Todays Gazette is brought to you by Grafton's upcoming 125 year
anniversary celebration.
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The current temperature is 23 degrees.
Yesterdays H/L temperature was 22/11
Normal H/L temp for this date is 14/-5
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"Profanity makes ignorance audible."
"Smoking makes ignorance visible."
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L O C A L news & stuff,.. mostly stuff.
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Although I haven't received any official report of a merge, or, for
that matter, even a working agreement. However, one might deduce by
looking at "our" local channel three that the Bremer Bank and United
Bank were planning a merge and had already purchased the rights to "our"
local channel 3. As a matter of fact, one might even conclude the
St.Thomas Booster Club is in "Cahoots" with them as the same 40th annual
"Walleye Fish Fry" at Rookies in St. Thomas this Saturday from 4 to 9
was played steady on Grafton's TV Channel 3 for many hours.
Although, on the surface, playing the same advertisement "steady" all
day and all night might seem like a great idea. I seriously question how
long people can be expected to continue looking at channel three as a
reliable source of area business, and, information medium, with the
obvious lack of both recently being broadcast.
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Who won the game, last night, or, for that matter, who even played?
Questions often asked throughout the sports season by those basking in
the sunshine to the south. The following note resembles several notes we
receive. >>>
Dear Mr Moe:
If you please, could you perhaps keep us all up to date on the various G
and GPR Spoilers achievements this year? The WC Record website is hard
to read, and the GF Herald, well, I remember well their anti-Spoiler
bias. I know, I could subscribe to the Record, but I just want to know
how the boys and girls are doing this year.
Thanks <<< If someone would be willing to share our area schools current
events, and there outcome, I would be happy to share them, in some sort
of abbreviated form, whenever time, and, space allows.
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If your looking for a "SUPER" bowl of soup, on superbowl Sunday. Please
give the following note serious consideration.
>>>> Gary, Would you please put in a plug from the Tri-County Crisis
Intervention Center Souper Bowler Fund Raiser. It will be held on
Sunday, January 28, at St. John's Parish Center in Grafton from 11:00 to
1:30. Tickets are $6 for adults and $4 for children and your ticket
include a huge variety of homemade soups and bars, along with some fine
entertainment. This is a great way to support the domestic violence
programming in our area. I have tickets for this event, as do other
board members and employees of TCCI. If anyone would like a ticket, they
can call me at 360-3678 or e-mail me at dandtnovak@gft.midco.net. Thanks
and hope to see a good crowd at this fund-raiser. Twila <<< Thanks for
caring and sharing. Who knows? Maybe all the folks that went to the
Federated Church Chili feed will show up for a SUPER bowl of soup too.
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A while back I mentioned that a wonderful women donated a building in
Minto to be used as the school house. I am pleased to share a little
more of that story, provided by her grandson Francis McCann. I found it
very interesting, I think everyone will. He wrote >>>
Jennie Coulter McCann was born in Ireland in 1844 and immigrated to
Ontario, Canada with her family in 1848. Jennie married George McCann
(my grandfather) in 1865. Together they had seven children; four boys
and three girls. John, born in 1865, the oldest and George (my father)
born February 1880, the youngest.
In the spring of 1880 George and Jennie along with
Jennie's mother and brother and their seven children set out for the
Dakota Territory. They traveled by train to Fisher, Minnesota. From
there they traveled by ox cart to a site about three miles southeast of
Minto where the Forest River enters the Salt Lake. There they set up
there claim on 80 acres of land.
In the late fall of 1880 George put a sack of wheat on his
shoulders and set out walking to Grand Forks to get it ground to flour.
On the way he fell through the ice. That night after leaving the sack of
wheat at the mill he slept in their barn in his wet cloths. After
getting back to the farm with the flour he became ill with pneumonia and
died.
Now Jennie was left with seven children, her mother and
brother to spend her first winter on the prairie. She worked the farm
with the help of her older children, and her brother would hunt and fish
for food for the family.
Records show that it was a warm, sunny day in March of 1882,
Jennie's mother and brother along with one of her daughters went to
Minto by horse and sled. On the way home a killer March blizzard caught
them in the open prairie. The sled upset and broke a rail. Jennie's
brother had to leave his mother and niece and go for help. When help
arrived at the sled they found that Jennie's mother had taken off her
coat and wrapped her granddaughter with it. The grandmother was frozen
to death but the little girl was fine.
Jennie wanted her children to have some education. In the
spring of 1883, working with others, she helped to get the first school
started in Minto by providing a school house. All the children had a
limited education as school was held only when the weather was mild
enough for travel. In the early years school was held in the late fall
and early spring as the boys and girls were needed at home to get the
field work done.
By 1901 Jennie's son Robert had died and Jack the oldest
had left to homestead in Canada and the three girls were married. Jennie
and her two youngest sons moved from Minto to a farm north and west of
Voss. They rented 300 acres and bought 160 acres which they farmed for
almost twenty years. In 1918 they bought eight hundred acres of land one
mile north of Voss. The land cost one hundred dollars per acre but two
years later land prices had dropped to fifty dollars per acre. Many
farms were given back to the banks at that time. Even with the loss of
her brother in 1921 and another son in 1922 Jennie and her youngest son,
my father, kept the land.
Jennie McCann died in 1925. She had out lived her
husband, brother, mother, and two sons. She came to the Dakota Territory
when there was nothing more then a sea of grass. When she died the
Territory was now a state with roads, railroads, towns and schools. We
thank these early pioneers for having the fortitude to stay with the
land under the worst of conditions that North Dakota could give them.
Submitted by Frank McCann
What a wonderful story. Thanks a million for caring and sharing Frank.
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GOTTA - GO - WORK - ON - MY - DASH
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I'll bet there are many stories out there that would be absolutely
wonderful to share.
Write if you can, call if you can't, and, tell your loved ones they are,
before it's too late.
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