Fran Jordan Blacklock, Co-founder of Blacklock Nature Sanctuary, Dies
Frances Cordelia Jordan was born in Minneapolis to Martin and Hazel Jordan, September 13th, 1914. The family lived in south Minneapolis while she was in grade school. In 1928 the family moved to Albert Lea, Minnesota where she attended high school. She graduated in 1931, vice president of the senior class.
After her graduation, the family moved back to Minneapolis where she took piano lessons and night school classes at the Minneapolis College of Art. Soon she enrolled at the University of Minnesota, majoring in public school music. She graduated at the depth of the depression in 1936, but found a series of jobs teaching, and producing school musicals.
The summers of 1939 and 40 she spent in Mexico City. One evening every week she visited the home of the Zozaya sisters to sing well-known Mexican songs. Fran returned to Minnesota with a pack of sheet music. Along with her friend Kathleen Cuckler, Fran put on many programs dressed in her Mexican costume. She introduced Kathleen’s piano solos, elaborated on the songs they sang, and told stories to accompany a slideshow of her travels.
In those days a teacher’s contract read that if a female teacher married, her contract would be cancelled. In protest, Fran resigned from teaching in 1941, even though she had no wedding plans. She then enrolled at the Minnesota School of Business in a special course for college graduates. Her first job started the day after Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941, at Northwestern National Life Insurance Company, where she was supervisor of the files and incoming mail department. Soon the country was caught up in a patriotic mood and Fran was asked to form an employee chorus. The group sang at bond rallies at the Minneapolis Auditorium, to soldiers at Fort Snelling, and rode on the float in the Aquatennial Parade. She was elected president of the Nonalico Club of all the employees.
When Fran was told she’d moved up as far as a woman could go in the insurance company, she resigned and got a position at the Minneapolis Star Tribune as the first Director of Interviewers of the Minnesota Poll. At her new job, she was again asked to start an employee chorus. A highlight was the summer the chorus was joined by three of the personalities at the paper: Cedric Adams, Bob DeHaven and George Grim at the pre-program of the Aqua Follies show. She also spoke about the Poll (about 100 times), started and directed the suggestions system, and arranged speaking dates for paper personalities returning from overseas assignments during the war. She was editor of the employee paper — The SJT Makers.
At the beginning of the winter quarter 1947 at the U of M, Fran enrolled in an evening class of ceramics. There she met Les Blacklock who was taking evening classes on the GI Bill. Fran admitted being “taken” by this young fellow. Their friendship grew to sharing grape sodas after class. Fran asked Les to show his glacier climbing slides from his service in the Tenth Mountain Division at a program at the Veteran’s Hospital, where her chorus was to sing. After the program was over Les asked Fran if she knew of a place where they could watch planes approaching the airport. Fran recalled a sunrise service at Pilot Knob across the Minnesota River. When they got there they saw a sign in the grass telling they were on “Sacred Ground”. Fran didn’t remember a formal request, but from then on they were engaged.
After a home wedding on October 25th, 1947, they left for a five-day, honeymoon canoe trip in the Boundary Waters. They moved into a fire shack in Les’s hometown of Moose Lake and for the Christmas season went into the wreathe-making business. They rose early each day to cut balsam boughs, deliver them to the women who would make them, then box the finished wreathes to get them on the 1:00 a.m. train that passed through town.
Soon after New Year’s in 1948, Les gathered gear for a North Shore trip to photograph a movie on how the deer survived, which eventually become a ten-minute sound film called “Deer Live With Danger” taken on by Encyclopedia Films. That was the start of Les’s career as a nature photographer. It was soon followed up with a film on the Moose of Isle Royale. Fran started working for her former boss from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Lloyd Borg, at the ad agency Bozell and Jacobs, where she was Public Relations Director. Les took a job as Film Director at Empire Photo Sound. Then Fran was hired as Minnesota rep for Northernaire Resort in Wisconsin.
In 1953 they bought a small house on 17 acres of Anderson Lake shoreline in Eden Prairie. Soon after they moved in, Fran became pregnant and Craig was born on June 29th, 1954. The little house was enlarged twice with a second bedroom and a large living/dining room over a basement office area. It was a wonderful place for Craig to grow up. Fran held Cub Scout meetings there for three years, and directed a children’s chorus (called the Troubadours) at the First Unitarian Society, while also singing in the adult choir. She served on the first Eden Prairie Park Board for ten years.
Les had become a well-known still photographer. His first books (The Hidden Forest, written by Sigurd F. Olson, and The High West, written by Andy Russell) were published by Viking Press of New York. Next, the “Minnesota Seasons” calendar featuring Les’s stills was begun by Voyageur Press in Bloomington. Then Voyageur published two books written and photographed by Les, Meet My Psychiatrist and Ain’t Nature Grand! Craig joined the family partnership in 1976. Les and Craig shared in the book Minnesota Wild and Fran wrote Our Minnesota, photographed by Les — both published by Voyageur Press.
Les’s reputation as a naturalist led to planning over 30 natural areas. He also served on the Advisory Board of the Metro Council. During the 23 years they lived in Eden Prairie Fran and Les worked to see that their land and the surrounding areas would be set aside as part of the county park system. When they were certain this would happen they knew it was time to move, because their idyllic, rural home was turning into a stress-filled city.
They purchased 160 acres six miles S.E. of Moose Lake, Les’s hometown, where his mother, Mickie still lived. In 1975, Les and Craig cut a half-mile swath through the woods for a driveway, and marked the sites where Les and Fran, and Craig and his first wife, Nadine would build.
Life was beginning to slow down, but they had one more goal to take care of — to see that their Moose Lake property would be preserved for more people to enjoy. So with niece Catherine Jordan and Craig and Nadine, they formed the non-profit organization, Blacklock Nature Sanctuary. Parkinson’s Disease took Les’s life in 1995, before he saw how his vision of the Sanctuary would develop. The Sanctuary was dedicated in 1996 and a white oak was planted outside the cabin in his memory.
As adjacent land and lakeshore came up for sale it was added to the Sanctuary, which now has over 550 acres, a two bedroom home and artist studios. A Partnership with the Jerome Foundation of St. Paul was formed in 1997 to fund a fellowship program for emerging literary, visual, and performing artists at the sanctuary. When Nadine was killed in a car accident in 1998, her bequest to the sanctuary allowed for the purchase of a half-mile of Lake Superior shoreline near Beaver Bay, with a cabin that was modernized. Fran took great interest in the artists, observing the selection of recipients, and almost always greeting those selected as they arrived at the Sanctuary to begin their stays. Most artists were also invited over to Fran’s for a tour of her unique home and stories of her life with Les.
In 2001, at the age of 86, Fran became a first-time grandmother, when Craig’s second wife, Honey, gave birth to their daughter, Charis. Fran continued to live in her home, next door to Craig, Honey and Charis until January 6th, 2008. She then moved into Oakview Residential Care in Moose Lake, where she received daily visits from the family. Towards the end of February she was diagnosed with final stage heart failure. She remained in Oakview until her death — with the support of Oakview owners and staff, a team of caregivers from Hospice, and loving family care. Frances Jordan Blacklock died of heart failure at age 93 on March 19, 2008.
At Fran’s request, a private celebration of her life will be held for family and close friends at her home in the woods. Memorials may be sent to the Blacklock Nature Sanctuary, P.O. Box 426, Moose Lake, MN 55767. |
