COUNTRY
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2016
Serving Marine on St. Croix, Scandia, May Township
VOL. 33 NO. 18 www.countrymessenger.com $.75
KAYAK TREK: Part 7, Whispering Pines to Thayer's Landing PAGE 7
Mondale to lead Taco parade
SUZANNE LINDGREN | COUNTRY MESSENGER
Actors playing Scandia “saints” in this year’s Living Cemetery Tour get into character. Clockwise from top left: Miriam Hackmann as historian and author Anna Monson Engquist, Arnie Wright as shopkeeper George Berglund, Marlys Ostrand and Maryann Bjorkmann as sisters Hazel Swenson and Ann Monson (née Clemenson), John Olsen as blacksmith Hjelmer Olsen, Carol Seefeldt and Deb Wright as teachers Viola Nickelson and Myrna Booren. The tour takes place Sept. 18.
Elim’s Living Cemetery Tour returns
The 41st anniversary of Scandia Taco Daze on Sept. 10 will honor summer resident and former U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale as Grand Marshal of the Taco Daze parade. The parade starts at 4 p.m. on Oakhill Road from Oxboro Avenue to Scandia Elementary School. The annual celebration is sponsored by the Scandia-Marine Lions Club. This year’s theme is the “Swedestones,” a parody of the Flintstones cartoon. Other activities will take place at the Scandia Community Center. A special appearance by the Barbary Coast Dixieland Band will take place in the Swedestone Beer Garden from 12:30 to 3 p.m. Captain Jack Sparrow will be on hand for greeting and photos. Boy Scout Troop 173 will sell tacos from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and vendors will set up outside the
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community center for an openair market. A dodge ball tourna-
Message in a bottle, tossed and found
BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@COUNTRYMESSENGER.COM
One might never guess it of sleepy Scandia, but many of its now deceased residents have lived storied lives. Take Anna Monson Engquist, a historian and author whose first eight years of education took place in a one-room schoolhouse. Her husband Rodney Engquist’s job as an oil truck driver eventually brought the couple to Saudi Arabia, where they worked for the Arabian American Oil Company. Unable to worship openly in the Muslim country, the couple bought a silk banner with camels and pyramids, which they used for fellowship and Christmas celebrations. “I knew Anna well,” said Engquist’s niece, Miriam Hackmann, who is preparing to depict Engquist during Elim’s Living Cemetery Tour this year. Hackmann and other actors bringing this year’s tour to life are preparing scripts and costumes for the September 18 event. Hackmann will open the show in Elim’s sanctuary as Engquist, then the tour will move to the cemetery, where guides and actors will highlight the lives of early settlers Solomon Holcombe (played by his great-grandson, Steve Storkan) and Olaf Olin (Warren Zenk); store owners from the mid 1900s, George Berglund (Arnie Wright) and Ed Weberg (Alan Bakke); teachers in the early one-room schools, Viola Nickelson (Carol Seefeldt) and Myrna Booren (Debbie Wright); Scandia’s last blacksmith, Hjelmer Olsen (played by his son, John Olsen); blind evangelist John Gustav Erickson (Glen Hanggi); and sisters Hazel Clemenson Swenson (Marlys Ostrand) and Ann Clemenson Monson (Maryann Bjorkmann). The list of saints is different than last year’s, each one brought to life through copious amounts of research by the actors, with some help from local historian Myron Lindgren. Scripts are developed with guidance from Holly Harden, a writer for “A Prairie Home Companion.” Though the event lasts just a few hours, the scripts create a biographical history of Scandia settlers. The tour’s organizers are saving the scripts, said
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Walter Mondale will serve as grand marshal at this year’s Taco Daze parade.
ment will begin at 9 a.m. and conclude at 3 p.m. A car, truck and tractor show kicks off at noon with registration from 9 a.m. until noon. There will be a dunk tank featuring prominent citizens of Scandia and Marine, kids games, cloggers and magician The Great Brolini. The Scandia-Marine Lions will sell cheese curds, corn dogs, Dala bread and soft serve ice cream. The “Running of the Meatballs,” sponsored by Gammelgården Museum, will take place at 3:30 p.m. on Oakhill Road between the Scandia Mercantile and Meister’s Bar & Grill. Parking will be available at Scandia Elementary School and the t-ball field. Shuttle buses will run every 15 minutes to and from these locations from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
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Noah Crandall holds the bottle with the message still inside. He found the rare item on the St. Croix River this summer. BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@COUNTRYMESSENGER.COM
When Mary Kae Schroeder and her fiancé, John Guslander, tossed a corked wine bottle into the St. Croix, Schroeder (née Erickson) doubted the message inside would ever ADVERTISING 651-433-3845 sales@osceolasun.com
be found. Schroeder can’t remember exactly what inspired the couple to pen the note in 2009, other than romance. Although she and and Guslander both grew up in Scandia, they’d been dating only a month when they took
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a hike near the river and stopped for a picnic lunch on the sand bar near the train’s swivel bridge. “After we finished our picnic we decided to write a note and put it inside of the empty bottle of wine,” Schroeder recalls. “We re-cork-
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ed the wine bottle and tossed it into the river while standing on the bridge.” The message asked the bottle’s finder to contact them, promising a reward of a drink or cup of coffee. SEE MESSAGE, PAGE 2
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