“We have found numerous things to do and fun people to visit. We have a wonderful church, we can buy most things we need in Madison, and we have great healthcare services.”
A lot of people look to go some place warm when they retire, but not Jeanene and Merle Munsterman. Warm weather doesn’t compare to the great hunting and fishing opportunities and the everyday peacefulness that rural Madison has to offer. The Munstermans moved to the area in 2003 to enjoy retirement.
Merle grew up on a farm outside of Appleton and Jeanene grew up on a farm outside of Minneota. They both moved to the Twin Cities area for work after graduation. Merle was the President of Triarco Arts and Crafts, a catalog company that supplied art products to schools, with another catalog called Benton Kirby that sold items to hospital and nursing home gift shops, and a third catalog called GTA that sold trinkets to dentists offices and schools for give aways and prizes. He retired after working for the company for 41 years.
Jeanene started her career as an elementary teacher and then changed careers to work in a law firm. She went back to school to get her paralegal certification from the University of Minnesota and later her Master of Business Administration from the University of St. Thomas. Her career of over thirty-five years was as a paralegal and law firm administrator.
After moving to the Madison area, Jeanene continued working for law firms, first taking advantage of Farmers Mutual Telephone’s highspeed internet and then its broadband services, which she found to be superior to her internet connections in the Twin Cities. It allowed her to remote into offices in California and Edina to easily upload and download documents and electronically file with the courts. She retired in 2014.
While their three children were all raised in the Twin Cities, they, along with their grandchildren, love to come visit whenever they get the chance. Merle and Jeanene love to take them to some of their favorite events and places when they are in town—the Lac qui Parle County Fair, the Prairie Arts Center, and the Lac qui Parle County Museum, just to name a few.
The Munstermans are happy to call Madison their home and are grateful for all the advantages that come with it. For them, it is walking into a store and always knowing someone, not going far to find a place to hunt or fish, no traffic jams, the warm and welcoming people, the great restaurants, the friendly businesses, and simply just the peacefulness that is western Minnesota.