The Eagle, My Father, and the Warehouse 0 (0)

Posted on March 8, 2025 by Brian H. Gill
NDSU's Fargo history collection photo: 'Case Threshing Machine Company building in background during an F.O.E. parade on N.P. Avenue, July 1, 1910'.
Parade on NP Avenue, Fargo, North Dakota. Inset: Case Threshing Machine Co. eagle and globe. (1910)

I remember when the Case building on NP (Northern Pacific) Avenue in Fargo looked the way it did in that photo.

I’d better explain.

I’m old, but I’m not that old. The F. O. E. (Fraternal Order of Eagles) parade on NP Avenue was in the summer of 1910. I wasn’t born until the fall of 1951.

Besides, the building I remember didn’t look exactly like the one in the photo.

I don’t remember either the water tower or the “J. I. CASE THRESHING MACHINE CO.” signage. Someone probably took the lettering down in 1928, 0r a little after, when “J. I. Case Company” became the outfit’s moniker.1

But otherwise, the Case company’s Fargo warehouse hadn’t changed much in the half-century between that 1910 parade and the time my father took me for a ride on the building’s freight elevator. Not on the outside, anyway.

A Dad Moment: Riding a Freight Elevator

CommercialCafe's photo: interior of Case building in Fargo during renovation. (August 4, 2021)
Case building interior, 2021. It didn’t look nearly this bright and tidy when my Dad and I were there.

I’m not sure how — or when, for that matter — my father arranged for us to get into the Case warehouse.

Whenever it was, the building was mostly empty: no people, a lot of open space lit by sunlight coming in through the windows.

There wasn’t much to see apart from columns and the beams and joists overhead.

We went in through the south door. I’m pretty sure about this, although it’s been a long time and I was young. We walked the building’s length to the freight elevator at the back.

Then we rode the open timber platform up to the top floor, looked around, and took the elevator back down.

Maybe that doesn’t sound like much. Not compared to, say, a trip to Disneyland.

But seeing the inside of a warehouse and riding a freight elevator was fun. And, at least as important, it was something my father and I did together.

The Curious Case of the Vanishing Eagle

Bonanzaville's photo: Case Eagle and Globe, from the Case building in Fargo, North Dakota. Displayed in the Pioneer Village, Bonanzaville USA, West Fargo, North Dakota. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonanzaville,_USAThe Case building I remember was topped by a globe set on a small platform.

An eagle perched on the globe, gazing down NP Avenue.

At some point, both disappeared. I don’t remember exactly when.

The Case eagle logo dates back to 1865. I don’t know if the globe was part of the logo then. J. I. Case probably got the idea of using an eagle in his company’s logo from the 8th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment’s mascot, Old Abe; but I haven’t confirmed that.

At any rate, the Case globe and eagle perched atop of the Case building are part of my memories of Fargo’s NP Avenue.

And then they were gone.

Maybe the eagle and globe got taken down as part of the corporate shuffle that started in 1967 and went into overdrive in the 1980s. Or maybe someone got the notion that the logo was imperialistic and had to go. That was an interesting period.

Without them, the Case warehouse was just another building on NP Avenue.

I thought the Case building’s logo was gone for good. But it looks like someone donated it to an open-air museum in West Fargo. Or maybe the museum had it all along. Either way, the sculpture was on display in Bonanzaville by February of 2018.2

The Old Case Building and Downtown Fargo: Catching Up

Commercial Cafe's photo: Case Plaza, seen from the southeast, in Fargo, ND.
The Case building, remodeled as office space. (ca. 2020)

Someone converted the Case building to office space in the late 1980s to 1990s.

About a decade back, folks running a regional flood control project apparently wondered if they could tear it down safely. An engineering firm said, basically, ‘yes’.

But Google Street View includes images of the Case building taken in January of 2022.

Google Maps: detail of search results for 'case plaza fargo nd'. (March 6, 2025)Google Maps says there’s a law firm with offices there.

On the other hand, Google Maps also says that Case Plaza is “Permanently closed”.

Gripping as a legal firm operating out of an abandoned warehouse might be as a whodunit’s setting, my guess is that Case Plaza — or at least the building — isn’t entirely “closed”.

For me, that’s good news. I’d be sorry to see the old Case building destroyed, and don’t see the point in tearing it down. It’s near the Red River, but not much higher or lower than the rest of downtown Fargo.

Granted, precious few places in Fargo are higher or lower than any other. Fargo is on what used to be the bottom of Glacial Lake Agassiz: some of the flattest land on Earth, and I’m wandering off-topic.

Before moving on, a quick look at how I caught up with the Case building’s story.

I knew what to look for because I grew up across the river, in Moorhead, Minnesota.

The Internet gives me access to occasional nuggets of useful information, along with mountains of drivel, and that’s definitely another topic.3

This is the sort of thing I found:

Downtown Fargo Historic Case IH Office
Grain Designs

CLIENT: Enclave Companies
LOCATION: Fargo, ND
COMPLETION:
NOV. 2015 | 2018 expansion | 2020 expansion
PROJECT SCOPE:

  • 14 reclaimed douglas fir L office desks and U desks
  • 4 sit stand desks
  • 4 live edge office meeting tables
  • metal and wood binder storage shelves
  • glass top CASE steam engine door table
  • design+build+delivery & installation

Based on that, I figured that someone was converting the Case warehouse to offices around 2015.

Unless the Grain Designs job was for someone remodeling existing office space. I found the vague ‘late 1980s to 1990s’ conversion date in an engineering report.4

Change, Personal Limitations, and a Few Good Ideas

Google Street View: Case Plaza in Fargo, ND. (January 2022)
Case Plaza on NP Avenue and 2nd Street North, Fargo, North Dakota. (January 2022)

I enjoy getting out and seeing places, which is another way in which my wife and I are profoundly unlike. There’s a world of difference between “compatible” and “identical”, and that’s yet another topic.

Getting out and seeing places, physically, isn’t a practical option, so my visits are virtual. Given Google Street View’s limitations, that means my visit to Fargo’s downtown this week was actually to the Fargo downtown that existed in 2021 and 2022.

The car wash that had been across the street west of the Case building was a coffee shop and a gas station. Fargo’s downtown had fewer buildings, more parking lots, and more high-rises than I remember. And they’ve got the start of a skyway system: one over Broadway, and another over 2nd Avenue North. Maybe more.5

That last, I think, is a smart move. I grew up in this part of the world, and like it here: but our winters don’t encourage casual strolls in the great outdoors. And that — you guessed it — is yet again another topic.

Part of an Imperfect Family: and Loving It

I was talking with my third-oldest daughter about the Case building and my father’s way of taking me on what amounted to field trips.

He’s a hard act to follow, but she reassured me that getting taken hither, thither, and yon wasn’t something she’d yearned for.

That was reassuring, although it was a reminder of how long it took me to appreciate the gap between my enthusiasm for getting out and seeing things, and the interests — and capacities — of my wife and our kids.

This isn’t that hypothetical ‘perfect family’ Pope Francis talked about.

“…’We all dream about a beautiful, perfect family. But,’ Pope Francis recognized, ‘there’ no such thing as a perfect family,’ for each family ‘has its own problems,’ ‘as well as its tremendous joys.’…”
(“Pope’s March prayer intention: ‘for families in crisis’” , Deborah Castellano Lubov, Vatican News (March 4, 2025))

But, somehow, we’ve managed. And every day I think God that I’m part of this family.

I’ve said that before:

1 The J. I. Case Company and Fargo, some context:

2 An eagle, a logo, and a little lore:

3 Where I found what I found, and my take on the Information Age:

4 “…The property was converted to office space during the late 1980s to early 1990s….”:

5 Looks like there is more:

  • Wikipedia
  • Way: Fargo Skyway (316313120), Version #4 (“Updates to Downtown Fargo using Spring 2020 Imagery from ESRI. Block 9, Mercantile Garage, Adjusted Robert’s Commons, added many sidewalks.”)
    OpenStreetMap
Posted in Family Stories, Journal, Series | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

“No Such Thing as a Perfect Family” 0 (0)

Posted on March 4, 2025 by Brian H. Gill

One way or another, I’ve been part of a family all my life: as a child, as a husband and father, as a grandfather. The experience has never been perfect. But I think Pope Francis is right. We do, occasionally, have “tremendous joys”.

I also think the pope’s March prayer intention is a good idea:

“Pope’s March prayer intention: ‘for families in crisis’”
“Pope Francis releases his prayer intention for the month of March 2025, and invites everyone to pray for ‘families in crisis,’ as he acknowledges that no family is perfect, but that when we forgive our family members, we can rediscover peace.”
Deborah Castellano Lubov, Vatican News (March 4, 2025)….

“… ‘We all dream about a beautiful, perfect family. But,’ Pope Francis recognized, ‘there’s no such thing as a perfect family,’ for each family ‘has its own problems,’ ‘as well as its tremendous joys.’…”

I’ve embedded the video that went along with that article:

My prayer routine won’t change because of this. I already “…offer [my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day] for the intentions of our bishops and of all the apostles of prayer, and in particular for those recommended by our Holy Father this month”.

What’ll be different this month is that I know what the pope’s prayer intention is.

As for what “intention” means in this context — the way I’ve seen the word used, a prayer intention is a specific request. Which, in this case, is help for families who are going through rough patches.

That makes sense to me.

I’ve talked about families and rough patches before, and have posted something our parish priest said about families and celebrating life:

Posted in Being Catholic, Journal | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

My Oak Tree and Its Travels 0 (0)

Posted on March 1, 2025 by Brian H. Gill
Google Street View image: Buford Avenue and Keston Street, St. Anthony Park, St. Paul, Minnesota. (July 2011) used w/o permission.
Buford Avenue, looking down Keston Street. (July 2011) Google Street View

A happy memory from our time on Buford Avenue in the early 1960s — I talked about that a couple weeks back1 — is planting an acorn from one of the oaks there.

An Acorn and Memories

Google Street View: pedestrian path near corner of Doswell Avenue and Keston Street. (Image taken September 2022) from Google Street View February 12, 2025; used w/o permission.Among the many things I don’t remember from that time is when we planted it.

I suspect it was in the fall, since that’s apparently a good season for starting an oak seedling.2 And by spring; well, life was getting interesting, and that’s another topic.

Now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure we planted the acorn after we returned to Moorhead.

Seasons

Google Street View's image: Prairie Home Cemetery, seen from near 9th Street South and 9th Avenue South, Moorhead, Minnesota. (February 2022) via Google Street View, used w/o permission.Whatever season it was, I remember being happy when the acorn sprouted: and impressed at the size of the leaf. A full-size oak leaf on a tiny stem.

My oak flourished in the back yard of 818.3

Time passed.

The tiny oak became a (very) small oak, and kept flourishing: even after we dug it up, carried it in a pot to 1010, and planted it in that back yard.

More time passed.

My father retired. My folks got ready for moving to the farmstead where my mother grew up: which involved a major reconfiguration of the house. There’s a story or two there, which I may tell: eventually.

The oak was still small, but by that time it had grown a hefty taproot. We dug it up again, taking as much of the taproot along as we could. My father planted it at the farm, a few yards east of the house.

Despite his best efforts with careful watering and tending, my oak did not flourish in its new spot. One spring, no new leaves budded. My oak was gone.

Something like a half-century later, I still tear up when remembering that loss.

Even so, my memories of that little oak tree are happy. Partly because of how it began. Partly because that little oak had traveled with me and my parents through so many seasons of my life.

I could develop that thought into a long memoir of my adolescence and early adulthood, strung along the branches of a long-gone tree.

But I won’t.

Instead, I’ll talk — briefly, for me — about my father and another tree.

A Tree Grows on Campus

Minnesota State University Moorhead's photo: an aerial view of MSUM when it was Moorhead State College. (1970)
Moorhead State, when I was there the first time.

My father started working at Minnesota State University Moorhead when its name was Moorhead State Teachers College. It’s had five monikers so far —

  • Moorhead Normal School (1888-1921)
  • Moorhead State Teachers College (1921-1957)
  • Moorhead State College (1957-1975)
  • Moorhead State University (1975-2000)
  • Minnesota State University Moorhead (2000-present)

— which is more than you need, or maybe want, to know about one of Fargo-Moorhead’s colleges/universities.

Livingston Lord Library — named after the school’s first president — was part of a massive expansion of the place from 1958 to 1968. The first part of the building went up in 1960.4

Planning, Pavement, and Leaving Room For a Tree

Minnesota State University Moorhead's photo: an aerial view showing Roland Dille Center for the Arts (left) and Livingston Lord Library (right).
Minnesota State University Moorhead. The tree I’ll be talking about is in the inset’s center.

I’m not sure how much my father had to with planning the new library. But since he was MSC’s head librarian, he’d have had at least a hand in it.

The library’s service entrance, where they took deliveries, was on the south side.

There’d been a good-sized tree there, a few yards away from where trucks would pull up to unload books. Steering a delivery truck back there wasn’t overly hard, but the time a semi driver tried — that’s another story, and I’m drifting off-topic.

Which reminds me. I spent most of my life in the Upper Midwest. In my dialect of English, folks often called a smallish truck, the sort you’d use to deliver parcels smaller than a pallet, a “delivery truck”. On the other hand, some folks call such vehicles cargo vans, panel trucks, panel vans, or box trucks. I love my native language, but admit that it’s — complicated.

Where was I? The new library’s delivery entrance. Right.

Construction happened in 1960, so planning would have been in late 1959 or earlier. ‘Thinking green’ hadn’t caught on yet.

Bulldozing that good-sized tree would have looked like an obvious step in prepping the site. In the short term, it’d make construction easier. In the long term, generations of delivery drivers might have thanked the planners.

My father was at least as practical as anyone else: maybe more so. But he’s also my father. Where others saw a disposable obstruction, he saw a tree.

That’s why the new driveway/sidewalk running along Livingston Lord Library’s south side had a large circular gap near the library’s delivery entrance. And a good-sized tree growing in the center of that gap.

Legacies

Google Maps: Minnesota State University Moorhead, Livingston Lord Library and Ballard Hall, with the tree my father saved growing between. (image taken February 27, 2025) used w/o permission
The tree my father saved, south of Livingston Lord Library, MSUM. Google Maps image.

I haven’t been to the library, or Moorhead, lately. Not in person. But I’ll make the occasional virtual visit, often using Google Maps and Google Street View.

The tree is still there, apparently: although its leaves may be getting thin. How recent Google’s data is for that location, I don’t know.

It’s a happy thought, that the old tree is still there; giving shade in the summer and occasionally getting in the way of students and delivery vans.

How long it will last, I don’t know. But I do see its survival as one of my father’s legacies: and a testament to his good sense, insisting that the new paving accommodate both its growth and the tree’s need for rainwater.

My oldest daughter and I get together on Discord each evening, circumstances permitting. Last Wednesday our chat flittered past my oak, and around trees in general:

[oldest daughter] “I suspect there’s quite a bit more to the story because there is a small oak tree in the area you mentioned.“

[me] “Aha! Maybe Dad/Gpa Gill replanted – – –“

[oldest daughter] “I wouldn’t be surprised. He was as sentimental as you.
Your Russian olive is still a thorny, bushy mess to the south, too.

[me] “So they didn’t clear it. 😉 Awww.”

[oldest daughter] “Yes!
As much as [second oldest daughter] and [her husband] find it annoying to mow around, it’s still there.
Often surrounded by a circle of uncut grass.

[me] “Well, good for them 🙂 That’s nice – – – but – – –
😀 ‘natural prairie’ 😉 “

[oldest daughter] “[second oldest daughter] said that it’ll stay put as long as you’re alive.”

[me] “That’s – very thoughtful of her. I really wish I could see a way of getting up there in person. Oh, well.
“I’m genuinely touched by that – I hope it’s not a hardship. It is, after all, just a tree.”
(Discord chat (February 26, 2025)) [emphasis mine]

Maybe my father planted another oak there. But I wouldn’t put it past him to find some way of reviving the little oak’s roots.

Finally, a few thoughts about trees, the Sixties, and all that.

I like trees. A lot. So did my father.

One of the good ideas that got traction in the Sixties was seeing trees, plants, and critters in general as something other than a source for toothpicks or an impediment to Progress.

Some other ideas that got traction, and occasionally spun out of control: well, I’m far from delighted at every change that’s happened since then.

Screenshot from a 20th Century Fox trailer for 'Gentlemen_Prefer_Blondes.' Marilyn Monroe and men in formal suits and vests. (1953) via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.And my memory’s too good for me to yearn for ‘the good old days’.

That’s as serious as I’ll get this week.

Time for the seemingly-inevitable links:

1 Another memory from my seasons on Buford Avenue:

2 “…Conditions considered best for bur oak germination were not well documented in the available literature….”:

  • Quercus macrocarpa, Fire Effects Information System (FEIS), Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture

3 Naming the houses my folks and I lived in:

4 Background:

Posted in Family Stories, Journal, Series | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Pope Francis, Prayer, Health, and Perspectives 0 (0)

Posted on February 24, 2025 by Brian H. Gill
Andrija12345678's photo: St Peter's Basilica (July 11, 2006) via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.
St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome.

We prayed for Pope Francis at Mass yesterday. I’ve added a prayer to my daily routine. It sounds like there’ll be more prayers in St. Peter’s Square this evening.

Our pope’s health is emphatically not good. But as the old Minnesota saying goes: “it could be worse”.

In this case, part of the good news is that Pope Francis hasn’t had a repeat of Saturday morning’s “respiratory crisis”, his kidney issues are still not his major health problem, and “…the thrombocytopenia remains stable…”. (Vatican News (February 24, 2024))

I looked up thrombocytopenia. It’s a five-dollar word meaning that there’s well below the usual number of platelets in his blood. Platelets are tiny bits in our blood whose job is forming clots, clots help plug leaks, so that our body can heal itself. And that’s almost another topic.

Before I get going, here’s that prayer I’ve added to my daily routine:

Feelings, Popes, and Perspectives

I’m glad that Pope Francis is getting medial treatment. But sooner or later, someone else will be our 267th pope. I think I’ve got the count right.

The point is, we’ve had a great many popes since St. Peter got the job.

I don’t know what’s ahead, but my guess is that we’ll have a great many more before this creation’s wrapped up. And that’s yet another topic: a whole mess of topics.

I’m not happy about our pope being sick. But my feelings are more tied up with Pope Francis, and much less concerned with the Church. We’ve been doing what we do for two millennia, and this is by far not the most apparently-serious situation we’ve experienced.

I was going somewhere with this.

Let’s see: prayer, Pope Francis, health, popes and the Church. Right.

“…Waiting for God…” — Death by Faith Healing?

My reading habits may account for the number of health- and religion-related items in my news feed. Although the Google News algorithm probably has access to my age. That could account for the geriatric slant.

Anyway, this headline showed up last Saturday:

It’s been quite a while since I’ve run across ‘death by faith healing’ news, and this instance may not get traction. I rather hope it doesn’t.

I also don’t envy the folks who will be dealing with the legal, jurisdictional, and social aspects of this mess.

Seems that a 55-year-old woman had been taking care of her 77-year-old mother. Then, about two months ago, the mother died. And, apparently, the daughter left her mother’s body where they’d lived.

“…she had not reported the death because she was waiting for God to ‘resurrect’ her mother.

“She also said she had not been giving her mother her medications, including for diabetes and high blood pressure, because she wanted to treat her ‘naturally.’…

“…An autopsy later found that while a cause and manner of death were undetermined, contributing factors included hypertension, hypothyroidism and dementia. Blood tests did not show that the mother had taken prescription medications….”
(“Charges: Woman left mother’s dead body in home waiting for God to ‘resurrect’ her” Bring Me The News (February 22, 2025)) [emphasis mine]

The daughter’s ex-husband had been living in the basement: I really don’t envy folks who will be dealing with this mess. No pressure, but prayers for all involved couldn’t hurt.

Being Healthy, Being Sick, Making Sense

It’s been maybe a year since I talked about why I don’t see a problem with both taking my prescriptions and praying.

Again, it’s been quite a while — decades — since I noticed enough ‘death by faith healing’ news items to think of them as a category. I see that as a ‘no news is good news’ situation.

But I’d be surprised if the notion that ‘being religious’ involves ignoring common sense has gone completely off the radar.

So I’ll recap what I’ve said before. Being healthy and being sick are part of life. Illness happens. Using our brains makes sense:

“…Prayer is good idea. So is getting and staying healthy. Within reason. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1506-1510, 2288-2289, 2292)

“Some Saints were sickly, but that’s not what makes them Saints. Being healthy or being sick is okay. It’s how we act that matters. (Catechism, 828, 1509, 2211, 2288-2291, 2292-2296, 2448)…”
(“Editing Genes, Ethically” > Being Healthy: Within Reason (August 18, 2017)

Using painkillers is okay, too; within reason.

I’ve talked about this sort of thing before:

Posted in Being Catholic | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

A Skunk, a Woodpile, Dynamite, and Rural Kids 0 (0)

Posted on February 22, 2025 by Brian H. Gill
From LakesnWoods.com's Sauk Centre Gallery: 'Main Street, Sauk Centre, Minnesota, 1930s'.
Sauk Centre, Minnesota: Main Street in the 1930s.

I Googled Sauk Centre history this week.

I learned that the Minnesota Historical Society’s website has back issues of our town’s Sauk Centre Herald — and an impressive set of records connected with the Sauk Centre Home School for Girls,1 AKA Minnesota Correctional Facility-Sauk Centre.

Focusing on conventional publications, government officials, and their institutions, has some merit.

But so does remembering what happened when schoolkids found a skunk in a woodpile.

A literal skunk in an actual woodpile.

Bringing Explosives to School: Cultural and Historical Context

E. K.'s color lithograph: 'Common skunk - Mephitis mephitica', L. Prang and Company. (1874) Via Library of Congress, used w/o permission.

My wife’s mother remembered a time when some kids saw a skunk outside their school. This was a one-room schoolhouse near Osakis: a few miles down the road, on the other side of West Union.2

I’m not clear on exactly what the year was, but it was back when this schoolhouse had a wood-burning heater and a woodpile outside, stacked against one wall.

A woodpile which, on this occasion, contained a skunk.

Some kids, again, had noticed the skunk. They decided, correctly, that the skunk’s presence near their school was a potential threat.

Maybe the kids saw the skunk situation as urgent, but decided that it didn’t warrant bothering an adult. It wasn’t the best decision, but let’s remember: they were kids.

An obvious solution might have been to shoot the skunk. Boys, at least, routinely took rifles to school with them so they could do some hunting on the way home.

Obvious, perhaps, but not a viable option. The skunk had barricaded itself in the woodpile. And they couldn’t spook it out.

So one of them went home: returning with dynamite, a fuse and a blasting cap. These days, that might have made national headlines, followed by a Congressional investigation.

Back then, it was kids using stump-removal tech without permission.

The one who’d brought dynamite set the charge. Everyone backed off to a safe distance.

When the smoke cleared, the skunk was gone.

So was the wood pile.

Along with much of the schoolhouse’s paint on that side.

Nobody was hurt. Startled, yes, but not hurt.

The kids who’d seen a skunk and picked the dynamite option faced consequences: which including cleaning and repainting that side of the school. And then, life went on.

Justice, Responsibilities, and Making Sense

Painting by Leo von Klenze: 'The Acropolis at Athens'. (1846) Neue Pinakothek, Munich; via Wikipedia; used w/o permission.I don’t miss ‘the good old days’.

My memory’s too good, and I’ve studied too much history to imagine that we had a golden age in my youth, or a utopian Camelot somewhere in our more distant past — or, for that matter, to fear that we’re doomed to decline, decay, despair, and dishpan hands.

That said, I think having those schoolkids clean and paint the wall they’d damaged was a good idea.

I see it as an example of commutative justice, since they were restoring property they’d damaged: their community’s one-room schoolhouse.

Instead of maundering on about justice, mutual obligations, and all that, I’ll just say that balancing the rights and responsibilities of individuals and communities is a good idea.

That’s my personal opinion.

More to the point, that’s what the Church says:

“Justice: The cardinal moral virtue which consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and to neighbor (1807). Original justice refers to the state of holiness in which God created our first parents (375). Commutative justice, which obliges respect for the rights of the other, is required by the seventh commandment; it is distinguished from legal justice, which concerns what the citizen owes to the community, and distributive justice, which regulates what the community owes its citizens in proportion to their contributions and needs (2411) See Social Justice.”
(Glossary, Catechism)

I’ll admit that I look at the woodpile incident through the eyes of a city boy whose parents both spent significant parts of their early years on farms. The same is true of my wife. Her mother grew up on a farm near Osakis, her father on a farm near Sauk Centre.

Maybe that accounts for my lack of horror and revulsion at the thought of technology that’s not found in an office. Then again, maybe not. And that’s another topic.

Finally, the usual links:

Brian H. Gill's photo: Brookdale Cemetery on a farm east of Sauk Centre, Minnesota: on 385th Avenue, near Highway 17. Folks with the local Knights of Columbus have been tending the cemetery. (August 18, 2013)1 Another part of our history:

2 A little background:

Posted in Family Stories, Series | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments