Saturday, March 21, 2015

On This Date in Minnesota History: March 21

March 21, 1907 – “Ernest Adams, aged 74 years, a contractor, while engaged in cleaning out a deep well, about four miles outside [St. Paul], was buried under tons of earth which caved in on top of him at 5:30 o'clock p. m. last evening. He was taken out alive at 3 o'clock this afternoon. The only injury he sustained was a slight bruise on the head, and he is apparently no worse for his experience.”

http://www3.gendisasters.com/minnesota/8670/saint-paul-mn-well-caves-in-on-contractor-mar-1907


               __________________________________________________________

If you are interested in finding out more about your family history in Minnesota, I specialize in researching  genealogical and historical records in Minn. and western Wis., including:
census records,  birth records,  death certificates, obits, grave site photos, ship passenger lists, marriage records and declarations of intent/naturalization records.  I will visit locations to research local history and county records, as well as take photos. Quick turnaround on MHS records.  Both short searches and family history reports.
Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com ®  click on Family History

Contact me at:
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com



Friday, March 20, 2015

On This Date in Minnesota History: March 20

March 20, 2008 – Six-year-old Abigail Taylor died of injuries accidently sustained when she was partially disemboweled by the suction from a wading pool drain at the Minneapolis Golf Club in St. Louis Park, Minn. “Her accident partially resulted in the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act named after another young girl who drowned after being pinned by a pool drain.”1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Abigail_Taylor

1
h
ttp://voices.yahoo.com/swimming-pool-victim-abigail-taylor-1312009.html?cat=8

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=25429273





Abigail Taylor

http://media.katu.com/images/070705_abigail_taylor.jpg


RIP Abby

               __________________________________________________________

If you are interested in finding out more about your family history in Minnesota, I specialize in researching  genealogical and historical records in Minn. and western Wis., including:
census records,  birth records,  death certificates, obits, grave site photos, ship passenger lists, marriage records and declarations of intent/naturalization records.  I will visit locations to research local history and county records, as well as take photos. Quick turnaround on MHS records.  Both short searches and family history reports.

Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com ®  click on Family History

Contact me at:
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com




 

Thursday, March 19, 2015

On This Date in Minnesota History: March 19

March 19, 1921 – Dr. Flora Aldrich, the first woman doctor in Anoka, died on this date. She and her husband Dr. Alanson Aldrich came to Anoka from New York State to visit some friends in the 1880s, and fell in love with the town and decided to stay.1

In 1904 the Aldriches built a combined home and doctors’ office on 3rd Ave. S., which was designed after homes in upstate New York, where they were from.1 Known as Colonial Hall, the doctors’ office was considered top of the line and built to be as sanitary as possible. For example, its operating room had a “sanitary cuspidor for the use of patients suffering with any disease where sputum [was] liable to contain microorganisms, and so arranged that all are carried away by a stream of water flowing continuously.”2

Colonial Hall was acquired by the Masonic Lodge after Flora died in 1921. In Aug. 1971, the Anoka Historical Society began to lease the building. On Dec. 31, 1979, Colonial Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places, and today is occupied by a tenant, the Anoka Artique.

Anoka Union; “Housing the history of Anoka County, As Colonial Hall celebrates its 90th birthday”; Anoka, Minn.; Nov. 7, 1994.

 Colonial Hall history submitted to Anoka County Historical Society May 5, 1977 by Leslie Guillund.







Photos taken by Pamela J. Erickson. Released into the public domain March 19, 2015, 
as long as acknowledgement included.  




               __________________________________________________________

If you are interested in finding out more about your family history in Minnesota, I specialize in researching  genealogical and historical records in Minn. and western Wis., including:
census records,  birth records,  death certificates, obits, grave site photos, ship passenger lists, marriage records and declarations of intent/naturalization records.  I will visit locations to research local history and county records, as well as take photos. Quick turnaround on MHS records.  Both short searches and family history reports.
Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com ®  click on Family History

Contact me at:
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com



Wednesday, March 18, 2015

On This Date in Minnesota History: March 18

March 18, 1911 – A prairie fire started by a boy burning brush and grass in his backyard got out of control and swept through a ten block area of Columbia Heights, Minn., an Anoka County village just north of the Minneapolis city limits, burning President Lincoln’s railroad funeral car in the process.




President Lincoln’s Funeral Car (National Park Service Photo)1

First used as the private railroad car for Lincoln and his cabinet during the last three years of the Civil War, the same car transported Lincoln’s body, as well as the disinterred coffin of Lincoln’s son Willie who had died in 1862 at age 11 of typhoid fever, on its trip from Washington, D.C. to Springfield, Ill., where both Lincolns were to be buried. The train traveled through 180 cities and seven states, with mourners lining the tracks as it passed.

The car had been purchased in 1905 by Thomas Lowry, Twin Cities attorney, real estate magnate and businessman who oversaw much of the early growth of the streetcar lines in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The Lowry Hill Tunnel and Lowry Hill District were named after him.





Lowry Hill Dist. Photo2


The funeral car was brought to Minneapolis, and then housed in Columbia Heights, where it had been visited by hundreds of thousands of Americans who wished to honor Lincoln’s memory. Lowry’s heirs had recently given the car to the Minnesota Federation of Women’s clubs for the purpose of removal to Mendota to be preserved with the old Sibley House as part of a state historical museum. Edmund G. Walton, manger of the Columbia Heights Land Company, announced his intention to permit the public to take fragments of the car as souvenirs.


The Sunday Journal; “Car that Carried Remains of Lincoln Is Burned in Spectacular Prairie Fire”; Minneapolis, Minn.; March 19, 1911; pp. 1 & 2.

http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln51.html

http://mnperegrinations.tumblr.com/post/3433304584/stuffaboutminneapolis-lincoln-funeral-car

http://news.yahoo.com/mystery-abraham-lincolns-funeral-train-solved-chemist-135155049.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Lowry
1http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln51.html

2Photo taken by Pamela J. Erickson. Released into the public domain  March 18, 20xx, as long as acknowledgement included.

               __________________________________________________________

If you are interested in finding out more about your family history in Minnesota, I specialize in researching  genealogical and historical records in Minn. and western Wis., including:
census records,  birth records,  death certificates, obits, grave site photos, ship passenger lists, marriage records and declarations of intent/naturalization records.  I will visit locations to research local history and county records, as well as take photos. Quick turnaround on MHS records.  Both short searches and family history reports.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com ®  click on Family History

Contact me at:
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com


Tuesday, March 17, 2015

On This Date in Minnesota History: March 17

March 17, 1967 – The first St. Patrick’s Day parade in 50 years was held in St. Paul on this date. Marchers were signaled onward by the firing of three bombs at the stroke of 12 noon.

Leading the procession was a “son of the auld sod,” Mayor Thomas Byrne, who carried a shillelagh to “keep order in the parade.” The Mayor said it was a day St. Paul had needed, and that he hoped the parade would become an annual event.

St. Paul Pioneer Press; “City Shows True Colors”; March 18, 1967; p. 13.


http://myspacegraphicsandanimations.com/myspace-animations-myspace_stpatricks-day-graphics.htm



               __________________________________________________________

If you are interested in finding out more about your family history in Minnesota, I specialize in researching  genealogical and historical records in Minn. and western Wis., including: census records,  birth records,  death certificates, obits, grave site photos, ship passenger lists, marriage records and declarations of intent/naturalization records.  I will visit locations to research local history and county records, as well as take photos. Quick turnaround on MHS records.  Both short searches and family history reports.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com ®  click on Family History

Contact me at:
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com
 

Monday, March 16, 2015

On This Date in Minnesota History: March 16

March 16, 1882 - Several years before he wrote his two most famous plays - The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) – and before he was imprisoned in England for gross indecency with other men, Oscar Wilde began a series of lectures in the United States in 1882.




Best known at the time as a poet and an apostle of aestheticism (an art movement supporting the emphasis of aesthetic values more than social-political themes for literature, fine art, music and other arts*), Wilde gave his lecture to a mostly female audience at the Opera House in St. Paul on Wabasha Street between Third and Fourth Streets this evening.




St. Paul Opera House 


Last night, he lectured in downtown Minneapolis at the Academy of Music on the corner of Washington and Hennepin Aves.



The Academy of Music, Minneapolis 

It’s interesting to note that Wilde’s clothing and appearance were mentioned in the Daily Globe’s review of his lecture before any mention of his lecture topic and style:

“He was dressed in purple silk velvet, wide sleeves, cut away coat and breeches. One hand was encased in a white kid glove and the other sported a lace handkerchief. A long lace neck tie, with bow in front, encircled his neck. His hair was parted in the middle hung down upon his coat collar, even partly covering his cheeks and completely concealing his ears. His eyes had a dreamy, languid look…”

Wilde spoke plainly and with little emotion about art, lamenting that there was so little art, especially in this country, and depicting the art that had existed centuries ago in the old world, and the progress now being made in art cultivation in England.

He also mentioned that he was shocked by the buildings in St. Paul, by the mud in the streets and especially by the rooms and furniture in in the hotels. Almost the only smile provoked during the evening was when he depicted the lack of art in American hotel furniture.



Daily Globe; “Oscar Wilde. The Appearance of Too Too, All But, Last Evening.”; St. Paul, Minn.; March 17, 1882; p. 1.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde

http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/17/v17i01p038-048.pdf

http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/lectures-1882/march/0315-minneapolis.html

http://www.el-hai.com/blog/tag/oscar-wilde

http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/lectures-1882/march/0316-st-paul.html



Oscar Wilde

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde#mediaviewer/File:Oscar_Wilde_Sarony.jpg



               __________________________________________________________

If you are interested in finding out more about your family history in Minnesota, I specialize in researching  genealogical and historical records in Minn. and western Wis., including:
census records,  birth records,  death certificates, obits, grave site photos, ship passenger lists, marriage records and declarations of intent/naturalization records.  I will visit locations to research local history and county records, as well as take photos. Quick turnaround on MHS records.  Both short searches and family history reports.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com ®  click on Family History



Sunday, March 15, 2015

On This Date in Minnesota History: March 15

March 15, 1894 – This afternoon the daughter of C. M Houston, a wealthy farmer living four miles west of Winnebago City, Minn., was married.  This evening as they were enjoying their wedding supper, the family was disturbed by a crowd of boys who came prepared to give them an all-night entertainment. Mr. Houston stepped to the door and invited them in, when someone in the crowd fired a revolver in the air, and Mr. Houston dropped dead. He was troubled with heart disease, and the sudden scare killed him.

St. Paul Daily Globe; “Dropped Dead at a Wedding.”; March 16, 1894; p. 1.



http://rlv.zcache.com/winnebago_minnesota_city_classic_mug-r48e0f9e4f7744d7788c8152158ac49df_x7jgr_8byvr_324.jpg


               __________________________________________________________

If you are interested in finding out more about your family history in Minnesota, I specialize in researching  genealogical and historical records in Minn. and western Wis., including:
census records,  birth records,  death certificates, obits, grave site photos, ship passenger lists, marriage records and declarations of intent/naturalization records.  I will visit locations to research local history and county records, as well as take photos. Quick turnaround on MHS records.  Both short searches and family history reports.

Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com ®  click on Family History

Contact me at:
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com