By Jo Mathis
Legal News
One year ago, Margie Teske French looked ahead to retiring in a few months and wondered how she’d fill all her time.
Then in July, she reconnected with a long-lost friend on Facebook.
It just so happened that he’d been single for 17 years.
They hit it off, visited back and forth.
And now French is a newlywed no longer worried about what to do in retirement.
“Now I’m excited!” said French during in her last week as chief of Administrative Services in the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office, just days before her New Year’s Eve wedding in South Carolina. “I’m going to leave here, go to Louisville, then we’re going to Charleston for a week, then we’re going to Florida to just lay on the beach and do nothing for a week. And then we’ll go back and decide what comes next.”
After 41 years in Jackson, French is starting a new life in Kentucky.
And she’s leaving with many good memories of an interesting career. If that wasn’t enough, French doesn’t really know what it’s like to have to hunt for a job.
“I’ve had a very unique, blessed career because unlike many people, I never sent out an application or went looking for a job,” French said, sitting in her office on one of her last days of work. “I never filled out a job application until after it was offered to me.”
The Albany, N.Y. native married at 19, had two children, and moved to Jackson with her husband, who grew up here, when he got out of the service.
When the couple divorced, French was just 29 and she realized she needed to get a job to support herself and the kids.
As fate would have it, she was at a bowling alley in Jackson with some friends when she met Chief of Police James E. Rice.
When he asked what she did for a living, she said she was looking for a job.
“He said, `I have an opening. Come see me on Monday,’” she recalled.
So that’s how French began her career with the Jackson Police Department in 1975.
She held three different positions there for the next 15 years, mostly in administration.
“I was so naïve when I started working there,” she said. “My eyes were opened. I never saw that side of life – what people deal with. It was amazing to me.”
Then one day she met a woman at church who asked her if she’d ever thought of working for the Legislature. It seems her son, State Representative Phil Hoffman, needed a chief of staff.
So she called him, and got the job.
In 1993, Hoffman was elected to the State Senate. She was then his chief of staff there.
“So here I saw how they arrested people with the laws, and there I saw how they MADE the laws,” she said. “And that was interesting, too.”
“It’s an area where everybody there is happy to be there and loves what they’re doing,” she said. “And you felt you were on the ground floor of everything because of the legislation. It was a very very interesting job.”
Then Michigan added terms limits, and Hoffman was forced to retire.
When word got out that she was looking for a new job, she got a call from (then) Jackson County Sheriff Hank Zavislak, who was considering a run for prosecutor. Would she work for him if he won?
He won. And she did.
If her eyes had been opened at the police department, they were really opened now.
“The one thing I’ll take away from here is that all prosecutors have a heart for the victims,” she said. “It’s so sad to hear these stories and see what the victims go through —especially the children—but it’s so heart-warming and encouraging to know these prosecutors really fight for what they feel is the right thing.”
“I like being surrounded by people who care so much about others.”
French handled budgets, accounts payroll, payroll, scheduling, and whatever way she was needed in the office, from holding a victim’s hand for a few minutes to finding and delivering files to a prosecutor.
She also found it interesting to be there when the county went online, making most files available to the public from their computers.
When Zavislak was going to retire at the end of 2012, so was French. But she agreed to help Jerry Jarzynka on his campaign for prosecutor and then stick around for his first few months on the job.
Soon enough, she decided it made sense to work through the end of 2013.
“He’s such a great man to be a prosecutor,” she said. “Strong guy. Strong ethics, but such a gentleman.”
French believes that a work ethic and your personal values are so important, and I think that’s what carried me so far,” she said. “When you work that way, I guess other people talk about it, and they know who you are and what you’ve accomplished, so it’s easier to walk into another position.”
She was never afraid to work as many hours overtime as her job required, and she made sure she respected everyone, no matter their title.
“I’m a very strong Christian, so that contributed a lot to my interactions with everyone,” she said. “I just always hope when you leave a situation, you leave it better than when you came … After 39 years, I can say that every job has been so great, and all the people have been so great. I’ve been so blessed. Not everyone can say that. But I’m not going to say I didn’t work hard to have that. Because I did.”
She loves scrapbooking, reading, and photography.
“I have been working fulltime for 39 years,” she said. “So I really think it’s time for a break; time for a new start.”
She’s always dreamed of living by her own time clock.
“And now my dream is coming true,” she said.
On the Fourth of July, French was at home on Facebook when she wondered whatever happened to a friend she’d known decades earlier.
Come to find out, David French had been single 17 years and lived in Louisville, Kentucky.
They started writing, then visiting. Within a few months, they were planning a New Year’s Eve wedding in Charleston, S.C.
“It was right timing for everyone involved,” she said. “My kids were very happy and encouraging for me because I’ve been alone a very long time. As sad as it is, both David and my parents have passed away, and all our children are married. So, whew. Now I have a companion to play with in retirement!”
French’s son, Michael Lauer, lives in Parma, and has two sons and two daughters children. Her daughter, Kristen Farmer, lives in Holland, and has two daughters.
Her husband’s daughter, Heather, lives in southern Indiana.
“We talked about Florida, but I’m not ready to leave my kids and grandkids that far,” she said. “In Louisville, I can hop in a car and be home in six hours. I can do that for now.”
After 41 years in Jackson, she’s sold her house and will now live with her new husband—who is semi-retired—in Louisville, Kentucky.
She’d always lived in big cities, and was dismayed at small town Jackson when she first moved here.
“Now, that’s what I’m going to miss most,” she said. “I go in a grocery store, they know me. I go in a coffee shop, they know me. I love that warm, personal interaction.”
She also loves the idea that thanks to her new husband, she will not be retiring alone.
“I’m retirement age, but I feel like it’s a fairy tale,” she said. “Oh my gosh. It’s so much fun!”
French has one regret: not finishing college. Now that her time is her own, she’s considering going back for that degree.
She’s not sure about her major. But she knows what she won’t need to study.
“It won’t,” she said with a smile, “be law enforcement!”
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