Arline Jesme was acknowledged and honored at the recent Living at Home Bingo event for her many years working with the Middle River Thief Lake Living at Home Program.
You might call her journey with the program her “Cindy Experience.” When she began her journey with MRTLLAH in 2009, the director was Cindy Huener. After taking a couple months off to care for her mother, she returned to the office under the new director Cindy Kilen. Currently, at the time of Arline’s retirement, Cindy Sanden is the director of the program. That’s a lot of Cindys! Arline has spent most of her life in or around Middle River and she graduated with the Class of 1960 from Middle River High School. Her parents were Art and Tillie Ellefson Berg and they lived in the Thief Lake area.
Following high school, she was trained in giving medication and working with mentally challenged adults, along with training in Quality Control and Inspection. She married Harold Jesme on October 1, 1960 and they have four children: Joni Macheledt (Pete), Donna Mosher (Terry), James (Shannon Martineau) and John (Tina Wiitanen). She also has 9 grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren which is one of the reasons she has decided to officially retire!
Her career has consisted of several occupations throughout the years. In 1966 they were living in South Milwaukee where she worked at Everbright Wiring & Testing Signs. In 1968 they moved back to Middle River where she taught Sunday School and worked in day care. In 1976 they moved to Brainerd where she worked at Larco Industries in Quality Control. In 1979 Harold’s job with GE moved them to the Iron Range where she worked at Hearthside Receive Ship/LSS in Tower. She was House Supervisor for 11 mentally challenged men and women as well as 9 direct care and medication distribution.
In 1992 she was working for Environment Health Service and in 1996 she retired to care for her husband and they moved to Thief River Falls in 2001. After Harold’s passing, she returned to work for Middle River Living at Home organization. Her duties included working with seniors, answering the phone, making arrangements for rides to doctor visits or shopping, helping with the foot clinic, making appointments, helping with History and Hotdish, visiting seniors, helping with Bingo, and helping with a variety of duties wherever she was needed.
She has many great memories of her years with the local program. She enjoyed the many opportunities to help make our seniors happy – overall they were all good memories and seeing them smile made her day.
She says she will miss daily visits with seniors coming in for coffee and all the busy activities, but she hopes to be in attendance for many of the activities and even volunteer if needed. “I enjoyed working with all the directors,” she said, “and the important thing to remember is that our seniors have to be remembered and cared for.” Thank you, Arline, for being an example of giving so many years of doing this very thing. Enjoy retirement!
