Memoirs: We All Need to Write Them

Memoirs and Biographies from Sherburne County provide fascinating reading.  If we all took pen and paper to record our memoirs, imagine the excitement we would generate.   Imagine the information and knowledge we could share with the world.  Two books, a memoir and edited letters provide examples of the great value of written, personal history.  Rod Hunt’s book A Boy’s Guide to Big Lake, Minnesota and Other Stuff and Herb and Corinne Murphy’s They Called Her Maria make the history come alive. 

Rod Hunt describes fishing at the confluence of the Elk and St. Francis Rivers, you understand his hopes, desires, and prayers to catch a Northern Pike.  And, you dread reeling in the Rock Bass.  The nasty, gritty taste of a Rock Bass permeates your mouth as Hunt remembers “they are called Rock Bass because they taste like the bottom of a rock.”

Straight forward, serious history comes alive in the pages of Herb and Corinne Murphy’s book They Called Her Maria.  These are the edited letters and diaries of Hannah Maria Nutting Benham Knapp a woman whose circumstances forced her to travel the world.  She finally settled with her children in Sherburne County.  You feel her pain when she writes of life as a widow and single mother.  “When I look back to that dark period of my life, I wonder I was even carried through it.  Wonder how I ever came to be where I am now.”   

A recent memoir to cross my desk is Robert Bystrom’s Savanna Sunsets Growing Up in Sand Country.  Like Rod Hunt’s memoir, Bystrom paints pictures that create for everyone a sense of life in the past.  As he wrote in his introduction, “Life on the farm was grueling.  It was mostly work and the work was dirty, smelly, sweaty and interminable.”  In spite of the pessimistic introduction, the memories seem special.  Chapters entitled “In the Outhouse” and “The Barn” provide even this urban refugee with a nostalgic sense of farm life in the 1930s and1940s.  When he describes battling bees in the barn, as every young boy will do, we all realize poking the hive and tormenting the bees will not end well.  Yet, we can all imagine the ensuing battle. 

Writing memories and putting family life onto a page present some challenges.  Yet, these memoirs provide important details for future generations.  Recording memories and (to use the cliché) putting ink to paper is rewarding.  I would urge everyone to write their memories.  Whatever you write on the page, future generations will find value.  Record those memories and save history for the future.  

The Grasshopper Plague in the 1870s

The sky was black, dark, almost like a coming storm.  But as the clouds moved closer a shrill hum seemed to accompany the storm.  Only when the cloud finally arrived was it apparent: this was no rainfall, no simple burst of water from the sky.  Instead, the heavens dropped an invading horde of grasshoppers, more specifically Rocky Mountain Locusts, upon the farm lands of Minnesota.  Arriving first in 1873, and for the next five years, in a seeming random pattern a plague of locusts returned to devour the crops of farmers throughout the state.

Various descriptions of this five year plague contain consistent themes.  The grasshoppers came, devouring everything in their path.  First chewing and destroying the grain crops, then any green plants that might remain.  In an effort to fight the destruction, some farmers tried covering plants with blankets and other cloth.  The grasshoppers ate the fabric.  Other reports describe the grasshoppers eating leather harnesses of plow horses.  The horde even fed on fence posts and ax handles.  Nothing was safe from the ravenous insects

In the five years of the Minnesota grasshopper plague, the losses were devastating.  An estimated $2,000,000 was lost by farmers.  By 1877, the state was so frustrated by the inability to combat the locusts, Governor John Pillsbury declared a day prayer for April 26, 1877.  In Cold Springs, Stearns County Catholics built the Assumption Chapel as an outward sign of their devotion and prayer so that God might remove this plague.

Reports of the grasshopper plague describe devastation throughout Minnesota.  Anecdotal evidence in Sherburne County reinforces these views.  Jeanette Knapp, living in Orrock Township remembered the locusts destroying the family crop.  “Father noticed how nicely the grain had come up and how strong it looked—that was when he was on his way to church one Sunday morning.  On his return he could see no evidence of his crops.  Even the leaves were eaten off the trees,” she said.  “At times the grasshoppers were so thick you couldn’t see the sun.” 

Sherburne County does not show up in the greater Minnesota literature of the grasshopper plague.  The county avoided significant damage from the locusts until 1876 when the grasshoppers invaded like a marauding horde and did significant damage to the county farms.  In addition, the county was relatively under populated.  The population in mid 1870s was in the neighborhood of 3000 people.   

Yet, the grasshoppers hit Sherburne County and left an indelible mark on the history of the area.

This particular essay may benefit from a list of references.  If you would like to obtain a copy of this essay with the endnotes, fell free to contact me.

Research Resources To Consider

As you research the history of Sherburne County, or Minnesota for that matter, a collection of documents you might want to consider viewing are the Public Safety Commission Alien Registration and Declaration of Holdings Forms, from 1918.  The records are held by the Minnesota Historical Society.  Microfilm copies of the Sherburne County records are available at SHC

These records, the alien registration forms, contain a wealth of information.  They were collected in the early days of World War I.  The Public Safety Commission set out to identify and document the individuals and the property holdings of every alien living in Minnesota.

The Commission was created by the State of Minnesota, a board of seven members: including the Governor, the State Attorney General and five members appointed by the Governor.  Early in 1918, the Commission issued “Proclamation and Order No. 25” designating the week of February 25 to March 1 as Alien Registration Days.  Every resident alien, anyone not native born or naturalized citizens, over the age of 14 was required to register and give declarations of property.

The registration forms collected information on a broad range of topics, from name and date of birth, to immigration date, to citizenship status and why the individual has not become a naturalized citizen.  The questions and answers provide great information about individuals living in the state.  The registration of aliens was vigorously carried out.  In Sherburne County, the registration commission employees went so far as to document nuns living in the Sherburne County area of Saint Cloud (a portion of the form you see here).

The information on these forms offer some great information.  For family historians or local historians, the Minnesota Public Safety Commission records provide an opportunity to gain greater insight into our families, into our county, and the State of Minnesota.   The collection has been arranged by county and subdivided by community.  The microfilm collection at SHC opens a new window into the lifestyles of residents in Sherburne County.

A Rose By Any Other Name ...

What’s In A Name?  Actually, quite a bit.  I want you to meet Andrew A. Dahl, from Danetown, Santiago Township, Sherburne County, Minnesota.  He was born in Denmark, in 1857.  His father was Anders Jorgenson Dahl.  As was the custom in Denmark, Andrew’s last name then became Anderson.  Andrew immigrated to the United States in 1879 and quickly settled in Sherburne County.

All of this back story is important because Andrew and his wife Mary settled in Danetown.  There was an abundance of Andersons living in the area.  So much so, that produce checks from the Minneapolis markets to the farmers often got mixed up and delivery became very confused.

The story goes: Andrew, in an effort to simplify his life and insure that he received his produce checks, legally changed his name to Dahl.  This name change occurred sometime after 1900.  The court record continues for a generation when at least one of his four surviving children had to again visit the court and petition for a name change on the birth certificate.  Frank Dahl, born in 1901 under the name Frank Anderson, received a court order to change his name on all documents, beginning with a birth certificate and continuing forward.

This is an interesting story for a variety of different reasons.  For the benefit of family historians and local historians, keep in mind that name changes are an important consideration in the research.  It also puts an end to the assumption that every Anderson, Olson, Peterson, and every other common name individual is related.  Names are vital to historic study, but we can’t accept, or reject, every name based on a first read glance.

Planned Tourism

            An article published in the Big Lake Herald and reprinted in the Sherburne County Star News reinforces what we have been documenting for some time: tourism was intended as a major industry in Sherburne County going back to the original settlement of the county.  The article printed in 1907 reports:

Henry Ferguson, a resident of Wright county over forty years, at present of Big Lake, Sherburne County, dined at Brown’s Hotel in Big Lake May 7, 1855, and at the same hotel May 7, 1907, 52 years after only.  Mr. Ferguson is in the eighty-second year and enjoying good health for which he is thankful.  Brown’s hotel was located by Joseph Brown in June, 1847, and continued by his son, N. D. Brown, up to the present time, 60 years only.  

            Advertisement for Brown’s Hotel, as a place for fine fishing and a nice spot to get away from the hustle and bustle of the cities, were published as early as 1855.  Still later, the railroads advertised excursion trains to Sherburne County to move passengers out of the city for a weekend of relaxation.

            Clearly, entrepreneurs in Sherburne County saw the area as potentially significant to the tourism industry.  The potential continues to this day with the development of the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge and the Sand Dunes State Forest.

It Really Works

Every discussion regarding cemetery markers and gravestones, inevitably evolves into the question: how do you extract information from those old stones?  How do you decipher the worn ones; the stones with almost no visible engraving left on the surface.  Some people suggest cleaning the stones, take some shaving cream or mild soap and scrap off the moss and lichen that has attached to the stone.  Unfortunately, THIS IS BAD.  I can guarantee that you will damage the stone beyond repair if you try to clean it.

 

Leave the cleaning to the professionals.

Probably the best alternative I have found to extract information from a worn stone is through the use of aluminum foil   Wrap the surface of the stone with aluminum foil.  Then take a soft sponge and gently press against the surface of the stone.  DO NOT RUB THE STONE.  Gently press the aluminum foil into every tiny crevice of the stone surface.   Gradually the original information may become apparent.  Take a photograph and transcribe all of the information on the stone. 

When you remove the aluminum foil, it will flatten back out, so you lose the information.  Be sure to write down every line on the stone.

With this technique you have done minimal damage to the stone and have retrieved the information you wanted and needed. 

A final tip for this process, use wide aluminum foil.  This way you can wrap the stone vertically, and hopefully need only one sheet of foil.  In the photograph below, you can see that 18 inch aluminum foil would have better served the purpose than the 12 inch foil that we have.

And, thanks to Phyllis Scroggins and Diana Schansberg for help with this experiment.

Electricity Offers An Easier Life

I was reviewing the oral history collection at SHC.  This particular passage from the Carl Aubol Oral History reminded me of how far society has come.  In just 80 years, electricity has given the United States an abundance of luxury items and made life so much simpler.  I wanted to share some of that with you.

Aubol TV and Appliance has been operating in Big Lake, MN since the 1930s.   Even before the opening of the store, dating back to the early 1920s, Harold Aubol was working on radios in his home to give isolated farmers greater access to news and information. 

The entire oral history is fascinating.

“My dad started a store in 1934.  Dad started out building radios because people didn't have access to the news and things in their homes at that time except with battery pack radios.  As electricity come in, then they replaced the battery type radios with electric.  That made quite a change.  Then also with the appliances, they used to have, like, the gasoline engine wringer washers.  As electricity come in, it replaced gasoline motors with electric motors so the ladies could do their wash in the home.  A lot of them, when they'd run those gas engines, they'd take them outside on the porch and run them.  So, the electricity made it much better for the lady of the house to do her washing.  Of course, after the wringer washers were out with electric motors, then they started to get dryers in; so, that the ladies didn't have to hang their clothes outside.  They could put them in a dryer and dry them electrically.  Then, it kind of made the transformation from, basically, the wood stove for cooking to electric for cooking also.  Therefore, the ranges changed considerably from the big old cast iron ones to the more modern ranges that we see today of porcelain and electric burners.”