Irene Johnson Kotarski
Finnish North American Literature Association
Biographical Information
Irene Johnson Kotarsky was born and raised in New York Mills, Minnesota, where
she lived through her adolescence. She later moved "to the city."
Publication
Johnson Kotarski, Irene. "Irene" . . . Back to My Beginnings. New York Mills, MN:
Parta Printers, 1987.
Irene Johnson Kotarski writes of her life growing up in the four square miles of New
York Mills, Minnesota, during the 1930s. Life was "[a] mixture of happiness, strict
conformity, and hard times, but mostly a time of "making do" (v). The book is
illustrated with pictures from her childhood. Some names in the text are "Fictitious," she
notes in the front matter.