Dusting off the Archives
News from Verndale's Past
75 Years Ago, March 30, 1950
• One of our local 4-H girls, Rachel Wellman of the Oakdale 4-H Club, was among the three youth who were commended at the Minnesota Holstein Breeders Association meeting at St. Cloud on Saturday, March 25. Rachel was named as the state champion 4-H Holstein club girl sharing honors with James Lind as the champion boy. Rachel received a gold watch from the state association.
• Next Saturday morning, April 1, a group of men interested in Boy Scouts will meet at the Lunch Cafe for breakfast at eight o’clock to plan the annual finance drive. The group will be divided into four teams with the four committee men, Tony Winkels, Carl Dahlquist, Reverend Ralph Davis and Superintendent Bluhm as captains. About 20 men are expected at the scouters breakfast. They will be contacted by the captains before Saturday morning.
• At the meeting of the Verndale Fire Department on Monday evening of this week, all officers were re-elected. Lester Marquardt, fire chief; Bill Juergens, assistant chief; Cecil Seaton, treasurer; Louie Suddendorf, secretary; Al Grewe, Hugo Weber, Wilbur Desrocher and Roy Manselle, trustees.
40 Years Ago, March 27, 1985
• Shirley Grewe invites all to the grand opening on April Fool’s Day of her new Cameo Crafts and Fabrics shop located in the former Ranger Reality building on the corner of Highway 10 and North Farwell Street. Her son, Devon Dougherty, removed the identifying marks from the Ranger Reality sign in preparation for the new one.
• The Cass Clay milk company is sponsoring a Dairy Castle Construction Contest and a Dairy Cow Construction Contest at the Wadena County Fair on Sunday, July 21. Each contestant may build a dairy princess castle using Cass Clay milk cartons. Thirty or more cartons are to be used in the construction. A second contest will be held in which the contestants construct a dairy cow out of milk cartons using thirty or more. The prize for each contest will be $25, first; $15, second; and $10, third.
• Peg Hokanson was chosen by the Verndale American Legion Auxiliary to attend the 39th annual Minnesota Girls State held at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, This year the event will be held the week of June 9-15. Chosen as alternate was Heidi VanBatavia. They are the daughters of Jerome and Jackie Hokanson and Conrad and Shirley VanBatavia. Girls interested were requested to write an essay on why they would like to attend Girls State and on this basis they were chosen, along with the requirement to be in the upper third of their class.
15 Years Ago, April 1, 2010
• As some of you may know, Verndale does have some mysteries surrounding the town itself, but the Mystery Sisters and their history isn’t a secret, even though the name may imply such. It was during WWII in 1943 that Naomi Stone’s mother, Orlet Larson, sensed the isolation of rural women in what was then known as the Oak Grove community. She organized the original Mystery Sisters to give them a social outlet. In the beginning there were around 25 women involved, but as time passed it was decided to cut the group size down to around 12 which was more manageable to host their parities. Larson remained a member until she was 80 years old.
• On Thursday evening, at 6:15 p.m., Wadena law enforcement and fire department were called out to the Minnesota Department of Transportation truck station in Wadena. The fire appeared to have started in a plow truck. The truck had not been driven in approximately a week and the cause is unknown at this time. The truck sustained substantial damage. Heavy smoke and heat damage occurred in the building along with some water damage.
• Eighth grader Jamie Peterson advanced to sections during the speech sub-section held in New York Mills. Jamie took third place in storytelling.