Penny Anderson Karasch was the first of the Anderson girls to get a job with the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

It was March 1973, and Penny, then 19, was hired to work in the steno pool at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater.

“I loved it,” she said. “I took three years of typing in high school, and I really liked it. I typed all the initial intake reports on offenders. It was interesting, typing that stuff, and it paid pretty well.”

She worked her way up to become supervisor of the steno pool. In 1977, she became Warden Frank Wood’s executive assistant.

Three years later, Wood was chosen to be warden of the soon-to-be-built maximum-security prison in Oak Park Heights. Wood oversaw staffing and planning for the site – with Karasch’s help.

“He and I went to this little house on the farm (at the Stillwater prison) with some other people, and we did the planning for Oak Park Heights out of there,” she said. The Minnesota Correctional Facility-Oak Park Heights opened in 1982, and Karasch served as Wood’s executive assistant until she was promoted in 1989 to be director of the information technology department and supervisor of the mail room and the records department.

When it came time to fill her position, her older sister, Connie Anderson Davis, was working as the associate warden’s assistant. That was the job below Karasch’s and Davis covered for Karasch when she was out. When Karasch left, Davis was promoted.

Five years later, their baby sister, Sherry Anderson Bohn, started working full-time at Oak Park Heights. She eventually worked her way up to be the associate warden’s assistant, too.

When Davis decided to take early retirement in 2004, Bohn was next in line. Bohn did the job for a year before getting the official title in 2005.

When Bohn retires on Jan. 2, it will be the first time in 42 years that someone other than one of the trio of sisters has held the post in Oak Park Heights. Include Karasch’s time at Stillwater, and their service as warden’s assistants totals 46 years.

Together, they have worked for 12 wardens and two acting wardens.

The sisters’ years of service is an “impressive family legacy,” said Minnesota Department of Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell.

“Sherry and her sisters epitomize what it means to serve the state of Minnesota,” Schnell said. “We are grateful for their loyalty and dedication.”

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As for the position always going to one of the sisters, Karasch said that when she applied for the job “there really weren’t other candidates seriously interested.”

The wardens “could really just pick who they wanted, even if they did interview others,” she said. “Some were intimidated to work on Level 5 (where the warden’s office is located). Confidentiality was a big part of the job. We had a pact to never discuss the goings on with each other, and I think we proved we could be depended on in that one very important element.”

When Bohn applied for the job, “there was quite a bit of interest in the position,” she said. Positions with the DOC are posted, interviews take place, and then a candidate is chosen, she said. “People aren’t hand-picked,” she said.

‘Monkey see, monkey do’

Bohn worked in the position the longest (18 years) and for the most wardens: seven permanent and two acting wardens.

“I always told her she transitioned and trained us all in,” said Kent Grandlienard, who served as warden from 2011 to 2015 and associate warden from 2005 to 2011. “Sherry is the quintessential dedicated public servant.”

The sisters never intended to start an executive-assistant-to-the-warden dynasty, said Karasch, 70, who lives near Grand Rapids, Minn.

“It really was just a coincidence,” Karasch said. “Connie was working in (the industry unit), but then decided to leave industry and come upstairs. It kept going from there.”

Connie Davis smiles as she and her sisters talk about working at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Oak Park Heights. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Davis, 74, of Stillwater, said she decided to apply for a job as a secretary in the parole unit at the Stillwater prison in 1975 because Karasch worked there. “I said, ‘Well, if she can do it, I can do it,’” Davis said.

“Monkey see, monkey do,” Karasch said.

“I thought, ‘It’s got to be pretty easy if she can do it,’” Davis said.

“It was the younger sister showing her older sister the ropes,” Karasch said. “I always said I was the more mature one.”

Davis worked at the Stillwater prison until 1979 and then went to work at Cosmopolitan State Bank in downtown Stillwater. After four years, she said she couldn’t wait to get back to the DOC “just because it was so interesting and there was always something going on.”

She took a job at the prison in Oak Park Heights with her sister in 1983. Her husband, Clellan “C.D.” Davis, later got a job there as a locksmith. “The inmates would ask him, ‘Hey, dude, you got that master key for me?’” she said. “He’d say, ‘Hey, dude, you’re way down the list.’”

Karasch’s husband, Gary, also worked at Oak Park Heights as a correctional officer. He retired as a lieutenant in 2009.

Bohn, 63, of Woodbury, started working at the Stillwater prison in 1977, the summer before her junior year of high school. Prison officials were looking for someone to help out in the mail room, and Bohn had an “in” thanks to her older sister. She worked there two summers.

Bohn, who worked in the prison’s pharmacy the summer after she graduated from Stillwater High School, said she loved working at the same place as her sisters. Karasch always brought extra food for her to eat, and Davis would give her neck massages. “If I needed a kink worked out of my neck or food or whatever, they were there,” Bohn said. “They were mentors, for sure. I didn’t bring anything to the table.”

Because the women had different last names after they got married, “a lot of people (at Oak Park Heights) didn’t even know we were related,” Bohn said. “We didn’t make a big deal out of it, but it was always nice to have siblings here.”

Bohn took a break from working after she got married and had children; she went back to the DOC in 1994. “I reached out at some point and said, ‘Hey, are there any openings?’” she said. She was hired as “Clerk Typist 1” in human resources at Oak Park Heights, which was a part-time temporary position. “I wanted full-time,” she said. “They had to go through the legislative process to get the position approved as full-time permanent.”

Sherry Bohn at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Oak Park Heights. Bohn will retire on Jan. 2. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Bohn later transferred to DOC headquarters in St. Paul and worked in the Office of Special Investigations. She asked to return to human resources at Oak Park Heights after five years in OSI “because I wanted to come back and be closer to my kids,” she said.

Then came the assignment of assistant to the associate warden of administration – a position that backed up the warden’s office when their assistant was gone – and the final posting of executive assistant to the warden.

“Eighteen years. My goodness – that’s a long time and a lot of wardens,” she said. “That’s actually a long, long time, and lots and lots of wardens.”

Learned ‘moxie’ from their mother

The sisters and their six brothers were raised by their mother, Nadine Anderson, in Stillwater; she died in 2009. After graduating from Stillwater High School, the girls got jobs at the DOC, and the boys worked at Andersen Corp. in Bayport, Davis said.

The sisters didn’t share a lot of stories “about the goings on” at the prisons with their mother, Bohn said.

“She was proud, but I think she was a little scared or worried sometimes,” Karasch said. “We actually got her a tour through here with a bunch of women from where she lived, so she got to go down as far as the dining room. We asked her when she was 81 if she would have another kid, so we could keep this legacy going, but she said ‘No.’”

Nadine Anderson’s children never wanted to disappoint her, Karasch said. “She didn’t rule with an iron fist; she ruled with love,” Karasch said. “We loved her so much we didn’t want to do anything wrong. Everybody felt that way.”

The women learned “moxie” from their mother – a trait that served them well as the warden’s gatekeeper, Karasch said.

Penny Karasch talks about working at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Oak Park Heights. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“It takes a special kind of person to work here,” she said. “You have to learn to be firm because everybody wants to see the warden. You have got to be firm, but polite, telling people, ‘I’m sorry. He’s busy,’ even if that isn’t true. And you have to go inside once in a while, so you have to learn how to interact with inmates.”

Bohn said she often had to communicate with family members of inmates – more so than her sisters.

“They’re always concerned, worried about issues, so I talk to them mom to mom, sister to sister,” she said. “I’ll tell them, ‘I get it, but you have to understand, they’re safe, they’re fine, but we’ll have somebody get back to you.’”

Wardens and corrections officers

Wood, who served as warden of Oak Park Heights from 1982 to 1996, was known nationally and internationally as a “fixer” of prisons, Karasch said. “People would come here from all over for tours,” she said. “He encouraged all prison staff to treat offenders like they were your dad, your brother, your uncle.”

Wood “was my favorite warden,” Davis said. “He was the first warden here, and he was very professional. He told me I had to take the test – we had to take a test back in those days to get positions, and he told me that I had better pass it. Of course I did. He was just so kind and nice.”

“I called him the ‘Corrections Dad,’” Karasch said.

Wood was serving as commissioner of the Department of Corrections when Bohn got the job as executive assistant to the warden, so she missed out on working for him directly.

“He came to my wedding, though,” Bohn said. “For years, everybody would always say, ‘W.W.F.D.? What would Frank do?’”

Grandlienard also took great care of his staff, Bohn said. “He took great pride in getting to know all the staff, continuously checking on them, personally and professionally,” she said.

Warden Kathy Halvorson, who has served in the position since March, also is amazing, she said. “They all have their strong points. What a great way to go out.”

Bohn was the only sister working in the prison system in September 2018 when Oak Park Heights Corrections Officer Joe Parise died of a medical emergency after running to help a different officer injured in an attack by an inmate. Parise, a friend of Bohn’s, died two months after another officer, Joseph Gomm, died when an inmate attacked him at the Stillwater prison.

The death of Gomm “totally made everything real,” Bohn said. “And then, just months later, we lost Joe. That still makes me emotional. Every year, I try to focus on the people who were directly involved who are still here. I try and show as much compassion for the person that we lost by looking over our staff.”

Sherry Bohn, front, helped organize an Adopt-a-Highway trash pickup along a stretch of highway outside the Oak Park Heights prison named after Correctional Officer Joseph Parise. Parise died on Sept. 24, 2018, after responding to an inmate assaulting another officer at the prison. (Courtesy of Sherry Bohn)

A 1.5-mile stretch of Washington County Road 24, which passes in front of the Oak Park Heights prison, was adopted in Parise’s name. Signs were installed along the route, and Bohn leads the effort to pick up trash from the side of the road. She plans to continue to help with that project after she retires, she said.

Bohn’s “tireless efforts to support staff and build staff morale and work on community initiatives set her apart,” Grandlienard said. “She is a true do-gooder.”

In addition to the Adopt-a-Highway effort, Bohn worked on the prison’s Beyond the Yellow Ribbon designation, spearheaded the prison’s Toys for Tots toy drive, and coordinated meals for staff-recognition events, staff-training days, holidays, and promotion and retirement events.

“I’ve probably coordinated more than 10,000 meals since I’ve been here,” she said. “I’m still trying to get food trucks here for staff. They have vending machines for them because they can’t leave the premises. It’s always trying to do a little extra for the staff.”

Karasch said she had to teach Bohn “how to present herself affirmatively.”

“I would always sell myself short,” Bohn said.

“I’m like, ‘No, no, no, you did this, this and this, you know,’” Karasch said. “Sherry is the most ambitious of the three of us, but she wouldn’t toot her own horn.”

Said Davis: “Sherry doesn’t give herself enough credit because she’s always doing stuff for others. She organizes amazing events and sets up meetings or whatever. She is busy, busy, busy.”

Karasch served as executive assistant for 16 years; Bohn bested her by two years. “It’s the only thing she’s beaten me at,” Karasch said. “She’s wonderful.”

Next in line?

During a recent tour of Bohn’s office, Bohn had to swipe a security card to unlock the door.

“When I worked for the warden, that door was not locked,” Davis said.

Wardens also used to keep a gun under their desk, the women said.

As prison staff prepare to hire Bohn’s replacement, Halvorson, the warden, said it is difficult to put into words the impact that Bohn’s 30-year career has had on the facility.

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“The warden’s assistant has their hand on the pulse of the entire facility,” she said. “Sherry has a wealth of knowledge about all aspects of the facility that we have all benefited from and come to rely on. She goes about her work in an unassuming, dedicated, compassionate manner and truly wants the best for our staff. She has been instrumental in so many positive moments and celebrations for our staff. Sherry has reached a milestone in completing a 30-year career, but what is truly worth celebrating is this historical achievement that Sherry and her sisters have accomplished. This is not just a retirement for Sherry; this is a legacy.”

It’s the end of an era for the Anderson family in the warden’s office.

“I’m the last one,” Bohn said. “I have a niece who works here – my brother’s daughter, and I told her to apply for it, and she said, ‘Absolutely not.’”

Sisters, from left, Penny Karasch, Sherry Bohn and Connie Davis show off their “Sisters” bracelets and pendants while talking about their work at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Oak Park Heights. Bohn is the third of the three sisters who have served as assistants to the warden at Oak Park Heights and the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater. Bohn will retire on Jan. 2. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)