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Jackie loves her Old Towne Menomonie
Training nurses at the hospital, building businesses, and saving the Wilson Place Museum are all in a life's work for Dotseth.
By Kay Kruse-Stanton
This past winter, Menomonie's Jackie Dotseth enjoyed a taste of retirement.
Her version of retirement, that is.
At the family's vacation home in Florida, she only worked until 2 p.m. each day. Using FAX and telephone, she handled the financials for John Dotseth Trucking, the business she operates with her husband. She managed all the scheduling and operational details for the family's conference center, Olde Towne, and kept it on track developing a governing board for the Wilson Place Mansion/Museum, the family's third community venture.
Evenings were free for cooking, baking, sewing and crafts work, and for using the skills she developed as a nurse to help her neighbors, a retired Florida family, cope with various health issues: surgeries, rehabilitation, nutrition, and so on.
"Isn't that what life is all about?" Dotseth asks.
The fact she considers that a light schedule is an indication of what her usual routine is like. She's beyond the age when most people hope to retire, but lifelong habits are hard to break.
"There's always more to do," she says.
When her son Tim gives tours of Olde Towne conference center's extensive collection of antiques and curiosities, he often refers to his mother as a visionary.
She smiles at that, protesting that often she really didn't know where her work was leading. But the impact of that work can be seen literally from one end of Menomonie to the other.
Her ability to channel energy into several projects at once has its roots in her childhood.
"My mother had such serious health problems that from seventh grade on I pretty much did the cooking, a lot of the household work," Dotseth said. "We had babysitting jobs, and before that I had lawn-mowing jobs. I made my own clothes."
She accomplished all that while maintaining a solid spot on the honor roll for academic achievement at Menomonie area schools.
When Dotseth and her husband, John, received the Menomonie Area Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year Award in 1989, one of her elementary school teachers was among those who commented on Dotseth's lifelong efforts to excel. The teacher, Vivian Goldsmith, was known for her high standards and no-nonsense approach to classroom discipline.
"Though Jackie always liked a lot of fun, and was often the spark that created it in school and at school functions, she could be depended upon to follow any project to its conclusion," Goldsmith said.
As an adult, those "projects" have included a long list of firsts for the Menomonie area.
Dotseth graduated from Fairview Hospital School of Nursing in Minneapolis in 1957, the same year she married. In the early years of marriage, Dotseth helped with her husband's family trucking firm. Then in January 1963, she agreed to work as a registered nurse at the Dunn County Hospital, the former Dunn County Asylum. She consented because she saw the need.
"I was 27 years old; the youngest employee out there. I was the only nurse for the first six years: 190 patients and not even a medical record to work from," she said.
There were fewer regulations in those days, so she was able to train nurses' aides to do the work of registered nurses. The facility moved to the current Dunn County Health Care Center, and the services expanded. Dotseth "grew" the nursing department for the facility.
"People who worked there were very dedicated, hard workers," she said. "I had 22 employees originally; I had 145 when I left in 1977."
In the final years she had three jobs at the facility -- director of nursing for the nursing home, director of nursing for the psychiatric unit, and in-service training director for both the nursing home and psychiatric unit staff.
"Because we moved into the health care center and we had a nursing home, I took the state boards so I was a licensed nursing home administrator," she said. "It was always busy, and you know, I loved it."
The 1970s was a decade of tremendous change for the Dotseth family. In 1974 they purchased what is today the Wilson Place Mansion/Museum, planning to turn the stately old home into a community-based residential facility for the elderly. But she soon realized the historic significance of the home and its furnishings.
"I was a native of the area, and I didn't even realize all the history that was there, in that building," she said. "I saw a need to preserve that part of our history."
Her family agreed, and they worked to turn the estate into a museum. That museum opened in 1976 and launched the Dotseths into their commitment to preserving the region's past.
Jim Anderson of Menomonie, a retired educator who has always been active in community efforts, first met Dotseth when she was working at the Dunn County Health Care Center. He understands why the Dotseths were chosen for the Citizen of the Year award.
"It was because of all they do to preserve so much of the history of this community," he said. "They have always been so community oriented. They worked to get everybody interested in the history of Dunn County, and promoted the area. Jackie has always been there as the idea person, the support person."
Even with the work of getting the museum ready to welcome the public, Dotseth found herself with extra time.
"So I got on the city council," she said. She was the second woman in the history of the community to be elected to the council. She was a member from 1978 to 1985, serving as president during her last year.
During her second year on the council, the Dotseths opened a new trucking business in Menomonie. When her husband needed help with the business, she started taking on more responsibility at the firm.
She also started taking on more activities in the community. Involvement with city government led to invitations to serve on various committees and boards: the Mabel Tainter Memorial, Disabled and Elderly Transportation, and Indianhead Country Tourism, for example. Dotseth helped advise Chippewa Valley Technical College in the formation of a nursing assistant program, and served as director of the Menomonie Area Chamber of Commerce from 1978 to 1980.
Promoting the greater Chippewa Valley became a family affair. Some of the John Dotseth Trucking Company trailers began sporting huge painted banners, encouraging people to visit Menomonie or attractions in the region.
In 1987, when she learned of a planned fly-in event in the area, she saw a need to do more than expected and initiated "Taste of Menomonie." Area restaurants and catering services set up booths on the grounds of the Wilson Place Mansion/Museum and offered samples of their specialties. The event grew to include demonstrations of old-time crafts, entertainment and vendor booths. Other groups have since expanded on the idea, Dotseth said, with great success.
"The things the others in the area are doing now -- the Creamery, the downtown merchants, the art community -- are just great," she said. "The possibilities have always been there."
When serving on the city council, she saw a need for a conference center for Menomonie, and hoped to convince people that it should be constructed on the banks of Lake Menomin. That conference center did not materialize, but Dotseth maintained her belief that such a facility was needed.
Olde Towne is her answer. What started as office space for the trucking firm transformed into a gathering spot for groups, organizations and families, for meetings, conferences, training events and celebrations. The facility has a licensed restaurant and several meeting rooms.
It's Olde Towne that claims much of Dotseth's time these days. She sees a need to provide a "package" that will bolster tourism in the region: attractions, shopping and good food. The Wilson Place Mansion/Museum and other historic spots in the region fill the "attractions" category; area merchants supply the shopping, and Olde Towne can be one of the places offering the food, she said.
Olde Towne and the trucking firm are successful, Dotseth says, because of the efforts of others.
"People really want to be a part of success. And they're the ones who make it a success -- not me," she said. "Why is Olde Towne a success? Because the people who work here want to make it a success."
Dotseth claims she's not as involved with the community as in past years, but the signs of her involvement are still there: the quiet financial support of an effort, the loan of a truck or other piece of equipment for work that must be done, a fabric banner created at the last hour to dress up a gathering just a little bit.
Even though she's trying to maintain a low profile, the awards still come in. In 1998 she was named to The Elite Who's Who Among Outstanding Female Executives, and this year she was named Business Woman of the Year for the Wisconsin Republican Party, even though she is not an official member of the party.
Still, with all her success, one of Dotseth's proudest moments was landing a 215-pound tarpon in Florida in 1983. The pictures are displayed at Olde Towne. She'll tell the story to anyone who asks -- if she has the time.
Time. Unstructured time. She still dreams of having that rare commodity, and realizes she will probably have it only when she's at the family vacation home in Florida.
"I like going to Florida, where I've got a chance to practice being a simple housewife -- since I haven't been one yet," she said.
Kay Kruse-Stanton is a freelance writer from Menomonie. Contact the Chippewa Valley Business Report at 723-5515 or through www.chippewavalleybusinesreport.com
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