History Sunday on Feb. 14 celebrates the important role Superior played in the lives of survivors of the Great 1918 Fire in Moose Lake.
Len Schmidt, member and past president of the Moose Lake Historical Society, talked about the kindnesses of Superior's people and City Council in sheltering fire survivors and providing financing to restart lives when survivors returned to their burned out homes and fields. Joining Len and his wife Maryls will be Superior firefighter Dave Johnson, who has developed an extensive collection of articles about the fires that swept the region. The program begins at 2 p.m., with $3 admission for non-members.
Teddie Meronek's January presentation on the Polish-Americans in northwestern Wisconsin was well attended with audience members willing to share photos of family and the Polish churches. We thank them for that because we're always looking for photos for our archives. If you have a photo you'd like to share but don't want to donate it, just bring it in for us to scan. Photos that are on the lean side in our archives are from the 1930s through the 1980s.
DCHS is on another mission to look for photos and stories for its upcoming Central High School exhibit. In its ninety-five years as an educational institution, Central was a center of social, educational and cultural change.
Through oral histories, photographs, newspaper articles, journals, scrapbooks and artifacts, this exhibition will tell the stories of student life and about the role education had in shaping an American community of immigrants and their descendents. We're looking for alumni who are willing to participate in our oral history project. Are you interested? Give us a call; your memories of student life may be part of the new Central exhibit opening in July.
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Also due out in July is a book about Central called Central High School A-Z: Transcending Dreams, written by Teddie Meronek and me. During our research of Central, we discovered that so many of its alumni truly did transcend their dreams, such as Academy Award-winner for still photography, Ray Jones and ice skating star, Bess Ehrhardt. Others who meet the criteria of the book but didn't have to move away to accomplish their dreams are Bud Grant and Lew Martin. Limited copies make this a book that one may want to buy ahead of time, and DCHS is taking pre-sale orders.
E-mail dchs@douglashistory.org or call 392-8449 to ask how you can become a member and enjoy free History Sundays as well as other benefits.
Laakso is the director of the Douglas County Historical Society.
