John Friedell came to journalism through the love of his life and wife of nearly 62 years, Bernadette Furseth.
Friedell, who died Feb. 27, 2009, published the Washburn County Register in Shell Lake, along with his wife and daughter, from 1980 to 1988.
John and Bernadette met at UW-Madison, she a student of journalism and he in the engineering field. After they met and fell in love, John had no problem changing his major to journalism.
The couple moved to Racine where John started out as a reporter, then as sports editor and finally city editor of The Racine Journal-Times. Bernadette, meanwhile, was in public information, where her job was to write press releases. When the Racine paper was sold, they started looking for a small-town newspaper of their own to buy.
During their tenure, the trio of John, Bernadette and daughter, Deb, worked tirelessly to get out the weekly editions. Their efforts paid off when they realized subscriptions to the paper had doubled during their first year of ownership. In 1988, the year the Friedells sold the paper, they were chosen as Shell Lake’s Citizens of the Year.
“Their love was something else,” John Jr. said in an article at the time of his father’s death. “Last year in November, when we were all up at the family cabin, mom got up and crossed the living room. Without missing a beat dad asked, “‘Isn’t she the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen?'”
