Jeanette "Jan" Vilen

Jeanette Eleanor (Flesness) Vilen, age 100, died at home on March 9, 2025, with her family and their love surrounding her. Born October 5, 1924, in Minneapolis, MN to Ethel (Anderson) and Olaf Flesness.

Jan grew up in Minneapolis during the Great Depression and graduated from Central High School in 1942. Always a great adventurer, at 18, Jan traveled to California where she worked in the civil services for the U.S. Signal Corps in Beverly Hills, and then to Miami, Florida, where she worked on the U.S. Naval Air Station until 1946. She then returned to Minnesota, where she attended the University of Minnesota, graduating with a bachelor's degree in Elementary Education in 1949. In her last year at the university, while playing ping pong in the Lutheran Student House at the U. of M., she met Hilton Vilen-an Army veteran, fellow student, and soon-to-be ping pong partner for life. Jan and Hilton married in 1949. Jan left her position as a fourth-grade teacher at Keewaydin Elementary School in Minneapolis a few weeks before their first child was due, following a baby shower thrown for her by her own students. Over the next twelve years, Jan and Hilton had nine children (no twins). Following Hilton's job, they lived in several other states before settling in Rochester, Minnesota in 1951.

Jan was a homemaker (and has written on her notes for this obituary "Homemakers never retire!") volunteer, and church and community leader throughout her long life. She raised nine children and cared for three grandchildren while also volunteering over the years at the Samaritan Bethany Auxiliary, the Rochester Senior Center, the Rochester Public Schools, the Minnesota Literacy Council, and with the justice system as a guardian ad litem. In 2009 she was awarded the Mayor's Medal of Honor for Service to the Elderly. She was a member of Our Savior's Lutheran Church for more than 70 years, taught Sunday School, led adult Bible study classes and led various committees, including serving as president of the congregation during its major expansion into a new building in early 1980s. She was an active ally to Black Americans during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, sponsored Vietnamese refugees in the 1980s, and in 1993, at the age of 69, traveled around the world with her sister Gloria and best friend Bev to Thailand, India, Israel, China and Africa. She loved to learn, embraced other cultures, and lived the value of inclusion every day. In her volunteer work, mothering, and generous donations throughout her life, she strived to recognize the humanity and preserve the dignity of the poor, the disenfranchised, and those suffering from mental illness.

Following her husband's death in 2011, she moved to The Homestead of Rochester, where she continued an active social and community life, anchoring the Monday 500 game and the Friday bridge game up until the last month of her life. In addition to her prodigious card acumen, Jan is remembered as an extraordinary organizer of people, projects, Thanksgiving dinners for fifty, and camping trips with a dozen kids in tow; a mom who nurtured children, neighbors, her garden, and a pantry bursting with home-canned peaches and tomatoes; a prolific correspondent who long after email became a commonplace, still wrote handwritten cards and letters. She was a fixer of torn jeans, broken friendships, and leaky tents; a life-long "player" who square danced, made terrific molasses cookies and popcorn balls, mastered the I-pad at 90, beat the pants off everyone at Scrabble, embraced life's joys and bad jokes one day at a time, had an infectious chuckle, and always said "love you, dear," before she hung up the phone. She wasn't a saint, but she was a paragon of persistence, faith, and heart.

Jan is survived by all of her children: Gwen Vilen of Rochester, MN, Janice (Charlie) Schlatter of River Falls, Wisconsin, Kathryn Vilen of Yankton, SD, Jeffrey (Christine Wheatley) Vilen of Zumbro Falls, MN, Gail McKenney of Rochester, MN, Randall Vilen of Raton, NM, Todd (Barbara) Vilen of Chapel Hill, NC, Anne Vilen, of Asheville, NC, and Jennifer (Jeffrey) Jaeckels of Oregon, WI; seventeen grandchildren; and eleven great grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her parents; sister, Gloria Cunningham, brothers Kermit Flesness, and Vince Flesness; her grandson Martin McKenney; and her husband, bridge partner, and canoeing companion of 62 years, Hilton Vilen.

A memorial service will be held at The Homestead of Rochester at 1:00 PM on Saturday, March 29, 2025, with chaplain Bob Keith officiating.

Jan has requested that donations in her honor can be sent to Doctors Without Borders or Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Rochester.