76. Pamelia Fergus (1824-1887). Gold Rush widow. Pamelia Dillin, who was born in upstate New York, married James Fergus (see Morrison County Influentials #18) in Moline, Illinois, in 1845. In the spring of 1855, she moved with her husband from St. Anthony to Little Falls, Minnesota. When James went off to the gold rush in Colorado one year later, Pamelia was left behind with their children, three daughters and one son, and a list of instructions on how to manage her husband’s business, the Little Falls Manufacturing Company. Pamelia and the other women of Little Falls banded together to help each other while their husbands were out west. They called themselves “widows” because their husbands were gone for so long. James came back from Colorado in 1861 and then left for Montana the next year. Pamelia left Little Falls on 22 February 1864 and moved to Montana where she operated a stage station with her husband.
77. Charles Lindbergh, Sr. (1859-1924). United States Congressman. Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Charles Lindbergh, Sr., moved to Melrose, Minnesota, with his parents when he was a baby. Charles attended the University of Michigan Law School, graduating in 1883. Three years later, he moved to Little Falls and began practicing law. The next year he married Mary LaFond and the couple had two daughters, Lillian and Eva. In 1898, Mary died of a stomach tumor. Three years later he married Evangeline Lodge Land and they had one son, Charles Lindbergh Jr. Charles and Evangeline divorced in 1909. In 1890 Charles was elected Morrison County Attorney. In 1907 he was elected to the congress, representing Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District, and the family moved to Washington D.C. Charles served five terms as a congressman. Charles was aligned with the Nonpartisan league movement and opposed both the United States entry into World War I and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. During his career in congress he wrote books on financial and economic subjects, including “Banking, Currency, and the Money Trust” (1939) and “Why is Your Country at War?” (1917). Prior to his death in Crookston, Minnesota, of an inoperable brain tumor, he had filed as a Farmer-Labor candidate for governor.
78. Charles Lindbergh, Jr. (1902-1974). Aviator, Environmentalist. Famous for his 1927 flight across the Atlantic Ocean, the first solo nonstop flight from New York to Paris. Charles Augustus Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Charles August (C.A.) and Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh. In 1902 he came to Little Falls with his family where his father had a law practice. In 1929 Charles married the daughter of the United States Ambassador to Mexico, writer Anne Morrow. Anne and Charles had six children – Charles A., Jon, Land, Anne, Scott and Reeve. Their first child, Charles A., was kidnapped and killed in 1931. In the 1930s, Charles worked with Nobel Prizewinning surgeon Alexi Carrel on the design for a perfusion pump, which kept blood circulating through organs during surgery. In 1954 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his book, “The Spirit of St. Louis”. Towards the end of his life he turned increasingly to conservation and the preservation of wildlife. In 1974 Charles Lindbergh Jr. died of cancer of at his home on island of Maui, Hawaii.
79. Christian Rosenmeier (1874-1932). County Attorney, Banker, State Senator. Christian R. Rosenmeier was born in Denmark and moved to Kandiyohi County, Minnesota, with his father in 1888. Both father and son worked to earn enough money to buy a farm and to bring the rest of the family (mother and two sisters) to the United States. Between 1895 and 1899, Christian worked as a rural school teacher. In 1901 he graduated from the state normal school in Mankato and became principal of schools at Dundee, Minnesota. In 1903 he attended the University of Minnesota, graduating with a law degree in 1906. In the summer of that year, Christian moved to Royalton, Minnesota, and married Linda Bakken. The Rosenmeier’s had three children – Gordon, Margaret and Donald. Christian was a practicing attorney in Royalton until he was elected Morrison County Attorney in 1914. Christian resigned this post in 1920 and the next year became Vice-President (later President) of the American National Bank of Little Falls and the newly organized American Savings & Trust Company of Little Falls. From 1922 until his death, Christian served as a Minnesota State Senator. Among the many projects he worked on in the legislature were the establishment of Camp Ripley in Morrison County and the Lindbergh State Park.
80. Gordon Rosenmeier (1907-1989). State Senator. Born in Royalton, Minnesota, Gordon moved with his parents to Little Falls when his father was elected Morrison County Attorney and lived there until his death in 1989. Gordon graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in history and political science and from the Leland Stanford University Law School in California. When his father died in 1932, he took over his law practice. In 1940 he was elected to the first of eight consecutive terms in the Minnesota Senate. Gordon authored at least three hundred bills during his career, including the legislation to expand Camp Ripley and to develop the Charles A. Lindbergh Home as a state historic site while retaining the state park as a separate institution under Department of Natural Resources. A State of Minnesota Senate resolution designated September 19, 1974, as Gordon Rosenmeier day for his service as chairman of numerous commissions and Senate Committees on Military Affairs, Civil Defense, Civil Administration and Judiciary Committees.
This week’s Morrison County Influentials:
81. A. D. Harrison
82. John Workman
83. Dr. Earl McGonagle
84. John Simonett
85. Anne Simonett