A Center, A First, A Heritage & Some Roots

Day 14 - Two weeks on the road already. Some days, it seems like we just left. Other days, it seems like we’ve been on the road forever. It rained during the night, but the morning was just overcast. Folks were fishing at the Epping-Springbook Reservoir when we left our campsite and resumed our trek east on US-2.

North Dakota is a very flat state. Long ago, my neighbor, Mary Beth, a North Dakota native, told me that North Dakota was so flat, you could see the curve of the Earth. Not sure it’s quite that flat, but there aren’t many curves in the road for sure. You can see for miles along seemingly endless flat stretches of highway.

We stopped briefly in the little town of Ray to take a look at their Opera House/Museum listed as an historical site. Built in 1904, the two floor building housed Clarkson’s grocery and general store on the first floor and the ‘opera house’ upstairs. The sign indicated it was open on weekends in summer if volunteers were available. The description of the museum ‘contains exhibits of musical instruments, pioneer artifacts and an unusual African display.’ Pretty eclectic grouping, I’d say. And a pretty impressive building for the middle of nowhere.

A bit further along the highway, we stopped to see the oldest mosque in America… in Ross, North Dakota, no less. Built by a Syrian farmer in 1929, a new mosque has replaced the original. It’s located in a grassy field off a country road, set back off the road with a small Muslim cemetery behind it.

As we walked through the grass to the cemetery, prairie dogs scattered from our path, peeking out of their holes and ducking back down if we came too close. An upland sandpiper picked its way carefully through the grass towards a small pond where yellow headed blackbirds and red-winged blackbirds perched atop tall reeds and cattails.

Stanley, yet further along our Great Northern route is a cute little town and home of Dakota Drug’s old-fashioned soda fountain serving up whirl-a-whip milkshakes. Evidently, people come from miles around (even Las Vegas) to sample this frozen concoction. Even though it was only 10:30 am, we bellied up to bar.

Josh was behind the counter and took our orders: chocolate/coffee for David and pina colada for me. They were thick and rich and way too much for breakfast… or lunch… or any meal in one sitting. We waddled back to Blanche and continued on our journey.

Minot… why not? That’s their motto and they’re sticking to it. The city is home to the Scandinavian Heritage Park, a free city park that’s pretty awesome. The park celebrates the heritage of the five Scandinavian countries: Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Denmark. The jewel of the park is the Gol Stave (pronounced ‘stahv’) Church, an impressive full-scale replica of the original church built in Gol, Norway in 1250AD and now in a museum in Oslo, Norway. Inside and out, the church is exquisite.

There are also statues of children’s fairy tale writer, Hans Christian Andersen (Denmark) and Leif Erikson (Iceland… really?) and a 30’ tall Dala Horse, the iconic symbol of Sweden plus many more displays, replica buildings, a visitor center and a gift shop.

We continued on to the Granville City Park Campground, a few miles outside of Minot. It was pleasant enough with electric and water, picnic tables and charcoal grills, We were the only campers in residence. Two rather basic, unlit vault toilets were across the park from the campsites. The grass hadn’t been cut in quite awhile which made sitting at the picnic table and cooking a bit uncomfortable.

A severe thunder and lightning storm warning sounded on our phones. Instructions at each campsite indicated that in case of severe weather, shelter could be sought at the local Lutheran church. We planned our escape route, just in case. It rained and thundered and the lightning flashed, but luckily nothing required our evacuation protocol.

Day 15 - It rained all through the night and was still raining in the morning when we finally roused ourselves from bed. The trek to the toilet in the morning across all the cold, wet grass was very damp and very unpleasant. The good news… not a drip from Blanche’s roof… a good repair.

We headed off to Rugby, North Dakota… the geographical center of North America. The day cleared long enough for us to jump out of the van and take a few pictures before the rains continued.

We noted lots of signs for county and state fairs and rodeos. We really enjoy local events like this, but we were too early as most occur in mid-late summer to coincide with the harvest.

My grandmother, Emma Lessard Lacoste, was born just outside of Grafton, North Dakota, about 40 miles north of Grand Forks. I’d never been there and in fact, knew very little about my grandmother at all, though I remember visiting her as a child.

Emma married my grandfather, Joseph, and, for some reason, while the rest of the country seemed to be moving west, they moved east and settled in Rochdale, Massachusetts. They had 14 children. My mom, Beatrice, was number eight in the line-up, right in the middle. I’d say it was probably a case for my mémère of having ‘so many children, she didn’t know what to do.’ It must have been overwhelming raising that many children, especially during the Great Depression years. My grandfather was killed in an accident in 1934, leaving her a widow at age 42. My mom was only 7 at the time and God only knows how Emma and all those kids survived, but they did.

Subsequently, there were so many grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, she didn’t get to know many of us very much at all. So I wanted to visit Grafton and see if I could find out anything more about her and get a sense of her hometown. The most information I had was from her obituary in 1981, which wasn’t much. My mom and all of my aunts have passed, so I couldn’t query them for more clues. In the picture above, my mom is the little one squinting fourth from the left in the front row.

I remembered my mom talking about her Aunt Malvina a few times. Evidently, she was quite a character and made an impression upon young Beatrice. My mom and grandmother actually made the trip by train from Massachusetts to North Dakota some time in the mid-late 1940s because my mom talked of it a few times. I figured Malvina was a logical place to start. I googled Malvina Lessard and sure enough some long lost, never known cousin was doing a family tree and Malvina Lessard Desautel of Grafton, ND showed up, along with her 12 siblings including Emma.

I haven’t had the chance to do much more digging, but I intend to. I did find out my great -grandparents were Exilia (Primeau) and Louis Lessard, a step back in the past and knowledge I never had before. A big thank you to my friend, Anne Marie in Worcester, who previously provided me with some ideas for researching.

Back to Grafton, it’s a farming community. There are fields of thick, black, rich soil that are cultivated for acres and acres as far as the eye can see, planted with wheat, canola and potatoes among other crops. Grafton is a railroad town, too. In fact, it was the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific that serviced the area. Founded in 1881 as mostly homesteader land, it has the distinction of establishing the first public library in North Dakota. Grain elevators and railroad tracks are iconic of North Dakota farming communities.

The population is ~4,000 people and it looks pretty much like any small farming town in the Midwest. Flat-roofed buildings occupied by all the usual stores, shops and services line the main street. It looks a bit tired. They’ve had a few rough agricultural years. But for the most part, the homes looked neat and tidy. There are still quite a few Lessards in town and if I’d done more homework in advance, maybe I could have tried to trace a few cousins still living in the area. A project for when we return to Las Vegas.

Enough root digging for now. We have places to go, things to do and sights to see. Next time, we head into Minnesota for a photo opp with Paul Bunyan, a meet-up with old friends at Lake Pokegama and a logging camp visit. Join us. Better bring your insect repellent though… the mosquitoes are vicious!