Category: To Occupy my Time

Tacy’s house is used as a museum, gift shop, and work space for the Betsy-Tacy Society.  I was impressed with the quality of artifacts on display.

It turns out that had Sara and I arrived last summer, we would not have been able to take those pictures on the hitching blocks.

Pictures of real-life people that Betsy’s “Crowd” was based on.

The real-life alter egos of Tacy, Betsy and Tib, back in Mankato (Deep Valley) in 1961.

This was perhaps my favorite period item on display.  I kind of want to read Lady Audley’s Secret.  Oh wait, we have the internet.  I totally can.

That was one nice-looking house.  Too bad it’s gone.

Lovelace’s typewriter.  Such a pretty blue thing.

Betsy and Tacy went to Spain in 1968.  (This is amusing if you know that Betsy, Tacy and Tib wrote a letter to the King of Spain, who they were in love with.)

In one of the high school books, the girls in the crowd form a sorority they call the Octo-Deltas.  Here is Lovelace’s Octo-Delta pin.

Tib, Betsy and Tacy (they so rarely sit in the proper order of their names) in high school.

Pictures of Tacy’s family.

Pictures of Tib’s family.

The gift shop offered a variety of wondrous things, and I spent a goodly bit of money.  My favorite acquisition was the Betsy-Tacy songbook, which collects the songs mentioned in the Betsy-Tacy books and includes a write-up and sheet music for all of them.

We began in the kitchen, which has been taken back to the period when Lovelace lived here.  There are some items in the house that were owned by Betsy and her family, but most are period-appropriate reproductions.

One of the fun things about this house/museum is that they took illustrations from the first four Betsy-Tacy books and used them to inform their renovations.  Then they posted said illustrations in the room. You can see one on the shelf.

Wood stove, cupboard and table.

Cabinets.

After a certain point in the books, Betsy wrote using her Uncle Keith’s trunk as a desk.  She did this upstairs, but the upstairs is just now being renovated, so for now the trunk sits in the dining room.

Blurry picture of dining room.

I complimented our docent on their excellent matching of the lamp to the photo.

Telephone and sideboard.

 

Really good corner bookshelf.

Sitting area and piano.

Piano with photographs of the Hart family.

In Betsy’s Wedding, Betsy and her husband Joe scrounge furniture from family attics and cellars.  There is more than one mention of the drop-leaf table and this is the actual drop leaf table that Maud and her husband Delos used in their first apartment!

See!  Quotes from the book were hither and yon also.

Though we know these people as Mr. & Mrs Ray, Julia, Betsy and Margaret Ray, you can see that they are actually the Hart family.

Stove in the parlor area.

 

Sitting area.  This room probably originally had the stairs to the second floor.

In Betsy-Tacy, the Ray family adds on a room “just in case there’s a Robert Ray, Jr.,” as Betsy’s father says.  Indeed, a room was added on to the house to make room for a new baby.  But in real life, as in the book, it was Stella Hart (Margaret Ray) who was born instead of Robert Ray, Jr.

The birth of Margaret takes place in the closing chapters of the book and it was fun that we had just finished reading that part in the car, while waiting for the tour.

A peek at the upstairs renovation.  I will have to visit again to see the finished product.

 

It was a grand tour of Betsy’s House.  The Betsy-Tacy Society has done very good work.

We arrived in Mankato, ready to visit the Betsy-Tacy houses.  Betsy and Tacy are fictional characters in Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy series.  The books are set in Deep Valley Minnesota, which is the more romantic name of Mankato, where Maude Hart Lovelace grew up.  Maude based the Betsy character on herself and her family and the Tacy character was based on her life-long friend Frances “Bick” Kenney, who lived across the street.  The Betsy Tacy Society bought both houses, restored them and gives tours.  I re-read all the Betsy-Tacy books in anticipation of my visit and I was quite excited to see the houses.  (Houses & Homes!)

We arrived early for our tour, so we hung about.  Me on the hitching block in front of Tacy’s house.

Sara on the same hitching block.

Betsy’s house.

Tacy’s house.

An ALTAFF approved site!

Lois Lenski’s drawings from the end papers of the early Betsy-Tacy books.  You can see Betsy’s house, Tacy’s house, the bench at the end of the street where Betsy and Tacy would eat their dinner and the road up the big hill.

Info about Maud Hart Lovelace.

Here you can read about Turner Hall.  I never took a picture of the entire building.  The website isn’t too interested in showing the whole building either.

 

But with this really great sign, you can see why I got distracted.

Being tourists, we headed to the Rathskeller. I’d read they serve “heavy German food” which was music to my ears.

We went for Herman Balls.  In case you aren’t aware, that’s German potato salad deep fried with 1000 Island Dressing to dip.  Herman Balls were delicious.

 

Sara chose the Brat Sliders and I had the best grilled cheese sandwich ever:  Bacon Almond Grilled Cheese with chunks of green onion.  

The Rathskeller had this great poster, which I photographed just so Matt could read me everything.

It also has amazing murals and a great fireplace.

The bathroom featured wonderful historic photos.  Guys in the bar:

Turner gymnasts back in the day. I’m guessing the vast majority of Turner gymnasts today are female.

 

Here you can read about the monument.

 

And here is the back side of the monument.  Unfortunately, I never took a picture of the front.  I see I’m not the only one to shirk my duty.  The official web site doesn’t have any really great front pictures of it either.

After paying our admission, we made the approach, stopping to take a picture of one of the Lions.
(Which, if you spend any time with Sara, you will know that “Lions are king.  Uh-huh.  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.” which is the aptly named “Whiny cheer”.

 

I bring you the wrought iron update from the Hermann monument.

 

After ascending the spiral stairs, there is a reprieve with some windows.

One final spiral and a ladder that affords a view of Hermann’s underthings.

Sara climbing up.

It was quite windy.

Shadows and roof flourishes.

 

The view.

 

Leaving the Walnut Grove area, we headed to New Ulm, and I got massively bored following trucks on the highway.  Sara suggested we turn off at the Family Jubilee Shrine and we had a quick diversion.

 

The shrine itself.

Interior

I enjoyed the digital clock.

Ceiling dove.  (Probably not what it’s called.  Shawn?)

 

Stained glass.

 

Built in 1976. I wondered what the symbol meant, but am not actually going to search and find out.

 

Hey, there’s a lake over there!  Quite a big one.  I loved coming across all the Minnesota lakes.

Aside from the shrine there is a retreat center and yearly events, should you want to explore.  I wouldn’t mind attending the Garage Sale at the Shrine in August.

Here we are, on the way to the site of the famous dugout.
(Note that the book pictured is the edition I grew up with.  My versions were yellow boardered, then came blue, then gingham.)

The Gordon family purchased this farm in 1947.  That year, Garth Williams, the illustrator of the series that most people are familiar with, informed the Gordon family that the weird depression by the creek was the former Ingalls Dugout.  The Gordon family still owns the farm and makes it easy for fans to visit the site.  This was a highlight of my trip.  Also, their printed warning above the pay box cracks me up.

Sara on the banks of Plum Creek, despairing because she dropped her museum leaflet into the creek. The sign you can see in the background marks the site of the dugout.

Shadows on the banks of Plum Creek.  We’re both taking pictures.

There had been a substantial amount of rain the night before, so the creek was running high.

 

 

Crossing a bridge, we climbed up to the dugout site.  Look how small it was.

Roped off outline of the dugout.

Plum trees.

 

Restored prairie.

Discussion about where the big rock was.  I noticed in the hand-drawn map from the previous post Laura had it on the other side of the creek.

The Little House books are fictionalized accounts of Laura’s childhood.  I recommend Pamela Smith Hill’s excellent book Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer’s Life which not only compares Wilder’s actual biography to the chronology of the books, but also examines the writing of the series.  The same author also annotated Wilder’s earlier autobiography Pioneer Girl which I haven’t yet read, but am looking forward to getting my hands on.

I know the books backwards and forwards, and I’ve read a lot of supplemental Laura Ingalls Wilder publishing.  Standing on the banks of Plum Creek was a good way to feel a connection to Laura the girl who would become a renowned author, just as visiting her house in Mansfield Missouri was a good way to connect to the author herself.

After the museum, we ate at Nellie’s Cafe, which a girl at the museum recommended because of their homemade pie which she said she enjoyed.

 

Service was good and Sara got egg salad and tots while I had a bowl of Au Gratin potato soup.  I also ordered pea salad, which I’d never had before.  I feel like pea salad is in my future in some form, the recipe just needs to be refined a little.

After our meal, Sara ordered cherry pie and we both agreed that we need to bring that poor girl at the museum some real homemade pie.

Water tower in town.  They know on which side their bread is buttered.

We arrived in Walnut Grove and followed the signs to the museum.

This sign advertised several Laura Ingalls Wilder museums.  Interestingly, the Mansfield Missouri one is not listed here.  Also, what’s Spring Valley?  It turns out to be where the Wilder family (Almazo’s parents) lived after they moved from New York State.  Laura and Almanzo lived there after De Smit but before living in Florida.

We visited the store to buy our tickets and I bought a pressed penny.  I went with Jack.

 

There are two parts to the Laura Ingalls Wilder part of this museum: books and tv series. The events depcited in the book On the Banks of Plum Creek happened outside of Walnut Grove and the tv series Little House on the Prairie was set in Walnut Grove.

Being a fan of the books and not the TV show, I was interested in the book part of the museum.

This was very cool. They had several piece of illustrator Garth Williams’s work.  At the top is the rough sketch, then both the black and white and the color version of the final drawing. Below that is the text from the book.  This picture will also come in handy for the next post, so take a good look.

 

Here is Nellie Oleson being mean.

 

Actual things Laura owned.  (The museum would phrase this as ACTUAL things Laura OWNED!!!!)

 

The museum’s system indicating items owned by Laura Ingalls Wilder were backed by the shiny green border.

I found this museum to be a little heavy on things that weren’t really museum-quality like this framed Scriptural GUIDE.  If you are curious as to what Psalm 51 is, it’s here.

 

However, some of the not-so-museum-quality items made me laugh. Like this one.

 

The museum also included pictures and stories of people in the Walnut Grove area that Laura adapted for characters.  And here’s a blow up of a map Laura drew of Plum Creek.

 

We then entered the “TV” section of the museum, which I was not at all enamored with.  Here are two pictures of the actor/actual people.  Note:  I’ve not seen this photo of Charles Ingalls before.  Why is he sticking his finger in his ear?

 

There was a Walnut Grove mural and photos from the television series, as well as episodes of the television series playing.  There was also memorabilia from cast reunions which took place in Walnut Grove (though the show was filmed in California).

After exiting the book/tv part of the museum, it was time to wind our way through the other exhibits.  These included a dugout.

This dugout (unlike the one we visited in the prior post) has whitewashed walls.

 

It is very small.

As Sara demonstrates.

There was also a schoolhouse.

And a fancy house that had exhibits of a variety of things.  In front of it, you can see the reconstructed prairie.

 

Sara inside the fancy house playing dress-up.

There was another building with a post-office where you could sort letters, a covered wagon and other such things.

This house was across the street from the museum.  But what’s relevant is the sign in the yard.

Master’s Hotel was once here.  The brochure says it’s where Laura once worked, but all googling leads to the Master’s Hotel in Iowa which Charles Ingalls managed.  I did find a link for this book, which spells the hotel this way:  Masters’ Hotel.

Happily, we availed ourselves of the head-in-the-hole opportunities, first as farmer and wife.

Then as children.

There was also a covered wagon.