Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

Joe Jenn was orphaned as a child.

He worked on road construction crews and for Union Carbide before he took charge of maintenance for the K-12 Shakopee school.

He lived in Shakopee for 66 years.

Clifford Thibodeau remembered, “Joe was a great guy! I remember being in 5^th grade, if I remember right. Me and some other boys were asking him about his job. I don’t know if he was supposed to, but he showed us areas of the school that may have normally been off limits to students, like the boiler room, and the pretty big basement the school had. In all the years I went to that school, he was always such a good humored guy!”

Barb Stein also remembered Joe. “He was so cool, he would let us play with his retractable key chain, zing, zing, zing, the patience of a saint.”

“When we talk about Joe I always smile. I remember when we moved to Shakopee my sophomore year, my parents just had me walk to school and register myself. Joe was out cleaning the sidewalk and could tell I was lost. He took the time to walk me to the office,” said Marilyn Rein.

Joe Jenn recalled growing up in Shakopee. “Shakopee was really a community by itself, cut off by the Minnesota River and the river bottoms. Back in the 1930s, the town was a little Las Vegas!”

“We had 33 beer joints at one time and notorious nightclubs like Rock Springs and the Riviera. People, including gangsters, came here for booze, women, and gambling; the mayor, sheriff, and city councilmen went along with it all.

“Then Luther Youngdahl became governor of the state, and told the sheriff to clean up his town.”

Joe said, “A garage was established on Lewis Street. In the rear door of the alley was a receiving depot for boxes of liquor.”

Joe Jenn noted, “There was also a bottling works in town; they delivered bottles of pop to St. Paul and return with bottles of whiskey,” according to an interview in Midwest Highways and Bywaysby Alice M. Vollmar in the Summer of 1999. Rufus Jarman, in the Saturday Evening Post, noted in 1947, “In the Twin Cities region, Governor Youngdahl’s law enforcement is felt most emphatically at Shakopee, a small town about twenty miles away, where residents of Minneapolis and St. Paul used to go for their Sunday cocktails, which they couldn’t buy at home, and to dine at one of several restaurants that featured thick steaks and slot machines.”

Deputy Sheriff J.P. Wermerskirchen was appointed acting sheriff and for a time the slot machines all disappeared. Sheriff Wermerskirchen and W. B. Rip Schroeder had a raid on October 1941

But over time, they found their way back.

By 1951, eighteen years after the end of Prohibition, Shakopee’s reputation as Little Chicago finally came to an end.

Joe Jenn died in 1999.

Bibliography

Vollmar, Alice M. Midwest Highways and Byways, Summer 1999.

Jarman, Rufus. Saturday Evening Post, 1947.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Ruth Gardner (1933)

Ruth Gardner. Or Laura Jensen. Or Ruth Redtke, or Ruth Warner.

She escaped from the State Reformatory for Women in Shakopee on Feb. 20, 1933.

Ruth was 22 years old, 5’6 5/8” and 109 pounds. She has light brown hair, hazel eyes, and a sallow complexion.

Ruth was a clever forger. She operated in Ohio, Michigan, and Minnesota.

She always presented her victims with a fraudulent letter from an insurance company. The forged check was usually for about $70.

If you find Ruth, apprehend and deliver her to an officer of the Minnesota State Reformatory for Women in Shakopee. You will get a $25 reward!

Thumbing a Ride (1948)

On Aug. 21, 1948, at 8 p.m., a woman escaped from the reformatory in Shakopee.

She was working in the fields, made her way to the Holmes Street Bridge, and crossed to the north end.

She started to thumb a ride.

John P. Wermerkirschen pulled up, and the woman got into the car. As he drove, Wermerskirchen asked her name.

“None of your business!” she responded. “What is YOUR name?”

The driver answered, short and sweet, “You’ll be surprised. I am the sheriff.”

Her ride ended shortly after…back to the reformatory!

Lucille Keppen Released from Prison at Age 93 (2007)

“Does it hurt?” Lucille said. “I really want it to hurt because you hurt me so deeply, and I was so good to you.”

Lucille Keppen, age 88, shot Stephen Flesche in 2002.

The inmates nicknamed her “Grandma.”

When she got out at age 93, the first thing she wanted to do was go to Perkins!

Lucille was the oldest prisoner of the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Shakopee.

Teen Murderer Flees Jail to See the Smashing Pumpkins (1998)

Seventeen-year-old Pamela D. Keary really wanted to see the Smashing Pumpkins.

She was serving a 12-year sentence for second-degree murder.

She joined 100,000 fans to see the show at the Hennepin Avenue Block Party.

She was arrested at midnight and removed to the segregated unit.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2024

Charles August Manaige was born December 7, 1847, in Madison, Wisconsin. His father, Pierre Manaige, was a native of France, and his mother, Angelique Decora Manaige, was part-Winnebago, or Ho-Chunk Indian.

Charles and his family came to Minnesota in the early 1840s. His father was an interpreter for the government, sent to avoid bloodshed and disputes in the territory. The Winnebago first settled at what is now Long Prairie in Todd County. Charlie remembered that he never had seen a white man, except his father, until he was about six years old.

According to Charlie, “We had few guns and the bow and arrow was the principal weapon. We were able to shoot any kind of game…buffalo to geese and ducks. The older braves occasionally gave us pointers and we soon equaled many of them as marksmen. Marksmanship was considered a great accomplishment and we used to have target practice and prize matches. We would drive a short stick in the ground, about an inch wide, and shoot at sticks about four feet long, with crooks at one end. Strings were strung across the crook in such a manner as to form a shallow basket. A home-made ball about the size of a baseball was used. The players would line up on two sides of a field, and the object of the game was to send the ball across the goal behind the opposite players,” said Charlie Manaige.

Charlie remembered the thrilling dances, usually in honor of the various Winnebago gods. “I recall that when I was a small boy, my mother’s youngest brother was kicked by a pony just before a dance, and was unable to take part. His humiliation was so great that he killed himself. One of the chief gods of the Winnebago was the Thunder Bird, who was supposed to control the elements. When storms raged, dances were held to appease the wrath of the Thunder Bird,” noted Charlie Manaige. Thunderbirds are powerful and warlike avian spirits who animate the gray clouds with thunder and lightning. Together with the Waterspirits, they were the first spirits that Earthmaker created. Their name, Wak’âdja, means “Divine Ones.”

On January 25, 1846, wearing high-heeled boots to give him the required height, Charles A. Manaige enlisted in the U.S. Army. He served as a private in Company F, First Regiment, Minnesota Heavy Artillery under the command of Captain Hugh J. Owens.

First Minnesota Regiment of Heavy Artillery units were intended to man large guns used in fortifications. They were organized into regiments of twelve companies (sometimes referred to as batteries) and commonly had up to 1,000 men. Charles was in Company F. Because of their size some of these units were taken from garrison duty and converted into infantry. Most were used as garrison troops, and this was the case with the First Minnesota Heavy Artillery. The regiment was recruited in the summer of 1864 and included re-enlisted veterans from other Minnesota units. As soon as organized, each company was sent to Chattanooga, Tennessee where it formed part of the garrison for this strategic point. The regiment remained there until the fall of 1865 when the last companies were mustered out of service.

Charles was honorably discharged in Nashville, Tennessee eight months later, on September 27, 1865.

After the war, Charlie farmed near St. Clair and later operated a butcher shop. He also spent some time at Mankato. As a young man, he visited the Shakopee vicinity frequently, and on July 30, 1870, Charles A. Manaige married Pelagie Eliza Faribault.

They lived in Shakopee for the rest of their lives.

Charles and Pelagie had four children, two sons and two daughters. Isabelle was born in 1871, and married Harvey Randolph Leach in Des Moines, Iowa. They had nine children. Melvin was born in 1872 and died April 12, 1931. He married and lived in Brooklyn, New York. Eugene Curtis was born 1874 and died of tuberculosis in 1903. Grace was born in 1876 and died at Friendship Manor in November 1966.

A familiar figure, Charlie was endeared to young and old. The old veteran, riding in his horse-drawn carriage, made daily trips from his home at the east part of the city to do the family shopping. No matter what the weather, Charlie still would visit downtown Shakopee. Not so many years back, Charlie could be seen morning, noon, and later afternoon, with his grandchildren seated beside him in the carriage, going and coming from the grade school. The duty was one of his greatest pleasures, and the pleasure was vividly recorded on his beaming face, according to Scott County Argus, January 29, 1903.

Charles, at age 82 years old, became the Paul Revere of Shakopee in December 1929. He was driving in town in his horse and buggy when he heard the opening volley of shots happening at the First National Bank. Hightailing the old mare up the main street in Shakopee, he gave the alarm. Charlie was in grave danger of being hit by the barrage of bullets that swept the main street, but he still continued his heroic dash.

Almost ten years later, Charlie had a severe cold which was developed into pneumonia. For several days he was confined to his bed at home, and as his condition became critical, he was moved to the Veteran’s Hospital in Minneapolis, where he died.

Charles A. Manaige, Shakopee’s 91-year-old Civil War veteran, the sole surviving member of General Shield’s Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, died in January 1938. His funeral was at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, with Father Michael McRaith officiating. Interment was at the Valley Cemetery beside his wife, Pelagie Faribault Manaige. Most businesses were closed during the funeral as Shakopee saluted the old soldier.

Bibliography

Scott County Argus, 19 Jan. 1903.

PDF Brochure

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Eleanor Gates was born September 26, 1874, in Eagle Creek Township, which is now part of Shakopee. Her father was William Cummings Gates, and her mother was Margaret Ann Archer. Eleanor was an American playwright who created seven plays that were staged on Broadway. Her best-known work was the play The Poor Little Rich Girl.

Eleanor remembered growing up in Eagle Creek, Shakopee, and Dakota Territory, and she later described her early life in her novel The Biography of a Prairie Girl, which she wrote in 1902:

“Up and down the oxen toiled before the plow, licking their tongues, as they went along, for wisps of the sweet, new grass which the old-board was turning under. After them came the biggest brother, striving with all his might to keep the beam level and the handles from dancing as the steel share cut the sod into wide, thick ribbons, damp and black on one side, on the other green and decked with flowers.

“And, following the biggest brother, trotted the little girl, who from time to time left the cool furrow to run ahead and give the steers a lash of the gad she carried, or hopped to one side to keep the stepping with her bare feet upon the fat earthworms that were rolled out into the sunlight, where they were pounced upon by rivaling blackbirds circling in the rear.”

Gates remembered growing up in Shakopee and the Dakota Territory. “I do not exaggerate the somber side of prairie life, nor do I exaggerate the joys,” Gates is quoted as saying in newspaper articles. “I believe that the country child grows old sooner than the city child, because the country child often does manual labor of a heavy kind when he or she is not physically able to do it. The plainswoman is frequently gray and worn at thirty-eight or forty; the plainsman is often bent, impaired in sight by the sun, and old at forty-five. I do not say that this is always so, but it is commonly so.”

When she was a young girl, she moved to the Dakota Territory. From there, Eleanor moved to California for college. Gates married another playwright, Richard Walton Tully, in 1901 after they had both completed their studies at the University of California, in Berkeley.

Gates had worked initially as a writer for a newspaper in San Francisco, as well as writing novels. In 1907, one of her novels was illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Her best-known work was the play The Poor Little Rich Girl, which was produced by her husband in 1913. Tully divorced her in 1914 citing desertion, which Gates admitted.

Before Gates’s divorce had been finalized, she married another divorcé, Frederick Ferdinand Moore, in Paterson, New Jersey, in October 1914. In 1916 they separated when they both realized that they were not legally married.

At the beginning of 1915, Gates founded the Liberty Feature Film Company, which was said by Motion Picture News to be the only film company to be owned and managed by women. The company was led by the wife of an Alaskan businessman, Sadir Lindblom. In the year that it existed the company created several two-reel films.

The first film, produced in 1917, was The Poor Little Rich Girl, which starred Mary Pickford. Shirley Temple starred in the 1936 remake of the same name. The new film had made two million dollars by the end of 1939.

Eleanor Gates died March 7, 1951, at Los Angeles County General Hospital. But she is remembered as a writer from Eagle Creek Township in Shakopee!

Bibliography

Gates, Eleanor. The Biography of a Prairie Girl, 1902.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Pelagie Eliza Faribault, daughter of Oliver Faribault and Wakan Yaŋke Wiŋ (or Woman Who Sits at the High Place), was born at the parents’ log cabin in East Shakopee, the same log cabin which is now in The Landing in Shakopee. Wakan Yaŋke Wiŋ was pregnant when they built and established the trading post in 1844, and Eliza, as she was called, was born on August 27, 1845, the sixth of nine children.

Eliza grew up with her three sisters, Mary Josephine (Jessie), Jane Luce, and Sarah Iréne, in the cabin and adjacent warehouse which was built on the west side of what was later called Faribault Springs, using tamarack logs which were obtained from a swamp nearby. Because Oliver was part Dakota, and Wakan Yaŋke Wiŋ was Dakota, so was Eliza. The French and Métis people called this area Prairie des Français (French Prairie), along the Rivière Saint-Pierre.

Eliza remembered about her early life, including the bark huts, called tipi tanka, and tipi. Her father conducted a trading post in Tínṫa Otuŋwe, in the area now called Shakopee.

She remembered her father conducting a trading post for a few years, and building a warehouse in which he stored furs purchased from the Dakota Indians.

She only faintly remembered her father, as he died in the fall of 1850, when Eliza was 4 ½ years old. Eliza remembered the gaudy trinkets that were available to the Dakota Indians.

An Indian trail passed south of the Faribault Trading Post and cabin in Tínṫa Otuŋwe, and Eliza remembered watching the processions of ponies with packs strapped to their backs and long dog trains, each load drawn by four to eight or more dogs. Furs and skins formed the bulk of the freight. Later the ponies and dogs were replaced by six oxen and long trains of two-wheeled Red River carts. Eliza could still remember the ear-piercing squeaks of the poorly lubricated wooden axles that heralded the approach of the trains.

Eliza attended school in a little log schoolhouse near their home. When she was 14 years old, she was taken to Québec City, where she attended a school conducted by the Ursuline nuns at Monastère des Ursulines de Québec. It is the oldest institution of learning for women in North America. Eliza remembered, “We traveled from Faribault to Hastings by stage, and took a steamboat to La Crosse. From La Crosse we traveled by train and it was the first time I ever rode on a railroad train. I don’t remember the cities we went through, but I clearly recall our arrival at Québec. It all seemed unreal to me as I had never before been away from the frontier…” Eliza attended school at Monastère des Ursulines de Québec for two terms, and then returned home.

As they grew into womanhood, the four Faribault young adults, including Eliza, entered the social whirl of the frontier. “We had violin music and sometimes there were accordions,” said Eliza, “and we used to dance square dances, waltzes, and Virginia reel and the fireman’s dance.”

As a young woman, Eliza was often visited by Charles A. Manaige, whose father, Pierre Manaige, was a native of France, and his mother was part-Winnebago, or Ho-Chunk Indian. On July 30, 1870, Charles A. Manaige married Pelagie Eliza Faribault in Mankato. They returned to Shakopee, where they spent their lives.

Pelagie and Charles had four children, two sons and two daughters. Isabelle was born in 1871, married Harvey Randolph Leach in Des Moines, Iowa, and they had nine children. Melvin was born in 1872 and died April 12, 1931. He married and lived in Brooklyn, New York. Eugene Curtis was born 1874 and died of tuberculosis in 1903. Grace was born in 1876 and died at Friendship Manor in Shakopee in November of 1966.

Pelagie Eliza Faribault Manaige died on December 1, 1937. She is buried at the Valley Cemetery in Shakopee, Minnesota.

Charles August Manaige died on January 22, 1938, and is buried next to Eliza.

Related Articles

• Pelagie Eliza Faribault Manaige

By David Schleper

William Louis “Bill” Quinn was born near Coldwater Springs near Fort Snelling, Minnesota on November 4, 1828. His father was Peter Quinn, who was an Irish immigrant who married Ineyahwin, also known as Mary Louisa Finley, who was a mixed-blood Christeneauz (Cree) Indian. Therefore, William was half Cree by blood.

When Bill was 20 years old, he married a half-blood Dakota woman, Angelique Jeffries, of the Mdewakanton band in 1848. By 1856, the couple had three children, all of which were one-quarter Dakota. Bill was fluent in Chippewa, Dakota, English, and perhaps other languages. At various times he was a clerk, a scout for the army, and an interpreter. Bill was employed as a clerk in the Indian trade for many years.

In the spring of 1851, Thomas A. Holmes employed Bill as a guide. They packed for one week, and Bill had already decided on two possible places for a town. They ascended the Minnesota River and cooked a meal in a hollow near the old Dakota Indian village of Tiŋta-otoŋwe. Thomas and Bill looked the place over, and climbed the bluffs north of the settlement, and Thomas was even more impressed. They decided to continue up the river to Le Sueur. But soon Thomas and Bill returned to the first landing, and deemed it the more favorite place to locate. And so Thomas Holmes picked the area near Tiŋta-otoŋwe, and called the area Holmes Landing. It was here that Thomas built a trading post for the Dakota Indians in Tiŋta-otoŋwe (which was close by where today is Sommerville Street, and continued until beyond Memorial Park.)

One interesting story about William Louis Quinn happened a few years later.

In 1862, Bill and his family were at the Yellow Medicine Agency, where he worked in William Forbes’ store. In 1862-1865 he was a scout, guide, and messenger. Bill was chief of scouts at Fort Wadsworth from 1867-1870. For 30 years, starting in 1870, Bill was immersed in learning, documenting, and providing testimony about the genealogy of Dakota mixed-bloods. In an article written in 1901, Knute Steenerson discussed his experience of being a pioneer. He had a saloon in the village of Lac que Parle. “I sold whiskey by the drink, pint, quart, and gallon. Along in the winter came a half-breed from St. Paul. He had driven up by team—there was no railroad at that time—and he was going to Big Stone Lake, he said, to buy scrip from the Indians.” Scrip allowed the holder to appropriate about 480 acres of land not already occupied for people who were half-Dakota.

“His name was Bill Quinn. He had seventeen hundred dollars in cash in his pocket book. He came into my saloon often and treated the crowd, no matter how many there were or how few. He would throw a five-dollar bill on the counter and did not want any change. When I gave him change back, he would throw it on the dirty floor and tramp on it. So I learned after a while to please him and never gave him change, but slipped the bill into the money drawer and set up the drinks. This pleased him entirely.”

“So he proceeded on to Big Stone Lake and in about a week or ten days he was back again. He brought his son and his son’s sweetheart with him. They were pretty good-looking half-breed Indians. He said he had caught them wild on an island in Big Stone Lake and wanted to ‘buckle them up’ and marry them. So he bought ten gallons of whiskey and ten gallons of cherry brandy. I was invited to the wedding, which was held at the house of a French squaw man, who lived down the river a few miles. The next thing was to send for a justice of the peace to ‘buckle them up,’ as he said.” Knute continued, “A New England Yankee was sent for. His name was Mr. Stowell, and he performed the ceremony. But Mr. Quinn was in such a hurry that he sang out between drinks, ‘buckle them up, buckle them up,’ and then again he would jig and laugh. Well, after it was done Quinn said he was so glad that they were ‘buckled up.’”

“We had a good time at the wedding. Some were drinking, some dancing, and others talking. It was a sort of cosmopolitan gathering. There were Dakota Indians talking with the lady of the house around the cook stove. There were the squaw man and old Bushma taking French. There were Fritz and Rosenbaum talking German. There were Ole Olson and John Johnson talking Norwegian. They were all enjoying a trot sling and conversation between themselves, while Bill Quinn was dancing with a glass in his hand, to the music of the violin played by the half-breed, Joe Laframboise. A more pleasant and jolly time I have never enjoyed.”

(From Knute Steenerson’s Recollections The Story of a Pioneer, Minnesota History Magazine, Vol. 4, Issue 3-4, 1921, pg. 130-151.)

By David Schleper

Timothy Canty came to Shakopee as an employee of Thomas A. Holmes. Some said that Timothy came on the flat boat Wild Paddy in the fall of 1851, though others think he arrived a short time later. He came to file on a tract of 80 acres granted him by the government because of his involvement in the Mexican-American War, also known as the Invasion of Mexico.

The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) marked the first U.S. armed conflict chiefly fought on foreign soil. It pitted a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico against the expansionist-minded administration of U.S. President James K. Polk. Polk believed the United States had a manifest destiny to spread across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. A border skirmish along the Rio Grande started off the fighting. It was followed by a series of U.S. victories. When the dust cleared, Mexico had lost about one-third of its territory, including nearly all of present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.

Timothy was born in Lower Canada, and came to the eastern part of the United States at an early age. He was in the Mexican-American War, and was in many of the battles, including Cerro Gordo, Buena Vista, and Vera Cruz. After working with Thomas A. Holmes in Shakopee, he worked on the steamboats, including Greek Slave and Pocahontas.

Tim married Margaret O’Keefe in St. Paul in 1851. When the Civil War arrived, he wanted to go, but Tim couldn’t leave his wife. His wife lost her sight, and was blind at that time, so Tim stayed to be near his wife.

Timothy was dressed in keeping with his manner of living, and his ways and his philosophy was simple, direct, unassuming, and not given to boasting. He did reminisce occasionally about his experience in the Mexican American War, and when General William Tecumseh Sherman became prominent in the Civil War, Canty recalled that he had served under Sherman when Sherman was in the American forces in Mexico.

Tim, as he was called, even went so far one day as to assert that he knew Sherman well. “He’s a fine officer and a real man,” he observed to a group of settlers in Guyermann’s store in downtown Shakopee. Tim had been there to purchase his weekly supply of groceries. Many of the settlers felt that Timothy was exaggerated a bit, and that he didn’t know the great Sherman as well as he claimed. They often asked again and again, but Tim made little comment.

One day the news brought up the Minnesota River from St. Paul said that Sherman was making a tour of the west, and would pass through Shakopee. It happened in the late 1860s. When the news of the impending visit was announced, there was great excitement.

“Where’s Canty?” some of the settlers asked. “He ought to be here, since he claims Sherman knows him so well.” When Timothy was told, he didn’t say much. A few of the townspeople hinted that Tim couldn’t make good with his claim.

Finally, the day of the general’s visit arrived. Homesteaders and city residents formed quite a sizable crowd. Along noon a cloud of dust was seen down the trail. “Here they come!” someone shouted.

Presently the stage came into view, drawn by four large horses. The driver swung around the corner at Strunk’s Drug Store and stopped with a flourish. A cheer arose and General William Tecumseh Sherman put his head out of a window to acknowledge the greeting. His eyes roved over the crowd as he spoke. Suddenly, he stopped and the watchers saw his attention was riveted on a man in the rear of the crowd. Timothy Canty was there, having come to Shakopee to get his scythe sharpened. He was still carrying the scythe.

“Hello Tim!” Sherman called. “Don’t you remember me?” Tim came forward and shook hands. For some time their hands were clasped and the embarrassed settlers who had doubted Tim’s claim saw tears welling in the eyes of the two veterans – the general of all the armies and the humble homesteader.

“I want to congratulate you on your success in the later war, General,” Tim faltered.

“Thank you, Tim,” said Sherman. “Say, do you remember that big black horse I had in Mexico? Wasn’t he a dandy?” Then the general grew serious. “How is the world treating you, Tim, my boy?”

“Fine, General, fine,” said Timothy. “I have a good maple homestead and a wife and boy out here a ways.”

“That’s good. Take care of yourself,” Sherman called as he resumed his seat to continue the journey. After short remarks to the crowd, General Sherman’s coach was again on its way.

The crowd melted slowly and silently, and several went to find Tim, who had disappeared. But when Tim arrived back to Shakopee later, the reception was wholly different. The settlers were inclined to look with awe on the man who had been so intimate with Sherman. It was reported that this feeling never did wear off entirely, and persisted even until Timothy’s death in 1885.

(Some information from Timothy Canty Typical Pioneer: Father of Local Man was Personally Acquainted with General Sherman. Shakopee Tribune, 1925. In Recollections of Early Pioneers 1925 compiled by Betty A. Dols, 2000, Shakopee Heritage Society.)

By David Schleper

Witch-e-ain was around 15 years old in early 1840s. Witch-e-ain’s father was another chief named Mock-ah-pe-ah-ket-ah-pah. (Although some people said that Witch-e-ain’s father was Wah-pa-sha).

The name of Witch-e-ain is closest to the Dakota word wićíte, “the human face,” although like some of LaFayette Houghton Bunnell’s other names, it is highly corrupted. The name “Face” could allude to her beauty and seductiveness. The name may also be a corrupted front formation from Wićítokapa, “the eldest born,” although this posits such a degree of corruption as to defy probability.

In the early 1840s, a special celebration was happening in Wah-pa-sha’s band. They assembled, and after elaborate preparation and sanctification of the ground by invocations and incense, the chief speaker came forward, and in a sonorous address lauded the virtues of chastity and warned against the sin of bearing false witness.

Wah-kon-de-o-tah, the great war-chief of the band, addressed his warriors in a quiet and affectionate manner, and told his braves to maintain the truth as sacred, and not offend the spirits of their ancestors. Wah-pa-sha then called for the virgins and matrons to come forth, and for some time there was the silence of expectation.

Again the call was made for any virgin to come forward and receive her reward. Two maidens came partly forward, but, upon reaching the line of denunciation, faltered and turned back, probably from modesty. We-no-nah, the wife of the speaker, and eldest sister (or cousin) of Wah-pa-sha, motioned to her youngest daughter, Witch-e-ain to come forward.

After repeated calls by the crier of the assembly, Witch-e-ain came modestly forward and was crowned goddess of the feast that immediately followed. Her head was encircled with braids of rich garniture and scented grass, and presents of colored cloths, calicoes, yarns, beads and ribbons were lavished upon her as the tribe’s representative of purity.

Wah-pa-sha said that Witch-e-ain could pick either LaFayette Houghton Bunnell or Thomas A. Holmes, as both allowed royal alliance for the family. Witch-e-aim said she did not like the trader, and preferred LaFayette. When Bunnell declined her offer, Witch-e-ain’s withering, silent contempt was clear.

During the feast, Thomas was so enchanted that he decided at once to make Witch-e-ain his wife.

Witch-e-ain was allowed to marry European American traders, like Thomas A. Holmes, in the fashion of the country. This means that these marriages were not recognized by law or religion. The French speaking traders of Canada term for this is “a la faḉon du pays.” Some people would call them “country wives.” While many marriages brought loving couples together for the rest of their lives, other marriages were very short-lived or violent. Many traders married native women, but also had other wives back home. Sometimes when the men retired from the fur trade, they returned to their legitimate, or legally married wives.

These marriages came with the expectation that trade between the woman’s relations and the trader would be secured, and that aid would be mutually provided in times of need. It was also the hope of the woman’s family that the trader’s generosity would increase after the marriage took place. The marriages between these two groups would lead to the creation of the Métis people, who would be considered the offspring of the fur trade.

So Thomas gave Wah-pa-sha an offer that he accepted. Based on this, Witch-e-ain then picked Thomas A. Holmes. This was in the early 1840s.

Thomas then married Witch-e-ain a la faḉon du pays. They were married in the fashion of the country, and lived together. But Witch-e-ain did not like living with Thomas. Like a caged bird, she soon pined for her Dakota prairie home. By the spring, while flowers bloomed, Witch-e-ain died of consumption.

(Some information from Lafayette Houghton Bunnell, Winona (We-No-Nah) and Its Environs on Mississippi in Ancient and Modern Days, Winona, MN: Jones & Kroeger, 1897; History of Wabasha County: Together with Biographical Matter, Statistics, Etc. Gathered from Matter Furnished by Interviews with Old Settlers, County, Township and Other Records, and Extracts from Files of Papers, Pamphlets, and Such Other Sources as Have Been Available. Also a History of Winona County, H.H. Hill & Company, 1884.)

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Dr. Frederick H. Buck was born Oct. 30, 1882, and grew up in Norwood, Ontario, Canada. His parents were farmers, and after graduating from high school he spent seven years working on the farm and “hated every minute of it!” While his father opposed him becoming a doctor, his mother encouraged him, and by age 24 he entered the University of Toronto to become a doctor.

He heard that Shakopee, which had about 1,500 people, needed a doctor, and in 1911, he moved here. He made most of his calls on foot or in a buggy.

After a year, he went back to Norwood and married his sweetheart, a nurse, Ida Gjerdrum Buck, and returned to Shakopee.

Dr. Buck’s office was at 127 ½ East First Avenue, which was above the old Shakopee movie theatre. He had the first microscope in Shakopee, and people reportedly came from miles around to see it! Dr. Buck and Ida lived at 421 East Third Avenue in Shakopee. After a few years, he bought a Model T.

Most of the time, Dr. Buck took a horse to farmhouses near Shakopee.

As he walked into one farmhouse, Dr. Buck saw a man lying on the bed, bright with fever. He knew it was pneumonia. The homemade remedies such as mustard plaster, goose grease, and turpentine all had been tried before the doctor arrived. The man on the bed was racked with coughing and spitting blood. His temperature was 104.

There was no way to check the diagnosis. There was no hospital in Shakopee. No laboratories, X-rays, and tests to confirm the decision. There was no phone. Dr. Buck was alone in that isolated farmhouse. Because pneumonia usually lasted seven days, the doctor returned in a few days, crossing the threshold and holding his breath. The man on the bed was bathed in sweat. His temperature had broken, and his breathing came easier. “The most wonderful sight in the world,” said Dr. Buck.

According to Dr. Buck, the railroad had been his ambulance line once. If you had an emergency—appendicitis, maybe—you got word to the station agent. You’d carry the patient on the back of a wagon to the depot. The next train would stop and you’d load the patient into a baggage car and climb in yourself, and ride with him to St. Paul, where an ambulance took both of you to either St. Joseph’s or St. John’s hospital. You always stopped in St. Paul because the train went there first before going on to Minneapolis.

When he first started, the doctor got $10 for each baby delivered. Over the many years that he was a doctor, Dr. Buck delivered 1,200 babies. He also made many hours in calls, including the Dakota at the tipi tanka and tipi along the Minnesota River.

When the scarlet fever epidemic happened in February 1918, Jane Cloud, a Dakota aunt of Minnie Josephine Otherday Weldon and a descendent of Dakota leader Ṡakpe II, sat on the curb in front of Dr. Buck’s office. She was crying her heart out because she was afraid the fever would kill Dr. Buck. Luckily, Dr. Buck survived.

On Dec. 5, 1914, Ida and Frederick had a child, Marion Bell Betty Buck (1914–2007) in Shakopee.

A few years after Marion was born, Ida became blind.

Ida went to Faribault School for the Blind to learned Braille. She received a seeing eye dog to roam around downtown Shakopee.

Ida died on Oct. 9, 1957. She is buried at Valley Cemetery in Shakopee.

Dr. Frederick Buck sold his general practice in 1946, but he continued as a physician for the masonic home until 1959, and for the women’s reformatory for 18 years, and continued to work with the children with disabilities at the reformatory until that was closed.

At age 95, Dr. Buck died. He had served the people in and around Shakopee for many, many years.

According to Vern Lang, “His death is the passing of another era.”

PDF Brochure

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

A contingent of peasant farmers from Germany left for the New World, including the Lenz and Gerdesmeier families around 1848. When they arrived in America, the authorities asked their name and occupation and decided to combine their name (Lenz) with their occupation (dairy farmer) to become Lenzmeier.

Mary Theresa Elizabeth Gerdesmeier (called Elizabeth) was born April 9, 1835. Elizabeth married Stephan Lenzmeier either in Germany or in East St. Louis, Illinois. In 1860, Elizabeth and Stephan came by steamboat to St. Paul, where they traveled to Scott County and to Marystown.

Twenty-five-year-old Elizabeth, who was either pregnant or carrying a newborn infant along the trip, arrived and registered their homestead in Shakopee. The family, like others in Marystown, spoke German. The church in Marystown had services in German, and then later in German and English. The parish built a school very early, with German as the official language, and English as a second language.

Stephan settled the homestead and brought in crops and did fairly well, with Elizabeth every inch the heroic pioneer woman, keeping people fed and clothed while rearing a big family, including eight boys and finally a baby daughter, Mary, in 1878.

Stephan either went west to Idaho where silver and gold had been discovered, or out to South Dakota under Gen. George Custer to look for gold in the Black Hills. Stephan was 53 years old, while Elizabeth was 38, and stuck at home with the children. Stephan was hoping to get rich quickly, but he didn’t succeed. He reportedly fell ill away from home and had difficulty getting back. He did return, but his health was broken, and he died at 57 of heart failure, just two months after the birth of baby Mary.

It was said that his widow, Elizabeth, was very bitter about his death, blaming him for bringing on his own demise and leaving her to raise their large brood and run the farm, even with an infant at her breast. She reportedly held up the child before his open casket and cried something to the effect of “Here, take her with you, why don’t you! How can you leave me here alone with all this responsibility and this little one, too?”

Elizabeth surveyed her situation. She was a widow at age 43 with assets of a good farm, eight sons, and an infant daughter. Life must go on. Elizabeth learned of a good family in Shakopee who had some marriageable daughters. She made an inevitable logical decision. One Sunday morning, she hitched up a team to the buggy and drove the five miles to the Hubert Roehl farm just west of the town of Shakopee, along the road leading to Jordan.

Hubert was an immigrant from Luxembourg, and owned a long piece of land parallel to the Minnesota River. He also owned an overabundance of daughters!

Elizabeth told Hubert about her big, handsome boys, and suggested that they had a basis for an arrangement. Elizabeth was one smart woman!

And so, it was arranged that her sons would marry Roehl’s girls. And four of them did! The four brothers who married Roehl’s daughters received pieces of good land from their father-in-law’s original claim along the Minnesota River.

And Elizabeth? She was happy. And one smart woman!