I think today is Wisconsin — a trip to O's heritage. Both my parents were born in Dunn County, about 60 miles east of St Paul. We'll drive over there and cruise the county to show S&B the place that was all dairy farms when I was a teen, and what's there now..
One of the well-known places in Menomonie, the county seat, is the Mabel Tainter Theatre. It was built by her father to commemorate her upon her death at age 21, Picture at right.
And that it what we did - Wisconsin. O & D drove to Susan & Bryant's place to pick them up.
We left StPaul on MN36 to WI64, crossing the St Croix river at Stillwater, to Connorsville WI, about 60 miles. We toured the little town with Owen talking on his memories of the village. He kept that up as we stopped to see the old "Stone House" on CTH "V" that was built by his greatgandfather, W J Owen around 1903.
After that we drove to the nearby Town of New Haven cemetery, a peaceful hilltop site. We viewed the Owen-Hamman plot and looked around. Then we drove over the hill to O's grandfather W E Owen's farm, now owned by Paul & Peggy Danovsky.
While looking at it, we found we were blocking them from their driveway. They invited us up to chat. We stood around outside. Paul pointed out lots of things and showed us a great aerial picture of the farm sometime after W E sold it in 1944 to the Danovsky family. The Danovsky's have owned it since, and enlarged it.
We found out from Peggy D that a friend (Jamie Kistner Byrer) is on an American Lines cruise ship in Massachusetts, tied to the dock but afraid to get underway due to the huge north-easter that's stirring up the waters there.
Then we drove to the old Carlson farm in the Town of Tiffany. We drove in, got out, and walked some of the place. Matt & Julie Swenson have made many changes to the place, including tearing down some old buildings - they probably needed it. We missed seeing Julie and the others due to being short on time. Picture at left is as I knew it way back when.
We drove next to White Pine Lodge, WE Owen's cottage on upper Tainter Lake. The current owners have put in an aluminum staircase to water level and have a pontoon boat at the dock. The lodge is totally re-sided - looks nothing like it once did.
Then we headed into Memomonie, getting hungry. We stopped at the Silver Dollar Saloon on Main. Not a neat modern joint, but there were tables in a quiet part so we sat there. The menu was quite varied. We did starters of pretzel bites and bang-bang shrimp. O had a sort-of-Cuban, D had a salmon BLT and the others had burgers.
After lunch, we went to the Mabel Tainter Memorial Theater to show S&B that one-of-a-kind structure. [Interior picture at right] They were impressed, especially that a small town could have such a place. Then we walked the town including the part of the campus near the clock to see the parts that existed when O's mom was a student there 1931-34. Bell rang, students scurried around from class to class. Clock tower still rings the time for the town.
We drove down to the old train station, now a brewery, to show them where mom would have arrived in town. We went then to Oaklawn Inn, the former home of John P Dale, a friend of WE Owen. Dale bought it from the family of Mr Tainter, a lumber baron, and farmed it. It passed to his son, and later to a Maggie …. who made it an Inn, It has been refurbished and is highly thought of.
Then we looked at the first place WE Owen and Freda lived in after the farm, at 1303 Main Street. Bryant found it had been used in a teaching production in 1984 that O never knew about.
But, it was time to return to St Paul. We took old US12 as far as Powers, then I-94 to I-35 to their apartment. Then we returned to the hotel to rest.
