Submitted photo Sharon Augenstein, left, along with fellow Fink Family Farm co-owners Michael Sparr and Sandra Boetcher.

Dr. Sharon Augenstein recalls fondly growing up on the family’s Century Farm in Lincoln County, east of Lake Benton.

“I remember playing outside a lot. The next farm had five kids and we just made our own fun — there were no computers. I helped dad with the animals, and would help with baling hay, things like that. I learned a lot of solid values because of

hard work and we wanted to be good stewards of the land and contribute to the community and church. Dad was on the school board.”

The origin of the Fink Family Farm goes back to 1924, when Henry Martin and Nettie Jane Fink purchased the original 169.5 acres for the price of $110 per acre.

Henry Martin was born in Germany in 1881 and came to America through Ellis Island in 1893 with his family. The family traveled by train and settled in Kankakee, Illinois, where Henry worked in a grocery store in Minnow, Illinois. Henry married Nettie Jane Topping and they would move to Woodbury County, Iowa and Rockwell City, Iowa, where Raymond Fink, the farm’s second owner, was born. Henry moved the family by train to the current farm site in 1920, where he worked on the farm for several years before buying it in 1924. Raymond Fink lived on the farm from age 2 to 76, when he moved into Pipestone.

Submitted photo Henry and Nettie Jane Fink August 1, 1938.

Raymond Fink passed away in 2006, and his wife Mildred became the sole owner. After several

years the land was placed in an LLC and Mildred’s three daughters were also made partners. Following Mildred’s passing in 2013, her three daughters became full partners of the LLC. Two of the daughters — Marlys and Jane — passed away in 2021 and 2022, respectively, and the partnership changed to include two grandchildren of Raymond and Mildred — the children of Marlys Sparr, Sandra Boetcher and Michael Sparr, along with their daughter, Sharon Augenstein.

Sharon is the the manager of the LLC and owns half the farm. The other two own a quarter, she said. “I am the granddaughter of the original owner and Sandra Boetcher and Michael Sparr are great-grandchildren,” she said.

Sharon Augenstein lives in Scottsdale, Arizona with her husband, Vince. She was involved in education her entire professional life. She earned an undergraduate

degree in home economics from Minnesota State Mankato, and a master’s degree and doctorate degree in higher education administration from the University of Minnesota.

Submitted photo Henry Fink.

She taught school in Renville and Minneapolis before going to work for the Department of Education and, then, in higher education administration in the then-new Minnesota State system, then known as Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MNSCU).

She was the first president of Hennepin Technical College under the Minnesota State system

and retired as President Emeritus, “When I retired early, I had 37 years (in education).”

Her father retired from farming and Rollie Bedow from Tyler has rented the tillable acres for the past 30 years. “It’s nice to have that consistency, it’s been a good relationship with Rollie,” she said.

The farm sits two miles east of Lake Benton on Highway 14, and the family often would be a safe shelter for stranded winter travelers who got stuck on what’s known as Fink’s Curve. “The traditional snow fence did not do an adequate job of keeping the drifts off the road so the state of Minnesota now maintains a living snow fence on the land, which has brought improvements in the snow conditions on Highway 14,” she said.

Augenstein has a good understanding of what early family members went through to keep the farm running smoothly. “It strikes me how hard my grandparents and father and mother worked and what they did to make money. Dad worked for a dollar a day to earn money to buy the farm.”