Dana Stroschein

There is a large flock of chickadees that visits one of the feeding areas in the bog near where I live every day. They arrive in a whirl of motion and chatter, never seeming to stop moving. One lands, another takes its place. One keeps watch while the others eat. They bicker, they cooperate, they disappear into the trees and somehow always return together. Sitting there recently, coffee in hand, watching their endless activity, I found myself thinking about a group of women from my childhood that reminded me of the chickadees, or perhaps the chickadees reminded me of them. 
The Ladies of Pamida. 
If you grew up in Ely during the 80s and early 90s, you remember when Pamida was on Chapman street, next door to where the old Martinetto Drug Store used to be. And you probably know exactly who I’m talking about. Bev Skogen, my mom. Nancy Rozman, my classmate Paul’s mom. Deb Cornwell, my best friend Kristy’s mom. Jean Maki, my friend Kelly’s mom. There was also Margaret Dass, Rose Wickman, Sue Maternowski; I always thought that Sue was one of the most beautiful women in town. I also got to babysit for her, which meant I could save up enough money to get new cassette tapes from…you guessed it, Pamida!  Presiding over the whole operation was Tim Stevens, whose very distinct laugh could probably be heard three aisles away and still makes me smile when I think about it. Tim was my classmate Bob’s dad. 
Pamida wasn’t just a store. It was a gathering place, a community center disguised as a discount retailer. Most of the town passed through its doors, and many of us kids spent a surprising amount of our childhood there. After school treats in the break room were pretty common.
I still remember when my mom turned 40. The ladies had made a giant sign that hung in the break room: “Lordy, Lordy, Bev is 40!” There was cake, cards, small gifts, and plenty of laughter. This is what they did for one another. Every birthday, retirement, baby, wedding, or milestone became everyone’s celebration. I, however, was devastated. I remember sobbing because I was convinced my mother was now old and was probably getting close to dying. My 52-year-old self gets quite a chuckle out of that memory. Forty seems a lot different from this side of it than it did from the other. The ladies comforted me, laughed a little, and then went right back to celebrating my mom.
Looking back, I’m not entirely sure those women realized they were helping to raise a generation of children. But they were. Not just their own children, either. All of us. In a town the size of Ely, everybody belonged to everybody a little bit. If you got into trouble, your mom often knew before you got home. If you were hurting, somebody else’s mom noticed. We grew up surrounded by adults who treated us as though we mattered.
Our moms worked long hours, yet somehow they always knew where we were. If they couldn’t keep an eye on us personally, another Pamida mom would. Small towns work that way. There was no escaping accountability because there were too many eyes watching. In fact, I later learned that my mom had enlisted another employee’s son, who happened to be my age, to keep tabs on me from time to time. I wasn’t aware I was being monitored. Apparently, however, a network of childhood surveillance existed that I knew nothing about.
The chickadees do the same thing. One watches while another feeds. One sounds the alarm. One disappears and another immediately fills the gap. No single bird seems in charge, but somehow everyone is looking out for everyone else. That was Pamida.
Of course, there were perks to being one of the Pamida kids. When the Cabbage Patch Kid craze swept the country and parents were practically wrestling each other for dolls, we had connections. Not unfair connections, exactly. Just... family connections. We got to see them before they hit the shelves. Sometimes we even got to pick one out from the back room before they made it to the shelves. Looking back, I realize that was probably the closest I’ll ever come to insider trading.
Then there was the secret upstairs office. Most customers had no idea it existed. From up there, hidden behind a two-way mirror, employees could watch the sales floor below. At some point my mom decided it would be perfectly reasonable to let me sit up there and watch for shoplifters. I now know that she just wanted me out of her hair so she could work. But I took this responsibility very seriously. For a brief period of my life, I was essentially a tiny, unpaid security consultant. I sat behind that glass feeling like a secret agent, convinced I was helping protect the entire store from criminal activity. I probably spent more time making up stories about customers than actually spotting anything suspicious. I never did see a shoplifter. Still, it felt important.
And that’s another thing those women gave us: the feeling that we belonged. We were always greeted with a smile and a warm greeting. We weren’t simply kids waiting for our moms to finish work. We were part of something. We knew the employees. We knew the stock rooms. We knew who was dating who, who was getting married, whose kid was sick, who was celebrating a birthday, and who was bringing bars or cookies into the break room. The boundaries between family, friendship, and workplace blurred together in the way they often did in small towns. Those women became “second mothers” whether they intended to or not. We even vacationed together. Some summers we’d end up at Rose’s cabin on Lake Kabetogama. Looking back, it seems unusual that a group of coworkers would spend their precious vacation days together. At the time, it felt completely normal. They weren’t just coworkers. They were family.  
Years later, sitting by the bog and watching the chickadees, I realized what I was actually remembering wasn’t a store at all. I was remembering a village. A collection of women, and a couple of men including Tim, who worked hard, laughed often, watched over each other’s children, and somehow managed to create a safety net none of us fully appreciated at the time.
Sometimes watching the chickadees gather at those feeders tucked back amongst the trees in the bog, chattering back and forth as they dart between the feeders and the trees, I can almost hear echoes of those afternoons at Pamida. The conversations. The laughter. And somewhere above it all, Tim’s unmistakable laugh carrying across the store.
Those birds remind me that communities aren’t built by grand gestures. They’re built by people who simply show up for one another, day after day. The Ladies of Pamida did that for us. Like the chickadees in the bog, they weren’t concerned with who got the credit. They simply showed up. They looked out for one another. They looked out for us.
And whether they knew it or not, they helped raise a whole flock.

Dana Stroschein, MSW, LICSW, is a psychotherapist, writer, and mother living in Meadowlands, near the Sax-Zim Bog. She is of blended Ojibwe and Norwegian descent, and her writing weaves personal narrative with cultural and psychological insight— often grounded in raw honesty and a touch of humor— exploring identity, belonging, and the complexities of healing.