Where was Fort Pembina?

Location of Fort Pembina:  All of section 16, 17 and 18. Township one hundred and sixty three (63), North Range Number 51, West of the 5th Principal Meridian. Site selected for post is on section 16 immediately on the Red River of the North one and one fourth miles above (South) of the mouth of the Pembina River.

The post would be situated about two hundred yards from the Red River at low water. The location was chosen because it was the highest point near the Red River, having not flooded since 1851. Section seventeen was chosen because it could provide hay and pasturage, and section eighteen because it had the best stand of timber within five miles of the mouth of the Pembina.  

From "History of Fort Pembina 1870-1895" (William D. Thomson thesis, 1968, UND.)

Below: Military Reservation Plans for Fort Pembina, Dakota Territory, showing blacksmith and carpenter shops, as well as officers and company quarters, kitchens and bake house, gardens, stables, hospital, magazine, and trader/sutler [think old-fashioned PX...]

The Empire Builder: J.J. Hill & the Great Northern Railway

One of the architects of settlement for our area - along with others like Lord Selkirk - James J. Hill was instrumental in how towns rose and fell, through the power of transportation that he held sway over...

THE EMPIRE BUILDER from Great Northern Filmworks on Vimeo.

NEW Book: Pembina County @ 150

Jim Benjaminson shared today:  

Well, its getting closer to reality - "Sagas of Pembina County, 1867-2017" is at the printers.  A 148 page, fully indexed compilation of stories written for county newspapers in 2017-2018 with added material and historical photographs.  We'll let you know when it's ready!

In the News: Winchester House (Geroux Hotel)

THE PRIDE OF OLD PEMBINA. 

The Most Elegant Hostelry in Dakota, North of the Columbia at Fargo.
Special to the Globe. 

PEMBINA, N. D., April 21. – One of the most superb and popular hotels in North Dakota is the Winchester House, of Pembina. It is prominently located in the heart of the city, at the corner of Cavalier and Roulette streets, and has a frontage of fifty feet on Cavalier street and sixty feet on Roulette street. It is built with white Crookston brick, and is three stories high. It is at present one of the most elegant and substantial hotel structures north of Fargo, North Dakota. Supplied and equipped with all the modern hotel improvements of metropolitan cities, it is highly prized by all our citizens and the traveling public. Built in the year 1882, at a cost of about twenty thousand dollars, it is a most fortunate investment for its present owner and proprietor. 

J. W. Winchester, after whom the house is named, is the owner and present proprietor of this most popular public resort. The management of this hotel has been given the personal care and attention of J. W. Winchester and his bright and popular wife. Mrs. Winchester has ever been distinguished as one of the most popular and entertaining of hotel matrons, and her popular parlor entertainments have always been most highly appreciated by all the patrons of this hotel and many invited friends, and to her own careful labor in the culinary department in preparation of meals this hotel owes much for its well-earned popularity for its table luxuries. So acceptable are the meals served in this house that the southbound Northern Pacific vestibule train often stops at Pembina sufficiently long enough to enable passengers to obtain their meals here in preference to those furnished by the dining car attached to these trains. This whole structure is occupied as a hotel, and the house can, with adjoining hotel accommodations, accommodate several hundred guests at a time in a most comfortable and acceptable manner.  

This hotel has been for years the “head center” of the political, social and festive activity of the northeast corner of Dakota. In and about this charming resort are clustered some of the most interesting memories of the past political history of this section. Here it was, in this hotel, that the late Jerry Tuohy, one of the most gifted Democratic leaders of his party, planned some of his most successful political conquests in this district, and here it is where, today, the present Republican leader, Jud LaMoure, sways his numerous political cohorts, and plans his most important political battles. Here, too, Jud often “flushes” with great success and raises the “downs” with less than a pair of “breakers.” This hotel is patronized by the very best class of boarders and travelers and for neatness and comfort this house enjoys a most envious reputation. Many of the county officers are remembered among its guests, and as a hotel bonanza for its owner is the Merchants’ hotel of Pembina and this entire section of the Red River Valley. 

Source:
The Saint Paul Daily Globe
Monday Morning, April 22, 1889
Volume XI, Number 112, Page 6

 __________________

From: Pembina and Turtle Mountain Ojibway (Chippewa) history: from the personal collections and writings of Charlie White Weasel

So as you can see, Charlie White Weasel's testimony concerning who built the Winchester House (originally the Geroux Hotel) and first ran it, confirms what Chuck Walker wrote in SHERIFF CHARLEY BROWN.

Also from the same source:

Lucien Geroux ... was then keeping a hotel in South Pembina, the same building, (improved) now being the one in which the county poor are being boarded and cared for, usually called our poor house. 

The large, 2-storey building just east of the Pembina Bridge, sitting in the area where the future Selkirk Park will be, is what I think is the building mentioned above (i.e., Lucien Geroux's first hotel, later repurposed and used as the Pembina Poor House...)

Union Family

Lena Cameron Mortimer was born into a farming family in St. Vincent, Minnesota.  She became a Socialist Party activist and married the Journeyman Tailors Union of America (JTUA) union leader, John Mortimer in Winnipeg in 1901.  They had several children before he drowned crossing the Red River near Emerson, Manitoba in an accident, in 1908.


LENA MORTIMER:  One Woman's Way of Thinking

As I passed out through the crowd as it was dispersing on Sunday evening after the meeting at which Comrades Pettipiece and Fitzgerald were speaking on the Woman question, I chanced to hear a few remarks from some of the men that had been present at the meeting which struck me as rather amusing.  One of the worthy bunch said in a rather sneering way:  "What!  Give the women a vote?  Not much, their place is stay at home and minding their business, let us men do all the voting." 

To me, of course, it was the same old yarn.  I have heard it so often that I cannot keep silent any longer.  Some of the men do not stop long enough to think just what a very important part a woman does fill in this life.  If we women are fit to be mothers of their children; fit to teach those same children in the schools, and fit to fill most every position in life, then by all that's good and holy we are able to stand shoulder to shoulder with our noble brothers and cast our vote along with them for the one great cause for which we are both fighting, the only cause that will benefit the working men and women of today. 

"Men say that we women do not have sense enough to vote the right way.  Ditto, my brother!  Could we possibly make it any worse than you have made it by your way of voting?"

Men say that we women do not have sense enough to vote the right way.  Ditto, my brother!  Could we possibly make it any worse than you have made it by your way of voting?  Give the woman a chance.  Let her once grasp the situation and see if she won't vote right.  Treat her as an equal and try to help her get hold of a few socialistic ideals.  Help her to see what it all means.  Give her as fair a chance as you would give a man and you will find out that she can grasp the truth just as quick as any man. 

I believe it is up to every woman in...any place on top of this old earth, to get busy, and dig down and find out for herself just where she is at and if some of the men turn up their noses at our feeble efforts, go to it with more heart than ever.  Prove to them that if given a chance we can at least use our vote to as good advantage as they have in the past.  We cannot make matters any worse than they are making them right now.  So go to it, my sisters.  Show them if we are fit to be mothers of the coming generation of Socialists we are fit to march to the ballot-box and vote the right way just as soon as you men give us a chance.  And fit to share equally with you all the comforts that Socialism will bring when the men as well as the women get into their heads sense enough to vote the right way to hasten its coming. 

[Source:  Lena Mortimer, "One Woman's Way of Thinking," Western Clarion (Vancouver, BC), 27 May 1911.]

KCND-TV: How it Came to Be

This excerpt is from a long article about the early years of TV along the border in our area.  There was a race who got their transmitting tower up first (Pembina won by a day...), and some called KCND a "bargain basement" station.  Maybe so, but they did the best they could with the budget they had, and for many kids growing up then - myself included - we will be forever indebted to Channel 12 Pembina for the hundreds of amazing old Hollywood films they showed on Saturday and Sunday afternoons (not to mention Saturday night's "Chiller Thriller"!!)

We got to know classic comedies starring Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, the Three Stooges, as well as the Marx Brothers, Jimmy Durante, and W.C. Fields.  Then there were the great dramas starring Tyrone Power, John Wayne, Errol Flynn, Betty David, Kathryn Hepburn, Laurence Olivier, Basil Rathbone, Mae West, Jean Harlow, Burt Lancaster, Peter Lorre, Claude Rains, James Cagney, Charlie Chaplin, William Powell, Robert Mitchum, Joseph Cotton, Orson Wells, etc.  So many names and faces, one cannot remember them all yet they were and are all unforgettable.  All thanks to one tiny TV station in Pembina...

In 1956, a group of investors associated with a Grand Forks radio station won permission from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to construct a new Channel 12 TV station in the tiny border town of Pembina, N.D. 

Their goal, however, wasn’t to serve Pembina and the sparsely populated surrounding area. It was to serve Winnipeg audiences, 100 kilometres to the north, and hopefully make some money satisfying Canadians’ insatiable appetite for American TV programming. 

The station was slow to get to air, though. It wasn’t until early 1959 — nearly three years after they were awarded the licence — that the serious work of building studios and erecting a tower got under way. Now with a second Winnipeg station under construction at Polo Park, it became urgent for the Pembina operation to finally get up and running. 

Thus began a mad race between the owners of Channel 7 and Channel 12 — which would become better known as CJAY-TV and KCND-TV later in the year — to beat the other station to air. 

“The idea of KCND was to come into the (Winnipeg) market as the second station, but in the interim the licence was granted to CJAY, so they were building at the same time,” former KCND-CKND employee Dorothy Lien told the Winnipeg Free Press in 1989. 

“It was a great race between the stations to see who would get their tower up [first],” she recalled. “I remember driving down to Pembina in September of 1960 to watch our antenna being mounted, and then driving back to Ste. Agathe to see that they were at the stage of getting theirs up, too.” 

The race was as close as one got to a photo finish in the broadcasting industry.
On Sunday, Nov. 6, 1960, Winnipeggers noticed a test signal coming in from Pembina on Channel 12. On Monday, Nov. 7, the half-finished station went on air at 6 p.m. with a limited program selection, owing to the fact that the station was literally not yet connected to the ABC and NBC networks from which it would obtain most of its programming. 

Given that the only other option in Winnipeg was to watch the CBC station, viewers weren’t exactly choosy. 

Five days later, at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 12, 1960, CJAY-TV Channel 7 signed on from a brand-new studio next to Polo Park Shopping Centre. 

Though CJAY had lost the race to air, it still had a decided advantage over its cross-border rival. 

“We had very low power and very poor microwave [linking the station to the networks],” Lien told the Winnipeg Free Press in 1989. “We really didn’t make an impact for about six years. People didn’t have the antennas to bring in Channel 12.” 

KCND had been modeled after KVOS-TV, a small outlet in Bellingham, Wash., just across the border from Vancouver, which discovered that there was big money to be made in buying programs at low Bellingham rates and selling advertising at high Vancouver-Victoria rates. 

The practice was controversial, given that KVOS was at times selling advertising on programs for which a B.C. broadcaster had supposedly purchased “exclusive” rights; but it also made KVOS one of North America’s most profitable TV stations for a time.
But there was a critical difference between KVOS and KCND. 

KVOS’s transmitter was only 70 kilometres from central Vancouver and just 45 kilometres from Victoria, close enough to put a strong and clear “Grade-A” signal into those communities, as it still does today. 

KCND’s transmitter was 100 kilometres from central Winnipeg. Its “Grade-A” signal only went as far north as Niverville, beyond which ground clutter and weather tended to interfere with reception. 

Given that there were no cable systems in Winnipeg at the time, it was an oversight on the part of the station’s owners that threatened to bankrupt the station. 

“Our signal was never as strong in Winnipeg as our engineers thought it would be,” lamented Boyd Christenson, an early KCND announcer and program host who was interviewed by the Winnipeg Free Press in the mid ’80s. 

“We weren’t getting the dollars we needed out of Winnipeg to sustain the station,” Christenson said, describing the station’s financially troubled early years. 

The station’s fortunes dramatically improved after the arrival of cable TV in Winnipeg in the late ’60s. 

KCND’s survival in the early years was no doubt driven by the fascination that many Manitobans had for the glamour of Kennedy-era America and a yearning for something different on their screens, which led to a cult following in Winnipeg. 

“KCND was strictly bargain basement,” former Winnipeg resident Greg Klymkiw wrote in a June 2010 article for the Electric Sheep web site. “Though to kids, tired of fiddlers from Newfoundland and joyful Canucks winning useless pen and pencil sets on stupid Canadian TV, KCND was… AMERICA!” 

“I kind of fell in love with KCND-TV Channel 12,” a commentator named Rob wrote to The View from Seven in November 2010. “For some reason the channel 12 logo was very cool!” 

“My dad’s bedroom TV had only local stations, but he got channel 12 by installing an interior Channel 12 Antenna… sometime in ’71 or ’72 but we weren’t allowed to use his TV. My younger brother used to sneak in there and watch reruns of ‘Lost in Space’ at 6 PM while my dad was working evenings,” Rob wrote. 

“Sometimes my dad called us to his bedroom to watch ‘Chiller Thriller’ at 10:30 PM Saturday night,” he added, referring to the station’s popular Saturday night horror movies.

Update: Ephraim "Eph" Clow, Pedestrian Racer

Boston Daily Globe, May 27 1881, Page 1

Boston Daily Globe, May 27 1881, Page 1

I recently wrote about a Kittson County native, Ephraim Clow, who went on to become a well-known sportsman of a late 19th century sport, Pedestrianism.

'Eph' also features in Chapter 22 (Rose Belt) of the book King of the Peds in a race in which he finished with 460 miles in that 6-day race.

Here are a couple of extracts from Chapter 28...

Out of the thirty men that started the 70-hour walking match at the Music Hall in Boston, Massachusetts, between the 16th and 21st of February, 1880, only seven finished. The winner was Peter Panchot with 345 miles. Jimmy Albert came in second with 330, Clow, third with 326, McEvoy fourth with 321, Dufrane, fifth with 318, Campana, sixth with 300, and Barrett seventh with 304. During the early part of the match, Albert had denied charges that he had been abusive in language towards a Mr. Hanson, who he allegedly struck with a cane.

---

Jimmy Albert was awarded $300 and a gold watch for winning a 75-hour go-as-you-please match (12½ hours per day) which took place at the Opera House in Brockton, Massachusetts, between Monday, the 22nd and Saturday, the 27th of March. The scores at the end were: Albert 435; Hughes, 423.16 ($200); Clow, 411.6 ($100); Hourihan, 385.14 ($75); Geldert, 361.4 ($50): The Boston Globe in its report on the match stated: The track not having been measured by a professional the above records will not stand as it is undoubtedly short. Campana, Colston and Mignault were also in the race.

There are many other mentions of the 'Canadian Champion of Toronto', in King of the Peds. For example:

In the 72-hour go-as-you-please “Toronto Walking Tournament”, which started on the morning of June the 7th 1880, Clow, of Prince Edward Island, had beaten Faber's celebrated record in Buffalo.

Ephraim "Eph" Clow, Champion Pedestrian
Courtesy of: www.kingofthepeds.com

Photo of Eph Clow, circa 1880

Even after moving to Kittson County to farm, Eph  

continued to be involved in promoting competitive

walking and running.  From Our Northwest Corner

(1979):  "Here encouraged racing among the young

people of the area.  Many of the people who grew up

in the Humboldt area remember running in a large barn

where Eph had made a running track.  In the April 9,

1921 Kittson County Enterprise, the following article

appeared,  'In the races held at the Humboldt Stadium,

Edna Woodruff won the three mile event.  The boys 

five mile race was won by Lomas Matthews...' and in

the April 22, 1921 issue, the following article also

appeared, 'Next Friday several races will be run in 

the large Humboldt Stadium under the management 

of Eph Clow, former World's Champion long distance

runner.'   Eph Clow died in 1927."

Fundraiser: Straight Outta Kittson!!

Hey, Kittson County homies!

Take a look at a new song all about our hood, written by hometown girl, Nancy Haubrich. Every purchase of the digital single will go to supporting the Kittson County Historical Society, and History Center & Museum.

Have a listen, below...

Radio Interview!

Tonight, Christian Cassidy of the West End Dumplings - The Radio Edition, will be interviewing me about the St. Vincent Memories history blog.

In his own words...

...my guests are: Trish Short Lewis of the blog St. Vincent Memories; U of W history prof Dr. Jody Perrun and Susan Algie of the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation. Join me at 7 pm on 101.5 UMFM. Only three episodes left! If you want to listen: Since UMFM can be heard in Winnipeg at 101.5 UMFM but it doesn't go much beyond city limits, people can listen online or, tomorrow there will be a podcast generated. The link will be in a companion post for this episode.

An alternate permanent link to the interview can be found here...

Reclaiming an Abandoned Cemetery

On September 19th of this year, Kim McAllister Anderson and I took a trip up north, into Manitoba, Canada. Emerson, to be exact. Town of my birth, and much more. But that aside, we were on a mission: To locate, by rough map, an old almost-forgotten cemetery.

Thanks to Wayne Arnesy, former Mayor of Emerson, he and some other helpers reclaimed the old gravestones they could locate and now it is roughly maintained annually. It is in a grove of oak trees in the middle of a farmer's field, not far from a marsh-like slough. A trail leads to it, which can be traversed in a 4-wheel drive off-road vehicle. Or if you're up to it, hiked a half mile from the street that ends at the current cemetery - closer to town and on higher of ground to prevent flooding.

Excellence in Local History Award

Wonderful news arrived in today's mail.  The work here on this blog has been recognized and awarded the Excellence in Local History award by the State Historical Society of North Dakota.

It is an amazing honor to be chosen for this award.  It is my hope that this award will bring further recognition to the amazing local history of my hometown, its neighbors, and the surrounding communities which are so interrelated.  The individuals that make up these communities are related by blood, marriage, and culture, and their shared histories deserve not only to be recognized, but remembered...

OUR History!

This video says it so well. It's how I feel about history period, whether it is my own, my family's, or my town's. I urge you to watch it, and get excited about OUR history! :)

Post by Minnesota Historical Society.

"Coming Soon!"

I plan on researching a lot of the images in the above set, and telling expanded stories about them, but that takes times - a LOT of time. Until then, I wanted to share these photos. Excuse the few duplicates, and also excuse the quality - some of these were second-generation scans, or photocopies. I haven't been able to get to some of the originals to get better quality images. I gather what I can, how I can, as I encounter local history. 

 

NOTE: Anyone reading this that has information on any of these images, PLEASE contact me either here via comments, or click on 'About Me' link in upper right-hand corner, and then click on the email link on the next page to contact me directly. Any information could be a valuable clue to uncovering even more local history!

St.Vincent Memories featured in Star Tribune

Recently, I was interviewed by Curt Brown of the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper.  Curt writes a column for the paper called Minnesota History, and was interested in finding out more about St. Vincent Memories...

Minnesota History: Memories from the tiny town of St. Vincent

Sheriff Charley Brown didn't recognize the decapitated corpse at first...

Read More

The “Birdman” of Hamilton

'Birdman' Beachey,  putting on flying show at the Hamilton Fair

[Reprinted with permission]

When Orville and Wilbur Wright first took to the air in 1903, no one could imagine the future aviation would hold for the world. For people living on the flat prairies of North Dakota it would be seven more years before anyone would witness the daring exploits of a “birdman” when Archibald “Arch” Hoxsey gave the first demonstration flight in the state at the Grand Forks fairground July 19, 1910.

First North Dakota flight at Grand Forks Fair, 1910

Hoxsey had met Orville Wright in March of ’10, when Orville opened a school for aspiring aviators in Montgomery, Alabama. It was here Hoxsey learned to fly and joined other pilots in the Wright Exhibition Team, a troupe of flyers scheduled to give flying exhibitions around the country. These flyers would be the first to fly the new Wright Brothers Model B aircraft. Hoxsey’s Grand Forks flight was witnessed by an estimated 10,000 people as he flew 2,500 feet in the air during his 22-minute flight. Hoxsey’s flying career—and his life, at age 26—came to an end that same December during an exhibition flight in Los Angeles when his plane plummeted from a height of 7,000 feet. Hoxsey could not only claim being the first aviator to fly in North Dakota but to also carrying the first (former) United States president when he took Theodore Roosevelt airborne two months earlier in St. Louis.

Residents of Pembina County who had not been present at the Grand Forks exhibition would have to wait an additional three years before the first recorded airplane flight took place in the county. Hillary Beachey—billed as the “World’s Greatest Aviator”—was booked to make an appearance at the 1913 Hamilton Fair. Ads in the Cavalier Chronicle reading “see the dizzy, death-defying aeroplane flights by daredevil aviators every afternoon” drew large crowds to the fairgrounds. After the fair, the Chronicle reported “the program of attractions was perhaps larger and better by far than that of any previous fair held in the county. Perhaps the chief among these were the several flights of Hillary Beachey in his Aero Plane.”

Walhalla Chautauqua

Among the most beautiful summer resorts is Walhalla, "The Garden of the Gods." Here nature has been particularly lavish in spreading her charms. Here every summer the Chautauqua Assemblies are held in the far-famed Mager Grove, which is almost encircled in the embrace of the Pembina River.

Chautauqua Auditorium in Walhalla, ND (circa 1920).

The delightful shade of the tall stately trees, the running spring water, and the carpet of green, makes this an ideal place for rest and recreation. Here visitors find bathing facilities, either in deep water or along a shallow beach, where even the smallest children are perfectly safe. A motor boat makes regular trips up the river to accommodate those who enjoy boating through the ever-changing charms of the beautiful Pembina. An abundance of row boats are also kept, and these are rented at nominal rental to visitors.

William Jennings Bryan spoke here on July 4th, 1918.

Within easy distance are many interesting spots—the State Park, which is cared for by the state appropriation, is only a scant quarter mile from the Chautauqua grounds. A half mile in another direction brings one to the Cemeteries with the Martyrs' grave and monument. The monument was erected in memorial of three missionaries who were murdered by the Sioux Indians in 1852. Visitors often make side trips to the Mennonite village, six miles to the north into Canada, and to old Fish Tray, eight miles to the west, where the magnificent Canyon of Pembina, a mile wide and five hundred feet deep, leaves a picture impressed on the mind that time can never efface. The Walhalla Chautauqua draws a large patronage from Canada, as well as from the state. Many of the visitors bring their own tents and cooking facilities. As the Chautauqua is in session for several weeks, a most enjoyable time is assured.

- North Dakota of Today (1919)

------

The Rev. Allen O. Birchenough, pastor of the Pembina and Jolliette, ND [Methodist] churches, preached at the Walhalla Chautauqua on Sunday, July 2, to an audience estimated at 2,000. His sermon is receiving high praise.

- Northwestern Christian Advocate, Volume 64 (1916)

"As mentioned in..."

To find out more about the book,
referencing Pembina & St. Vincent

The two rooms would be filled with fiddle music, he said, and sit-down dancers, when his St. Boniface relations came visiting in winter.  He vowed that he and Sara would cross the Red River to the French side to attend the winter carnivals, the snowshoe, horse and dog races a new priest in the parish of Ste. Agathe had taken to organizing.  Go from house to house on New Year's Eve, and celebrate the French way, as he used to do, firing his rifle into the wind, begging the favour of a drink and a kiss.  I have relations coming out of my ears up and down the river, he told her.  As far south as St. Joe and Pembina.  The Carons, Berthelets, Branconniers, Dubois, St. Germains, Delormes.  He recited the names, the syllables like a church bell tolling across the snowbound land.

______________

Emilie would not have believed that at that moment Oliver was going farther away from them, the lit-up town of Emerson beckoning. There was a small hotel there, he knew, and a cafe where he would get something to eat.  Then he thought perhaps he would bypass the town and cross the border, go to Pembina, where he'd heard there was a tavern.  Leastways, there had been years ago, and a woman named Ma Shorts who rant it.  She had a room at the back, and for a price she would let people sleep off a drunk or have a quick romp, whether or not the couple was married.  The night air had chilled him through, and he was no longer inclined to sleep under the stars.

From: "Children of the Day", by Sandra Birdsell

One of Our Own

"Music bubbles out of me..."
[Poster created by Nancy Ansari]

Cleo Bee [Wang] Jones is a St. Vincent native.  Cleo's grandmother was a Lang, and her mother was a Turner. The Langs and Turners, much like the Gambles, left big footprints on St. Vincent and its history.  In her own right, Cleo became more than the little village could contain.  Rightly so, she went out into the bigger world and shared her gift - her "Great Voice"...

[The following is an excerpt from a 2012 APG article]

Cleo Bee has something to look forward to: On Sept. 9, 2012 she will be inducted into the South Dakota Country Music Hall of Fame. This will be her second such honor — she was inducted into the Minnesota Rock and County Hall of Fame in 2007.

Cleo, 72, was born in St. Vincent, Minn. (population 64) and sang all over the country before she moved to Hayward with her husband, when he retired in 2006. She has a voice and a talent — and most of all, a love for song.

Her gift became apparent in second grade when her teacher asked the class if they knew what a four-leaf clover was. Before anyone could answer, Cleo stood up and said it was a song. Then she sang “I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover.”

“I sang and they clapped and that’s all it took to start the whole thing,” said Cleo, who has never had a voice lesson in her life.

In high school she sang in a dance band, recalling Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” and Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” But she said she was most influenced by the powerful voices of Kay Starr and Mahalia Jackson, before rock ‘n roll arrived on the music scene.

Also while in high school, she said she was snuck in the back door of the Eagles Club to perform onstage with a group that was there from Arkansas. She was 16.

Cleo won a talent contest that year and went to New York City to audition for the Ted Mack Amateur Hour. Her two aunts traveled with her. There were about 500 contestants, she said, and she waited for hours before it was her turn to get onstage where she sang “Mr. Wonderful” and “On the Street Where You Live.”

“I didn’t make the cut that night,” she said, but shortly thereafter she won third place in the 1957-58 finals Amateur Show sponsored by the Associated Canadian Travelers and held in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Cleo said she was the only winner from the U.S.

Cleo married, had two daughters and moved to Minneapolis, where she soon became a popular singer.

Her big break came in 1968 when she joined the Sherwin Linton Show, entertaining in ballrooms, nightclubs, lounges and touring the country in the band bus. The Golden Nugget in Las Vegas was often their venue.

Cleo said that over the years she worked with George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Dottie West, George Hamilton, Tex Ritter and Buck Owens.

In 1977 Cleo wrote a song and sang some of her favorites, along with duets with Linton, on a cassette, which was later released on CD. Some of the selections were recorded live at the South Dakota State Penitentiary on Aug. 9, 1971.

When she left the Sherwin Linton Show, tired of the travel, Cleo became the featured singer at Louie’s Inn in Dresser, Wis., and the house band was soon named “The Honeycomb.”

“No more buses but we sometimes performed six nights a week,” she said.

Cleo kept that pace for four years and then remarried and moved to Rochester, Minn. She stopped singing in 1980 and said she missed it terribly.

“It was horrifying. I would sing in the car on long trips, in the house, anyplace — it drove my husband nuts,” she said.

Twenty years later she performed again with the Sherwin Linton Show and repeated those performances a few times in cities in Minnesota and North Dakota.

Cleo Bee, as she is today...

She said one of her most memorable performances was at her mother’s memorial service which was scheduled on Sept. 11, 2001, the day terrorists attacked New York City and the Twin Towers fell.

“Mom wanted me to sing at her funeral, and after all that had happened that day, I sang ‘America the Beautiful.’ There wasn't a dry eye in the place,” she said.

Cleo still sings locally. She has guested with “Molly and the Danger Band,” has sung at the Stone Lake Cranberry Luncheon and the Hayward High School 50th Reunion with some members of The Honeycomb.

Music has made her life rich, she said, through travel and meeting wonderful people.

“Music and opportunities — that’s who I was and who I am. Music bubbles out of me,” she said.

St. Vincent Business Listing, 1879

Despite the seeming title discrepancy, 
this is the same, correct gazetteer...

ST. VINCENT [From Minnesota, North and South Dakota and Montana gazetteer and business directory (1879)]

This growing town of 500 inhabitants is the state terminus of the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway, and also of the St. Vincent branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway. It is situated in the extreme northwestern point of Kittson county and of the State alike. The Red River of the North, is 390 miles from St. Paul, and the seat of the county of Kittson. A regular line of steamers make daily trips on the Red river from St. Vincent to Winnipeg, Manitoba, carrying passengers and freight and making connection with the arrival and departure of trains. St. Vincent has a steam elevator of 90,000 bushels capacity, a bank, a brewery, a brickyard, a hotel, a newspaper named the Herald, three general stores and a district school, while a church is being erected...Daily mail over the St. P., M. & M. and Canadian Pacific railways. D. F. Brawley, postmaster.










BUSINESS DIRECTORY

Brawley D F, brickmaker.

John A. Vanstrum
First Sheriff of Kittson County

Buie John, livery and sale stable.
Flynn & O'Keefe, General Store.
Gooding C J, railroad agent.
Head Felix G, justice of the peace.
Head Felix G, Publisher St Vincent Herald.
Lowery Robert W, general store.
Nobles L, express agent.
O'Keefe Wm M, register of deeds.
Provouchoe John, saloon.
Raywood George & Co, St Vincent Brewery¹.
Red Wing Mill Co, grain elevator.
Rich J H, cashier St. Vincent Bank and manager, Elevator Co.
St Vincent Bank, J H Rich cashier.
Shepard J W, lumber and building material.
Stewart John W, proprietor Pacific Hotel.
Vanstrum John A, Sheriff Kittson County.
Vanstrum John A, real estate agent.
Winter J B, general store.

__________________________________

¹ - Later, George Raywood and Charles Thorson opened the North Arm Brewery in South Vancouver; after that, in 1900, George built the Cedar Cottage Brewery on Gibson Creek in Southeast Vancouver.

Ghosts of Minnesota: St. Vincent

St. Vincent School and grounds
[August 2013]

"A visitor on our Facebook page has kept after us to visit St. Vincent..."

That would be me.

I had been encouraging the guys from Ghosts of Minnesota to visit my hometown, and recommended that they look at posts from this blog to give them an idea of what it once was, what it meant to people (and still does), and that it was a perfect candidate for their project.

I am very happy they finally made it up to St. Vincent on August 20, 2013.  They missed a few things in town that I wished they had documented, but in the end, I'm pleased for St. Vincent to be acknowledged, however humble.