I own a 112 year old house in Dawson, MN. It’s a great little place. 2000 sq. feet, 3 bedroom, 1 bath. The summer of 2005 renovation was started on the house. Details about this will come later.
During renovation (which involved tear down of walls) some really old stuff was found.
The first thing I found was a magazine dated May 8, 1897.
The magazine is called “The School Journal” with a publication date of Volume LIV, No. 19.
I haven’t been able to find anything online (including google books) regardin this publication, and the publishing company (E.L. Kellogg & Co.) was bought back in the mid 1900′s (again, no information that I can tell online, just the memories of a phone coversation with a historical society employee in New York. I originally found a canvas tobacco pouch alongside this magazine from the Phoenix Tobacco Company of St. Paul, MN. The MN Historical Society wanted it, but my procrastination and quick move from the house has rendered the pouch lost for the moment (I think my evicted tenants might have it).
In the upstairs back bedroom I found a personal letter from one Irene Parsons to the pupils of the Dawson School. The letter is dated Jan. 8th, 1903, and was seemingly sent from Moscow, Idaho. Here’s an image. I’m going to put the text from the letter below it. I think I’ve found something about her (Click Here).
–dez
Moscow, Idaho
Jan, 8th, 1903Pupils of the Dawson School,
Dear friends,
I used to live in Michigan but last summer I came to Moscow. I stayed about four weeks in Chicago.In Michigan we have very cold winters. The snow in most places is over a foot deep. We have snow drifts too that are very large. When you look far off you can not see anything but trees. There are no mountains around there.
We used to go picking May flowers in the woods. There were many woods around the town. There were three lakes where we would have our picnics, especially one that was not so deep. The names of the three lakes are Eberhard’s Lake, Fish Lake, and Long Lake. We would usually have our picnics at Eberhard’s Lake. Long Lake is a littler over a mile long.
The town where I came from was quite small containing only about on thousand people. There is a park close by it. The depot is very large and nice, and is made of stone. There is a town clock in the steeple of the depot. The people of Chyenne keep the lawn outside the depot very nice. There is a large bridge near the side of the depot.
The had only one school building in Burr Oak. The had have three public schools, a business College, and a University here.
In Mich. we never wrote letters to any other schools.
There is a city about six miles from Burr Oak, and one about nine miles. The city that is six miles. Lansing, the capital of Michigan is about one hundred and twenty miles from Burr Oak. Burr Oak is the place where I came from. The reason why they called the place Burr Oak was because there were so many oak trees around the country.
There was a little river flowing through the eastern part of town.
I lived in St. Joseph County.
Detroit, the largest city in Michigan is about one hundred miles from Burr Oak.
The trees in Michigan are the maple, pine, cherry, apple, poplar, peach, pear, and plum. The cherries in Michigan are dark red and quite small. The ones growing here are light red and large.
They raise quite a large amount of grapes in Burr Oak also.
I do not know anything about farming only that the farmers raise a great deal of wheat and corn. I have never lived in any other place than Burr Oak and oscow.
I stopped off at Cheyenne, Wyo. on my way out here. I saw the capitol building. It was very nice and quite large. I have seen Lake Michigan four times. It is very large. You cannot see across it. It has long and wide beaches that are white.
I saw the lake in Whiting, Indiana, South Chicago, and twice in South Chicago.
It took me five days to get out here. I changed cars at Pendleton and Colfax. The states I came through were Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming.
I must close for this time,
Your Friend,Irene Parsons.