Many issues in West Lakeland Township were solved — and political careers were launched — around John McPherson’s kitchen table, over a cup of coffee and a plate of his wife’s chocolate-chip cookies.
John McPherson (Courtesy of West Lakeland Township)
“When I first ran for county commissioner, I went down and met with John and Harriet,” said Gary Kriesel, who served on the county board from 2005 to 2024. “I knew that if you were going to seek office in Washington County, the path to being elected started in their kitchen. You had to go through there because he was so well respected with his strong fiscal management. I mean, West Lakeland had the lowest tax rate for many years because of his fiscal conservative management.”
John McPherson, who served as head of the West Lakeland Township Board from 1968 to 2009, died Tuesday night of congestive heart failure at the Alexandria (Minn.) Care Center. He was 97.
McPherson, a longtime farmer, believed “you always put the interests of the township before your own — and that’s how you should make your decisions,” said former township board chairman Dan Kyllo, who succeeded McPherson in the position.
“He would always tell me, ‘You’ve got to run the township like a business or like your own household finances,’” Kyllo said. “But I always felt John was more tight-fisted with township money than most people are with their own money.”
One lesson imparted by McPherson over the kitchen table has stuck with Kyllo: “He said, ‘You may not please everybody, and most often you won’t, but if you make a decision where each party isn’t happy, you probably made the right decision,’” Kyllo said.
McPherson was adamant about making personal connections, Kyllo said. “He thought that, even in a conflict, if you could face a person, you could work it out.”
And if he agreed with you: “He would not back down. He would stand behind you. I always really liked that about John because he and I didn’t always agree, but we always respected each other. You could always count on him,” Kyllo said.
McPherson fielded many phone calls about potholes, burning permits, weeds and taxes through the years. Township residents would call on “holidays, Sundays and late at night,” but the McPhersons never minded, Harriet McPherson said.
John McPherson told the Pioneer Press in 2009 that he once took a call from a resident who had recently moved to the rural township.
“She said, ‘When are we getting the streetlights?’ ” he told the reporter. “I thought she was kidding, so I said, ‘I think they’re going to start putting them in on Wednesday or Thursday.’ Then I realized that she was serious. I said to her, ‘Why the (heck) did you move out to the country if you wanted streetlights?’ ”
Tried banking, preferred farming
John McPherson grew up in Bayport, and Harriet grew up in rural Afton. They graduated from Stillwater High School in 1946.
John McPherson, the son of a banker, tried working at a bank but told the Pioneer Press that “lasted only two weeks. I didn’t like it. I liked to be outside and farm.”
McPherson started farming when he was in high school when he received a calf as a gift from his grandfather, Harriet McPherson said. His family, who owned 11 acres near the St. Croix River in Bayport, built a little barn for the calf, she said.
“Pretty soon the calf was a cow, and they decided he needed another cow,” she said. “By the time he had 11 cows, he had his own little milk route in Bayport. His mother would help him wash the bottles and everything. You know, back then, you didn’t have to have pasteurized milk. … Everybody knew him, and he knew everybody in Bayport.”
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Sometimes at night, when there weren’t any ballgames being played at Lakeside Park, McPherson would “let his cows go eat the grass over there,” she said. “The council never cared because there was less grass to cut, you know. I’m sure a few times his cows were out on the road where they shouldn’t have been, but the laws were a little looser back then.”
McPherson and Harriet Nelson started dating after meeting at a dance in Lakeland in late 1947. “John just asked, ‘Can I give you a ride home? And I said, ‘Sure,’ because I had come with my brother,” she said. A movie came next, and then a trip to the Minnesota State Fair.
The couple married in 1949 at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Lake St. Croix Beach and moved to a 2,500-acre dairy farm on Stagecoach Trail.
The couple had two children, Jack and Sara. Jack McPherson died of complications related to stomach cancer in 2015 at the age of 64.
In addition to farming, John and Harriet McPherson had a seed company — Jacques Seed Co. — and a fertilizer business. They sold off the cows in 1990 and sold most of the land in 1996.
Common sense needed
John McPherson decided to get into politics because he thought that someone with “common sense” needed to be on the board, said Harriet McPherson, who represented the area in the state House of Representatives from 1984 to 1992.
“All the surrounding communities were starting to get kind of goofy, and the Met Council was trying to make everybody go to 10-acre lots,” she said. “John said, ‘No, who wants that? You get 10 acres, and then you’ve got the back five is sitting out there in long grass and junk cars.”
McPherson was a proponent of 2½-acre lots. “It’s beautiful because people take care of 2½ acres,” she said. “Everybody has nice yards, and they keep them up with a lot of shrubs and flowers and trees. I think West Lakeland is one of the most beautiful communities around, and John was very proud of that.”
When McPherson was first elected to the Town Board in 1968, the township’s population was 345. It grew to 4,000 during his tenure, she said.
McPherson also was instrumental in the siting of the Interstate 94 corridor. Original plans called for I-94 to go through the middle of the township, and McPherson successfully fought that, she said.
The McPhersons bought a place on Lake Carlos in Alexandria in 2020. The couple would spend winters at the Alexandria Care Center and summers at their lake house, she said.
‘Gigantic life’
Their daughter, Sara Carlson, followed her parents into politics and served on the Alexandria City Council for nine years and as mayor for eight.
Carlson said her father “lived a gigantic life.”
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“He was big in every way and in everything he did,” she said. “He was proud of his farm and his land and everything that he did. He was a character. He had lots of stories, and he loved so many things, and he loved people, and he loved to hunt and he loved to fish. He loved his kids and the grandkids. He loved so many things in life, but what he truly loved was Harriet. She was the wind beneath his wings.”
The couple traveled the world, including trips to Australia, New Zealand and the Panama Canal, said Harriet McPherson, 97.
“John just loved people and loved life and just, well, it was so nice,” said. “We just had the most wonderful life you could ever imagine.”
The couple is survived by their daughter, Sara Carlson; seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be 10 a.m. Dec. 29 at St. Charles Catholic Church in Bayport, with visitation at Bradshaw Funeral Home in Stillwater from 4-6 p.m. Dec. 28 and at 9 a.m. Dec. 29 at the church.
