Daily Minutia

If you’re a regular reader this humble e-newsletter, you’ll know that I absolutely love that newspapers used to publish utterly mundane tidbits of town gossip. It’s such an interesting and unique opportunity to really get a sense of what daily life would have been like in the late 19th century…or at least, how the reporting newspaper perceived it.

So, I’ll invite you to take a little journey through time to learn the status of Mr. Davis’ garden, hear a successful fishing story, and read the paper’s editor give a bit of good natured ribbing towards a newly married former co-worker.

About Town – Stillwater Republican – May 3, 1870

– Eggs are plenty and came down to fifteen cents per dozen Saturday.

– Mosquitos are making their appearance, much to the regret of every body.

– Our streets are now full of men, looking for employment.

– Last Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were real hot days.

– Northern Lights were beautifully brilliant last Saturday night.

– McKusick’s saw mill commenced sawing yesterday.

– Geo. Francis Train has been engaged and will lecture in this city May 9th.

– A steer two years old was weighed on Web McKusick’s scales one day last week that weighed 1,110 pounds.

– The frame of the new shingle mill of D. Gaslin & Co., on the opposite side of the lake, is up and nearly enclosed.

– McKusick & Anderson have the foundation of the new mill at the ferry landing nearly completed.

– Sunday was a good day for our livery stables. Everything in the shape of a horse was out.

– We understand that Sam Bloomer has been appointed to take the census of Stillwater town and city.

– Geo. Davis has just received a lot of new plants, bulbs, and a large variety of choice rose bushes from the east.

– Last Saturday we saw new lettuce in Geo. Davis’ garden that was nearly large enough to pick.

– This morning the sun rose at 4 o’clock and 52 minutes and set at 7 o’clock and 2 minutes, making the day 14 hours and 10 minutes long.

– Dr. J. K. Reiner has purchased himself a new and handsome carriage. We understand that Dr. Stone has taken orders for five more similar to it, to come from the same manufactory.

– Last evening our efficient and popular County Auditor, R. Lehmicke, was presented with a handsome gold headed cane from the members of the Deutcher Verein, of which society he is the musical director.

– Rengstorff, and Morris of the Sawyer House, one day last week took over thirty fine speckled trout from Boles’ creek. Joe Carli and Joe Yorks started last Saturday for Kinnikinnick to try their luck at trouting.

– The Hudson Times says a very destructive prairie fire, in the way of burning fences and destroying young timber, occurred back of Lakeland on Friday last. The amount of damage done is variously calculated from $4,000 to $5,000. We are told that it caught from a gun wad.

– Personal:

– J. N. Castle returned from the East yesterday.

– W. G. Clark of St. Louis, is in the city.

– Mr. F. Schultz returned from the east last Friday. He will soon be followed by a new stock of goods. – Wm. E. Thorne went east yesterday after goods.

– The First Universalist Society, of Stillwater, hold divine service at Armory Hall on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Sundays in each month, commencing at 2 and 7 P.M. A cordial invitation is extended to all to come and hear. Rev. George Adams, Pastor

– S. Selleck has employed Mr. John Bell, an old and well known cutter of St. Paul, to supervise the merchant tailor department of his store, and will guarantee satisfaction to those who may favor him with their work.

– Mr. John Gierry, formerly of the Minnesota House, has rented the livery stable and gorund on Main street, near Westing. Hospes & Co’s store, for ten years, and is going to fit the same up for a billiard hall and saloon.

– As will be seen by a notice elsewhere, our old foreman “Tom” Bressnell, as he is familiarly known in these parts, has forsaken his old ways and become a happy benedict. “Tom” graduated at the printing business in this place along with ourselves; he peddling democracy in the shape of the old St. Croix Union – a sin he has long been trying to atone for by fighting the rebels and vigorously voting the Republican ticket since his majority – while we furnished unadulterated republicans through its rival, the Messenger. Tom recently made a raise by speculating in corner lots in the “Zenith” city, and concluded that now was the time. Sensible conclusion, – happy boy.

Brazilians, Mexicans, and WW2 Pilots Trained in Lake Elmo

By Anita Buck

“The setting is a Washington County pastoral that would have brought joy the Old Masters. It is the 160 acre Veronica Flynn farm, two miles east of Lake Elmo, with its broad pastures, venerable trees, and picturesque brick farmhouse nearly a half-century old.”

This is an excerpt from an article in the Stillwater Daily Gazette of Monday, June 8, 1942. It described the glider pilot school operated in the St. Croix Valley by the Army Air Corps from May to November of that year.

Even before the United States was drawn into the war in 1941, individuals across the land were training pilots for other countries.

Lt. Thomas North, a Twin Cities flying veteran, created and owned a small airfield, Northport, located on Highway 96 between White Bear and Stillwater. North had been contracted to train flyers from South and Central America and Mexico. The Latin American students were chosen by the own countries after an exhaustive competition to find the most outstanding young men. Their respective governments sent them to the United States for aviation training under the best teachers available. Nine were sent to Northport, along with three North American fliers.

Names on the roster were Gualo de Cowea Broves, Edgard Aleveda Mereira, and Wilson Simeon of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Harry Gibson, Jr. of Caracas, Venezuela; Ramon Alaroon and Raul Turner of Santiago, Chile; Cesar R. Berdo of Lima, Peru; and Enrique Labadie of Ilaveals, Mexico. The North American trainees were Robert J. Richled of Worthington, MN; Orlando Fossum of Staples, MN; and Stanley Sanders of Manchester, KY. The Latin Americans had received English instruction in their homelands, which gave them the necessary building blocks to communicate with their instructors. While in Stillwater, the men elected to only speak in English to continuously improve their language skills.

Irene Hedberg, a Spanish teacher at Stillwater senior high school, was recruited to strengthen the cadets’ grasp of English. Looking back at the experience, Miss Hedberg had doubts on who did the teaching. “I was supposed to be giving them a solid understanding of English,” she said, “In return they were adding to my Spanish.”

She also recalled their refined manners. “In the classroom they insisted on standing until I sat down, which complicated things when I wanted to use the blackboard. And when I went back to my high school classroom, I had to learn to pick up my books when I left a room. At Northport, I always had a willing escort crew.”

The cadets kept in touch after they transferred to Purdue for further training, but that correspondence was brief. Ms. Hedberg often wondered where her pupils had ended up in their lives and if they ever thought of their days in Stillwater.

The class lasted seven months at Northport. They were up at 6:30 am, flew from sunrise to sunset, and studied in ground school until 11:00 pm. They were off duty from 5:00 pm Saturday until 10:00 am Sunday, when training resumed. When the men arrived at Northport, only one could actually fly. But by the time they graduated, all had more than 100 hours of ground school, and 40 to 50 hours of flight time. This qualified them for private pilot licenses in the United States, and instructor ratings in their homelands.

By the time the United States entered Second World War, air power was becoming increasingly crucial. Designs were made for transporting men and material by means of glider planes, which would be towed to a target area and released. Unpowered, they would glide soundlessly to the ground. With the Northport Flying School already established, the Army Air Corps looked closely at the area. It selected Stillwater as the operation center for a glider training school. There were three other such schools in Minnesota and two in neighboring South Dakota.

North was given a contract for the training. Wendell Wilson, Don Cafferty, Phil Belfiori and Milton H. Kuhlman, principal of Stillwater High School, were engaged as ground school instructors. Sixteen flight instructors were added at the start with more hired later on.

A caravan of a half-dozen military vehicles arrived in Stillwater on May 26, 1942. They parked next to the post office on Second and Myrtle Street where Tom North met the group. He had made arrangements for the officers and staff to stay at the Northwestern Hotel. However, a staff sergeant amongst the soldiers later reported that the commanding officer took one look at the proposed lodgings and said, “No way.” Eventually, six of the group would stay at the much-swankier Lowell Inn while the others found rooms at private residences throughout town.

At first, the brick house on the Flynn farm served as the base’s offices. The barn was used for airplane repairs. Eventually, the whole operation was packed up and moved to more suitable quarters at the old CC camp on Highway 95, approximately at the site of the Anderson Window Corp. facility in Bayport. The military leased a second field near the Twin Point Tavern in Lake Elmo and a third just north of Highway 12 near Lakeland. An auxiliary field was leased in Wisconsin for emergency landings.

Barely two weeks after setting up the glider school, the first batch of trainees arrived. Under an agreement with the board of education, candidates for the flight program were housed in the Stillwater High School gymnasium. There the men were cared for in dormitory fashion. The Air Corps even took over the school cafeteria until a mess hall was later installed at the CCC campsite.

On June 11, 1942, the pilot training school and its fields were inspected by Major Gen. George E. Stratemeyer, commander of the Southeast Air Corps Training Center. The general was reported to be “pleased with the layout and progress of the school.” Every other week, 250 students arrived for two weeks of training. These were Air Corps volunteers and almost to the man – not a single had flown before. North and his instructors gave them flight training in about 20 planes. Instructors worked 7 days a week, dawn to dark, any time the weather was fit to fly. Students flew the planes eight hours with the power on, and then eight hours with no power what so ever including dead-stick landings to simulate operating a glider.

On June 11, the glider base’s staff were the target of chemical warfare. But the culprit wasn’t a member of the Axis Powers…

The Stillwater Gazette reported that two able-bodied skunks had taken up residence under the old Flynn farmhouse. “Officers and NCOs alike reach the decision that they were training for the air corps, not for gas warfare. A call went out for Rube Grandquist, district game warden.”

Students, officers, and instructors of the Army Air Fore Aviation school watched as an expert in glider flight gave a demonstration at the Flynn farm field on Saturday, June 20. Tom Bellak of the University of Minnesota aeronautics school brought his own glider to Stillwater. Bellak was given a tower into the air by Lt. Renz. For many of the students, this was the first time they had ever seen a glider in person.

In recalling the operation of the glider school, Jim Rog had said that the command group had a “double A” priority. They received anything they asked for, dealing directly with Washington, D.C. Fort Snelling handled finance, medical care, troop movements, and provided escorts for the dead.

Although the Stillwater school had the best safety record of the six Midwest schools, there were two accidents with four men killed. Once, a student panicked and froze on the controls, crashing into the ground. Both the student and the instructor were killed. Following a snowstorm one winter day, a plane took off without having its wing de-iced. The plane plummeted into the ground and again, neither the trainee nor the instructor survived.

During the six months the glider school operated, almost 3,000 cadets received training. The last students completed their instruction on Friday, Nov. 13, 1942. From there, they were assigned to Lockbourne, Ohio or Texas for advanced training before being deployed to Europe.

The civilian instructors continued to work for Tom North, training pilots until the government contract expired in 1943. Almost all of the instructors enlisted in the Army Air Corps as flight officers. More than half flew in the Asian Theater, transporting supplies between India and China. At air bases all over the world, they met fellow instructors as well as many of the pilots they themselves had taught in the St. Croix Valley.

After the cadets left in November 1942, the members of the permanent detachment finished the business of the school. Paperwork was wound up on Sunday. By mid-afternoon on Monday, Nov. 16, the last of the personnel boarded their vehicles and headed south, closing this chapter of military glider training in Washington County.