Morrison County Historical Society

Weber Insurance Agency of Little Falls, Minnesota - Circa 1949

This six-inch wood ruler was used as a promotional piece for the Weber Insurance Agency of Little Falls, Minnesota.  One of nine insurance agencies listed in the 1949-50 Little Falls City and Morrison County Minnesota Directory, the Weber Insurance Agency was located at 117 First Southeast and was operated by William C. Weber (1873?-1960).  Weber was born in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, and moved to Little Falls in the early 1930s.  Weber and his wife, Kathryn (Denis) Weber, had two children, Richard and Margaret.  Weber also served as the secretary of the Little Falls Savings and Loan Company.

Weber Insurance Agency of Little Falls, Minnesota - Circa 1949

Family Shoe Store Bag - Circa 1965

The Family Shoe Store of Little Falls, Minnesota, was established in the early 1900s by John F. Joswiak (1873-1935) and was in existence until sometime after 2001.  In the 1916-17 Little Falls and Morrison County Directory, Joswiak is listed under “Shoe Repair”.  The name Family Shoe Store does not show up until the 1937-38 Little Falls and Morrison County Directory.  In 1946, the store was purchased from Joswiak’s second wife, Josephine, by her daughter and son-in-law, Robert D. and Blanche Garvin.  Blanche had already been managing the store for her mother for over a decade.  Robert (1907-1979) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and moved to Little Falls after his marriage to Blanche in August of 1945.  Robert, Blanche’s second husband, had served in the United States Navy during World War II and was a civil engineer.  Blanche was the daughter of John and Josephine (Hammer) Deering.  Below is an excerpt from a Works Progress Administration biography on Josephine (#189 Biography of Josephine Joswiak – March 1, 1937):

Two years and six months following John Deering Jr.’s death, his wife, Josephine, married for a second time.  Her second husband was John F. Joswiak.  They lived on 6^th St. S. E.  John F. Joswiak was born in January 1873 in Posen, German Poland.  His father worked in a distillery in the Old Country and died three months before John was born.

John’s mother later married a man named Wozniak and they came to America.  They left John F. behind as he was still attending school and learning the shoemaker’s trade.  His mother and step-father, Mr. Wozniak, settled in New Ulm, Minnesota, later moving to Morrill township in Morrison County where they lived until their death.

John F. Joswiak had two brothers and one sister.  Their names were Vince, Frank, and Lillian.  John F. Joswiak was highly educated.  He came to America in 1894.  In 1898 when the Spanish American War broke out he enlisted.  He was a Corporal while in training.  The war ended before he went across.

When the war ended he came to New Ulm, Minnesota and worked in a shoe shop.  Later he went to Gilman, Minnesota.  He married Hattie Kaproth, a farm girl from Duelm, Minnesota.

He started a shoe store in Gilman, later he moved to St. Paul where he worked in a shoe store and shop for six or seven years.  After this he moved to Little Falls where he started a Shoe Repair Shop, repairing and making shoes for men working on the drive.

He enlarged his shop and sold a full line of men’s shoes.  Soon after he enlarged the shop again and sold a full line shoes for the entire family.  He called it the Family Shoe Store at the same time doing repair work on shoes.

His first wife died in April, 1924.  She is buried in Duelm, Minn., beside her parents and where she was born and where they lived and died.

Mr. Joswiak had one daughter, Helen, who is married to John Schrieber.  He works in a Gamble Store in Windom, Minnesota.

Mr. Joswiak suffered from a lingering illness for several years and after being bed ridden for only one day, he died on July 29, 1935.  He is buried in Our Lady of Lourdes cemetery.

After John F. Joswiak’s death, his wife, Josephine, moved to 205 7^th St. S. E. where she lives at present.  She manages the Family Shoe Store with two clerks and one shoe repairman.

What’s that they say about the best laid plans? Yeah, um, well, just as we get coordinated enough to have an Icicle Watch Contest to see when our massive courtyard icicles will fall, Mother Nature gets all uncooperative on us and decides to melt the icicles instead. After EVERY OTHER icicle crashes to the ground. Could we have a word, Mother Nature?

No one submitted any guesses for our contest, so we’ll let this one slide, but if we have a nature-based contest again, we’ll certainly keep an untrusting eye on the good Mother.

Here are pics from this past Sunday and today of GINORMOUS and RIVAL and their sad demise.

GINORMOUS icicle, northeast corner of courtyard, looking not so ginormous, February 28, 2010.

RIVAL icicle, northwest corner of courtyard. RIVAL is bigger than GINORMOUS here. February 28, 2010.

The remnants of GINORMOUS, March 2, 2010.

Weak little RIVAL, March 2, 2010.

Okay, peeps! We’re giving you a chance to win a one-year membership to the Morrison County Historical Society. If you follow us on Facebook, you’ve probably seen that we’ve been obsessed with two large icicles hanging off the museum roof in our courtyard area. We’ve taken to calling one GINORMOUS. This one hangs in the northeast corner. The other is called RIVAL, and it hangs in the northwest corner.

GINORMOUS - Icicle in northeast corner of museum courtyard, February 25, 2010.

RIVAL - The other large icicle in the museum courtyard, northwest corner, February 25, 2010.

These icicles have been growing fast, sometimes gaining several inches in a single day. We’ve been wondering when they’re going to fall, as other smaller icicles are continually falling from the roof. A couple of our Facebook fans suggested having a contest concerning the icicles, which is a fabulous idea, so we’re introducing the ….

Icicle Watch Contest!

Here are the terms:

Give us your guesses as to when GINORMOUS and RIVAL will fall and win a one-year membership to the Morrison County Historical Society. Membership gets you a subscription to our quarterly newsletter, plus voting privileges at our annual meeting.

We’re giving away 2 memberships, one for GINORMOUS and one for RIVAL. Whoever guesses closest to when each falls will win. You can make separate guesses on each, but if you guess correctly on both, you’ll only win one membership and we’ll select the next closest guesser for the second membership.

Get your guesses in quickly, either here on the blog in the comments section, or on Facebook. Ben is predicting the upcoming warm weather will cause our icicles to fall soon.

We’ll arrange to get contact info from the winners after we determine who they are.

Regular photos of GINORMOUS and RIVAL will appear on our Facebook fan page.

-Mary

[Addendum: To make this more exact, you can guess a time along with the date for the falling of the icicles. Although, if we're not here when they fall, we won't be able to pinpoint the time. We'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.]

Wes Sod Greeting Card (Rose), June 1978

One of the few fully-colored artworks by Little Falls artist, Wes Sod, currently in the museum’s collections is this greeting card with a crayon drawing of a single red rose.  Sod, who was known for his black and white drawings, apparently liked to use an occasional touch of color.  The choice of color is usually red in the museum’s small collection of works by the artist.  The message inside the card (HAVE A NICE DAY! WES) is handwritten in strong black ink and continues the genuine simplicity of the beautiful image on the front of the card.

(For more information on Wes Sod see previous Collections Carousel posts – http://morrisoncountyhistory.org/?p=1904 http://morrisoncountyhistory.org/?p=1891)

We’re holding a Twitter class at the Weyerhaeuser Museum on Saturday, March 13, 2010, at 10:00 a.m.

Why are we hosting a Twitter class?

Because we’re Twittering fools! We’re mad about the application and we want to get more peeps interacting with museums on it.

Below is the full press release I wrote for the class. Call 320-632-4007 to sign up.

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CLASS TO BE OFFERED ON HOW TO USE TWITTER

It would have been difficult in the last year to have gone without hearing about Twitter, a micro-blogging service that allows users to post short public messages on the internet via computer or mobile device. The media gave Twitter constant coverage due to its rapid growth in users in 2009.  It’s estimated that the online application has around 75 million registered users, with about 15 percent of them being active on the site.

While Twitter may have gotten a lot of press, many people are still unfamiliar with the application and the ways it can be used. Twitter messages, called “tweets,” have to be 140 characters or fewer. This character limit, along with the application’s capacity to post tweets immediately, makes Twitter a quick and easy way to broadcast breaking news. It also allows users to share upcoming events, opinions on products and services, advice, and interesting web links.

In order to introduce Central Minnesota residents to Twitter, the Morrison County Historical Society will be hosting a class called “How to Use Twitter with a Purpose.” Mary Warner, the organization’s Museum Manager and experienced Twitter user, will be teaching the class on Saturday, March 13, 2010, from 10 a.m. until noon at The Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Memorial Museum in Little Falls, MN.

The class will cover the basic features of Twitter, plus discuss a number of potential purposes for the application. To sign up for the class, call 320-632-4007. Reservations will be taken until March 12. Cost is $10 per person. No special equipment is needed for the class.

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We’re having a little fun here at the Weyerhaeuser Museum. Each year around this time, large icicles start growing from the roof in the north corners of the courtyard. They’ve grown so large in the past that they reach the ground.

The icicle in the northeast corner is growing so fast that it looks like it won’t take long to touch the ground. I was in this past Saturday with my camera to take pictures of it. They’re posted on our Facebook fan page. (We try to put different content on each of our social media applications so if you follow us all over we don’t bore you.)

When I was taking pics Saturday, I looked over at the northwest corner and saw an icicle that was starting to get sizable. I took a shot or two, but didn’t post them to Facebook because the icicle wasn’t that impressive.

When I got in to work this morning, I immediately checked the icicles. Our GINORMOUS one in the northeast corner continues to grow, now reaching down into the lower panel area of the museum building, beneath the windows. The icicle in the northwest corner is growing so fast that it’s become a rival to the first. I’d say it’s now within the impressive range.

I’ve taken pics of both today, which I’ll post to Facebook by tomorrow.

Will our icicles reach the ground before crashing to their demise? Any guess as to when they might fall?

Stay tuned ….

We had a delightful couple visiting the museum this morning from New Brighton, MN.  While talking with them, they mentioned they had to do something with Flat Stanley.  Guess they knew that confused me as they asked if I had heard of him, and I had not.  One thing led to another about this funny story of Flat Stanley and they left; only to return to get a photo of me holding Flat Stanley.

Mary came in for a photo of the icicle hanging in our courtyard (her day off) and I introduced her and hubby.  Mary liked the Flat Stanley story as well and said to do a check on it,  then blog about it.

According to the brief summary on Amazon (or check your local bookstore), “Stanley Lambchop is an ordinary boy.  At least he was, until the night his bulletin board fell off the wall and flattened him.  At only an inch thick, Stanley can slide under doors, mail himself across the country in an envelope, and fly like a kite.”

Amazon also writes that Flat Stanley was created by Jeff Brown as a bedtime story for his two sons.  Mr. Brown has written other stories about the Lambchop family as well.

Our visitors had received a cut-out of Flat Stanley by mail from her nephew and were taking him on a trip through Little Falls.  Everywhere they have taken him, they have taken his photo, thus a photo with me at the museum; Flat Stanley will soon be returning to the nephew’s school.

What a great idea!  I’m sure there are lots of people out there that know of Flat Stanley and now we do too.

Oh, about the icicle, you may want to keep a check on the museum’s Facebook (access from this page at bottom) as Mary is going to post that photo soon.

Update to post:

A photo arrived in the mail of Flat Stanley and me.  What a hoot!

Wes Sod Greeting Card, Circa 1975

This gorgeous greeting card, with its flower-filled hillside and blue sky with puffy clouds, was created by Little Falls artist, Wesley I. Sod.  While Wes spent much of his life in Little Falls, he also lived for a time in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and San Francisco, California.  In Minneapolis, Wes spent much of his time as a student and was part owner of a small gallery, where he was able to display and promote his work.  The other two owners of the gallery were also artists.

(For more information on Wes Sod, see Collections Carousel – Valentine’s Day Card http://morrisoncountyhistory.org/?p=1891).

Valentine's Day Card by Wes Sod, February 1979

This hand-drawn Valentine’s Day card was created by Little Falls artist, Wes Sod.  Wesley I. Sod was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on March 18, 1926, to Iver and Ester Maude (Engstrom) Sod.  Wes spent much of his life in Little Falls before moving with his wife, Colleen, to California.  A talented artist, Wes studied at the Minneapolis School of Art and Design in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  According to an article by Doris Simonett in the Little Falls Daily Transcript from November 9, 1977, drawings were the artist’s trademark (”Little Falls artists display ‘realistic’ theme in works”).  Typical subjects included familiar landscapes, still life and local buildings, including the Little Falls Carnegie Library and several churches.