An off-farm job, but there's a catch: a 1,000-mile round-trip commute

JANESVILLE, Wis. (AP) — John Dohner can be forgiven if he has that feeling of deja vu when he pulls into the parking lot of the GM plant outside Fort Wayne, Ind.

He has been there before. Decades ago.

Then a fresh-faced 20 year old, Dohner moved from Janesville to Indiana, following his job building pickup trucks. He returned to Janesville when a spot opened seven years later.

Now he's reversing course as a 44-year-old family man with a wife, three kids (21, 17 and 15), a house, a 13-acre farm and a good life almost 300 miles and one time zone away — a life he's not about to abandon.

Ditto for his job.

"I'm not going to walk away," he says. "I'm not giving them the satisfaction of giving them 25 years of my life and not get anything in return."

Like others, he has his eye on the prize: the 30-year finish line.

Dohner is among dozens of Janesville commuters who form a caravan every Saturday morning to make the 275-mile trek home. (He turned down a GM job in Kansas. The drive was too long, he said.)

Soon, one of his laid-off brothers will join him in Indiana; another still is waiting. Their father, John Sr., heads United Auto Workers Local 95.

With Dohner gone, his wife, Jane, has become skilled at everything from repairing water tanks to installing furnace filters. Her day starts at 4:45 a.m., when she and the kids feed the dogs, rabbits, cows, chickens and horses. The two boys take care of their dad's snow plow business. Dohner still keeps up his duties as chair of the tiny township (population 800), using vacation days to attend monthly meetings.

On Sundays, Jane gives her husband spaghetti casseroles, brownies and other dishes for the week, and waves goodbye.

It's much easier than last summer. She sat on the front porch and cried the first time he left. "You can't think of five years," she says. "I think I can't do it for so long. ... I just texted him Thursday night and said, 'This stinks.'"

But there seems no good solution.

"We built this place and worked so hard to get it to where it is, so do you want to leave?" she says, glancing outside at the tranquil snow-covered countryside where the dogs frolic and horses graze. "But some days," she says, "I think we should have all gone as a family."

In this Jan. 17, 2010 photo, John Dohner feeds his cattle at his farm in Edgerton, Wis. Dohner, who was laid off from his job at the General Motors plant in Janesville, Wis., now commutes to Fort Wayne, Ind., to work at a GM plant there.