Day-long event featuring:

Dad’s Belgian Waffle Feed, 7:30 a.m. to noon, Vietnam Veterans Recognition Day

and Fly-In, sponsored by Alexandria American Legion Post #87 (tickets at door)

“Warbirds” on display

Big Band entertainment by Doc’s All-Stars beginning at 7 pm

Food and drink catered by Depot Express and featuring Carlos Creek Wine

Raffle with prize packages valued up to $500

Grand March for those dressed in period costume

Tickets for sale at:

Bremer Bank (downtown)

Elden’s Food Fair

Pete’s County Market

Runestone Museum

Trumm Drug

Douglas County Historical Society

1219 Nokomis Street

Alexandria, MN 56308

Phone: 320-762-0382 or www.dchsmn.org for more information.

First Class pre-sale: $15 per person

Coach Class at the door: $20 per person

Charter pre-sale: $100 for table of 8

I N S I D E T H I S

I S S U E :

Spruce Hill Church

Hymn-Sing and Picnic 1

Fete Champetre 2

“The Grapevine” 3

News and Notes 4

Roots Cellar 5

Membership

Information

6

DCHS Information

7

Calendar 8

Timeless Topics Summer 2012

Spruce Hill Church

Mid-Summer

Hymn-Sing and Picnic

Sunday, July 1, 2012

1:30 p.m.

The public is cordially invited to attend the annual Mid-Summer

Hymn-Sing and picnic at the Spruce Hill Church. Highlights include:

A musical prelude featuring Lynn Olson on piano will set the scene for an

afternoon of uplifting music and reminiscence.

The Gordon Men’s Choir will be singing! The voices of this choir fill up the old

historic church in a way that brings the roof down. You will not want to miss

their moving tribute to the old church and what she stands for.

Pastor Michael Hanson, who shares his ministry in the Morris area with home

visitations, will deliver the message.

Spruce Hill native, Ray Engstrand will be back to the old church to play his

violin with Jubilee Baker, great-great-granddaughter of Pehr Christianson who

carved the pulpit in the church, accompanying him on the piano.

Annette Hustad (of “Tina and Lena” fame) will play her harmonium during

offertory time.

David Lusty will provide wagon rides from the church to the Spruce Hill Park

(although NOT through the old town site). Historians, including Joel Blank, will

share information about the old town-site.

The afternoon will be topped off with an old-fashioned picnic including hot dogs

and all the trimmings.

The Spruce Hill Church has been under the management of the Douglas County

Historical Society since 1994. The 1880 Swedish immigrants who built the church

established firm traditions of worship in the picturesque country church. The

church is located in the northeast corner of Douglas County. Take Highway 29

north to County Road 5. Turn east on County Road 5 at Jim and Judy’s and drive

about 5 1/4 miles. You will find the church nestled behind a grove of trees near

the Spruce Hill County Park. Call the Historical Society at 320-762-0382 for

additional information.

P a g e 2 N e w s l e t t e r T i t l e

Fète Champétre Festival

fète champétre (n)

(fét shān-pe’tr),

Definition: French for

an outdoor festival or

entertainment.

DO WE HAVE YOUR ATTENTION YET?

Please mark your calendar for an indoor/

outdoor “membership festival”

Saturday, September 8, 2012,

10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Douglas County Historical Society

Indoor: WHO DO YOU THINK YOU

ARE?...Open House in the Research Library.

Check out our resources and begin your family search.

Outdoor: Old-fashioned picnic lunch, games and entertainment. Renew your membership and bring

a friend. New member “special introductory offer”.

More information for this open house will be available on our website, Facebook page and local

media outlets.

Great Genealogy Opportunities

Minnesota Genealogy Research

Come join this page, ask your questions

about genealogy research in Minnesota! Find

answers from the information posted on the

page every day. Join the volunteer administrators of the page and help teach others

what you know about Minnesota research.

Minnesota Facebook Page: facebook.com/MinnesotaGenealogy

Join Other Pages:

Familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Join_a_Facebook_Research_Community

Join the Admin Team:

http://bit.ly/LH1sg4 or see the information about volunteering to be one of our

administrators at http://bit.ly/MYMYhg

Can you help? Would you like to be involved? Visit a page and help answer a question

and share your knowledge!

Hey Kat and Annie….sending addresses for each other so you can email back and forth. Annie will be sending SHC Christmas info to you Kathryn for newsletter. And Annie, include an old photo to go with text/info. Thanks! 'Douglas County Historical Society' Annie’s email address

P a g e 3 T i m e l e s s T o p i c s

T h e g r a p e v i n e

The garden is in!

Special thanks to the homeschoolers, Beth

Hoover, Dianne Tomczik, Mary Isaac, and Art and

Marcy Isackson.

Anderson Florist & Greenhouse planted our

seven trees with eight more to come next year.

We are so grateful!

This year we would like to construct a potting

shed. ANY donations would be appreciated as

financial con-

straints have

halted the construction. Thank you also to REA for

their gift.

We will have regular updates on our progress. We

are also planning to do some cooking classes with

our produce. The homeschoolers have made a

commitment to come every other week and we

are so glad to have them. Have a great 4th of July

holiday! Annie Skoglund

Please consider donating to

our garden! Our wish list:

Wild Bergomot

Purple Cone Flower

Wild Geranium

Dutchman’s

Breaches

Wild Ginger-Root

Witch Hazel Bush

Trout Lily

Bloodroot

Culver’s Root

ALL PERENNIALS!

Call Beth or Annie at 320-762-0382 to volunteer, donate,

or for more information.

Hey Kat and Annie….sending addresses for each other so you can email back and forth. Annie will be sending SHC Christmas info to you Kathryn for newsletter. And Annie, include an old photo to go with text/info. Thanks! 'Douglas County Historical Society' Annie’s email address

P a g e 4 T i m e l e s s T o p i c s

H o n o r i n g M i l i t a r y a t t h e F a i r

M i s s i n g Y e a r b o o k s

C a n y o u H e l p ?

Stop in and see us at the Douglas County

Fair in August. We will be in the Heritage

Building featuring a special exhibit

honoring our military men and women.

Alhias:

1914, 1915, 1916, 1920, 1922

Alexian:

1937, 1983, 1984, 1997, 1998, 1999,

2003

We are missing the following yearbooks. Can you

help us complete our collection?

Douglas County Fair

August 16 – 19

Heritage Building

near the East Gate

P a g e 5 T i m e l e s s T o p i c s

R o o t s C e l l a r

G e n e a l o g y G u i l d

“ T a k i n g t h e P a s t i n t o t h e f u t u r e ”

Genealogy Guild Officers

President: Marcine Nightengale

Secretary/Treasurer: Harland Hanson

Program: Marcy Isackson/Darlene Hanson

Editor, “Roots Cellar”: Dale Braunschweig

The Genealogy Guild is open to anyone who has an interest

in genealogy. Anyone, from novices to experienced

researchers are welcome. Meetings are held the 2nd

Thursday of most months in the lower level of the DCHS.

Please call 320-762-0382 for the next meeting date and

location.

licensed marriage and family therapist, Craft said she often

listens to client couples discuss changing or hyphenating their

names. “What I hear is that people want to create a sense of

union, and having that hyphenated name complicates things,”

she said. “They don’t feel that it gives the impression of a uni-

fied team, or they get tired of always having to explain their

relationship. Are you divorced? Cohabiting? One last name cuts

down on confusion and creates a sense of cohesion. My own

kids’ last name is hyphenated. It is a little bit of a pain. I might

do it differently if I were to do it over again.”

Craft said that she’s also observed a bit of a shift toward

“conservatism in values when it comes to marriage.” “As a

therapist I stress that there are different ways you can individu-

ate, carve out your separateness and balance it with the

togetherness.”

She pointed out one other possible reason that young women

aren’t experiencing the identity insecurity of their forbearers:

“The age at which people get married has increased so much, a

lot of women are looking for a life partner, feeling pretty well

established in their own lives, not worried about feeling

smothered.”

Nancy Battaglia, a florist and wedding planner for Bellagala in

St. Paul, said she works with brides who keep their names so

rarely now, she’s surprised when it happens.

“It’s less often than even eight years ago, when I started in this

business,” she said. “It comes up every time because I remind

the couple that not only legally for the marriage license, but if

they're planning on taking off for an overseas honeymoon, the

name on their passports and itineraries have to match, so they

have to decide what the legal name will be well in advance of

the wedding.”

“Something about getting married tends to bring out traditional

yearnings in both sides of a couple”, Battaglia said.

“With grooms, it’s not wanting to see the bride in her dress

(before the wedding), even if they’ve been living together for

years, “she said. “With brides, it could be doing the name

change.”

Battaglia, who is in her mid-50s, said she had friends who went

both ways when they were in their 20s and 30s. She took her

husband’s name. A few years ago, sitting around the dinner

table with he husband of 31 years and their young adult

children, she announced she was thinking of going back to her

maiden name, Wesley, “My husband wasn’t threatened by it at

all, “she said. “It was my kids who were horrified.”

Used with permission: From the Variety section of the

Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 16, 2012.; “What’s in a

Name” by Kristin Tillotson .

What’s in a name? New brides are

returning to an old custom. Today’s young

brides are adopting their husband’s last

name because they want to, not because

they feel they have to. Emma Rosen is soon

to become Emma Sugerman. Rosen, 25,

who works in health care marketing, will

legally take the last name of her husband-

to-be, medical student Noah Sugerman,

when the two marry this summer.

Vanessa Messersmith, 32-year-old owner of

the hip clothing shop, Blacklist Vintage, took the name of her

husband Jeremy, a musician, when they married six years ago. Both

consider themselves to be feminists, and neither made the decision

lightly.

The majority of married women in America have always chosen to

legally assume their grooms’ last names. But at the end of the 20th

century, more women retained their maiden names as a way of

retaining individual identity.

A widely noted Harvard study of college–educated women found that

between 2 percent and 4 percent in 1975 kept their names. Those

numbers sharply increased through the 1970s and 1980s before

declining in the 1990s to just below 20 percent in 2001.

While it is more socially acceptable than ever for brides to keep their

surnames, fewer are, according to wedding planners and other

observers. Of nearly 19,000 women surveyed by the wedding site

The Knot.com last spring, 86 percent took their husband’s name.

The reasons often fall into one or more of these camps: It’s easier. It

makes the family seem more unified. They don’t feel like their

personal identities are being swallowed up in the process. “It’s

something to think about, but I’ve always known I would take Noah’s

name,” Rosen said. “For me it’s just practical. My career is very

important to me, but I’ve only been in the working world four years. I

can understand women wanting to keep their maiden names, but I

don’t feel my identity is wrapped around mine. If it were five or ten

years from now when I was getting married, it might be a different

discussion.”

What about the compromise practice of hyphenating surnames,

which also surfaced a generation ago, and bestowing them upon your

children? “Well, what happens if you marry another hyphenate, and

then have kids? You have to wonder who benefits from having four

hyphenated last names,” she said.

Messersmith, whose maiden name was McKinney, said her husband

“Didn’t care what I chose either way. I thought long and hard, but in

the end I didn’t see the logic in keeping one patriarchal name—my

father’s—over another. I also thought Jeremy’s name was cool.” In a

national survey conducted last year by Indiana University research-

ers, two-third of more than 800 respondents across all socioeco-

nomic backgrounds felt it was “best” for a woman to take her

husband’s name. More surprising to the researchers, half of them

supported a law actually requiring them to do so. Then again, half

also found it acceptable for a groom to take his bride’s last name, a

very rare occurrence. The study also noted that gay couples tended to

keep their original surnames.

Shonda Craft, 37, kept her name when she married 10 years ago.

Craft, an associate professor in the University of Minnesota’s Family

Social Science Department, said she had “already been in the

professional world, had things published under my name.” Also a

P a g e 6 T i m e l e s s T o p i c s

C o n s i d e r M a k i n g a P l e d g e t o t h e

D o u g l a s C o u n t y H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e t y

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Levels of Membership:

____ Governor’s Table - Single One-Year Membership: $30

____ Governor’s Family - Family One-Year Membership: $50

____ Governor’s Club - FOUR-Year Pledge: $1,000

____ Governor’s Circle - TEN-Year Pledge: $5,000

Name ______________________________________________________

Address

______________________________________________________

Type of Card: VISA/MASTERCARD

Card Number _______________________

Exp. Date ________

Checks payable to:

Douglas County Historical Society

Pledges of cash contributions, with membership benefits, may be paid

over a four-year or ten-year period to take advantage of maximum

charitable deductions.

Your membership supports the activities and programs that help interpret the richness of the

past and document the stories of today.

You have access to all the resources available in our Public Research Library. Visit

www.dchsmn.org for a more detailed list of available resources.

You receive the quarterly newsletter along with updates on current programs and events.

You have the opportunity to join the VOLUNTEER corps of the Society assisting with the many

areas of interest needed in the never-ending process of fulfilling the mission to discover,

preserve and disseminate the history of Douglas County and its people.

LEVELS OF MEMBERSHIP INCLUDE:

Governor’s Table: Single One-Year Membership $30

Governor’s Family: Family One-Year Membership $50

PLEDGES: Pledges of cash contributions, with membership benefits,

may be paid over a four-year or ten-year period to take

advantage of maximum charitable deductions.

Governor’s Club: FOUR-Year Membership $1,000

Governor’s Circle: TEN-Year Membership $5,000

P a g e 7 T i m e l e s s T o p i c s

D C H S I n f o r m a t i o n

Telephone: 320-762-0382

Fax: 320-762-9062

Office Hours: Monday – Friday 8:30-4:30

House tours: Monday – Friday 9-3

Public Research Center: Monday – Friday 9-4

The mission of the Douglas County Historical Society is to

discover, preserve and disseminate the history of the county

and its people.

D C H S S t a f f

Executive Director: Rachel Barduson

Executive Assistant/

Volunteer Coordinator: Kim Dillon

Receptionist/Visitor Guide: Annie Skoglund

Research Librarian: Nancy Norling

Collections Technician: Mary Isaac

President: Jeff Schiffman

Vice-President: Pat Kennedy

Secretary: Jodi Hintzen

Directors: Jeanne Batesole

Lloyd Flaaten

Bruce Haugen

Jeff Karrow

Carol Neumann

Larry Skoglund

Kaye Zebarth

Spruce Hill Historic Church Site Liaison:

Joel Blank

Student Associates:

Kreg Anderson

Nick Ford

D o u g l a s C o u n t y

H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e t y

B o a r d o f D i r e c t o r s

2 0 1 2 - 2 0 1 3

D C H S w e l c o m e s

N e w & r e n e w i n g

m e m b e r s

Brett Anderson

William & Mary Lou Anderson

Curt Bah

Sheryl Bakewell

Jeff & Nancy Berg

Joel Blank

Sandy Dittberner

Lloyd Flaaten

Taryn Flolid

Ann Hanson

Beth Hoover

Mary Howe

Delette Huffman

Marlys Jensen Barb Johnson

D C H S M e m o r i a l s

For Harry Ellefson from: Gary and Gloria Deick

For Harry Ellefson from: Bruce and Janet Nelson

For Harry Ellefson from: Ron and Renae Nelson

For Harry Ellefson from: Mary Ritter

For Harry Ellefson from: Jim and Jan Zoch

For Mary Zehner from: Sandy Dittberner

Jill Johnson

Jeff Karrow

Burke Kiger

Claudia Lewis

Elda Lindquist

Donald Moore

Janith Ness

Mary New

Jeremy Rapp

Jeff Schiffman

Amy Sunderland

Marge Van Gorp

Darlene Woolbright

Georgette Vickstrom

DOUGLAS COUNTY

HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1219 Nokomis St

Alexandria, MN 56308-3712

Telephone: 320-762-0382

Fax: 320-762-9062 Office Hours: Monday – Friday 8:30-4:30

House tours: Monday – Friday 9-3

Public Research Center: Monday – Friday 9-4

NON PROFIT ORG.

U.S. POSTAGE

PAID

PERMIT NO. 83

ALEXANDRIA, MN 56308

Name Address

Go online at: www.dchsmn.org for updated calendar of events, merchandise and more information.

ALSO:

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2 0 1 2 C a l e n d a r

DOUGLAS COUNTY

HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1219 Nokomis St

Alexandria, MN 56308-3712

NON PROFIT ORG.

U.S. POSTAGE

PAID

PERMIT NO. 34

ALEXANDRIA, MN 56308

We’re on the Web!

www.dchsmn.org

Newsletter Editor, Kathryn Liesemeyer, Katalyst Communications

Printing by Quality Printing Co. of Alexandria

Return Service Requested

July 1 SHC Mid-Summer Hymn Festival

August 16-19 Douglas County Fair ~ Heritage Building

September 3 Closed for Labor Day

September 8 Fète Champétre - Membership Festival

November 22-23 Closed for Thanksgiving Holiday

December 7 Christmas Open House and Bake Sale

December 24-25 Closed for Christmas Holiday

December 27 Spruce Hill Christmas

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