy having her in our community and are proud of her achievements.