VISIT A PLACE like the Village of Yesteryear in Owatonna, especially during a celebration such as last weekend’s Steele County Historical Society Extravaganza, and you get an in-depth glimpse of life back in the day.
Dressed in period costumes, members of the Old West Regulators added a real-life element to the Extravaganza.
Guides, costumed reenactors and others, with their extensive historical knowledge, most assuredly add to the educational and entertainment value.
But, because it is impossible to speak with every one of them or to observe every activity or to read every informational sign, one must sometimes rely on simple observations to consider the historic stories and realities which define life years ago.
I therefore present these Extravaganza photos with basic information. Much more lies open to your interpretation, influenced perhaps by your experiences or the stories passed down from generation to generation within your family. That is your personal history. Take it. Remember it. Own it. Pass it along.
Memories of attending a one-room country school remain for many, including my 55-year-old husband. He attended Chimney Butte School in rural North Dakota and recalls the day students were kept indoors during recess because of coyotes roaming the schoolyard.
What memories does the District 14 country schoolhouse, pictured above, hold for those who were taught in this 1856 building four miles south of Owatonna until the school closed in 1962 due to consolidation?
Hollyhocks stand strong and sturdy outside that same schoolhouse at the Village of Yesteryear.
But for me, hollyhocks belong next to the milkhouse, an odd place for flowers, it would seem. Yet, on the southwestern Minnesota dairy and crop farm where I grew up, that was their spot, a splash of beauty perhaps more for my mother than for her farmer husband.
A scene recreated in the 1866 Bixby railroad depot leaves you wondering about the railroad crew and passengers who waited here to board trains. Where were they going? And, for the passengers, why?
And then you see this sign inside an old caboose and completely forget about those passengers and question why the railroad employees climbed onto the roof of the caboose because they certainly must have or there would be no Rule 99.
How many tears were shed, in joy and in sorrow, by those occupying these pews in the 1891 St. Wenceslaus Mission in Moravia Church built in 1891 in Moravia seven miles south of Owatonna? Who crafted these pews? And how did parishioners feel when their church closed in 1952?
Perhaps you could ask Tony Seykora, whose mother, Mary Meixner, attended St. Wenceslaus and whose daughter, Susan, was married here. He wasn’t sharing any stories on Sunday while touring his ancestral church at the Village of Yesteryear.
Oh, the stories this old town hall, the Owatonna Town Hall built in the late 1850s, could tell about those who met here and shaped the future of the city.
And if you could peek over their shoulders, would you to see how those in the Meriden area voted? This folding polling booth was patented in March of 1892 making it first available for the Presidential election that same year. The polling booth was used at the Meriden Town Hall until 2009. Until 2009, people.
Who wore these hats displayed inside the historic 1868 Dunnell House, home of Minnesota legal scholar, educator and Congressman Mark Hill? Were they hats of mourning, hats of celebration, practical hats…?
A volunteer who works with the Blue Earth County Historical Society and the Betsy-Tacy Society in Mankato in decorating vintage hats studies the collection for ideas.
Also in the Dunnell House, a nook in the parlor offers a place for quiet conversation. Oh, to have been there, eavesdropping…the stories and secrets you may have heard about/from Congressman Hill and other legislators.
Horse power, but certainly not horses…these vintage tractors were parked next to the horse barn at the Steele County Fairgrounds. Surely they would speak of long, hard days on the farm, their wheels weighed down by the burdens of a farmer’s worries and the uncertainties that have always been a part of farming from the early days of Minnesota to current day Minnesota.
What is that saying? You haven’t walked a mile until you’ve walked in my shoes. Consider that, how challenging it would have been to walk in the boots/shoes of your ancestors for whom life presented so many daily challenges simply to survive.
FYI: To learn more about the Steele County Historical Society, click here.
CLICK HERE to read my first blog post about the Steele County Historical Society Extravaganza. Watch for one final, upcoming post.
© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
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