Born in Poland, Joe Socha came to the U.S. in 1929 when he was 9 years old. Joe has a history of serving our country and contributing to the outdoors. In March 2025, Joe turned 105 years old.

Joe’s family lived in other countries as his dad moved for military service. His father came to the United States three times. First when he was a teenager, then during World War II, he was drafted back into the Polish army.

During WWII, Joe followed in his dad’s footsteps, serving in the Army Air Force. He worked as a technician for the 577th Bombardment Squadron, stationed in Europe. “I was out of service for three years, and then we went back in there. And I stayed, I put in 20-year service,” Joe said. “In the sense of seeing the bad of mankind and the good of mankind.”

Eventually, Joe settled down in the U.S. He bought his house in 1965-1966 and rebuilt the house piece by piece before later getting married and raising a family in Saginaw, Minnesota. Since then, he has worked to grow nature around him.

He spent a year and a half working for the Civilian Conservation Corps. “This is one of the better programs I think Roosevelt had,” he said. “It gave young people, 18 years, opportunities to be exposed to different things.” In Joe’s group of 38 people, he planted over two and a half million new trees.

So, with his son Mark’s help, Joe created the forest around their home. It was a grassland, and brush from previous years’ fires and the Cloquet fire. Mark said, “Every time he went there, he grabbed as many acorns as he could, and he planted them all around. And that’s why this particular 40-acre patch has like hundreds of oak trees on it,”

Joe Socha has a hobby of planting trees and growing a variety of berries, vegetables, and fruits in his gardens. He looks forward to spring’s warmer weather to plant some potatoes.