Restoring history at 99

In 1919, Anton and Cecilia Bromen settled down in Minneota, so Anton could practice law. Five years later, in 1924, they welcomed their daughter, Doris, to the family. In 1942, when Doris was 18 years old, Anton was elected county attorney, with the help of Doris, who worked on his campaign team.
Graduating high school in 1942 brought Doris to St. Paul, where she attended IBM School and was subsequently employed by St. Paul Fire and Marine Company. In 1944, Doris married Donald Claeys and moved back to Minneota. Shortly after, they started their family and had three children: Jeanene, Richard and Douglas. When her youngest, Douglas, was old enough to attend school, Doris began working at Minneota High School as the school's secretary. Twenty-five years later, Donald and Doris packed up their family to move three hours away to Shoreview, MN, where Doris began working at Mounds View High School doing administrative work.
In 1991, Doris got a phone call from her oldest child, Jeanene. She had seen an ad in the Shoreview newspaper, calling for people who were interested in local history. Doris and Jeanene, along with four other people, showed up to the address listed on the ad, and a few minutes later, were named the founders of the Shoreview Historical Society. Jeanene worked as the president, while Doris was the treasurer and photographer. Doris went all around town taking photos of various historical sites, and then catalogued them. She worked with numerous researchers during her time with the society, and even got to work twice with the Antique Road Show when they came to St. Paul.
Just 10 years later, Donald died, and Doris moved to a nearby condominium. While she lived there, she helped organize activities and exercise groups for the residents in the building. It was around this time that Doris also began researching the genealogy of both her mother’s and father’s sides of the family. She contacted relatives from all over the United States and other countries.
Many distant relatives reached out to Doris in order to learn more about their own families. The family genealogy collection consists of multiple volumes of documents and photographs. In recent years, Jeanene dedicated hours of her time converting everything to flash drives and passed the physical collection down to her granddaughter. A new addition to Doris’ routine began in 2020 when her granddaughter, Sara, decided to go back to college. Doris spent three days a week caring for her great-grandchildren. 2013 brought an even more substantial change to her life, when she moved to Madison to be closer to her daughter. Upon her arrival in Madison, she immediately began volunteering at the Lac qui Parle County Museum, spending that first summer inventorying 5,000 books in the Robert Bly Collection. In October of 2013, a group was formed with the task of indexing all newspapers in Lac qui Parle County. Ten years later, Doris still faithfully works on that project one day a week. The group plans to have that project completed within the next year, and Doris plans to be there to see it through.
Now, in 2023, her great-granddaughter, Haley is writing this article about her. The memories I made with my great-grandmother will be something I cherish for the rest of my life. My favorite flavor of pudding will always be butterscotch, because when she would take care of my sister and me, she always brought three bowls of butterscotch pudding. I remember her bringing over massive tubs of Legos, and she would play with 11-year-old me at the table for hours, even though I built the same thing every time. She introduced me to just add water painting books, and that was just about the coolest thing I had ever seen.
It was an honor to be able to write this article about her, and I hope I did her justice.