06/05/2026
On the Street Where You Live
The modest house at 1521 Minnesota Avenue sits on Lot 1 of Elwell's Addition, built in 1950 and home over the years to a series of Bemidji families — among them the carpenter Charles Johnson, who lived there with his wife Etta and daughter Hazel through the 1950s. But for a generation of Bemidji High School students in the 1970s and 1980s, the address meant something else entirely. Directly across from the old high school baseball field and right along the route of the dreaded 600-yard walk-run, the corner became universally known as "Smokers Corner" — a gathering spot where teenagers found a moment of freedom between classes. It was also where students assembled for driver's education back when the course was mandatory and, as one former student remembered approvingly, didn't cost anything. Not everyone was there for the ci******es, though Frances Vojak, who lived there with her husband James from 1970 into the 1980s, was known to have a tizzy whenever a butt landed in her yard regardless.
James and Frances Vojak were themselves a quietly remarkable pair. James was born in Czechoslovakia in 1906 and immigrated with his family to the United States as a young child, eventually settling in Lake Hattie Township and making his living as an independent logger in the Bemidji area. Frances, born in South Dakota in 1915, came to Hubbard County as a small child and went on to work at Itasca State Park for thirty-three years — from 1949 to 1984 — waiting tables at the beloved Douglas Lodge and helping supervise the gift shop. She loved her flower garden, which perhaps explains the frustration over the cigarette butts. The old high school is long gone now, and trees and shrubs have been planted where the baseball field once was, but former students still remember exactly where they stood on that corner — and what they were doing there.
