Three area residents to make special inaugural trip on Green Line

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June2014_ThreeRiders_feat Zella Lissimore, 92; Florene Mueller, 93 and Irene Muehlegger, 94 will be guests of County Commissioner Janice Rettman and will ride the inaugural train from Victoria Station to the Depot along with 20 other dignitaries. (Photo by Jan Willms)[/caption]

By JAN WILLMS

Public transportation has been a major part of the lives of three women, all currently residents at Arbor Pointe, 635 Maryland Ave. W.

Zella Lissimore, 92; Florene Mueller, 93 and Irene Muehlegger, 94, are all familiar with using street cars, trolleys, buses and trains earlier in their lives to get to work as well as to travel. But they didn’t think they would be around to experience the new Green Line light rail.

However, on June 14 the three will be guests of County Commissioner Janice Rettman and will ride the inaugural train from Victoria Station to the Depot along with 20 other dignitaries. Once at the depot, they will be treated to lunch at Christos.

“Going on the light rail is still like a dream,” Mueller said. “I wanted to live long enough to ride it.”

She was born in Barron, WI, and moved to the Twin Cities at 16, where she first worked in the kitchen at Miller Hospital. She met Harold at a dance club, “even though neither of us danced,” she noted. They married, and when her son was six she began doing domestic work, always using the street car and bus for her transportation needs.

Muehlegger came from Rosetown, now known as Roseville. She worked at the St. Paul Athletic Club when it was for men only. She worked days and went to school at night, eventually working for the Minnesota Department of Revenue as a supervisor. She also rode street cars and buses to get back and forth to work.

“My husband, Frank, hated to fly and so we took trains to Arizona and Florida and New Orleans,” Muehlegger recalled. “I loved trains.”

Lissimore is a native of Valdosta, GA, where she worked in the fields until she was 18, picking cotton and peanuts and okra. She eventually came by train with her two daughters to join her husband, Fred, in St. Paul in 1953. She worked as a domestic throughout St. Paul, first riding streetcars and then buses before she eventually purchased a car. She continued working until she was 88.

Rettman, who is a regular visitor at Arbor Pointe, heard that these three women had been regular users of public transportation all their lives and had it on their bucket lists to try and ride the new light rail.

“Public transportation was their way of helping raise their families, putting food on the table and gaining education to advance in the world and make a difference in their communities,” Rettman said.

Although there is no cost for tickets on opening day, Rettman was happy these women will be able to enjoy the ride from Victoria Station in the inaugural trip. “What a magnificent thing,” she said.

As the women sat talking at Arbor Pointe, they reflected on their lives.

“We had a good life in the country, with enough kids in the family to keep each other company,” Mueller said. She said, however, there were no buses or transportation that was accessible in rural areas.

“I’m glad I grew up the way I did,” Muehlegger said. “I came from a poor family, but the older I get, the more I appreciate what I have.”

For Rettman, these women are all role models the rest of us can emulate.

“Public transportation was their way to the American dream,” she said.

For Mueller, (who should have had a career as a comedian), light rail may be something she will use more of in the future.

“I will have to be using something, because I probably need to stop driving pretty quickly,” she noted. “I learned to drive at 40, and I’m still learning.”

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