Hearts in Hawai'i
Jackson School Memories
8/31/2022
This week marks 40 years since a large part of what was known as the St. Louis County Social Services Department moved from the Jackson School to the Government Services Center in late August 1982. This agency was originally called St. Louis County Welfare and is currently known as St. Louis County Public Health and Human Services. For those who care about a name. 
The above picture shows the building which was the Jackson Elementary School, opened in 1884. St. Louis County purchased the building after the school closed in 1962 and used it for offices of most of their Income Maintenance and Business Administration units for the next twenty years. It was where I started working in June 1981.
I was living at home when my career with the County began. Not having a car, my mom would drop me off in front of the County Courthouse each workday morning, a block down from the Jackson School. This required crossing 2nd Street and then huffing up a fairly steep set of stairs which would bring me to an alley behind the school.
Given my youthful age at the time, I never considered this climb to be difficult (I wouldn't like to do that walk now!). Once across the alley, I'd enter the building on the basement level and then climb two flights up to where my office was located.
Why climb two flights? Because the Jackson School had no elevators! We did have what was called a "dumb waiter" where a worker could send stacks of case files from floor to floor (three floors in total). Oh, no air conditioning, either. Most of the time, the lack of air conditioning wasn't an issue but Duluth can and does get hot from time to time in the summer despite its proximity to Lake Superior. When one of those rare heat waves occurred, we'd suffer. They had a rule that if the temperature inside the building reached a certain level (I believe it was either 85 or 90 degrees), we could then go home for the day. This never happened but it did get within a couple degrees more than once during the first summer I worked there.
The basic layout in the building was this; in the basement were the two Accounting Units, the switchboard (manned by Connie Johnson and Pat Netzel) and a large, damp, dusty and dark room where old case files were kept in wooden file cabinets. Ever see a silverfish? You would when you turned the lightson in this room! Those bugs didn't like brightness and could really skitter!
The main feature in the basement was the cafeteria, serving hot meals and snacks. Jack Hicken from Minnesota Services to the Blind ran this. He was assisted by his wife, Sharon, and did an outstanding job in spite of his disability. It could get rather hectic at times during the lunch rush but Jack always had time for a quick chat or quip as you moved through the ordering line. He used to sell what was called a "Jack-o-Muffin" which was similar to a McDonald's Sausage McMuffin with Egg, only he used ham instead of sausage. They were great. One of the lunch items I liked to order was a mini Tombstone Pizza. One never went hungry when Jack's Coffee Shop was open!
The middle floor housed a couple Income Maintenance Units, Intake and AFDC (now known as MFIP). Some Business Administration folks, in a unit supervised by Ed Luxon, were on the back side of this floor with views toward the Courthouse and the lake. It was also, on the 3rd Street side, where clients would enter the building and the Intake area.
The top floor housed four other Income Maintenanace units; GA, GAMC, MA and MSA. Other Business Adminstration units such and Planning & Evaluation and Contract Services were here, as was the file room which had all the non-active files which hadn't aged to the point where they would be moved to the basement. The first job I'd applied for with the County, in mid-1980, was in this long, narrow room. Administration, Staff Development and the Microfilm Unit (where I worked) were here. The Microfilm Unit had six workers, split into two offices. Our office, which I shared with two ladies, was found by walking through Staff Development.
Outside and between the building and the Thunderbird House (a CD treatment facility which catered to Native Americans) was a small grassy area containing a picnic table where people could go outside and enjoy their "15 minute" breaks. Why did I put the smily face here? If you work or worked for Social Services, you understood what "15 minutes" really meant. Many times I found myself out there, smoking cigarettes and chatting with Terry Lundgren (from the County Attorney's office), Jean Lindorff (a clerk from Intake) and Claudia Cobb (an Eligibility Specialist from Intake--or possible AFDC, my memory is fuzzy on that detail). I thought it was a cool place to sit with the residents next door at the Thunderbird House at times banging on a drum and chanting.
But when I first started there, I didn't understand that there was an unspoken "pecking order" in the cafeteria early in the morning before work started. On the second or third day I was working, I walked into the cafeteria, scanning the crowd which had assembled. Some were smoking, some drinking coffee, most chatting. I noticed a group of guys sitting way in the back and decided to sit down in the middle of them. They ignored me other than the few curious looks I got from them. Later that day, Sharon Finch, my supervisor (it was unofficial, she was more of a team leader because she hadn't yet acquired her degree) told me whom I had been sitting in the middle of, and it was basically Agency Royalty! It included Miles Wangensteen (Agency Director), Bob Zeleznikar (Assistant Director), Russ Wick (I believe a section supervisor in Income Maintanence), Darryl Rude (The director of Income Maintenance) Roger Elverhoy (Director of Business Services) and Ed Luxon (Supervisor of Office Management). I sat there because Ed was the only one I recognized, having interviewed with him in 1980 for the clerical job in the File Room. So the next day, I found another table more in line with my meager pay scale. But it did remind me of what a friend would tell me about a mutual acquaintance of ours a few years later; "[name redacted] wants to piss with the big dogs, he just can't get his leg high enough"
The top floor had those high ceilings, but the offices in the middle of the floor had wooden partitions measuring about 8-9 feet high. This would come into play about a year after I'd started. Terry had called and said that Alan Mitchell, the County Attorney, wanted to gain access to his office and pick up a radio. Terry wasn't available to unlock his office so he asked if I would. Well, of course! I went down into the basement and secured a ladder from Jim Seguin, the head maintanence guy. I propped the ladder up against the outer wall of Terry's office and scooted up. Terry's office just happened to be right across the hallway from my supervisor's office. As I got to the top and was getting ready to hop over the wall, I felt eyes on me. Glancing down, Sharon was glaring up at me. Oops! But the mission was accomplished and all I had to endure was Sharon's reaming me out over insurance concerns had I fallen, etc. etc. I tried to minimize it, which only increased her angst. Good thing I had already passed my six-month probation!
On another occasion, my co-workers and I decided to surprise Sharon on her birthday. We found one of those huge boxes (like the kind a washer or drier is packed in) and decorated it to look like a birthday cake. With me inside! We did this in a conference room soon before we were to have a unit meeting. Sharon came in the room and sat down. When I heard her ask "Where's Lee?" I burst through the top of the cake/box and yelled out "Happy Birthday!" Sharon, startled, nearly spilled her coffee all over herself!
The place had character and was quite an informal environment in which to work. I enjoyed it immensely from the start (well, who the hell wouldn't after working at K Mart???)--little did I know at the time that this was the start of what would turn out to be a career spanning nearly 39 years. But back then, I wasn't thinking in terms of a career. I was getting paid more than any other job I'd had to that point, the work was relatively easy and I was good at it. As for the politics of working for a governmental agency, I would learn that as I went.
We knew that our time in this building was going to be limited. The old Christie Building a block away and across the avenue from City Hall had been demolished and a new seven-story building was being constructed. We were thrilled at the chance to be moving to such a large building which actually had air conditioning and (gasp!) elevators!
Construction of the Government Services Center was completed in summer of 1982. It was owned by the State, but the County rented out most of the building. Eventually the County would negotiate purchasing the building from the State, after which they would kick the State out. Our first tour of this building, when it was still basically a shell without partitions and desks) left us nearly giddy with excitement. The new cafeteria was to be on the top floor on the lake side of the building, featuring fantastic views of downtown, the lake and the Duluth Harbor. What a great break room this was going to be!
August was spent boxing up everything which was to be moved from the Jackson School. We had to "battle" the silverfish in the basement to pack up those thousands of case files. By the time we moved, in the final week of August 1982, we were tired. But the effort was worth it! And now we had a new home. I don't remember missing the Jackson School until workers took the wrecking ball to the building in the spring of 1983. A few people grabbed bricks from the demolished building. One made its way from person to person--as they retired, the brick moved on to someone else. I got the brick from Sandy Anderson when she retired I kept it until retiring at the end of March 2020. At that time, I gifted the brick to Pam Moline. She retired not long after I did, and last I heard, Susan Zentkowki (who had been the secretary under Dan Meador and Joan Beerhalter in Staff Development when I started in the Jackson School) still had the brick, being one of two people still working for the County who had been in the Jackson School at one point.
Me flanked by two co-workers during our final days in the Jackson School
Those fourteen months spent in the Jackson School created some memories, but at the time, I didn't understand the significance of it. It was just a building I worked in and was happy to leave it behind for the GSC. Why have I thought about that place so often over the past several years?
Three reasons:
1. You always remember the initial days, months and years working a new job. The desk you worked at, the co-workers and supervisors, all of that. For better or worse, they tend to leave an indelible mark in your mind.
2. The friends you made during that time, some of which have continued to the present time.
3. I don't know if others are like this, but I romanticize the past, tending to forget the pain certain memories invoke. I was young, with all the promises youth brings. The majority of my life was ahead. Physically, I could do much more and better when I was 23 than I can do nowadays--my knees keep reminding me of this point! I had more of an idyllic attitude then. While most of my life was a hot mess the first year I worked there, I still held to my ideals. And the world seemed (only seemed--it really wasn't) simpler then. Most of the issues in my life were black-and-white. I hadn't learned nuance yet and didn't pay much attention to grey areas.
Enough philosophizing. I remember that place fondly. I don't want to go back there, but it was (whether I understood it at the time or not) the basis for much of what was to happen.
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