With amazing recall, Jim identified his ships as the Hinsdale APA120 and the LST179.  When his tour of duty was finished on January 12th, 1946 -- another date etched in his memory -- he enrolled at Augsburg College, which is where he met his future bride.

Barbara was born in Minneapolis on February 12th, 1927, to Ingvald and Sophia Ekse, parents of Norwegian descent and American birth. 
Her father's history includes the Ford Museum at Deerborn, Michigan.  "My dad invented the first tire mounter," said Barbara.  "The invention mounts a tire on a wheel during the production process.  He had a patent, which he gave to Ford.  It so happens that a curator from the Ford Museum is coming out here next month.  Our kids and grandchildren are excited about it."
Barbara attended Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis, graduating in 1944, and then attended Augsburg College where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1948.
While at Augsburg, Barbara was captain of the girls' basketball team and Jim played football.
"Jim and I went to the same high school but Roosevelt is a huge school so I had never seen him before he went into the service for three years," she said.  "I only met him when he came to Augsburg.  He was playing football and I thought he looked pretty cute and then we started dating."
The couple was engaged while Jim was a college senior.  "He had another year of school yet because of his time in the Marines, so I was a substitute teacher in a high school for a while," she said.  "I had a great time doing that."

The young couple was married on Feburary 11th, 1949, at Our Redeemer's Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.  "I always wanted a winter wedding," said the bride, "because there would be no mosquitoes."
After a "wild and wooly" honeymoon trip by train to Chicago where they saw the memorable stage play, "Mr. Roberts," they returned to classes in Minneapolis and an old rental house near the Augsburg campus.
Jim received his Bachelor degree in Business Administration later that year and went to work in the insurance busi-ness.  Barbara taught for two years in Minneapolis high schools before starting a family.
Even after their first son was born, Barbara played basketball on the Augs-burg alumni team in a commercial league and went to National AAU League Championships in Kansas City.  Many years later she was inducted into the Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame. 
"This occurred only four to five years ago," she stated, coaxed by her husband to elaborate.  "Women hadn't been inducted into their Hall of Fame that many years.  I had been the only mother on the team, and I was second to the oldest woman inducted into their Hall of Fame."
In 1953 Jim began his long career with the Minneapolis Fire Department.  "Barbara was already established here in teaching," he said, "so I took a test to become a Minneapolis firefighter and attended Rookie School.  I was assigned to a Fire Company in Minneapolis for eight years, and was captain for five years.
"Then I took a test to become a Fire and Arson Investigator.  I was 12 years in that capacity, then five years as Chief of Investigation."
In 1983, after 30 years with the Minneapolis Fire Department, Jim retired and formed his own company called Fire Investigation, Inc.  As a fire investigator and expert witness, he worked for lawyers and the insurance industry.  "I would go find out what happened in a fire," he explained simply.
Jim testified over 100 times in crim-inal and civil lawsuits.  "That was the ultimate result in many cases," he said.  "And then, after 40 years of loving my job, it was finally time to retire altogether from looking at fires.

In 1955, the Carlsons left the rental house near Augsburg and built a house in Minneapolis near Southdale.  It was their family home for over 20 years.  It's where their three children were reared and attended school. 
It's also from where, in 1957, Barbara became a finalist in the Mrs. Minnesota Contest.  "We did baking and sewing and decorating in this competi-tion," she said.  "There were no swim-ming suits.  I won stock in General Foods for the best chocolate cake.  No, I don't have the stock today.  I sold it because I wanted some furniture for the living room."
Jim recalls that the contest "was kind of a big deal."  He said there were "all these ovens lined up in a big room and all these women at the ovens, cooking and baking."
Also during these years in Minneapo-lis, the Carlsons became acquainted with Al and Grace Lundgren and other lifelong friends.  It was the Lundgrens who intro-duced them to "Anderson Hill" at Victoria and sold them a lot on which they built a new home in 1976.  Lundgrens had already built a new home at Zumbra Ridge.
Precisely at this time, with three grown children, Barbara began working at Interior Design Studios on France Avenue in Edina.  "I did oil paintings for them for eight years," she said.  "I'd bring them paintings of birds and flowers, most of them small, and they wrote out a check immediately.  I worked with designers to see what they wanted.  It was hard work and I spent hours at it until 1984.  I had terrible side effects from the paint so I had to quit.  I've thought about taking up painting again, watercolors, but I haven't done it yet."
Some of Barbara's work is on display in various parts of the Twin Cities, includ-ing Point of France, one of the first condominiums to be built in that area.
Also after their move to Rolling Bluff in Victoria, Barbara delivered Meals on Wheels faithfully for 19 years, quitting only about four years ago.  Jim joined her in that volunteer work for eight years.
Together they've also played a lot of golf.  Jim continues in that pursuit at Deer Run Golf Club in Victoria where he works part time as a starter and ranger "in order to get free golf."  He said it is a joy to work for Tom Abts, "a gentlemen in golf as well as in life."
The Carlsons love to fish.  "Our whole family loves to fish," said Barbara.  "We have a cabin near Mille Lacs.  I love panfish the most, to eat.  We also catch walleye.  We're all fishermen."
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