Hazel and Floyd Hansen
In the fall of 1960 I enrolled in the Minnesota School of Business in the Business Machines Course. Living in Minneapolis was quite a different living than the family farm. As a little girl I always wanted to live in a big city. I graduated in 1961 from MSB and started working in the regional account office of Standard Oil. In October of 1962 I married Floyd Hansen and came back to Freeborn county to live. I went to work at Queen Products in Albert Lea and worked there for over two years. Our son Darrin was born in 1965-can not believe that our son is going to be 40 years old this fall. Lynda was born in 1967. I was a stay at home mother until they started school. There were no day care homes back then. I enjoyed staying home taking care of them. Floyd worked at Fleet Farm Supply and also farmed so he was very busy. After the kids started school I worked at the Holiday Inn in Austin as a housekeeper during the summers.
Then in 1977 I started work at the Countryside Motel in Austin as the Head Housekeeper for the next 13 years. So there was a total of 18 years in the motel business. After retiring from that work, I would help my husband's folks when they were no longer able to do things for themselves. The last 3 years I have helped my mother with her home and taking her to dialysis 3 times a week. She passed away in April 2005 .This kept me very busy also. When my granddaughter was born, I started helping take care of her a couple of days a week. Lynda and Dick have two girls, Brooke, age 7 and Bailey age 5. Darrin and Steph have a girl, Kass, age 7 and a boy, Dylan, age 6. It was a joy to take care of all of them a couple of days a week. Darrin works at Hayward Coop and has his own construction business which he does part-time. Lynda has worked as a dental assistant for Alpha Orthodontics in Albert Lea for the last 18 years.
When Floyd drove over the road semi in 1992 I would ride with him to many states in the country. We seen a lot of country this way and I enjoyed the ride. I got to see Florida, Arizona, Texas, Las Vegas and Washington State and many more places I would probably never get to see otherwise. He retired from trucking in 2003. We also rode motorcycle to many places out West on vacations. After riding behind him for 25 years I finally got my license to drive one last year.
We ride whenever we can and even to Sturgis. So far I have ridden my cycle over 7,000 miles. Just love it. We even got back to riding snowmobiles again after quite a few years. I like to ride up in northern Wisconsin and have done that for the last two winters.
I can also say that I have been blessed with wonderful family and friends.