December 2011 Gem Lake Newsletter

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Gem Lake News Page 5 of 6 Four Generations of Life in Gem Lake: The Hansen Family by Tom Hansen Gem Lake has always been home to our family. My great-grandparents purchased a farm they named Summit Farm, on a dirt road called County Road E around the turn of the century, over fifty years before Gem Lake became a city. Christina and Hans were dairy farmers, who began selling their milk off a horse-drawn cart, house-to-house on the east side of St. Paul. Christina was the matriarch of the family, who served as a midwife for the community. They lived in a house near where the Tousley Parts building stands today. This is where my grandfather, Robert, and my father, Allen, were born and where I lived while growing up. Gem Lake provided a place where my father skated and swam and cut ice in the winter for the ice house in the summer. I rode horses, and wandered through the woods and around the lake while growing up. In 1931, they stopped milking cows and sold some of the farm. We would buy some of the farmland back later. The dairy business continued to grow after that. Using a new model, Summit Farm purchased raw milk from Wisconsin farmers, processed, packaged and sold it. Local residents from far and near would come to “the Dairy” to buy fresh dairy products and watch through a window into the processing plant as milk was being packaged. My brother Skip and I were the fourth generation of Hansens to operate Summit Farm. We added an off-sale liquor store next to the dairy in 1971 and operated both until 1992. My wife Beth and I have lived in Gem Lake, one mile from the farm for 34 years. We raised our three children here and our roots are deep. Gem Lake has changed over the years. From mid- 1950 on, our family enjoyed trips to Hoffman’s Market for the best fresh meat anywhere, then next door to Lindorfer’s Bakery, for fresh-made bread, finally down to the Variety Store for whatever else we needed. But, everything changes and Gem Lake is changing too. We have a new town hall, a relatively new comprehensive plan, and a new vision for what Gem Lake will be in the future. My hope is that Gem Lake will continue to embrace its unique character while being open to meet the world which surrounds it. Thoughtful and progressive development and land use seems like a good philosophy for the future.