Ottawa

The Town Hall

This is an oil painting on a roller that graces the small stage in the Town Hall.

This area in Minnesota is rich with limestone and white sand. Much of the land is being purchased by a company that is selling the sand to glass factories around the US.

The church where my father and his family attended.

The old school. There is no intention of restoring this building. In fact, the company buying up the property for the sale of the white sand has purchased it and it will be demolished. I have recently learned that my mother's parents lived in my father's farm house at some point. So, my Aunt Ginny attended this school for a couple of years. You can read about it here.

On Saturday I attended the family reunion on my father's side which was held in the small town where in he was born - Ottawa. There are very few people living there now, but a couple of the old buildings have been restored and are on the Minnesota Historical Register. One is church; another is the Town Hall where we held our gathering. The church was locked - apparently it is opened only on Sundays, so I didn't get to go inside of it. The Town Hall was built 150 years ago, and has been restored. In fact, Henderson High School recently rented it for their prom.

I would estimate 70 people came to our little reunion. Many of them are strangers to me, but several of my first cousins were there: Beulah, who will turn 95 in January; Jane, Dick and Carl - brothers and sisters; Kathleen, who was born the day after I; and Mary, Kathleen's sister, who is a couple of years younger than I. I hadn't seen Mary for more than 20 years, so it was especially nice catching up on what she has been doing. And of course, Janet and Jerry were there.

The Town Hall was cool when we first arrived, but add about 70 people and temperatures outside rising to the mid to high 80's (the building is not air conditioned, but we had a few fans running), the reunion adjourned around 2 o'clock.