Bug and Mum's Most Excellent Adventure

Before I tell you about the turkey, let's back up to the sirens. Sirens in Minnesota can vary in meaning. I am not talking about ambulances or squad cars, for those of you living outside the Midwest. I am talking about the severe weather warning sirens that might (emphasis on might) mean a tornado. Most likely they mean severe weather--clouds dark enough to rain. So, Friday June 24 I woke up to the screech of sirens exactly 20 minutes before my alarm. There was no tornado. It rained.

By 8 a.m. Bug and I were ready to adventure to Saint Peter, MN to research, shoot film and just have fun. In case you are the curious sort, Bug is my 15-year old daughter. With our cameras fully loaded with film, we drove 1/4 of a mile from our home and encountered our first surprise--a turkey!

This is no ordinary turkey, mind you. This is a sentinel of Highland Cemetery. Bug knows this to be true. She's been chased by turkeys before. Once, trying to explore the backwoods of the pioneer cemetery and twice just walking past. Two winters ago, a male turkey left the cemetery woods and stood aloof on a ridge above a major intersection. We'd pass the turkey, going to the store or school and I'd tease Bug that he was stalking her. The front bumper of a minivan found him before he found her, though. Safe. Bug thought she was safe. But here was a turkey in the soybean field next to the cemetery. The return of the turkey. I stopped; shot two pictures and then my brave 15-year old shouted from inside our truck, "Mom, he's coming!"

I squinted (he was clear across the field) and said, "Really?"

"Maybe. He moved."

"Well, yeah, he moved. He's posing."

Off again, yet we didn't get too far before we realized why the sirens went off. Trees were strewn across Farmington. Some had been twisted off at the base, others split in half. Huge branches of oak and cottonwood covered rooftops, cars and power lines. We'd turn down one street only to have to find another route. Bug called her dad to ask if there had been a tornado. No, he hadn't heard. I took the phone and advised him to get his chain saw because people needed help. I needed coffee. But the Farmington Coffee Shop was not accessible.

Making our way out of the tree-strewn maze, we headed south on Hwy. 3, turned west on County Road 19 at Castle Rock and traveled a straight line through the verdant green farmlands of central Minnesota. We discovered coffee in New Prague. Hastily I ordered a cappuccino breve dry with a flavor shot of caramel. Bug ordered a white chocolate mocha. Our server was friendly--not a typical Midwest attribute, polite, yes, but friendly, no. So I asked her where she was from. "Wyoming, near Gillette," she answered. Then I noticed a cup on the counter with "Donations for Owner" scrawled in pen. "What's this for?" I asked, motioning to the cup.

"Oh, the shop's owner lost her roof this morning. Just after she opened up. Trampoline, deck and new grill are all missing, too"

"Was there a tornado?" I asked.

"Nope, just wind."

To me, wind is something that blows across the prairie, shuffles the leaves in a tree and occasionally knocks over a lawn chair. But when limbs are shorn from trees, trees snapped in half and trampolines whisked out of sight, I say that's not just "wind." Regardless of semantics, we placed change from a $20 bill in the donations cup and suggested that the owner look for her trampoline in Farmington.

Fully caffeinated and back on the road we continued west until Hwy.169, turned south and made our way to Saint Peter. Our first stop had nothing to do with my research of Little Crow and his involvement in the signing of the Traverse des Sioux. It was one of those, "this looks too fun to pass up" stops. Our destination: the Minnesota Treatment Facility--the state's first Asylum for the Insane. If you want to visit the facility's museum, housed in the last remaining original building from 1878, you have to make an appointment. Saint Peter secured placement for the state's third institution by providing 2,000 acres of land and a temporary facility in town. The Ewing House became the temporary Asylum. Originally, the three-storied brick structure was a hotel in 1858 and served as an impromptu hospital during the Sioux Uprising of 1862. In December 1866 the Asylum opened up its temporary quarters to Minnesota's insane, having retrieved them from Iowa. Not that Iowa was crazy, it's just that they had a facility first and had agreed to take our disturbed Norwegians and New Englanders.

Today, the facility houses a maximum security treatment center, mostly confining sex offenders. We stayed on the opposite side of the maximum security fence line. The building we entered was once the admissions hall built of quarried limestone. Its classical architecture remains, but we were not allowed to take photos. Inside, we were led to the center of the building behind secure doors. Up two flights of marble stairs, we began to sense fear. Perhaps not our own, so much as lingering memories imprinted over time. We learned of the Asylum's beginnings and discovered people like Dr. Shank and Matron Pexton who brought their compassion and classical training with them from Utica, New York. Over all, people had good intentions. Often, lack of understanding mental illness led to such treatment as confinement and shock therapy. I have never been a proponent of pharmaceuticals, but I gained a better perspective of what it was like to treat violent patients before the advent of sedatives. We explored old rooms creepily staged with mannequins, read snippets from the past and viewed old photos and relics. We even read a poem by Ms. Pexton upon the death of Dr. Shank, hailing the irony of dying from one's own profession (no, Dr. Shank did not go mad; he contracted typhoid from an immigrant who was thought to be insane, but was merely suffering from fever).

We left the Treatment Center in search of the Treaty Site Museum. Trying to figure out the street numbering left us with unexpected turns and new discoveries. By accident we happened upon the Cox house and briefly read about the lawyer-turned-senator who was impeached for alcohol consumption. There has to be more to this story! Next we discovered the Pearly Gates of Saint Peter! You never know when you might stumble upon a little piece of Heaven in Minnesota. Parking by the river proved to be Bug's undoing. I forget how susceptible she is to mosquitoes. They don't bite me, so I forget to empathize. We went running to the pearly gates, briefly staged a melancholy shot of Bug all alone at the bottom of the slide (no park mates; her siblings were elsewhere for yet another week) and read the historical marker about the old boat landing on the Minnesota River.

Our next stop was St. Peter's co-op for some all-natural sting-stopper. It was my first visit to that co-op. Minnesota has fantastic natural food co-ops--local food, good food, sustainable economy. Don't throw your money away at the big box stores; join a co-op and keep profits in the community. Lecture, over (guess where I work as a marketer by day).We left, and Bug said, "I like co-ops. Everybody's always so nice." Really, she did say that.

Finally, we discovered the Treaty Site Museum--the site of the Traverse Des Sioux. I am writing a historical novel that involves one of the key historical figures of that Treaty and later of the Sioux Uprising: Little Crow. It's an interwoven tale of forbidden love on the prairie, tragedy and ultimate liberation.

The museum from outside was more than I could have hoped for. It was completely surrounded by acres of native prairie grass. Such an ecosystem offers a realistic view back in time before the prairie became domesticated by the hands of immigrant farmers and settlers from New England. Native prairie grass grows deep, lush and holds an abundance of medicinal wild-flowers. I gained a greater appreciation outside of the museum of what Traverse des Sioux was like in 1851.Inside the museum Bug and I watched a video on Joseph Nicolette (Nic-oh-lay). He was a French surveyor who mapped the vast prairies after the Lewis & Clark Expedition. He was a philosopher who saw this open land through the eyes of the Dakotah he met. His map included tribal names for features and waterways.

One of Nicolette's recordings was of the site that would one day exchange ownership of the lands he mapped. Traverse Des Sioux was actually a river crossing. The historic marker at the site reads: "This ancient fording place, 'The Crossing of the Sioux,' was on the heavily traveled trail from St. Paul and Fort Snelling to the Upper Minnesota (River) and the Red River valleys. Here, on June 31, 1851, (territorial) Governor Alexander Ramsey, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Luke Lea, Delegate to Congress Henry H. Sibley and other government officials established a camp on a height overlooking the small trading post and mission on the river bank. They had gathered to negotiate an important treaty with representatives of the Sisseton and Wahpeton Sioux for almost twenty-four million acres called Suland. This vast track comprised most of Minnesota west of the Mississippi and south of the line between present day St. Cloud and Moorhead as well as portions of South Dakota and northern Iowa. News of the signing of the treaty of Traverse des Sioux on July 23, 1851, started a great land rush which brought swarms of settlers to the fertile lands acquired by the United States from the Sioux."--Erected by the MN Historical Society 1988.

"Sioux" is Ojibway for "foe." The Dakotah never called themselves "Sioux" and that misnomer continues today. The Dakotah were part of a huge nation of tribes extending west from MN across the plains into the Rockies. The Sisseton and Wahpeton signed the first of other treaties in 1851. Much of the money was transferred not to the bargaining tribes, but to the traders who claimed the tribes had unpaid debt. The rest of the money was to come in allotments. Many white settlers refused to establish credit with the tribes (whose land they now squatted upon) despite the pending allotments. Perhaps they had a good idea of how long the government would take to pay. By the early 1860s, disease, poverty and starvation was the way of life to the tribes that once followed the buffalo across the prairies and harvested the fruits of native berries and plants. Frustrated, young warriors began to lash out in a string of massacres against the invaders with plows and homesteads. The Sioux Uprisings claimed hundreds of lives and would mark the beginning of the longest war US troops would ever fight. It all ended with the Tragedy of Wounded Knee.

Concluding our historical research at Traverse Des Sioux Treaty Museum, I left with a pile of notes, a grand book on Little Crow and a replica of a US medallion commemorating the treaty with an embossed rendering of Little Crow. Bug left with three boxes of LemonHeads. We spotted the county road headed west that we wanted to follow next. It would take us to the Old Traverse Cemetery, the second oldest cemetery in MN.

Perched on a hill beneath a canopy of old trees we found the graves comprising the Old Traverse Cemetery, later renamed Green Lawn. It was green, but also dark within the shadows of the trees. Many markers were simple wooden crosses with a single name. Other markers were limestone or granite with worn lettering often covered with black lichen. The slanting slope, gopher tunnels and roots made for cautious walking. Bug chickened-out, claiming there were too many mosquitoes. I discovered graves of early missionaries, settlers killed by Indians and the stoic markers of US soldiers enlisted to fight in the Civil War, but dying in their own back yards, fighting the Dakotah. Today, it is customary to bring plastic flowers and wreaths to our buried beloved. But a hundred years ago, gravesites were often marked with plantings from the family garden. Now, old cemeteries bloom with lilac bushes, lilies and roses.

Inspired to see some of the areas hardest hit by warring tribes, Bug and I headed west into what remains rural farmland today. Outside of Norseland we spotted a very Scandinavian-looking Lutheran Church--a bit of Viking architecture from the Old Country. I was intrigued by three separate cemeteries, all associated with the Lutheran Church. Probably the three plots of land were too small to accommodate the dead. One plot had an historical marker in tribute to the New Sweden Indian Attack. It read:

"Mrs. Marla Jonsson, wife of Erik Jonsson, and their son Pehr, were killed by Sioux Indians on August 23, 1862 near their home in New Sweden Township, about five miles northwest of this marker. Both natives of Sweden, Mrs. Jonsson was 35 and Pehr was 12 at the time of the massacre. Another son, August, born in New Sweden Township in 1861 died of exposure two days after his mother's death. All three bodies are buried in this cemetery, which was consecrated in 1859 by the Scandian Grove Lutheran Church. The Jonsson homestead was one of the easternmost sites involved in depredations committed by the Indians during the Sioux Uprising of 1862. Days of affliction come to meet me--Job 30:27." --erected in 1962 by the Scandian Grove Lutheran Church in the grateful memory of these pioneer members of the congregation.

We searched for markers of Marla Jonsson and her boys. Were was Erik? Given the date, he very well may have enlisted in the fighting just days before and may have been at the Battle of New Ulm raging the same day his wife and sons were killed. Further evidence is needed to support that theory. Bug had to flee this cemetery screaming something about "They're dive-bombing me!" I think she meant flies, as I was swatting at a few myself. She looked funny though, sprinting across the lawn in her black converses, her arms wildly flapping in an attempt to shoo her assailants.

About that time we noticed a peculiar odor. A mile back I saw a sign proudly reading, "Hormel Country." Having survived a summer in Iowa where pig farms produce horrific smells, I grew wary. By the time we reach downtown Norseland--an old general store, the ruins of a garage and a house barely visible beneath dense growth of trees, shrubs and flowers--the smell had reached Iowa proportions. Coughing, close to gagging we nearly scrambled over each other seeking the door to the Norseland General Store. Bug reached it first, pulling hard.

"Mom, I think they're closed." She sounded in a near-panic. Pulling again she failed to open the door.

"Push," I practically yelled, desperate to retreat from the noxious odor filling my nose and lungs.

She pushed and we tumbled inside. We barely reacted, but looked at each other with curled lips and watering eyes. Whatever had gassed itself outside evidently wandered into this store and died. The interior smell won as if it were a contest for the worst odor in America. Spying a notebook, I grabbed it thinking, let's get out of here. Bug grabbed Band-Aids. Neither of us even considered going for food. The old man behind the counter seemed interested in us, "Where ya'll from?" he asked. In no hurry to ring us up he noticed my camera. "Takin' pictures?"

"Yes," I managed in a gasping voice. "Looking for historical sites."

"Well, now," he beamed us a toothy smile and looked intent upon telling a story. A long story I feared. "This here store is old and it's only been in two families." What gem this man would have been under better smelling circumstances.

We escaped, not staying for the story. Perhaps a winter visit would be okay. Slamming the truck door shut, Bug glared at me and said, "If we stop in one more hick town and it smells like swine, I'm staying in the truck!" All I could do was laugh.

"Just one more hick town, I promise." I was intent on finding New Sweden. Back home I could go up to the History Center in St. Paul and find the Jonsson homestead. With a modern map showing township and range we could pinpoint the exact location of the massacre. My luck, it'll be right under the slop trough of a pig farm. Today, however, I would have to be content to find a town that was no longer on the map.

When a town is no longer on the map there's a good reason. New Sweden no longer exists. We found what were probably the dilapidated remains of a community hall. That was it. Clouds were slowly drifting in, fields stretched every direction and the tallest structures on the horizon were the ominous pig barns. This marked the eastern edge of our adventure. We turned north, found a county road that followed the Rush River and headed west to LeSuer, another river town on the Minnesota River. In Lesuer I passed a beautiful lake covered with soft cotton from the river trees. Stopping I took a picture and then one of Bug. My partner in adventure was sound asleep. I was not sure which way to go--follow the river home or cut across the country side to? I had to look on the map. Ah--Northfield. Let's go to Northfield!

Bug awoke as I nearly swerved off the road--a truck crossed the median into my lane and damn near took us out. I think he was as sound asleep as Bug had been. Adrenaline flowing, I was definitely wide awake. Bug asked where we were at. "Well, we almost returned to St. Peter's Pearly Gates." I answered. "I don't know exactly, Rice County, I think."

We meandered though more farms, rolling hills and a couple of large lakes beckoning for a canoe. I spotted what looked like an old school house and we detoured for a closer look. Yep, it was an old school house full of stuff. What treasures of history might linger in that junk, I could only wonder. There were no signs or evidence of a town so I had no idea what township this school may have served at one time.

We reached Northfield as the rain began to sprinkle. We were hungry and ready for a bite to eat. Passing the old grist mill on the Cannon River, I thought of our family's grist mill that had operated on the Elk River north of here from 1854 to 1907. Genealogy is about who begat whom, but I am thrilled by history. What were their lives like, what significant events took place, what affect has it had on our lives today?  What haunting or memories or legacies will we leave behind? History is a living, breathing connection between human lives, past and future. I once had a story-teller from Tennessee grasp my hand and say, "This hand once held the hand of a man who touched the hand of a Civil War soldier." Want to hold my hand and feel history?

Hunger broke through my meandering thoughts as Bug spotted a pub, the Contented Cow. You see, Northfield is a town of colleges, cows and contentment. Pub food sounded like the fastest way to reach contentment, so in we ventured. Over root beer and Scottish Pilsner Bug and I reviewed papers we gathered from various stops, studying the stories of the land we photographed and explored today. She had a meatball sandwich and I devoured a Shepard's pie. Thus our most excellent adventure came to an end. Until our next one, of course. I wonder where the oldest cemetery in Minnesota is...