2010
03.15

2010
03.15

2010
03.15

2010
03.15

June Aggerholm's Death Certificate

2010
03.15

I don’t have enough information to write a comprehensive biography of James Edward Gaffaney, my grandfather, but I have my personal recollections and the stories I was told by my father and others.

My mother, father, and everyone I knew called grandfather “JE”. We continued that tradition in my family and my sisters and I still refer to dad as “RT”: Robert Thomas Gaffaney.

RT told me that JE and his father had an argument when JE graduated from eighth grade. He wanted to go to high school and his father thought that was a waste of time for farmer. As a result JE left home and he and his father did not speak for the next twenty years.

During that time JE attended a Business College in Fargo and also began to repair typewriters on the side. This led to a relationship with the Royal Typewriter Company and the founding of Gaffaney’s (officially: Gaffaney’s Office Specialties Company, Incorporated). JE ran this business with his four sons and son-in-law: Bob, Dick, Paul, Jimmy, and Carold. They operated a successful chain of stores across North Dakota. JE had the reputation as a tough boss.

Sometime in the 50’s JE leased some property on Lake of the Woods as a summer home. Lake of the Woods is a huge lake with thousands of islands situated on the border between the US and Canada. Much of the land is on an Indian Reservation and cannot be sold, which was the reason for the lease.

His place was on Oak Island on the US side of the border. Access to the island was by boat from Warroad, Minnesota. I remember that there were boats, the Burt Steele and Island Queen, that provided service between Warroad and the islands, and to the other towns on the lake. I remember taking the Burt Steele, to Oak Island on a family trip. It seemed like a very long trip to me as a boy.

JE also bought his own boat which he named the Wabasi, which in Chippewa means “White Bird Flying”. This was a large boat, 45 feet long and about ten feet wide at the waterline if I remember correctly. JE bought the Wabasi on Lake Superior and had it transported by rail to Warroad. The boat was eventually bought by the Lake Trails Camp on Oak Island and I traveled on it years later when I went to Lake Trails with the Boy Scouts.

JE was a very colorful man. Once he had the Wabasi on the lake he bought a very plush Pullman car, removed the rail trucks and mounted it on a barge and pulled it behind. There he entertained many groups on fishing trips he hosted. With all of the comforts of home, including wonderful meals prepared by Luella Sorlie, his personal cook, guests enjoyed the fabulous fishing right from the barge. One of JE’s guests was Aloisius Cardinal Muench of the Diocese of Fargo. Dad told me that JE bought a supply of “Lazy Ikes” and would sell these to the guests as they lost their fishing lures to snags or some of the huge fish that inhabit Lake of the Woods.

According to the story, JE was out on the lake one night pulling the barge with the Wabasi and was caught in a huge storm. The seaworthiness of the boat was seriously compromised by the barge, and it nearly went down. But the Wabasi did survive and when he got back to Oak Island, JE docked the barge and never pulled it again. He had the Pullman car dragged onto the Island and used it as a guest house. I stayed there once. I remember the deep pleated leather upholstery. My wife and I still have one of the side chairs from the Pullman car. It has green velveteen upholstery and a turnbuckle arrangement underneath to strengthen the legs.

In those years JE always had dogs: Boxers. He loved those dogs; they were part of the family. When I was in college I did yard and garden work for JE and Connie and I often shuttled Grandma Ruth around to the store or to Bridge games with her lady friends. Two of the dogs were still with him then: Murphy and Peggy. He was very, very sad when Murph and Peg finally died.

Many years after the glory years, JE would still come into the Fargo Gaffaney’s store every day. He sat in the same chain in the machine showroom and watched the activity around him, mostly in silence, but he spoke if there was something to be said. He was a sharp, shrewd businessman; he knew everything that went on. I remember one day an old Indian came in when I was working in the Stationary Store. He asked for Mr. Gaffaney. JE was upstairs in his office and I took him there. The two were behind the closed doors for some time before the man back down and left without a sideways glance. Dad told me later that the Indian worked for JE on Oak Island, and that JE gave him some money that day.

Years after the Oak Island days I went to Lake Trails, also on Oak Island. This time we took the Island Queen from Warroad. I got talking to an old timer who was going to the Trading Post on the island and it turned out that he knew JE. When he found out who I was he told me that if I turned out to be half the man my grandfather was I would be a hell of a man.

Bob Gaffaney
Tuesday, October 10, 2006

2010
03.13

By Bob Gaffaney
Sunday,  May 06, 2007

 Mike Lien was the Fargo Forum’s photography chief – and an excellent photographer. Being an aspiring photographer myself, I scanned the Forum every day for his remarkable images.

He began to gain wide attention for his work, and in 1967 he won the prestigious National Press Photographers Association Photographer of the Year Award. It was not long after that word came that he was leaving Fargo to join the Washington DC Bureau of the New York Times.

Roger Olson, a good friend and classmate, was a part time sportswriter high school and college for the Forum and had become friends with Mike. Mike even took candid photos at Roger’s wedding. There I met him face to face for the only time – and watched with a sense of awe as he worked. I felt a connection to him that I could not explain.

In Washington he took many classic photos of the high and mighty of the American political scene – Nixon, his cabinet, the Watergate conspirators – all the players.

Tragically, Michael died in a car accident in Baltimore in 1977.

June Aggerholm went to work for Gaffaney’s Office Specialties, Incorporated when she was only 17 years old. I knew June only decades later as a closed and forbidding old woman who ran the day to day operations of the Gaffaney’s Stores with an iron fist, being over my father and his brothers in authority.

She had no life beyond Gaffaney’s then, living in an apartment on the third floor of the building, above the Stationary Store. She rarely went out.

June took breaks from Gaffaney’s in 1935 and again in 1936, allegedly to go to a spa in Hot Springs, Arkansas for treatment of arthritis.

We learned in the last few weeks that June Aggerholm, in fact, gave birth to a child during each of these absences: a daughter and a son. The father of these children was J.E. Gaffaney, my grandfather.

So Michael Lien was my father’s brother.

As you might imagine, we were shocked. In the past few weeks we have been following up with people who knew Mike. The story is indeed true, others knew the facts.

Mike’s sister, Barbara Whalen Katzer, never lived in Fargo. We have learned that Barbara was born in St. Joseph, Missouri and now lives in Greeley. Barbara’s daughter, Angie Plumb, lives in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We communicate with Angie often and she keeps us up to date on that new branch of the family tree.

2010
03.13

By Michele Vannote (nee Gaffaney )

                My grandfather, J.E. Gaffaney, Sr., was always a formidable figure in the eyes of his grandchildren.  He was the founder of our family business, Gaffaney’s Office Specialties, Inc., and our earliest collective memory was of the ‘uncles’ (his sons and son-in-law) developing that business in the corners of North Dakota.  My dad, Paul Gaffaney, was the third son and given the task of building the business ‘from the ground up’ in Williston, North Dakota.  (He was later joined by his brother-in-law, Carold McLaughlin, who was married to dad’s only sister, Beth.)  We moved to Williston when I was four years old and our weekly conversations revolved around sales, commissions, and J.E.’s leadership.  I got to visit my grandpa at the head office in Fargo at least twice per year and he also visited our home and the Williston operation intermittently.  The longest sustained period of time that I spent with my grandfather was a week on Oak Island in about 1950 — when I was 6 and he was 52 years of age.

                My dad, mom, and I drove from Williston to Warroad where we boarded a float plane to go out to Oak Island.  It was there that we stayed on grandpa’s floating house and I got my first taste of ‘the woods’!  I can still recall the fear of boarding that plane, since it was inconceivable to me that a plane could actually land on the water.  However, we made it and therein began my adventure that was full of playing in the woods, digging for worms, catching frogs, and eating fish – real fish.  However, the flies and mosquitoes were a problem and the best respite was going for boat rides on grandpa’s house.  Grandpa had purchased a Pullman train car from the railroad and loaded it onto a barge.  For a couple of years he pulled it behind the Wabisi, so that his fishing entourage could go to various islands to find the best fish.  (Sometime after I visited, he had had the Pullman installed on Oak Island for his use as a cabin: tucked back in the woods, which was quite cozy: and plush!)  This Pullman car had sleeping capacity for 12 and the Wabisi had an additional 3 bedrooms: two smaller ones plus the captain’s quarters.  There were also many bathrooms on both vessels.

                My final ride on the Wabisi was on our return to Warroad, and it was a trip I still remember.  The water across the ‘big lake’ was extraordinarily rough, and I spent much of my time below deck: clinging to my bed, utterly green – until my dad took me topside to try to help me ‘fix my eyes on the horizon’ (which was nowhere to be seen).  In fact, “the trip across Big Traverse was so rough, I thought I’d die.  The sea was high, I heaved a sigh, and fed the fishes too.”  To this day, I have not taken any cruises, by my deep love of the woods and the lakes has only deepened with time.

                Having now discovered the song “My, My Lake of the Woods”*  in the Lake Trails Songbook, I look forward to singing it in future summer family reunions with my Gaffaney/McLaughlin cousins: as we pay tribute to the man you knew as “Mr. Gaffaney, but just plain Jim to you”.         

*  From the Song “My, My, Lake of the Woods” in the Lake Trails Songbook.

2010
03.13
In News

On July 16, 2009 Cal Olson Cal Olson passed away at age 84 of injuries suffered in a fall at his cabin on Big Island Lake in Itasca County, MN.

Cal was a friend to all and mentor to many, including Mike Lien, Pat Gerlach, Roger and Mike Olson, and many others.

In his long tenure with The Forum he served as photographer, editor, and managing editor. He will be sorely missed.

2010
01.31
In News

On Sunday, March 28th, 2010 a new Mike Lien Exhibit opens at The Rourke Art Museum in Moorhead, MN.

Unlike the 2005 show that featured Mike’s black and white photojournalism as featured on the pages of the New York Times, this exhibit features forty color images selected from the photographer’s personal archive.

Topics include Sailing, Sports, Travel, Community Theatre, and more. Mike had a keen eye, masterful technical skill and boundless creativity that served him wherever he pointed his camera.

Come and see the show if you can, but if not many of the images will be posted here.

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