I did not experience having LaJean Firminhac as a teacher in my youth, but her legacy in our small community continues and it was a joy for me to get to know her as an adult. She has led a very full life and has impacted many in her pursuit of making positive changes for others.
She wrote the following for the Class of 1974’s Tribute to Teachers in the summer of 2024:
“My teaching career in the Silver Bay school system began on December 5, 1954. The Reserve Mining Company had just started to operate their new taconite plant and was hiring young men to operate it. As the 1954-1955 school year began, the new workers were bringing their families to settle in the company-owned housing development. The Campton Elementary School had just been completed and was ready for the new students. By November, it became evident that the third grade and kindergarten classes were too large and each would need to be divided into smaller classes which meant another teacher would need to be hired for each grade.
My husband, John, had just been hired to work at the taconite plant so we needed housing but there was a long waiting list for a company house. We were sent to Beaver Bay to meet Mary MacDonald who had tourist cabins to rent. Mary MacDonald happened to be the secretary of the Lake County School Board. When she learned that I was a kindergarten teacher, she called Superintendent Stensvad in Two Harbors with the news. By 7pm that evening, I also had a job in Silver Bay. Superintendent Stensvad was able to reserve a house for us to buy on Field Road.
It was an exciting adventure to live in a town that was just beginning and to watch it develop as it met the needs of its residents as the community grew. It was a pleasure to work with children of the Silver Bay area in Lake County. Everyone was so supportive and willing to help from the parents, the maintenance and support staff and the administration. On one occasion I heard that Don Warner, who lived near the Silver Bay airport, had brought a pig from his western Minnesota farm to add to his barnyard collection of animals. Now, wouldn’t that make a fun field trip for my kindergarten class?!? The administration agreed to use a school bus to transport the kindergarten class to visit the farm and the nearby Silver Bay airport where every child was able to sit in our 172 Cessna airplane and try out the controls!
Those were the best days of my life!”
Yes, LaJean Firminhac was a pilot! She experienced her first thrill of flight when an18-year-old neighbor purchased an open cockpit Fairchild airplane that had been used as a trainer during WWII. She jumped at the chance to fly with him! Some 25 years later, she and her husband took flying lessons together and both became certified private pilots. She also earned her Basic Ground Instructor’s license so that she could help and encourage other student pilots to obtain their pilot’s licenses. And many did!
In October 1974, she became a member of the Minnesota Chapter of the Ninety-Nines, an international organization of women pilots. The Ninety-Nines (named for the number of charter members) were formed in November 1929 and initially included such flyers as Amelia Earhart and Gladys O’Donnell. The original purpose of the club was to coordinate the interests and efforts of women in the aviation field. They have become, through their passion for flying, an organization that offers educational outreach, networking opportunities, leadership programs and scholarships to help women pursue aviation careers. LaJean was inducted into the groups International Forest of Friendship on June 19, 1999, in Atchison, Kansas, the birthplace of Amelia Earhart.
After LaJean retired from teaching, she was able to give more support to her Ninety-Nines Chapter. She began to deliver flowers for the American Cancer Society Daffodil Days each spring by air to locations in Lake and Cook Counties. These daffodils were sold to the public to support ACS’s programs of cancer research, education and services for local cancer patients and their families.
She and her husband joined other pilots from the Silver Bay area in the Tree of Hope Project which collected and delivered Christmas gifts for seriously ill children who were hospitalized in Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota. When weather grounded the planes, they delivered them by truck.
The Ninety-Nines joined forces (with their spouses or significant others called the “49-1/2s”) to paint airport names, elevations and compass roses. She and John cleaned a two-mile stretch of Highway 1 near Murphy City for years under the name “MN Ninety-Nines Women Pilots” to keep the organizations name alive.
Working closely with the MPCA, LaJean helped initiate Operation Skywatch statewide. The organization’s goal was to encourage all pilots to become Sky Observers and join in the fight against illegal pollution of the environment.
LaJean used her leisure time in retirement to make award-winning quilts to be raffled at fund-raisers to help up-and-coming female pilots. She still believes strongly in teaching girls that they can live out their dreams. In addition, she and John have set up a scholarship fund at the University of Minnesota-Duluth for students majoring in Elementary Education.
