Saturday, November 24, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History: November 24


Today is Small Business Saturday 2018. 
Shop your locally-owned stores, businesses and restaurants.

I am a small business. 

Want to shop small? Consider buying my historical fiction book, The Memory Quilt, about the 1918 Cloquet/Moose Lake Fire in Minn. $10

A great Christmas gift for book and history lovers.



Interested in learning more about your family history? 

I also provide genealogical services to people looking for their family in Minnesota history:

Types of documents located:

  Census records
   Birth records 
  Death certificates 
  Obits 
  Grave site photos 
  Ship passenger lists 
  Marriage records 
  Declarations of Intent/Naturalization records


Discover your roots, and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow. 



 Pam Erickson
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com

Friday, November 23, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History: November 23

November 23, 1910 – “On [this date], Pennington County was split from Red Lake County with the county seat at Thief River Falls."1

The county was named after Edmund Pennington, general manager and vice president of the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie railway company.2

1http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mnpolk/

2
Upham, Warren; Minnesota Geographic Names, Their Origin and Historic Significance; Minnesota Historical Society (St. Paul, Minn., 1969); p. 406.




https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Pennington_County_(MN)
           __________________________________________________________

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 MNHS records. Both short searches and family history reports available.

                                                         


Discover your roots, and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com > click on Family History

Contact me at:
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com




Thursday, November 22, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History: November 22


November 22, 1940 – Terry Gilliam, “American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe,” was born on this date in Medicine Lake, Minn.

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


Terry Gilliam

http://doublefeatureshow.com/tag/terry-gilliam

           __________________________________________________________

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 MNHS records. Both short searches and family history reports available.

                                                         


Discover your roots, and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com > click on Family History

Contact me at:
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com





Wednesday, November 21, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History: November 21

November 21, 1928 - Constable Arvid Lundgren of the Koochiching County Sheriff's Department was shot and killed on this date while attempting to arrest a suspect who had brandished a gun to intimidate people in a restaurant in Big Falls. He was chasing the suspect down the street when the man turned and fired, striking him in the neck. The suspect surrendered himself to a posse several days later.

http://www.odmp.org/officer/8327-constable-arvid-lundgren




http://www.fybush.com/Tower%20Site/060224/koochiching.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 MNHS records. Both short searches and family history reports available.

                                                         


Discover your roots, and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com > click on Family History

Contact me at:
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com




Tuesday, November 20, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History: November 20

November 20, 1919 – Vilhjalmor Stefansson, Artic explorer, thinks Minneapolis is cold.


Vilhjalmor Stefansson

Arriving this evening from the West Canadian coast, he drew his overcoat tightly about him, turned up the collar and kicked his feet together, trying to remain comfortable.

Most of Minneapolis strutted about tonight with coats unbuttoned, while the mercury played about the 45-degree above mark in an extremely mild pre-winter night.

The explorer, who spent six years with the Eskimo tribes in the Land of the Midnight Sun, admitted that he had “summered” through ice-bound islands when it was much colder than now, but recently he has been in the southwestern part of the Canadian coast, where Indian summer is still hovering.

He proved Minneapolis was cold with figures showing that winter temperatures at the North Pole are only five degrees lower than in the northwest.

“The best information we have,” he said, “shows that it is between 55 and 60 degrees below zero in mid-winter at the pole. Government records show that 55 degrees is a common occurrence in the Northwest each winter."
That the Arctic Circle is unfriendly, dreary, desolate and no habitation because of widely advertised ice-bergs, lack of food and impossible temperatures was denied by Stefansson.


“There is plenty of food,” he continued, “it is not terribly and impossibly cold. That is all story-book lore. There is green grass and verdure on every speck of land as far north as explorers have gone. True, the summers are shorter, but still there are possibilities for raising stock and vegetables.”

Stefansson is credited with being the only northern explorer to furnish food for his party from the area travelled. At sea, the seal furnishes food, and on land it is the caribou.

1


He pointed out that numerous exploring parties had trekked the Arctic Circle and starved to the last man because they did not know how to take advantage of the natural resources. He said that he never suffered for lack of food; neither had his men.

“How the world retains the idea that the North is so frigid and uninhabitable,” continued the explorer, “is a mystery that I cannot fathom. Even Canadians do not know the conditions existing in their own northern possessions.

“Americans have made wonderful progress in the propagation of reindeer in Alaska. There are now 200,000 of the animals thriving there, and many are already on marketing in the United States.”

A Minneapolis wholesale meat concern, Stefansson said, has contracted for 5,000 carcasses of reindeer. They are due here now.

“It costs but $1 a year to raise a reindeer,” he said, “and $2.50 will bring an animal to full market maturity. It costs $2 more to butcher, freeze and ship a carcass to Seattle.

“The average freight charge from Seattle to Midwest points is $4, but the hide of a reindeer alone sells for this much, while the entire carcass is worth $10 at present market figures.”

Stefansson would much rather stalk the ice fields than travel on railroads in Canada and the United States. A month among bergs usually fattens him 15 pounds, he said, but in the last month he has lost this much in weight.


In his first Arctic cruise, Steffansson discovered the “blond” Eskimo. This was in 1906. Again in June, 1913, with a party of 26, he left Victoria, B. C., for another tour of exploration for the Canadian government.

A year later he discovered a new continent or large island north of Prince Patrick Island. He made geological and botanical reports to the Canadian government.


Prince Patrick Island, upper left2

Stefansson was born in Arnes, Manitoba, Nov. 3, 1879, and made his first northern expedition to Iceland in 1903. He graduated from Harvard divinity school, taught school, sold insurance, lectured, was a reporter and edited a newspaper in N. D.

He was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Nelson at the Leamington Hotel this evening. He left at 10:30 tonight for Chicago.

The Minneapolis Morning Tribune; “Stefansson, Arctic Explorer, in Minneapolis; Shivers From Cold. Only Five Degrees Colder at Pole; Tales of Frigidity Held Myths.”; Nov. 21, 1919; pp. 1 & 4.

1http://www.drbass.com/stefansson2.html

2
https://www.infoplease.com/atlas/northwest-territories
           __________________________________________________________

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 MNHS records. Both short searches and family history reports available.

                                                         


Discover your roots, and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com > click on Family History

Contact me at:
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com





Monday, November 19, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History: November 19

November 19, 1959 - Rocky and His Friends made its ABC debut on [this date]. Audiences loved Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle Moose and their adventures in Frostbite Falls, Minn. “In its first season, Rocky and His Friends topped the Nielsen ratings for daytime shows. In 1961, it joined NBC’s evening lineup. Renamed The Bullwinkle Show, the primetime version was produced in color. New characters were added to the cast, including the lovable, but bumbling Dudley Do-Right of the Canadian Mounties and his nemesis, Snidely Whiplash.” 

http://www.generalmills.com/~/media/Files/history/history_book.ashx 


  

http://rockyandbullwinkle.wikia.com/wiki/Rocky_and_Bullwinkle_Wiki
           __________________________________________________________

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 MNHS records. Both short searches and family history reports available.

                                                         


Discover your roots, and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com > click on Family History

Contact me at:
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com




Sunday, November 18, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History: November 18

November 18, 1983 – Larry Race was sentenced to life imprisonment for the death of his wife Debbie. The State had accused him of staging a boating accident on Lake Superior to kill his wife. Her body was found May 12, 1982, on a Duluth shoreline; she had died of hypothermia in the 35-degree water after the inflatable rescue raft she was on sunk. The prosecution contended Race punctured holes in the raft to kill his wife for $108,000 in insurance and to get out of his 14-year marriage.

Race was released from prison in 2005. His children still believe him to be not guilty.

Duluth News-Tribune & Herald; “Race convicted of murder”; November 18, 1983, p. 1.

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=79596



Larry Race

https://coms.doc.state.mn.us/publicviewer/OffenderDetails/Index/128295/Search
           __________________________________________________________

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 MNHS records. Both short searches and family history reports available.

                                                         


Discover your roots, and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com > click on Family History

Contact me at:
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com