Wandering Retirees

On the Schwedes’ History Trail

We have had a couple of wonderful days with the Minneapolis Schwedes. On Friday evening we were treated to a wonderful performance of Stephen Sondheim’s, Sunday in the Park With George at the Guthrie Theater, a marvelous modern venue for the performing arts. The story revolves around the brief but brilliant life of the French painter, George Seurat, and his greatest work. So much fun and so well done. As you can tell, we loved it. 
On Saturday we went to the little Mississippi River town of 2,500 souls, Wabasha, MN, where a couple of generations of Schwedes ancestors lived and worked. It’s also the setting for Grumpy Old Men, which put the town on the map. (Your challenge is to find it on a map. Google is cheating. 😀) 

My
great great grandfather, Henry Schwedes, had the good sense to to fall in love and marry Mary Kuehn, the daughter of the owner of Kuehn’s General Store in downtown Wabasha. (Spelled Kühn with the German umlaut, you know, the double dots above the vowel.) Eventually, Mary and Henry inherited the store and became rather prosperous folks. They had a beautiful home on Main Street right next to her parents. Both the homes and general store are still standing and look well preserved. The store has become a hardware emporium owned by the Hill family and is a part of the Hardware Hank’s chain. Good name. But I digress. The name Kühn (with the umlaut) is still engraved on a marker stone inset at the top of the storefront. We also visited the local cemetery where my father’s parents, Walter F. and Leila are interred alongside the larger Kuehn family. 

We had lunch in Slippery’s, a riverside formerly run down haunt where several Grumpy scenes with Matthau and Lemon were shot. The food is good and the site is popular – a lot of bikes. Our waiter told us that it has expanded and been renovated a lot since Grumpy Old Men came out. We thoroughly enjoyed our outing with Jeff and Rosemary. They have learned so much family lore and proved wonderful, entertaining guides.   

That night we went to a neighborhood block party and met some of their terrific neighbors. Patrick Henry (yep, that’s his name) stands out for his enthusiastic welcome and delightful stream of funny stories and anecdotes. A lot of fun. 

Sunday we were treated to a wonderful tour of the Mill City Museum. Minneapolis is located at the only falls on the Mississippi. That falling water has provided power for a number of industries over the years. Logging was huge in the 19th Century, and the falls provided ample power to run saw mills. Literally millions of trees were harvested upstream and floated down to be collected and milled here. Eventually lumber gave way to textiles which mostly gave way to milling flour. Minnesota and surrounds produce huge quantities of grain that have to be ground. There were 26 mills on the West Bank of the Mississippi alone at the peak of water mill power. Electricity eventually displaced water as a motive power. The two largest were General Mills and Pillsbury, names we still see today. Sounds kind of dry, but it’s not. The mills drove industry which drove the economy and attracted talented people. Through the years Minneapolis has grown to be a truly cosmopolitan center where the arts and culture are treasured and supported The well. 

Monday it’s on the road again.
The Kuehns Building.  The store is now named Hill’s Hardware Hank.

An historical tour of Downtown Minneapolis.  Pillsbury and all.

The only waterfalls on the Mississippi.

Hank’s brother, Jeff, his wife, Rosemary and their son, Joe.  And the dog is Romi.  We had a wonderful visit.