Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Petrus Peter Sames was born March 5, 1865, in Brück, Bernkastel-Wittlich, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. He was baptized March 17, 1865, at Katholisch, Brück, Bernkastel-Wittlich, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Peter was the fourth of six children born to Jacobus Jacobi Sames (1828-1915) and Apollonia Plein Sames (1837-1918).

Peter’s grandparents were Johann Jacob Sames (1788-1850) and Maria Margaretha Meÿer Sames (17886-1843); and Nikolaus Plein (1796-1855) and Elizabeth Neises Plein (1798-1860).

Peter Sames’s great-grandparents were Phillip Sames (1748-1813) and Anna Maria Zens Sames (1749-1814); Johann Mathias Meÿer (1750-1806) and Helen Heck Meÿer (1752-1786); and Joannes Plein (1762-1798) and Anna Klara Swilling Plein (1759-1813); and Jacobi Neises (1760-1840) and Mariae Catherinae Keyl Neises (1762-1842).

Peter emigrated to Minnesota in 1888.

Petrus Peter Sames married Agnes O’Toole in Marystown on May 20, 1890. They had three children. Their first child was Mary Theresa Sames, who married Henry Marschall after his first wife, Margaret Beckrich Marschall (1889-1920) died.

Henry Marschall’s first wife, Margaret, developed delivery complications after the birth of Leander, their sixth baby, and on Dec. 8, 1919, Margaret Beckrich Marschall was taken to the hospital in Shakopee by horse and sleigh. Their five children, then about ten to four years of age, still remember seeing their mother being carefully carried from the house and placed in the blanketed sleigh. On New Year’s Day, she was taken to the home of her father-in-law, Anton Marschall. At the age of 31 years, 5 months and 16 days Margaret Beckrich Sames died.

After being widowed for sixteen months, Henry married in April 1921 to Mary Theresa Sames (1892-1972). They had three sons.

The second child of Peter and Agnes was Peter John Sames (1895-1971). He married Clara Elizabeth Klehr (1896-1946) in Marystown on Nov. 14, 1917. They had six children.

And finally, Peter and Agnes had another son, Mathew Nicholas Sames (1897-1959).

Mathew married Caroline Marie Carrie Erkens (1903-1980) in 1925, and they had three children.

Agnes O’Toole Sames died in Marystown on Feb. 7, 1925.

On Aug. 11, 1936. Peter Sames married Marie Theresa Kersting Klehr (1882-1968).

Marie Theresa Kersting’s first marriage was to Jacob C. Klehr (1872-1931).

Jacob C. Klehr had first married Mary Elizabeth Hartmann (1871-1902). Mary Elizabeth Hartmann Klehr and Jacob C. Klehr had two children. Then Mary Eiizabeth Hartmann Klehr died in 1902.

Then Jacob married Marie Theresa Kersting. They married on May 5, 1903, in Jordan. They had ten children.

Confusing, huh? Peter and Theresa married on Aug. 11, 1936. They had no children together.

Petrus Peter Sames died on Dec. 16, 1951, in Marystown, and was buried at the St. Mary’s Purification Cemetery. His second wife, Marie Theresa Kersting Klehr Sames died Nov. 26, 1968, and was buried next to St. Mary’s Purification Church in Marystown, Minnesota.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Antonio Delgado was 87 years old in 2009. And as he laughed and smiled, with gestures and jokes, he remembered growing up in Chaska, called Sugar City at that time.

Born Oct. 29, 1921, Antonio lived in Chaska from 1924 to 1932. His family was among the many Latino/a who, with many other Latino migrant laborers in Chaska and Shakopee, tended and harvested beets for the American Crystal Sugar Company (which was the American Beet Sugar Company until 1934).

With the introduction of Latino/a and Chicano/a migrant workers from Texas in 1934, entire families came up for the sugar beet planting season (April/May to June) and harvest (September, October, and November), with American Crystal providing housing, according to MNopedia’s article on “American Crystal Sugar Company.” For the laborers, however, the work was hard and the housing was often dilapidated. During the winter months they either retired south or settled in the Twin Cities area.

Chaska and Shakopee were surrounded by sugar beet fields, planted to feed the sugar plants. The factory, like the brickyard before it, established Chaska and Shakopee as something more than forgotten farm towns, according to Mark W. Olson in an article in Chaska Herald on Oct. 23, 2009, called “Fields of memory: Former beet farmer revisits his childhood home of Chaska.” It was built on the backs of migrant farm workers like Antonio and his parents, Pedro Delgado and Margarita Rodriguez. Many of those temporary workers, mostly from Texas and Mexico, vanished from records. “They moved from state to state, depending on the planting or harvest season.” But Antonio and his family put roots down in 1924 to 1932. Along with a few other Latino/a families, they lived in the sugar company housing across from the sugar factory, and were the area’s earliest residents of Mexican heritage. The small houses were torn down and are now the site of a townhouse development.

Antonio described the work of migrant farmer as “work in one field and finish that work and get work in another field, another field, another field.” While much of the beet harvesting work is now mechanized, in the 1920s and 1930s it was labor-intensive and back-breaking work. And it required an influx of migrant labor, according to the article.

Pedro, Antonio’s father, had served in the U.S. Army in WWI as a Mexican citizen for a few years, and in April 1924 the family moved to Chaska from California. Antonio was only 2 ½ years old when the family moved to Minnesota. It is possible that a recruiter from the American Beet Sugar Company actively got thousands of Latino laborers from the southern United States, primarily in Texas.

Antonio began working with his parents in the fields at age six, thinning the beets—a process involving pulling out young beets so the remaining beets would mature. “They showed me how, and I keep on going,” he said in the Chaska Herald article.

“For $8 an acre, his family would work ‘from sunrise until sunset,’ Delgado said. Did they get tired? ‘You get tired when you work all day,’ Delgado replied, matter-of-factly.”

Many of the beets were harvested and began piling up at the sugar factory. Then many of the manual workers would return to Mexico. Some would travel to Lubbock or Amarillo, Texas, where they would pick cotton. But the Delgados remained because of school. There were about four or five Latino families with children in school.

Staying in Chaska or Shakopee wasn’t always easy for migrant workers. According to Guadalupe Cruz, who arrived in Chaska to work on the beet fields in 1929, she remembered, according to the book Barrios Norteños: St. Paul and Midwestern Mexican Communities in the Twentieth Century (2000) by Dionicio Nodín Valdés, “We could have gone back to Mexico, but if we stayed they offered to help us. They would give us a home to live in and we got a raise of $5 per family member. (More workers!) We lived in Chaska for three years…There were some people that did not have anything to eat,” she noted.

Everyone worked in the fields. But Antonio also played baseball in the area between the company homes and the sugar factory, as there were few cars then. He attended kindergarten in Chaska and continued through a portion of his seventh grade. In the article, “During recess the kids would play in City Square Park across form the school—now the site of Wells Fargo at Chestnut and Fourth streets. He recalled the Civil War cannon that sat on the park (later melted down for a WWII metal drive). He recalls that it was ‘Mr. Smith’ who planted some of the ‘great big trees’ on the park.”

In the 1930s, with the Great Depression, Antonio’s father decided to leave Chaska. “We had to go to Mexico, because the government of Mexico said there were going to be opportunity to make farms and work over there.” Pedro acquired farmland through the government programs, and with the money he had saved in Chaska, Antonio and family now tend to the farmland, located not too far over the Mexican border.

Antonio has dual citizenship, and with his wife, Maria Delores Saldaño, and their 12 children continued to work on the farms.

When he left Chaska during seventh grade, it was the end of his schooling, but he never forgot the importance of education. He has put many of his children through college. He also passed on many ethics to his family, including the importance of work. It is something that worked its way down to his many dependents. Antonio never smoked a cigar, never took a drink of alcohol. His family, church, and work—that is all he’s known.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Mercy Scofield was born Sept. 2, 1853. Her parents were Isaac Scofield (1830-1881) and Elizabeth Casterline Scofield (1833-1918). Her grandparents were Alvah Scofield (1796-1850) and Cyrene Pennoyer Scofield (1802-1886); and Barnabus Casterline (1799-1882) and Maria Moriah Dubois Casterline (1806-1885).

Mercy was the first of twelve children, and the only one born in Dowagiac, Michigan.

The prevalence of typhoid fever in 1852, only four years after the founding of the village of Dowagiac, led many people to think the locality dangerously unwholesome. But it wasn’t the location, as a woman and man who returned from a visit caused the typhoid fever.

“Some people moved away, and others who were stricken down were obliged to send abroad for friends to take care of them. At one time there were scarcely enough well persons in the place to attend the sick,” according to Alfred Mathews in the book, History of Cass County, Michigan; With Illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers in 1882. Of thirteen persons who got sick soon after the disease made its first appearance, eleven died, said Genealogy Trails’ “Cass County, Michigan, History of Dowagiac.”

It may be the threat of disease or just wanting to go west, Marcy, her parents, Isaac and Elizabeth, and Maria, her grandmother, and Elizabeth’s sister, Sarah Casterline (who later married Henry Calkins of Spring Lake Township) headed to Minnesota Territory as settler-colonists in 1854. Mercy became one year old during the trip.

In an article in the Shakopee Argus-Tribune on May 31, 1934, called “Sends Sketch of Pioneer History,” Rev. William E. Thompson, a former Presbyterian pastor in Shakopee, wrote to the newspaper after he obtained the information from Mercy Scofield in 1930, four years before she died. According to Mercy, they were the first settler-colonists near Spring Lake Township, near what later became Shakopee. The family moved from Michigan to Minnesota Territory using an ox-team vehicle to haul their household goods and had an old horse and wagon to carry the women and child, Mercy.

In the article, Isaac, Mercy’s father, took a claim that was mostly woods, which he cut down and rolled into piles and burned. “In ten years he had cleared ten acres, which enabled him to sell the farm when leaving there for $3000. The family lived in a one room log house using it for all purposes. A piece of board saved from the cover of a box, three feet long and fourteen inches wide served as a table for three years.”

A sawmill was erected near them, and soon they had an abundance of butternut boards. Her father built a table in 1857, and in 1934, it was still in the family. Her father, “constructed a maple wood loom from trees he cut and sawed at the mill in 1862, preparatory to making cloth from the wool of six sheep possessed at the time. When the loom was finished, dogs killed all the sheep, and they only salvaged about two pounds of wool. Next spring they purchased six more sheep and from their wool clothing from the family was woven.” Mercy’s grandmother, Maria, gave a description of the loom from memory, and she also directed the making of a spinning wheel for making yarn.

“The time of day was ticked off by a clock brought from Michigan.”

On June 10, 1857, the Shakopee Valley Herald printed a small article under the headline “Another Town.” The article noted that “Thomas Holmes, A Holmes and Company have purchased property on Spring Lake and will immediately have the same surveyed off into lots.” It continued “We predict that, in a very short time, this will be a flourishing town, being 7 miles from Shakopee over a good road, will, we have no doubt, induce many of our citizens who want to spend the day fishing, gunning or having a sail on the lakes, to visit this pretty place” according to an article from the Scott County Historical Society, “Spring Lake Village.”

Ten years later, the area had become well known for its natural beauty. In 1867 the Shakopee Spectator ran an article outlining the attractions of the area. “It is not generally known that Scott County can boast some of the most desirable summer resorts, in point of scenery, surroundings, healthfulness and grandeur, that adorns any locality in the country.” It mentioned the village of Spring Lake, then described the excellent fishing in the lakes themselves in detail, declaring that Spring Lake is “nearly round but with an occasional bay jutting out from the main body of water with a beautiful gravel beach the whole way around it”, and Long Lake is “quite appropriately named, being some four or five miles long, with several beautifully wooded islands rising from its bosom. Its shores are uneven, rendered indescribably romantic by numerous bays and coves.”

As more European American settlers came to the area, the farmland became more important. On Sept. 17, 1877, the Shakopee Courier described farming conditions in Spring Lake: “This section is composed of heavily timbered land, so as a result farms are not as large as is the case in open or brushland towns. The farmers, however, raise good crops, particularly as far as wheat is concerned…the corn is not as good, there being so little rainfall.”

According to Mercy, the Dakota Indians were plentiful, and “sometimes the woods seemed full of them.” The Dakota knew enough English to communicate with the settler-colonists, and “when they came to the house and on being asked to sit up and eat did as nicely as anybody.”

Elizabeth, Mercy’s mother, asked one Dakota woman with a two year old child to drink some milk. “She refused, saying, ‘No, no, stomach bad.’ None of the Indians, old or young, would drink milk at all.” And Mercy remembered no one “had to lock up anything as the Indians wouldn’t pilfer anything.”

In 1865, the family moved from Scott County to Dakota County, near Randolph on the Big Cannon River. Because Isaac was a blacksmith by trade, he assisted in building a mill dam at that point. Leaving the area near Shakopee, Isaac and Elizabeth had nine children: Mercy, Dorothy Jane, Rachael, Maria, Elvira, Orland Amos, Perry, Mary, and Sarah, though three died young.

In Randolph, Minnesota, Isaac and Elizabeth had three more children: Benjamin, Joseph, and Rubin.

Mercy never married, and she died May 4, 1934. The funeral service were held May 6, 1934 at the Methodist Church in Randolph, Minnesota, with Rev. W.E. Thompson, and she was buried at the local cemetery, according to Find a Grave.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Maureen Ndidiamaka Onyelobi was born Aug. 4, 1985, on the south side of Chicago to Nigerian parents and two sisters. Maureen always dreamt of becoming a lawyer. That seemed like a tall task for a first-generation Nigerian immigrant who had to relearn how to walk after she was caught in a house fire at age 10, according to Maddie DeBilzan in an article in the Shakopee Valley News on May 21, 2021, called “Inmates at the Shakopee Correctional Facility may soon be able to get their law degrees.”

According to Maureen, since she was a child, she tried to do everything right to make her parents proud. “I graduated at the top of my class in elementary school. In high school, my behavior started to change, but nevertheless, I graduated. I later earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications, and a few years later earned a second Bachelor’s Degree in English literature.”

But all of that changed when she was charged in 2014 with aiding and abetting first-degree premeditated murder in the drug-related shooting of Anthony Fairbanks in Minneapolis. Fairbanks and Maurice Wilson, who at that time was Maureen’s boyfriend, had been indicted in a federal drug case.

“I only lived in Minnesota for eight months before being arrested. I came to this state from Illinois with my ex-boyfriend who sold illegal substances,” said Maureen. “I was leading a sort of double life and it was only a matter of time before my bad decisions caught up with me.” Life with Maurice was hard. He controlled her life. It was an extremely abusive and violent relationship, according to a petition to the governor and others on July 16, 2020.

Maureen was incarcerated on Nov. 14, 2014, and has been at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Shakopee ever since. David Johnson, another heroin dealer, was the one who shot Anthony Fairbanks four times in the head. Maureen was in the vehicle and said she never knew that Anthony would be killed. David Johnson is allowed to be released in 2040, while Maureen was sentenced to life without parole.

Maureen experienced two ineffective counsels, a biased jury, and illegally obtained evidence. Maureen had no knowledge that the murder was going to happen, and her conviction was based off circumstantial and ill-gotten evidence. Maureen has spent her time in prison working, mentoring, gardening, doing restorative justice work, becoming a paralegal, and preparing to begin law school.

Onyelobi’s appeals to have her conviction overturned have been repeatedly denied.

She already took the entrance exam twice before, but it was not a high enough score to get into law school. In prison, Maureen had a tutor who volunteered to help her pass. She got a new job in facilities maintenance at the prison, with nighttime hours so she could study during the day. Finally, she passed the exam.

Since 2014, Maureen has been educating herself on law, and helping others understand their own sentences. “I’ve helped several women with their appeals. It’s rewarding to help other people. I care about others and I feel more worth now than I did before,” said Maureen in the article in the Shakopee Valley News. Nearly 40 percent of individuals admitted to correctional facilities do not have a GED or high school diploma.

She stands taller than six feet, wears bright-white Under Armour tennis shoes, and has a booming laugh you could hear down the hall, said Maddie DeBilzan, “This place is what you make it.”

“God has a reason why he does everything. If I have to stay here forever, I’ll stay here forever,” said Maureen. “But now, I have a sense of pride that I didn’t have when I got here.”

In the Minneapolis Star Tribune article by Rochelle Olson called “State Board of Pardons decides Mitchell Hamline law student can seek parole after 18 more years” on June 29, 2023, noted to a panel, “I just want you to know I’m grateful and I will spend every day trying to make amends for my crime.”

The board unanimously agreed to reduce Onyelobi’s sentence from life without parole to life with the possibility of parole, making her eligible to be considered for release by the state Department of Corrections after 27 years in prison, provided she stays out of trouble. Onyelobi has served nine years in prison, making her potentially eligible for consideration in another 18 years.

And then on June 14, 2022, Maureen learned that she would joined the Mitchell Hamline School of Law. Her studies will mark the nation’s first example of an accredited law school educating an incarcerated student. Her acceptance into the American Bar Association-accredited juris doctor program has been nearly three years in the making. Onyelobi’s historic acceptance follows a path forged by The Prison to Law Pipeline, nonprofit organizations called All Square and Until We Are All Free have partnered with Mitchell-Hamline Law School and the Minnesota Department of Corrections to launch the pipeline program, with the goal of establishing the first American Bar Association-accredited law and paralegal degree opportunities for inmates.

“Mitchell Hamline has a long history of looking for ways to expand the idea of who gets to go to law school,” Anthony Niedwiecki stated in the announcement. “It’s important for people who are incarcerated to better understand the criminal justice system, and this is one important way to do that. Our students will also benefit from having Maureen in class with them.”

Aquarius Ester noted “Maureen Ndidiamaka Onyelobi is the most optimistic, hardworking, ambitious person I know, and despite all the ways she has been disregarded, she remains excited about the future. She is a problem solver, and always speaks up for herself. She just does not quit.”

And while Onyelobi may never get out of prison, the dean is confident her education will benefit herself and others. She is the first law student accepted into an accredited American law school while incarcerated. She won’t be the last.

Whether she’s ever able to put her degree to use outside the prison walls, there is value and dignity in learning, in dreaming, in trying to give something back to the world. There is value, too, in having her there in class, with the next generation of prosecutors and judges who will put legal theory into practice.

“I think our students benefit from studying the law with people who are most affected by the law,” Niedwiecki said. “The law is about people. If we don’t have experiences with a wide range of people, then we don’t have a true understanding of the law…We teach law students how to read the law and study the law.” Mitchell Hamline also wants its students to learn “how to challenge the law, and make the law better and more just.”

Maureen Ndidiamaka Onyelobi “is a remarkably compassionate, kind, talented, dynamic, vibrant woman,” said University of Minnesota Law professor Perry Moriearty.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2024

On May 28, 1918, in Shakopee, John Henry Herman Ablen (1887-1939) and Philomena Catherine Minnie Thiede Ablen (1883-1955) were the proud parents of Marie Agnes. She was the first of the Abeln triplets born, and then Marie’s sister Philamine and finally John arrived. This marked a milestone for the city of Shakopee as the first set of triplets born.

Marie Agnes Abeln’s grandparents were Henry Abeln (1862-1924) and Maria Mary Braun Abeln (1868-1916); and Herman Julius Thiede (1845-1922) and Elizabeth Refinish Thiede (1839-1932).

The Abeln family grew up in the big red house that was across from St. Mark’s Catholic Church. Marie has many fond memories living there with her siblings. She attended school through the eighth grade at St. Mark’s Catholic School.

For most of her working years Marie cleaned homes and maintained yards for several families in Shakopee. She also helped her mother with the family home as well. Marie was excellent with children, especially her nieces and nephews and loved being around them.

In her earlier years, Marie loved to find treasures at area garage sales, play bingo at St. Mark’s Church and at Levee Drive apartments, and watch games shows, especially Wheel of Fortune, The Price is Right, and America’s Funniest Home Videos. In her later years, she enjoyed listening to the polka music show at noon, working in the word search books, and playing cards.

At the age of 92, Marie was entertained watching Monday Night Raw Wrestling!

As little girls and well into their twenties, Marie and her sister, Phil, always dressed alike. This classy style was her foundation throughout her life. Marie loved clothes and jewelry. Dressing in finest clothes and accessorizing with jewelry, Marie always matched from head to toe. Marie had lived with her niece, Monica, where her weekly chore was folding towels for Monica’s Beauty Shop. She took great pride in folding them precisely.

A life-long resident of Shakopee and age 93, Marie, the last of the triplets to pass, entered God’s arms the mid-morning of Sunday, October 2, 2011, at her niece’s home in Shakopee.

Marie will always be loved and missed deeply by her nieces and nephews, Donald Schultz, Mary Hallich, Kathleen Siler, Anita (Tom) Roeser, Monica (Delton) Giese, Elise (Les) Guthrie, Peter Schultz, Joe Schultz, Donna (Kenny) Theis, Charlie (Lil) Abeln and many, many great- and great-great nieces and nephews. She is also survived by two very special and dear caregivers, Mary Danner and Chris Thon; and hospice caregivers, Ann, Tamra, Deanna and Chaplain Tanya. Marie is preceded in death by her parents, John and Minnie; sister, Elizabeth (Don) Schultz; triplet brother, John (Marge) Abeln; triplet sister, Philamine “Phil” (Kerney) Hennen; infant brother, Peter Abeln; niece, Phyllis Schultz, grand-nephew, John Abeln, Larry Theis, and Scott Hallich.

Pallbearers were Peter Schultz, Charles Abeln, Kenny Theis, Thomas Roeser, Delton Giese and Darren Giese. Honorary pallbearers were her caregivers, Mary Danner and Chris Thon.

The funeral was at St. Mark’s Catholic Church on Oct. 6. Marie Agnes Abeln was laid to rest next to her parents at the Catholic Cemetery in Shakopee.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper _______.

On Jan. 5, 1939, teenage sisters, Lorraine and Catherine arrived home from school and found baby Margaret Ann, a secret their parents, John Sarazin and Genevieve Scharf Sarazin had been keeping from them for months.

Born and raised in Shakopee, the Sarazin family grew up on a farm currently where the car wash and the Ballard-Sunder Funeral Home are located.

Marge’s parents were John Jack Christ Sarazin (1897-1984) and Genevieve Gertrude Scharf Sarazin (1906-1994). Her grandparents were Pierre Peter Louis Sarazin (1847-1912) and Katherina Schmitt Sarazin (1863-1924); and Louis Nicholas Scharf (1861-1951) and Augusta Haase Scharf (1861-1948).

Margaret attended school through the eighth grade before returning home to help her parents on the farm. In later years, the Sarazin family was honored to have a street in Shakopee named after them.

Through the years, Margaret ventured down many career paths. She waitressed at several restaurants, was a factory line inspector, and worked at Mystic Lake Casino.

But she took her caring and loving personality and assisted the elderly at Friendship Manor Nursing Home, drove school bus for people with disabilities, and provided daycare for children in the community and grandchildren. Margaret was most proud of dedicating her life to be a wife, mother, grandma, and great-grandma.

Margaret married Glen Trebesch in the late 1950s. From this union, she was blessed with five precious children, Deb, Ronnie, Scott, LeNita and Janelle. Unfortunately, Margaret and Glen parted ways. Her life was once again enriched with love meeting Dennis Elftmann. On Aug. 24, 1985 in the flower gardens of Eagan, Margaret and Dennis were married. She opened up her arms to Dennis’s four wonderful children, Jan, Sandra, Daniel and David. Through the years, Margaret’s life was greatly blessed with 14 grandchildren and soon to be 11 great-grandchildren. The family will always be her greatest pride and passion.

In Margaret’s spare time, she enjoyed cranking up polka music, watching the polka program at noon, and most of all polka dancing. An avid Minnesota Twins fan, Margaret also enjoyed playing cards, sending greeting cards for every occasion, enjoying the activities at the cabin in Palisade and traveling in the PT Cruiser.

She was known for her delicious pumpkin bread, the countless hours on genealogy research, and the love for her animals. Margaret is best remembered as a major icon in the racing profession. For decades, she supported and participated in the racing business at Raceway Park in Shakopee. Margaret was a permanent fixture at the track and everyone loved her. In more recent years, Margaret finished the second volume of the race track’s history.

A faithful woman, Margaret had a great memory and knew everyone by name. She was a woman of forgiveness and always looked past your faults or disappointments. Margaret had a spirited personality of sassiness, awesomeness and a strong temperament.

“One thing I loved about Marge was when she would call you, you knew the conversation was going to be more than a half hour, so you had to make sure you had your drink ready cause getting away from her was not easy,” said Cathi Nelson. “This wonderful lady had many stories and she was always willing to share.”

Don Pizzella noted, “Marge will be missed by many of the Wednesday Senior Old Time Dance group. Marge loved to dance, listen to Polka music, and share in the fun at dances all around the area. She had danced to most all of the popular bands in this area throughout her life. KCHK was her favorite radio station, and her collection of Polka CDs must be as large as her collection of Raceway tidbits. Enjoyed dancing with her over the last few years, she was a fun, honest, generous person.”

Noted John and Mary Ostdiiek, “Marge was a very special lady. Her devotion to Raceway Park was much appreciated especially for all her hard work documenting the history through her books. We will miss her smile and outgoing personality.”

A devoted resident of Shakopee and a strong supporter of the Shakopee Heritage Society, Margaret Ann Marge Sarazin Trebesch Elftmann passed away peacefully in the presence of her family, at her home the morning of Monday, May 2, 2016. She was laid to rest with her husband at the Shakopee Catholic Cemetery.

Margaret’s legacy will live on in her beloved family that will truly miss her deeply.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2024

Mary Crooks, Mahkahta-Heiya-Wiŋ, meaning “Woman Who Goes on the Earth,” was born in Thaóyate Dúta (Little Crow) village of Kapożia (within the present city limits of South St. Paul) May 13, 1836. Her father was Waukon Wah-Kano-Zhah-Zhah or Medicine Bottle (1831-1865), and her mother was a Winnebago woman.

Near the time of the Treaty of 1837, the Kapożia village was moved from the east to the west side of the river. In 1853 the people of Kapożia were again required to move because of the Treaty of Mendota, which opened the land west of the Mississippi to white settlers. As a result, the Mdewakanton migrated to a Minnesota River reservation over the next two years. Mahkahta-Heiya-Wiŋ Mary Crabby Crooks and the rest of the Kapożia band moved to the reservation on the upper Minnesota River, established for them by the 1851 treaties of Mendota and Traverse Des Sioux.

Mahkahta-Heiya-Wiŋ married John Crooks, or Tukon-Wa-Cha-sta, meaning “Sacred Stone Man.” She and her husband converted to Christianity and lived near the Lower Sioux Agency.

In a book written by Urania S. White called Captivity Among The Sioux August 18 to September 26, 1862 told the story of the woman who was captured on Aug. 18, 1862 and held until she was freed on Sept. 26, 1862 at Camp Release, Minnesota.

Nathan and Urania Frazer White and their children, Eugene, Julia, Millard, and Frank came to the Beaver Creek area of Renville County on June 28, 1862, just three months before the U.S.-Dakota War began. The Whites’ cabin was set in a location at the base of the bluff over Beaver Creek, about two miles from the junction of the creek and the Minnesota River.

On Aug. 18, 1862, Nathan was on his way to a political meeting that day in Owatonna. Their neighbors, 27 men, women and children, gathered at the home of Jonathan Earle nearby. They hitched their wagons to horses and headed for safety at Fort Ridgely. Soon, the Dakota rose up from the tall grasses, surrounded the settler-colonists and took all their belongings leaving them with only one wagon. The fleeing party had gone only a short distance when the Dakota opened fire on the men pulling the wagon. Eugene was killed, and Urania, Julia and Frank were taken hostage.

Mahkahta-Heiya-Wiŋ helped Urania and her infant son, Frank, to her tipi, and she and her husband protected them and five other captives from harm until they were turned over to Sibley’s army at Camp Release.

Following the U.S.-Dakota War, Mahkahta-Heiya-Wiŋ and her family were in the Dakota camp at Fort Snelling. On the journey to Ft. Snelling in the fall of 1862, their caravan was attacked by white settlers at New Ulm, and one of Mahkahta-Heiya-Wiŋ’s sons was killed. In the spring of 1863, the camp was relocated to the Crow Creek reservation in Dakota Territory. By 1866-67, due to the unsuitable conditions at Crow Creek, the Dakotas were removed to the Santee reservation in northeastern Nebraska.

The Crooks family and others eventually left Santee and returned to settle near their old homes on the upper Minnesota River. Mahkahta-Heiya-Wiŋ died at the Dakota settlement near Morton, Minnesota on May 5, 1899, and she was buried in Redwood Falls at St. Cornelia’s Episcopal Church Cemetery.

Tukon Wa-Cha-Sta Sacred Stoneman John Crooks died Dec. 27, 1899 and was buried near his wife.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2024

Lucy Prescott was born April 1, 1828 in Tiŋta-otoŋwe (Shakopee), Minnesota. Her parents were Philander Prescott (1801-1862) and Na-he-no-Wenah Spirit of the Moon Mary Keeiyah Prescott (1802-1867).

Lucy’s maternal grandparents were Catherine Totedutawin, a Wahpeton Dakota, and sister of Wapahaṡa, and Keeiyah (Flying Man), brother of Maȟpíya Wičhášta (Cloudman).

Lucy married Eli Pettijohn on Jan. 1, 1850, at Fort Snelling. According to newspapers at that time, it was the highlight of the Fort Snelling social season.

Eli Pettijohn, born Jan. 28, 1819, in Ohio, was son of Abraham Pettijohn and Jane Sloan. When Eli was just 22 years old, he accompanied his parents on their migration to Illinois in 1840, and then Eli struck out for himself, turned his face westward and, perhaps because his sister, Lydia, and her husband were in Minnesota as Presbyterian missionaries to the Dakota Indians, crossed the plains to what was then an outpost of civilization near the present site of the city of Minneapolis.

He had been in Minnesota since 1841, working as a laborer, carpenter, and a farmer among the Dakota, first for missionaries, and later for the government. Minnesota was at that time a part of the territory of Wisconsin and eight years were to elapse before it could be organized as a territory, and seventeen years before it became a state. It is almost impossible to realize it now, but at the time Eli went into the territory, Minneapolis was known as St. Anthony Falls and was a struggling village of a white traders and Dakota Indians. St. Paul was a settlement of four houses.

The country abounded with fur-bearing animals and a profitable business was carried on by the white traders with the Dakota Indians, who exchanged their furs for supplies. Upon his arrival in Minnesota the first employment which Eli had was assisting his sister, Lydia, and her husband, Alexander G. Huggins, and other missionaries in their dealings with the Dakota Indians. He was employed in the Commissary Department of the Government in furnishing supplies, building houses and in trying to teach the Dakota Indians to farm after the fashion of the white man (even though the Dakota women were already doing just fine with planting without the white men’s suggestions!).

During his service with the government, Eli was stationed at Fort Snelling, and it was while there that his prophetic vision gave him a preview of things to come. He foresaw the up building of a great city near that place. He purchased large tracts of land from Franklin Steele who acted under what he maintained was a “grant from the government.” Eli erected a commodious residence, and numerous barns for his thoroughbred horses, and improved the property.

The wedding ceremony at Fort Snelling in 1850 was performed by Rev. Edward D. Neill, and guests included the officers in full uniform, their wives, the United States Agent for the Dakotas, and family, the Bois-Brûlés of the neighborhood, and Indian relatives of the mother, according to Naginowenah, Lucy Prescott, and the Wizard of Cereal Foods: Cultural Identity across Three Generations of an Anglo-Dakota Family by Jane Lamm Carroll, Minnesota History, 63/2, Summer 2012.

According to Carroll, the ceremony presented a “symbolic tableau of the cultural transition that was taking place from one generation to the next in Lucy Prescott’s family. Her Dakota relatives viewed the wedding from the hallway, not as full guests or participants, but as interested observers—and also as a people whose culture Lucy was leaving farther behind as she married an Anglo-American.

“Naginowenah, Lucy’s mother, did not attend the ceremony. She may be mourning the loss of the Dakota way of life for her daughter. Despite Naginowenah’s 40-year marriage to Philander Prescott, she only spoke the Dakota language, although she perfectly understood both French and English. Naginowenah’s daughter, Lucy Prescott, lived as a Dakota child, but she brought up to be an Anglo-American woman. She spoke Dakota, but was also fluent and literate in English. She raised her children as Anglo-Americans.”

In 1862, Lucy’s father was one of the first people killed during the U.S.-Dakota War. Philander tried to flee to Fort Ridgely while a group of Dakota warriors, including Dakota leaders Ṡakpedaŋ and Wakaŋ Ożaŋżaŋ, encountered Philander on the road and killed him. Lucy later said she had heard that the two Dakota had argued about killing her father; one of them said that Prescott had “always been a friend to the Indians.”

Lucy and Eli had seven children.

The first mill in the town of Sha K’ Pay, Minnesota Territory (later called Shakopee) was located on the same stream that the ruins of the Pond Grist Mill was located, but further west. The Pettijohn Grist Mill was just below the Faribault home, near where the current Dangerfield’s is located.

Eli and Lucy built this mill, which was one of the first mills ever to be built within the state of Minnesota. The wheel of this mill was supposed to be an overshot one, but later it was discovered that the level of the water could not be raised enough, so the wheel was converted into a breast wheel. It was probably built in 1852-1853. It was here, as well as the mill he built near Minnehaha Creek near Lake Harriet in 1854 called Richfield Mills with his father-in-law Philander Prescott and his brother, Willis, where he developed the first processed and packaged breakfast food in the world.

Eli and Lucy built their home on that land near Fort Snelling, and the dwelling was the talk of all that part of Minnesota in that early day. The house was built on a stone foundation, two and one-half stories high, had a square brick chimney, with two large fireplaces, and contained twelve large rooms. When the Civil War started, the property around Fort Snelling, including the part occupied by Eli and Lucy, was taken over for government purposes. No compensation was given.

Eli and his son, William, headed to California, and when Eli returned home, William used Eli’s recipes to make a breakfast cereal, but by 1893, in ways sold to Quaker Oats Company. The company kept Eli Pettijohn’s image in ads ever since, according to The Fireless Cooker; Something of the Pettijohn (Pettyjohn) Family by C.A. Pettijohn © 1948, and privately published.

Lucy Prescott Pettijohn died Dec. 18, 1910 in Minnetonka, near their house near Minnehaha Creek, at age 81.

Eli was of strong physique and when nearly eighty years of age supervised the installation of the machinery in big flour mills at Minneapolis. At the age of ninety he died May 18, 1918 in Minnetonka Mills, now called Excelsior, at aged 96.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2024

Louise Ellen Bluestone St. Pierre Smith was born Aug. 13, 191910,n Paxton Township, Redwood County, Minnesota. Her parents were Samuel Mazakoksidan Hezakamani Bluestone (1860-1923) and Louise Mary Tunigaanhdinaji Robinson Stoops Bluestone (1858-1932).

Louise’s grandparents were Tukantiouccya Bluestone (1828-1904) and Haliestone Anna Josephine Makahdegawiŋ Allen Bluestone (1830-1910); and Thomas Charles Tom Tanka Robinson (1842-1870) and Mary Janes Wigiwiŋ Wakute Redwing (1845-1880).

According to an article, “Louise Smith: A Fighter dies-but her feud lives on” by Maura Lerner from the Minneapolis Star Tribune on May 25, 1996, she still arrived in the small mobile home she moved into long before the casino brought her wealth. Each tribal member received more than $600,000 a year in casino profits. Louise Ellen Bluestone St. Pierre Smith, who spent most of her life in poverty, gave away most of her newfound wealth.

But she didn’t shy away from a good fight.

“I don’t need or want money. I just want my tribe back,” she said in the article by Maura Lerner. “I’m worried about my people, and I want to die knowing that we can be an honest, humble, and sharing tribe of Indians again, not just a bunch of money hungry monsters out to take from each other, and to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world.”

Leonard Prescott was chairman of Little Six, Inc., the gaming enterprise owned and operated by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux (Dakota) Community. The phenomenal success of Mystic Lake (launched under Prescott’s leadership) has made the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community the largest employer in Scott County and a major philanthropic force. Leonard was tribal chairman starting in 1984 and continued until he lost the re-election to his cousin, Stanley Crooks, who took over in 1993.

Louise supported Prescott, and so she became embroiled in a long string of court fights and lawsuits challenging Crooks, who had the members voted on the issue repeatedly, and everyone on the membership rolls were legitimate.

The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community tribal members approved a new constitution that dramatically changed tribal government and expanded membership. It eliminated the blood quantum which requires a person to prove they have 25 percent Indian blood and changed to a system based on family lineage.

It measured the amount of “Indian blood” you have. It can affect your identity, your relationships and whether you — or your children — may become a citizen of your tribe. According to “So What Exactly Is ‘Blood Quantum’?”The Code Switch Podcast by Kat Chow, Feb. 9, 2018, blood quantum was initially a system that the federal government placed onto tribes to limit their citizenship. How tribes use blood quantum varies from tribe to tribe.

Blood quantum minimums really restrict who can be a citizen of a tribe. If you’ve got 25 percent Dakota blood — according to that tribe’s blood quantum standards — and you have children with someone who has a lower blood quantum, those kids won’t be able to enroll.

The federal government, and specifically the Department of the Interior, issues what is called a “Certified Degree of Indian Blood,” and that is a card like an ID card. So, the way that blood quantum is calculated is by using tribal documents, and usually it’s a tribal official or a government official that calculates it.

Blood quantum really emerges to trace race between generations. According to Elizabeth Rule, the blood quantum works through another example that people may be more familiar with — and that’s the ‘one drop rule.’ Blood quantum emerged to measure “Indian-ness” through a construct of race. So that over time, Indians would literally breed themselves out and rid the federal government of their legal duties to uphold treaty obligations.

Tribes today had to adapt, and blood quantum for some tribes in their view has been a way to preserve their community. It is the tribe’s sovereign right to determine their own membership and whether that involves a blood quantum minimum or lineal descent system.

The last 25 years of her life was spent on the feud. The fight had gone on for more than a generation.

Louise died Sunday, May 19, 1996 at the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community at age 85, the eldest member of the community in 1996.

The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community sent a representative to her funeral, and ordered all flags on the reservation lowered to half-staff in her memory.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2024

Katherina Mechtel was born Aug. 22, 1839, in Heiderscheid, Canton de Wiltz, Diekirch, Luxembourg.

Katherina’s parents were Jean John Mechtel (1810-1878) and Cathérine Malget Mechtel (1885). Her grandparents were Nicolas Mechtel (1779-1836) and Catherina Draut Mechtel (1778-1839); and Nicolas Malget (1765-1836) and Marguerite Siebenaer Malget (1769-1807).

According to an article, “The Mechtels and the Leaders: An Extended Family Comes to Wisconsin” from ancestry.com, Katherina’s parents, John and Catharina and the family of five children (including Katherina) arrived in the United States in 1846. They had come from the village of Heiderscheid, Canton Wiltz, Luxembourg. Heiderscheid is located high above the Lake of the Upper Sûre.

John was born and baptized there on Oct. 11, 1811. In his baptismal record he was named Joannes Vinandi Mechtel, after his godfather, Jean Vinandi, who was the mayor of Heiderscheid at the time. Because Luxembourg had come under the rule of revolutionary France in 1795, his name was spelled Jean on his civil birth and marriage records.

Although Luxembourg was set up as a grand duchy in 1814 ruled by the Netherlands, the French influence remained, mingling with the earlier German influence.

Catharina Malget (also spelled Malliet), five years older than John Mechtel, was born in Heiderscheid Sept. 10, 1805. She and John were married there on May 1, 1830, and had eight children born to them, three of whom died in infancy. A ninth child was born in Wisconsin.

The birth records for the daughters of the family show a naming pattern which is quite confusing. The first two were named Anna Katharina and Anna Maria, respectively. Then came another Catharina, born in 1834, died in 1836. The fourth daughter and fifth child, born in 1839, was again named Catharina. Next, in 1841, arrived Marie who died in 1844. The sixth daughter and child number eight, born in 1846, was named Maria Katharina, but was later to become known as Margaret. The seventh daughter, born April 30, 1849, in Wisconsin, and baptized Anna Katharina on May 3, 1849, became known as Katharina, or Kate. She was later to marry Henry Ditter.

Also arriving in the United States in 1846, possibly on the same ship, were the families of two of the sisters of John. They included William and Katharina Mechtel Leider and their two children, Mathias, born Nov. 2, 1843, and Margareta, born April 2, 1846. The mother of William, Margareta, also came with two small Leider children, Margareta, age 5, and Katharina, about 3, possibly the orphaned nieces of William.

The second sister of John arriving in this country was Anna Marie Mechtel Leider, with her husband, Mathias Leider, probably the brother of William.

The families settled in the town of Belgium, Wisconsin, in a community called Holy Cross, or Helleg Kräiz in Luxembourgish. It was located about six miles from Port Washington. The first church in Holy Cross, a log structure, was already standing when they arrived. In the early days the Angelus was sounded on a shepherd’s horn, since there was no money for a church bell.

In Holy Cross, William Leider and his wife had two more children. They were John, born August 1848, who died the same day as his birth, and Anna, born July 14, 1849. Mathias died at Holy Cross in February 1848; his wife, Anna Marie Mechtel Leider, died July 14, 1849.

The 1850 U.S. Census for the town of Belgium, Wisconsin, lists John and Catherine Mechtel (misspelled Mecotel) with four of their children living with them. John, a farmer, was noted to have real estate valued at $450 at this time. The two oldest daughters, Anna Katharina and Anna Maria, had married. Anna Maria and her husband, John Bartholet (spelled Bartlet in the census), who married on June 3, 1850, were enumerated in Port Washington, Wisconsin.

The Mechtel family moved to Marystown (Louisville Township), Scott County, Minnesota, about 1854 or 1855. According to the 1860 federal census, the John Mechtel family had only two children yet living at home. They were Margaret, age 14, (the eighth child, baptized Maria Katharina) and Catherine, age 11 (the ninth child, baptized Anna Katharina). John had real estate valued at $600, his personal property at $500.

In the 1870 U.S. Census, John and Katharina Mechtel (listed as Johan and Katrina) were living with their son, Mathias, his wife, Katrina (Catherine Nachtsheim), and their two children, John and Nicholas. John Mechtel died March 2, 1878, in Marystown.

Katherina was still living with her son, Mathias, and his family of now seven children in 1880. She died July 10, 1885, also at Marystown. Both John and Katherina Mechtel are buried at St. Mary Cemetery in Marystown.

Katherina Mechtel Grommesch, who married John Baptist Grommesch, died in January 1872 in Marystown. She was buried at the cemetery in Marystown.