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My father, Arthur Brandt, lived in the Macalester-Groveland “Tangle Town” and attended Mac one year. It was expected that I go to Macalester.

I grew up in Cumberland, Wis., and knew nobody at Mac when I started. So I valued the friends I made in elementary education and graduated in that field. I met my future husband, Larry Teien, in astronomy class. We also had summertime jobs at Montgomery Ward where I ran the elevator. He joked with me one day and asked if my job had its ups and downs. I couldn’t resist telling him — it’s the jerks that really bother. We had a good laugh, dated, and wound up getting married in 1960. Our daughter Kari, a homemaker and school volunteer, has two daughters, Heidi and Jill. Our daughter Juli is a licensed marriage and family therapist.

I taught in Bayport, White Bear Lake, and Bloomington, Minn. After leave for our girls’ births, I was a substitute teacher for 20 years in all the elementary schools in Bloomington. Eventually, I got a full time kindergarten at Washburn Elementary in Bloomington where I retired after 11 years. Along the way, I was fortunate to be given a Golden Apple award from Ashland Oil.

I am a part-time assistant at Washburn-McReavy Funeral Chapels in the south suburbs of Minneapolis. Larry and I have an active volunteer schedule. For nine years, I have helped with the big sale of used books that funds the Bloomington Police Department’s community outreach program. It’s appropriately called “Book ’Em” and, in 2007, volunteers raised $72,000. I help coach youngsters academically in Bloomington schools and, after school, at our church, Oak Grove Presbyterian, where I formerly was a deacon. Since retirement, I’ve been active in the American Association of University Women, Minneapolis, and a board member of the Bloomington Retired Educators Association. Larry and I are trained interpreters at the Japanese Garden in St. Paul’s Como Park, a duty we’ve had for six years. For many years we have volunteered at the annual coat and toy distributions for the Salvation Army.

In our “spare time” we enjoy family, our condo, nature, travel, music, civic theatre, and sports.