Anna Boyne
I’ve known Franny for seven months now. But it was only recently that I found out about her childhood growing up on a ‘hippie commune’. I can’t say I’m that surprised.
We met doing the same teaching assistant programme in France. For me, this year abroad was an obligatory part of my university degree. For Franny, it was an opportunity to figure out post-grad life.
As I walk towards Franny for our interview, she’s sitting outside a café doing a watercolour painting for her French old lady friend. In a couple of days, they’ll finally meet in person, after months of chatting online. The watercolour is a ‘thank you’ gift, as Franny will be staying with Marine and her family over the weekend when they’ll be embarking on a long hike to Mont Saint Michel.
Our contract in France has nearly ended and we’ll soon be going our separate ways. I’m heading back to England. Before Franny flies back home to the US, she’ll walk the ‘Camino’ in Portugal – a pilgrimage which takes between five and 25 days depending on the route. That’s a whole lot of alone time. And her earphones are broken.
Franny doesn’t have waist-length hair, walk around saying “Make Love Not War” or drive a Volkswagen van (although her parents did in the 90s). She doesn’t fit any of these maybe quite offensive stereotypes. But what’s evident from her upbringing, is her outlook on life.
Hippie Commune Or Intentional Community?
In the 1990s Franny’s parents, Jeff and Linda, bought 50 acres of land in Milaca, Minnesota with five of their friends. They built houses out of straw, a basketball court, a shared garden, a library and an art studio. Bogus Brook, the name of their township, became their ‘intentional community’.
“[My parents] don’t feel like they can claim the title of ‘hippie commune’ which are usually more specific and a lot more intense than the way that we grew up,” Franny explains.
The adults all had jobs, the kids went to public school, and they had electricity, heating and power – all things that ‘hippie communes’ would shy away from. “Now the intentional community works mostly off solar power. But when they bought it originally, they couldn’t afford that. They made a lot of compromises.”
“Almost like a big family living together”
“We all grew up together, in that everyone’s door was open. I could go to anybody’s house whenever I wanted to, and we did holiday traditions together. We were kind of like cousins – almost like a big family living together.”
Politics
Franny now lives in the city of Minneapolis, the largest populated city in the state of Minnesota and a stronghold for the Democratic Party. Growing up at Bogus Brook, all the adults were Democrats. Franny’s dad was even part of the Minnesota Democratic Party so would lobby for politicians. Yet Minnesota is historically a red Republican state. Outside of Bogus Brook, Franny’s neighbours were largely low income, conservative voters.
“It didn’t get hard for us as kids until the Trump election because that’s when we started getting politically involved.”
“Trump made people more angry”
During the 2016 Presidential Election, Republican Trump lost the popular vote to Democrat Hilary Clinton. But he won the decisive electoral college to become the 45th president of the United States. “That’s when stuff started just getting really weird in America. It was always weird but there was a lot of political unrest and protests… Trump made people more angry.”
At the time, Franny was in high school. “Everyone was of the same political opinion except me, the people I grew up with and like two of my friends. I think high school could already be quite difficult let alone feeling like such an outsider.”
The curriculum often felt very “Americanised and white-washed” and many people who grew up in the area “stayed there and were very closed-off to the rest of the world.”
Franny recalls moments when career advisors and teachers suggested she lower her aspirations and instead apply for colleges closer to home. “They want everyone to have the same goals and ambitions. If you’re not someone who fits into that, they make it seem impossible to do anything else.”
College
Growing up in such a conservative area meant Franny had been desperate to leave from a young age. This prompted her to attend a very liberal college in Massachusetts.
“They were really wealthy and really really politically narrow minded”
“Actually, it was too far in the other direction. The people I went to college with all grew up in a liberal bubble and I was a liberal who grew up in a conservative bubble. The two extremes are bad in their own ways. They were really wealthy and really really politically narrow minded.”
Although the eight adults she was raised by all voted the same way, they were still different people with different opinions. And with that comes an ability to debate and compromise.
“Now I’ve met people who have only ever interacted with liberal leftist people and they don’t really understand that there’s other people who don’t think the same way as them… I feel like the kids that I grew up with all have a good understanding that you can still have a friendship with somebody even if you don’t think the same way.”
Conflicts In The Community
Politics aside, living in a tight-knit community for nearly thirty years doesn’t come without conflict. “There were some personality differences that arose which maybe would have been fine if you didn’t share land and live together.”
An issue regarding privacy led to the planting of a trees between two homes- a divide that was ultimately unresolved and led to one family leaving Bogus Brook for Florida.
“There was a super generational difference”
The empty home was later filled by a young couple whose plans for Bogus Brook were too extreme for its founders. Reflecting upon this period, Franny describes a “mirror” between the new inhabitants and her parents when they’d moved onto the land in the 90s. “I think there was a super generational difference because [the other adults] didn’t see that it was the same way they thought 25 years ago.”
After a year, the young couple moved to another intentional community in Wisconsin. “I think it taught everyone that this is our community and we’re not necessarily ready to change it.”
Outlook
When asked how growing up in an intentional community has shaped her outlook, Franny describes never feeling pressure to achieve certain goals or conform to a set ideal. “All the adults had very up and down career paths. None of them started their career out of college and stuck to it. Every single one failed at something.”
Her dad, Jeff, struggled with a drug and alcohol addiction during his twenties. But now he works as a substance abuse counsellor and taught Franny a lot about sobriety.
“I had to leave to see how much I appreciate it”
When she started college, Franny found herself motivated by having a high-paying job, an apartment in New York, a beach house and grinding away to make as much money as she could. “But the more I went through jobs I realised that all that actually matters to me is being safe and happy. My goals are not financial anymore. I think I had to leave [Bogus Brook] to see how much I appreciate it.”
Having no idea where you’re going or what you’re doing in life is something most people will experience at some point. But for Franny, it’s not a paralysing feeling. If there’s one thing growing up on a hippie commune has taught her, it’s “to fail in a good way.”
You can read more about life at Bogus Brook in Franny’s mum’s book: World Gone Beautiful: Life Along the Rum River.
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Featured image courtesy of Vasilios Muselimis on Unsplash. No changes were made to this image. See image license here.
