Mickey Makes a New Life

Mary Margaret White – known as “Mickey” to friends and family – spent the first part of her life moving across the country from big city to big city. Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Tucson, Chicago, Boston, and more.

But the place that feels most comfortable to her is the Iron Range.

Today, she lives on an old Finnish homestead in Embarrass that has been in her husband’s family for generations. Mickey can step out her front door and glide right onto cross-country ski trails that wind through the boreal forest. She and her husband, Chuck, tend a bountiful garden and spend summer and winter days bird watching, and nights listening for owls and the occasional call of the wolf.

“I’m out in the natural world, every day,” Mickey says. She loves the ethnic traditions that still have roots on the Range, from saunas to sarmas. “I have good friends, a healthy lifestyle, and all this natural beauty. I am happy to be a country girl after decades of city living,” she says.

Mickey still visits friends and family in some of those big cities. But would she ever move back? Not likely.

“I think I’m here forever,” she says. “This feels like home.”