Summer 2020 Volume 22, Number 2

By Jere Day, MAHS President

Contact us! Milaca Area Historical Society Street address: 145 S. Central Ave. Jere Day, President, 983-3325, jlazyday@midco.net Mailing address: PO Box 144 Leslie Anfinson, Vice Pres, 320-333-9413, cairoleslie@gmail.com Milaca, MN 56353 Tom Sauer, Treasurer, 982-6603, tysauer@milaca.net

Ann Johnson, Secretary, 983-6391, johnson.ann.louise@gmail.com Phone: 320-982-1212 Mark Boggs, Vice-Sec, 320-362-1999, milacatown@gmail.com

Email: museum@milaca.net Lynn Kent, 983-3155

Website: milacamuseum.org Karen Schlenker, Newsletter, Curator, 983-3586,

Find us on Facebook jkarschlen@gmail.com

Milaca Area Historical Society

News Preserving and sharing Milaca’s history

since 1985

From the President’s Desk Pandemic 1918-1919! Pandemic 2019-2020! Isn’t it ironic – or was it foreshadowing? – that our 1918-

1919 display at the county fair on the Spanish Flu would portend us shutting down not only our museum but the whole state! Old clichés about history repeating itself seem to come true too often these days. Things often stay the same – until they don’t, and may never be quite the same again. Driving down our business streets and highways reveals the stark emptiness of our public places. Life really has changed, we just don’t know quite how much just yet! Here at MAHS, we are so sad that some of our programs didn’t take place, as our visits to second grade were canceled as well as their field trip to see us. Our whole education program was postponed this spring. Maybe we can do some things next fall with them, if school resumes on time. It is kind of disconcerting to know how much the volunteer staff has done in the off season in preparing the building improvements and “touch-ups” with paint and additional décor, only to not be able to share them with you this spring. When you come to the museum you will see new letters over the newly completed front doors and also new track lighting in the auditorium. There is also a new “gallery” in the hall between the auditorium and the Powerhouse Room, displaying artwork both old and new to the collection, including four Al Mohler paintings. There may be other surprises before we open, as mentioned in other articles in the newsletter. This is a good time to join our MAHS group and be a part of local history with our saved stories and local artifacts. The board welcomes all to visit and we also encourage volunteers to come and help share our past with the community as we reopen, hopefully soon. Thanks to all of you who helped make this a successful off season with your dedication and hard work.

We Appreciate Your Support – Please become a MAHS member!

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Our Important Volunteers

The Milaca Museum is run by 90% volunteer labor. The only paid person is Deb Vedders, who does

some heavier cleaning of the Museum on a monthly basis. Other than that, from the board, to our curator, to every person that clips, files or meets visitors – all are volunteers! Pretty impressive, right!

The down side is that we are losing volunteers faster than we are gaining new volunteers. Age, health of ourselves and family members, and death has taken many of the wonderful volunteers who have given time to the Museum. The Museum was not open on Saturdays last year due to the low numbers of volunteers willing to staff during open months, April through October. This year, the COVID-19 pandemic and Shelter-in-Place has caused the Museum to remain closed during April and May.

As of this writing, we still do not know when the Museum will open, or whether there will be a Mille Lacs County Fair or if there is, will we participate at the fair. So many unknowns. However, while we are participating in historic times now, many things continue behind the closed doors of the Museum. Karen, as curator, is busy cataloging donations. Tom and his colleague, Jack Palmer, are busy with wood, nails, screws, stain and varnish to create ways to store those donations and also make more donations visible to visitors. Ann Johnson has been working on expanding the Milaca High School band exhibit. The Museum board continues to meet to discuss operational and funding issues.

All this continues because the Milaca Museum will open again. And when we open, we need you to help. For you to help, the Board knows you need to feel safe in the Museum. So do we! So does the public!

Please give us your thoughts about what you need to do to make you feel safe as you visit the Museum, or volunteer at the Museum. Is it sanitizer on the sign-in stand, or knowing where the Clorox wipes are to wipe door handles? Is it mandatory masks on everyone? Please let us know – by email, mail or phone. Every Board member’s number can be found in this newsletter, or contact us

By email: museum@milaca.net By mail: Milaca Museum, PO Box 144, Milaca, MN 56353 or

By phone: 320-982-1212 Other ways you can help the Museum: become a member or renew your membership, become an at-

large board member, come in to clip and/or file articles from the newspaper, help give tours of the Museum when school groups return, work on an exhibit, or volunteer for a 4-hour shift during our open season. The Museum needs YOU!

As Governor Walz says, "Together we will get through this!" The Milaca Museum will open again. Note: Prior to publication we have been notified that the Mille Lacs County Fair, the Mille Lacs History Fest and Rendezvous, and the Mille Lacs County Historical Society’s Pioneer School have all been cancelled for 2020.

Sad News

It seems like only yesterday we lost our good friend Frank Vetsch, and now another of our pillars, Betty Anderson, has died. Betty had joined Frank and Jan Vetsch in their nearly-every-Tuesday schedule at the museum, working on clipping and filing and adding to the history resources available to the public. She continued to work after Frank’s death, holding down the fort in the Resource Room. Her sudden passing has left a big hole in our community.

By Leslie Anfinson

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By Tom Sauer

O.L. Palmquist – Milaca's Photographer

Much of the Milaca area’s history was preserved

by the work of one man, Oscar L. Palmquist. There were photographers before him and after him, but few would even come close to his volume of production of images of people, buildings, and activities. Palmquist started with numbering his post card shots #1, #2, #3, etc. We have not researched to see how far his numbering system went. We can tell, though, that we do not have all his numbered photos. (He soon dropped that plan of organization.) It is difficult to know what year any image was captured unless we know a wedding date, see a

known building under construction, or a card is postmarked.

Many of Palmquist’s photos ended up on cabinet cards (applied to cardboard stock and designed to stand on furniture) and post cards. Post cards were a common form of communication with friends and loved ones from the 1860s to the 1980s. They were often mementos that were saved by people through the years and now are a pictorial legacy for the Milaca area.

Palmquist came to Milaca in 1909 and worked here until the 1920s. He took over the Enstrom Photography space above Sirene’s undertaking establishment on what is now the NW corner of Teal’s parking lot. He also built a nice home here in Milaca in

about 1914 that still stands in the southeast section of town.

Some post cards and cabinet cards had the photographer’s name and city on them. You will find some of these early photographers were real artists with great use of subject matter, composition, lighting, and

even telling a story or evoking emotion. Some other Milaca photographers over the years

were G. D. Francis, P. J. Nelson, Home Studio (J.E. Hedlun), E.L. Anderson, Eric Enstrom, Emma Lindahl, Shaker Studio, Ray Magnuson, Don Pluimer, Gene Nelson, Laurie Kuether, Valerie Johnson, and Tom Stodola. Now in 2020 Milaca is without a downtown photographer. Please email the museum (museum@milaca.net) if you know of a Milaca photographer I have missed. Include any info you can such as name, years in our area, and where you found their name.

Palmquist Studio. At this time Farmers Hardware occupied the ground floor.

Foreston Hotel by Palmquist and Warolin

Swedish (now Zion) Lutheran Church

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Milaca’s Great Musical History Creating a New Band Exhibit

Somehow the duty of building a Milaca H.S. Band display fell to me. We have had a band display for quite a few years, but felt it didn’t really tell the important story of Milaca bands, and I took on the challenge of filling in some blanks. My plan was to have an upgraded exhibit completed by the museum opening on April 1, but procrastination and reluctance to begin due to inexperience in this type of work, as well as a problem finding the facts that I needed, made for a slow start. Of course, I can always blame the pandemic, too. Nonetheless, with a little bit of a push from Tom who helped by directing me to a band history folder, the process began. Further, Karen gave me a nudge when she located some amazing items in the collection that work perfectly for this display. The timely donation of Carla Thies Puckett’s junior majorette uniform was icing on the cake. And Andrew Nelson, the high school’s current band director, has been so helpful. He took time away from his busy schedule to get us pictures, uniforms, and information, much of which will be an important part of this project.

Some information I was seeking had proved to be elusive. Tom suggested researching The Milachi, the high school’s newspaper. What fun! Not only was the material being sought located, but The Milachi revealed a treasure trove of interesting tidbits and minutia about teachers, students, and events from long ago.

With that in the rear view mirror, the display is about ready to be assembled. Unless something unforeseen comes along, I will have met my original plan of having the display ready to go when the museum opens, even though that opening is at least two months delayed. When the doors finally open, do come by and have a look!

From the Record

In our Winter 2020 newsletter, we asked for help gathering more information about the Anderson-Kelley Co. of Milaca, which had produced the Fume Consumer, an interesting item newly arrived in our collection. About three months later, Ann Johnson was doing research for the band exhibit (see above), and came across articles in the December 1924 Milachi newspaper (right) and in the 9 July 1986 Mille Lacs County Times. Dell Kelley was the only boy graduating with the MHS class of 1919, left Milaca in 1944, and returned for the all-class reunion in 1986, staying with his sister Viva Brett, who still lived in Milaca. The Milachi article tells the tale of the Fume Consumer, and helps a bit in dating it (before 1924, probably after 1919), but doesn’t tell us who Anderson was. The Times article, interestingly enough, doesn’t mention this invention, but in his interview Dell did speak about the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919. Dell survived a bout of influenza while in the Army.

By Ann Johnson

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By Karen Schlenker, Volunteer Curator

So we’ve learned quite a bit about another little corner of Milaca history, but questions remain. Who was Anderson? Were many Fume Consumers produced and purchased? The Class of 1919 had 38 graduates – 37 of them girls! Is this because other young men were already in the Army and did not finish high school? How many who would have been in that class went Over There (or at least to an Army camp over here)?

The more we discover, the more there is to discover.

The Collection Software Upgrade Update

We knew we’d be “on hold” for a couple of months as far as our collections software upgrade project was concerned. The grant application process lays out 6-8 weeks of time for application processing and decisions about accepting projects, and at this writing we have submitted our application and are still in the middle of that pause. But little did we know that just about everything would be paused this spring. There are many unknowns around this software improvement opportunity, but if the funding for the grants is still available (it is financed by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund set up by the state legislature), and if our grant application is favorably received, we will move ahead with the project this summer and fall. Much of the work of installing the system, migrating existing data, and continuing to enter data to complete the project is done remotely or by one single person at a time on site. Sharing the benefits of the new system with volunteers and visitors may have to happen differently, or at least on a different timeline than first anticipated, but we will move forward. And if the grant application is not funded this round, the process has taught us a great deal about managing our collection and where our focus should be for its future care and use. Without the new software system we will not have the excellent tools it provides, but we can move forward to improve our handling of our resources and the ways we use them. Even in the middle of the Pandemic Pause, there is so much to do!

Catch-up time We have received several large donations, and many small ones over the years. It often seems that as soon as I start seeing little openings among the stacks of things, and feeling like I might one day catch up, along comes another truckload of stuff to understand, sort and care for. This is a problem we like to have – so many treasures! – but sometimes things are set aside for a time and it’s very difficult to get back to them. And we could always take better care if we had more time. This quiet time, with the museum closed and very few people coming in to work, has been a boon for this volunteer curator. I won’t say I’m in danger of catching up, but the piles have definitely diminished, and the data being recorded has a bit more detail. (I hope I’m not hearing a truck pulling up!) Over the last few months many items have been added to the collection, and much information has been added to the resources in the reference room. And always, one of the most interesting aspects of this job as curator is watching different threads weave together. Bonna Broberg Samuelson (MHS 1946) and her daughter Linda Samuelson Jacobson (MHS 1967) both brought us interesting photos, documents and objects in December and January. Bonna’s mother-in-law, Grace Cone Samuelson, was active in preserving Foreston area and Cone and Samuelson family history (see Foreston Hotel postcard on page 2). Four or five years ago, we had received digitally a treasure trove of photos and documents about the Towle and Cone families from David Towle. Now we have a somewhat more complete picture of another branch of the Cone family. In Linda Jacobson’s donation were also many things related to her time as a Milaca Elementary School student, including a nifty “Little Milachi”, which is a mini-yearbook for the elementary school from 1956. Also appearing in this tiny tome (along with our friend Jere Day) is Mary McClure (later Nelson – MHS 1968), who had given us a large donation last summer, including many school related treasures, but not this yearbook.

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We received a stack of greeting postcards from Linda Berezni Brundrett (MHS 1975) in January, posted to or from her grandmother Bessie Quillen of Ramey, between 1909 and 1920. Bessie Quillan became Bessie Pressler, who taught in country schools and also for many years in the Milaca district. There she is, among the teachers pictured in Linda Jacobson’s “Little Milachi.”

And serendipity struck once more, as a package arrived in early April from Carla Thies Puckett (MHS 1959). Ann Johnson has been working on the MHS band exhibit, and here Carla donated the vest and skirt that she wore as MHS’s junior majorette in 1951. Carla was so good with her baton that as a 5th grader she was invited to perform with the band. Her grandmother, Grace Thies, sewed this uniform, applying beautiful, intricate beadwork – another true treasure. It so happens that Mary McClure gave us a couple of her batons which are also on display.

I could go on and on, but if I don’t get back to processing donations, I won’t get to the next great thing.

Notes Reopening – We don’t as of writing this, know when or how we will reopen the Milaca Museum, or when we will hold our next meeting. It will probably be a gradual, bit-by-bit process, balancing the need to share our resources with the need to keep the facility clean and provide plenty of space for volunteer staff and visitors. We had planned a showing of a Belle Bennett film at the Milaca Theatre to coincide with this year’s opening – we still hope to do this, so watch for information. And Mark Boggs was all set to take a “show and tell” program to Country Meadows, which will be rescheduled when it can be done safely. As we develop our reopening plans, we want to keep you informed of our progress. Please share your email address with us (if you haven’t already) to make it easier to keep you in the loop, or call any officer for more information.

Thanks to Deb Vedders – Many thanks to Deb Vedders, who has been cleaning the museum for us for several years. With the pandemic, cleaning has taken on a whole new meaning, and Deb continues to keep us not only tidy, but safe. We have been receiving information from the Minnesota Historical Society on “COVID-19 Enhanced Cleaning” particularly geared to historic items and public spaces, and Deb is staying up-to-date on the current guidance from the state.

Your Support Is Needed and Appreciated! With all of the uncertainty in the world, isn’t it good to know that there are organizations devoted to giving context and balance to the whirl around us? The Milaca Area Historical Society does that for our little corner of the world, and we plan to carry this work of the last few generations into generations to come. We rely on and appreciate the support of members and friends. Please consider joining, or renewing your membership (family $15; business $30) by mailing us at PO Box 144, Milaca, MN 56353.

Two Ways to Support MAHS Online MAHS participates in the GiveMN website, which provides an online opportunity to learn about MAHS

and donate, using a credit card. See our page there at https://www.givemn.org/organization/Milaca-Area-

Historical-Society. There is a small fee to cover credit card processing (6.9%), which the donor can add to their donation amount.

We have also signed up with the Amazon/Smile program in which Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchase to MAHS. Use this link https://smile.amazon.com/ch/22-2736074 or go to smile.amazon.com and sign into or create your Amazon account, then choose Milaca Area Historical Society as your charity. Then just start shopping! Thank you for taking advantage of this program and helping our organization.

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BUSINESS MEMBERS

All-Aboard Travel/TravelLeaders Bemis Trucking Service Billings Service Blue Moon Saloon First National Bank Fransen Decorating Harris Hardwoods Jim’s Mille Lacs Disposal Koch's Hardware

Milaca Area Chamber of C. Milaca Building Center Milaca Depot Floral Milaca Friends of the Library Mille Lacs Co. DAC Molacek Eye Care Center NAF Enterprises Town and Country Finances Union Times

We really tried not to miss anyone. BUT – If we missed you, please call 320-982-1212

Local History is Where We Live! Support MAHS – Join Now!

“Election Freaks” - Image from a Palmquist postcard, showing a campaign parade in front of what is now Beckster Books. (1912)