BACK THEN WITH TRACY BRIGGS

North Dakota’s most famous fictional character turns 100

Tracy Briggs — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 14:13:00 GMT

You’ve no doubt seen the meme featuring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, raising a champagne glass at an extravagant Long Island party. Handsome and suave, with clear blue eyes and wavy blond hair, he embodies the elegance and sophistication of the 1920s — worlds away from a desolate farm in rural North Dakota.

But that is precisely where Gatsby’s story began — not within the novel’s timeline, but in the imagination of author F. Scott Fitzgerald, who created him a century ago.

Since its publication in 1925, “The Great Gatsby” has become one of the most enduring novels of all time, still selling around 500,000 copies a year — more than many New York Times bestsellers.

Gatsby’s story has been told on film four times: 1949, 1974, 2000 and 2013. In addition to DiCaprio’s in 2013, Robert Redford’s 1974 performance stands out.

When you’re portrayed by the likes of DiCaprio and Redford, that indeed makes you North Dakota’s most famous fictional character.

But what exactly do we know about Gatsby’s North Dakota days, and what other famous fictional characters come from the Peace Garden State?

North Dakota boy created by Minnesota man

Long before the lavish soirées and the green light at the end of Daisy's dock, Jay Gatsby was simply James Gatz, the son of impoverished Lutheran farmers in North Dakota. While Fitzgerald never details exactly where Gatz is from, Sarah Vogel, a former agriculture commissioner and author of “The Farmer’s Lawyer,” said there are some clues in the book.

In her essay for Lit Hub, she said Gatsby would have been born around 1890. Twenty years earlier, what was then Dakota Territory saw an influx of Protestant (Lutheran, Mennonite) and Catholic Germans from Russia. Most would become farmers.

“Half of North Dakotans today have German/Russian roots,” Vogel wrote. “One of the common last names of the Volga Germans was Götz, pronounced Gatz.”

The highest density of German Russians is in the south central part of North Dakota. So was Gatsby from Ashley, Wishek or Strasberg? Would he have been raised on sausage and kuchen and become good friends with Lawrence Welk? We don’t know. But it’s fun to imagine.

“Gatsby never admits to being from North Dakota (was he ashamed?) and instead he spins an improbable tale about his origins, claiming to come from a wealthy Midwestern family, all of whom are conveniently dead. No one believed him,” Vogel wrote.

Even in the middle of the extravagant parties on West Egg, Gatsby didn’t fit in among the other elite as much as he wished he would have — something Fitzgerald himself was said to feel. Maybe Gatsby’s North Dakota origins were a reflection of Fitzgerald’s own experiences with ambition, reinvention and the longing to belong.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota, had a deep understanding of the Midwest. Though he spent much of his life in the East, his Midwestern roots heavily influenced his writing.

He may have chosen North Dakota as Gatsby’s birthplace because it represented both the rugged, hardworking spirit of the American heartland and the sense of isolation that Gatsby would later feel among the elite of New York.

North Dakota's Fictional Hall of Fame

Jay Gatsby is an impressive No. 1 on the list of North Dakota’s top fictional characters. Who can even come close? How about this eclectic mix of folklore, dark comedy, toys and comics?

Paul Bunyan

Minnesotans' screams will probably be deafening at the suggestion that Paul Bunyan could be on a list of North Dakota characters. After all, there are statues of Bunyan and his ox, Babe, in at least six Minnesota cities, including Brainerd and Bemidji.

However, the folklore of Bunyan includes tall tales of how he cleared all the trees from the forests of both North Dakota and South Dakota. A story in The Duluth News Tribune from Aug. 4, 1904, detailed “the year Paul Bunyan lumbered in North Dakota.” (But Minnesota, I think you still have this one.)

Hanzee Dent

Fans of the television series “Fargo” will recognize Hanzee as the complex and stoic enforcer whose ties to North Dakota run deep. According to Fargo Wiki, “He is a Native American activist and freedom fighter who was born in South Dakota and moved to a boarding school in North Dakota to learn the white way of life. Furthermore, in 1975, he was sentenced to life for the death of two FBI agents.”

Low-Light (G.I. Joe) and Mentallo

Are you ready for a toy and cartoon character to hit the list? For those who grew up with action figures and Saturday morning cartoons, Low-Light stands out as the G.I. Joe team’s night operations expert. According to GI Joe’s Fandom page Jopeddia, Low-Light’s real name is Cooper G. MacBride and he was born in Crosby, North Dakota. Fans suggest his North Dakota origins might explain his cool demeanor under pressure.

Diving into the comic book realm, Mentallo is a Marvel Comics character known for his telepathic abilities. According to his fan page biography, his real name is Marvin Flumm and he was born in Watford City, North Dakota, where he once worked as a shoe salesman.

By no means is this an exhaustive list. Who did I miss? Let me know.

In the meantime, happy 100th birthday to “The Great Gatsby.” Check out the events being hosted at the Minnesota Historical Society, including a live reading of the book, 100 years to the day it was published.

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She left Queen Victoria to become a North Dakota farm wife

Tracy Briggs — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 16:30:00 GMT

ROLLA, N.D. — It’s the heart of many a fairy tale — a young woman rising from humble beginnings to a life of luxury in a grand palace.

But Marie Downing was Cinderella in reverse — leaving the opulence of Queen Victoria’s court in 1887 to become a modest farmer’s wife in rural America.

It was a colossal culture shock from the Victorian finery of London to the blustery acres of Rolla, Dakota Territory. Yet, in her old age, Marie said she did it for love and would do it again.

At 78, she granted an interview to writer Margaret Babcock McCahren, in which she reflected on her unusual journey from royalty to Rolla. The story that inspired this one was published in The Forum on Aug. 10, 1930.

From seamstress to royal attendant

Marie first encountered Queen Victoria while working as an apprentice at a sewing shop, where she made clothing for the royal children. Her duties required her to travel to Windsor Castle, and one day, the queen took notice.

“When the royal request, literally a summons, came for me to serve Her Majesty, I was delighted and immediately went into her service,” Marie recalled.

As a maid-in-waiting, she always stood by the queen’s chair, anticipating every need. She witnessed discussions over state affairs with world leaders and intimate family moments with Prince Consort Albert and their nine children.

Marie received no salary but was provided clothing, food and numerous gifts, including diamonds that later helped purchase her North Dakota farm. One particularly cherished gift — a mantel clock — was originally a playful reprimand from the queen.

“It was my duty to choose suitable gifts for the queen to present to her callers,” Marie said. One such item, a timepiece, was to be given away, but after Marie arrived late for an appointment, the queen changed her mind.

“The queen took this and presented it to me, saying that perhaps this would help me be more punctual in the future,” she recounted. Later, the queen had the watch placed in a beautiful mantel clock case that eventually sat in her tiny log home in North Dakota.

Despite the controversy over her tardiness (Marie said the Prince of Wales made her late for her meeting with the queen), Marie became a favorite of the queen and was even loaned to her friend, Empress Eugenie. While traveling with the empress in South Africa, Marie is credited with saving her life.

Trading court life for the prairie

So how did a favored royal servant end up in Rolla, North Dakota?

It all started with a boy.

In 1879, Marie fell in love with a butler named Harry Williams, but he had dreams beyond serving the aristocracy. He wanted to be a landowner. In 1882, he set sail for Canada to buy a farm and begged Marie to follow him.

“It took me two years to persuade her majesty to let me leave her service to come here to marry Harry,” Marie said. “She was vexed because she could not understand my wishing to leave her to come to ‘savage America’ to marry a poor farmer and live beyond the outposts of civilization.”

The queen only consented on one condition: Marie had to return a marriage certificate proving she had married Harry Williams. (Because of her position with the queen, she was not allowed to marry him earlier.)

By 1887, Harry had abandoned his farming efforts in Manitoba and secured a claim west of Rolla. Marie finally set sail to join him. She was met with a massive mix-up upon arrival in New York. Customs officials insisted she had more trunks than she claimed.

“Upon investigation, I discovered the trunks were all labeled with my name and that Victoria had sent them,” she said.

Inside, exquisite clothing and jewelry lay tucked away — items befitting a palace rather than a North Dakota homestead. Nonetheless, Marie and the trunks were on their way.

“I shall never forget that long trip alone on the train from New York halfway across the continent in the dead of winter,” she said. “The bleak, snow-covered plains were so new to me.”

Once she arrived at the train station in Minnewauken, Dakota Territory, she was reunited with Harry, whom she hadn’t seen in five years. They immediately married in nearby Devils Lake and sent the marriage certificate to the queen. Then they boarded a horse-drawn sleigh for the 75-mile journey to their home — in 40-below-zero temperatures. The delicate parasol she had brought from England offered little protection from the prairie winds.

Marie was dismayed that their home wasn’t a pretty English cottage but a rustic log cabin with no doors or windows and a half-finished roof. Neighbors let them stay until the cabin was livable.

A touch of royalty in the heartland

As Mr. and Mrs. Williams settled into their new life, Marie became a local celebrity. Townsfolk eagerly visited to see and even touch the royal artifacts she had kept. She often lent gowns and jewelry to local brides, bringing some aristocratic splendor to the prairie.

Over time, the couple sold many of these treasures to finance their farm, buy supplies and purchase more land. Marie claimed the queen even sent letters and Christmas gifts — including a gold horse saddle that was later stolen from the barn.

The Williamses lived quietly on their farm for decades, returning to England only once in 1909. But Marie had no regrets.

“From the first, I liked the immensity of sky and prairie,” she said. “Even though I was sometimes lonesome in the early days when we had so few neighbors, I never wished to return to England or to the luxuries of the life I had formerly lived.”

Marie died on Dec. 5, 1933. Harry followed on March 23, 1940.

A flawed fairy tale?

While Marie’s story seems tailor-made for Hollywood, historian Helen Rappaport’s research casts doubt on some details. Rappaport suggests Marie may have been eight years older than she claimed and that she and Harry were already married before leaving England — a direct contradiction to Queen Victoria’s policy forbidding marriage among the maids in her service.

Further skepticism surrounds the exquisite gifts the monarch gave to her one-time maid. While Queen Victoria was known for her generosity, Rappaport wonders whether she would have sent such valuable items halfway around the world to a former servant who had worked for her for only four or five years. Why would she send items that would not be practical on the farm?

“What use would Marie Downing have for a ‘court train six yards in length’ that Queen Victoria had worn at state functions, or an inlaid Egyptian marble paperweight, or a black parasol lined with purple satin?” Rappaport writes. “Like it or not, one has to ask the question: Did Marie slowly and systematically purloin some of those ‘gifts’ from Victoria?”

Despite these inconsistencies, Marie’s royal belongings were undeniably authentic — relics of a royal household that somehow made their way to a remote North Dakota homestead.

Whether Marie Downing Williams embellished parts of her story or not, she undeniably brought a touch of royalty to Rolla. Some of her cherished belongings remain preserved at the Prairie Village Museum in Rugby, offering visitors a glimpse into the fascinating life of a woman who traded the grandeur of the palace for the quiet strength of the prairie.

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North Dakotan, Minnesotan played key roles in Iwo Jima flag-raising 80 years ago

Tracy Briggs — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:23:00 GMT

Feb. 23, 2025, marks 80 years since one of the most powerful and patriotic images was taken of war — the U.S. Marines raising the American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. It was the first time the Stars and Stripes flew over traditional Japanese soil, a moment that electrified U.S. troops below and shook the island’s defenders.

Captured in an unforgettable photograph and film footage, the scene swept across America, rallying the homefront and inspiring the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.

For nearly 80 years, local schoolchildren have learned about this moment in history. But what many may not realize is that a North Dakota Marine and a Minnesota combat photographer were integral to the events of that day — though they never received the same level of recognition as the six men in the photo or Joe Rosenthal, the photographer who took it.

The First Flag Raiser

Charles W. Lindberg — no relation to the famous aviator — was born in Grand Forks in 1920.

Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Marine Corps, seeing combat on Guadalcanal and during the Bougainville campaign.

By early 1945, he was one of 40 men in the Third Platoon, E Company, 28th Regiment, Fifth Marine Division, participating in the grueling battle to seize Iwo Jima. The island was a strategic prize, considered vital by both American and Japanese forces as a critical refueling station.

Lindberg later recalled the brutal conditions to Minnesota Public Radio.

“We hit that beach the morning of Feb. 19, and boy, did we get a surprise,” Lindberg said. “They mortared us up and down the beach. They had it all synchronized. They could walk them right up and down. I found out later their plan was to put us on the beach and annihilate us.”

Despite the fierce resistance, Lindberg and five other Marines reached the summit of Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23.

Lou Lowery, a photographer for Leatherneck magazine, captured an image of Lindberg’s group hoisting the first flag,

“Two of our men found a great big long pole — about 20 feet long. We tied the flag to it, carried it to the highest spot we could find, and raised it. Boy, then the island came alive! Down below, the troops started to cheer, the ships’ whistles went off — it was quite a proud moment,” he told MPR.

But Lindberg’s flag-raising was not the one that became world famous. That one wouldn’t happen for another four hours. It seems a general who saw the first flag-raising deemed the flag too small and ordered a larger one to be raised so it could be seen across the island.

This second flag raising — captured in a now-iconic photograph by Joe Rosenthal — became one of the most widely reproduced images in military history. The picture won Rosenthal a Pulitzer Prize and remains one of the most recognized war photographs ever.

The battle for Iwo Jima, however, was far from over. The flag-raisings occurred in the early days of a brutal, month-long siege that would claim the lives of nearly 6,000 Americans and 20,000 Japanese soldiers.

By March 26, 1945, the U.S. Marine and Navy forces eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army.

The war was over less than six months later when the Japanese signed surrender documents.

Lindberg returned home to Grand Forks after the war and later settled in Richfield, Minnesota. Though he frequently spoke about his role in the first flag-raising, his account was met with skepticism by a public who had grown up with images of the iconic second flag-raising.

“I was called a liar and everything else. It was terrible,” he told MPR. However, his story was later verified by historians and documented in the film "Flags of Our Fathers

In a twist of historical irony, John Bradley — the Navy corpsman long believed to be in the famous Rosenthal photograph — is considered by some to have been in Lindberg’s first flag-raising.

Lindberg was awarded the Purple Heart and the Silver Star for his bravery on Mount Suribachi. He died in Edina, Minnesota, in 2007 at the age of 86. He was the last surviving member of the team that raised the first flag on the crest of Mount Suribachi.

The Minnesotan behind the camera

Lindberg likely walked the black volcanic sand of Iwo Jima alongside another man from his region: Bill Genaust.

Born and raised in Pipestone, Minnesota, Genaust later moved to Minneapolis. When the war broke out, he enlisted in the Marine Corps as a combat photographer. Armed with a 16mm camera, he volunteered to go ashore at Iwo Jima, landing with the Fourth Marine Division under relentless enemy fire from Mount Suribachi.

The film footage most Americans have seen from Iwo Jima — whether in documentaries, movie theaters, or history classrooms — was shot by Genaust. On Feb. 23, he climbed the 556-foot ascent alongside fellow photographers Bob Campbell and Rosenthal.

There, he captured what seemed like a simple act: six Marines raising the second American flag over Iwo Jima. Though it did not mark the war’s end, the moment became a powerful symbol of hope for those still fighting.

Genaust's film was used in John Wayne's "The Sands of Iwo Jima" and was also used as a nightly sign-off image for hundreds of TV stations. An actor portrayed Genaust in Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers."

Tragically, Genaust did not live to see the lasting impact of his work. Just nine days after filming the flag-raising, he was helping clear Japanese holdouts from the island’s cave system. While using his flashlight to illuminate a tunnel for his fellow Marines, he was shot and killed. His body was never recovered, but a bronze plaque now stands atop Mount Suribachi in his honor.

Both flags — the one from Lindberg’s first flag raising and the one from the second — are now preserved and displayed at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia. They stand as a testament to the courage of the men, including a couple of unsung heroes from the upper Midwest, who made and captured history as it happened.

Raw film of Iwo Jima by Minnesotan Bill Genaust.

(The flag-raising starts around 1:30)

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'Demure’ North Dakota teacher victim of the infamous 'Trunk Murderess’

Tracy Briggs — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 13:31:00 GMT

Just by looking at the photos, it’s easy to see why the arrest and trial of Winnie Ruth Judd captivated the nation in the early 1930s.

It felt like a scene from a film noir: a stunningly beautiful suspect, her gaze detached, facing accusations of murdering her two best friends, stuffing their bodies into trunks, and shipping them to Los Angeles.

Judd’s story is steeped in scandal, adultery and tragedy. An unlikely ending for one of the victims, Hegvig Samuelson, a farm girl from White Earth, North Dakota, caught up in the intrigue.

Much has been written about Judd, dubbed the “Tiger Woman” or “The Trunk Murderess,” but this story starts with Samuelson and how her quiet life became anything but.

A long way from North Dakota

Hedvig Samuelson was born to Norwegian immigrant parents in Milwaukee in 1903.

By 1910, the family had moved to Mountrail County in northwestern North Dakota, where her father Anders farmed and her mother Abel cared for Hedvig and her older siblings Anna and Samuel. Two years later, her younger brother Arnold was born.

Samuelson graduated from White Earth High �� in 1922 and set off for Minot State Teachers College. After graduating in 1925, she took a job teaching in Whitehall, Montana. Seemingly looking for more adventure, she took a teaching job 2,000 miles away in Juneau, Alaska.

During her time there, she became very ill with tuberculosis. Doctors suggested she move to a warm, dry climate to help her recover.

Samuelson, 25, soon found a home in Phoenix. While getting treatment for her illness, she met 27-year-old Agnes Anne LeRoi, described in one newspaper report as “a striking brunette divorcee” X-ray technician. The same reports said the women became “devoted companions” who moved into a cottage near the hospital together.

Samuelson wrote to her parents in August 1930 that she was happy to be out of the TB rest home and in a house with LeRoi.

“My bedroom is going to be lovely because it faces the east, which will give me the morning sunshine. Don’t feel badly about my having to stay in bed. Why, I have it better than most people who are up. I have a nice home to live in, even a telephone by my bed. My doctor thinks he will let me get up at Christmas.”
Meeting Winnie

Winnie Ruth Judd, 26, met the two women while working as a medical secretary at the clinic. Married at a young age to Dr. William Judd, Winnie was described as “a gay but erratic charmer with a peaches-and-cream complexion and blue eyes.”

According to Samuelson’s letter home to her parents in North Dakota, Judd moved into the women’s cottage while her husband was out of town filling in for another doctor in Bisbee, Arizona.

However, the three women proved to be a combustible combination.

The scores of newspaper stories written about the case speculate about the source of the tension between the roommates. Some suggested that the three women were “party girls” competing for the affection of a “wealthy lumberman” and “country club playboy” named Jack Halloran.

Others suggest that it was solely Judd who was having an affair with Halloran and that LeRoi and Samuelson were threatening to tell Winnie’s husband and that Winnie disapproved of her roommates’ lifestyle, calling them “perverted” and “abnormal.”

In a letter dated Oct. 2 — the last her parents would ever receive — Samuelson wrote about the tension with Judd just two weeks before her murder.

“Ruth Judd, the girl that was staying with us moved, so we (Samuelson and LeRoi) are alone again and we like it so much better. Three never get along well.”

A tragic night

On Friday night Oct. 16, 1931, a neighbor of LeRoi and Samuelson recalled hearing three gunshots, but nothing else. They later said they didn’t recall seeing the women that weekend.

A few days later, their bodies would be found at a railroad station in Los Angeles.

On Oct. 19, an express messenger told baggageman Arthur Henderson he had brought two trunks from Phoenix “in bad condition- blood is leaking out and they smell bad.”

Henderson ordered the bags not to be released.

Later, according to newspaper reports, when “an attractive red-haired woman and a blond young man” claimed them, Henderson ordered them to open the trunks. The woman said she’d have to call her husband to get the keys.

When they didn’t return for four hours, Henderson called the police, who broke into the trunks to discover LeRoi’s body and the grisly dismembered remains of Samuelson.

The women were eventually identified and the search was on for the redhead, Judd, and the blond man, who was later identified as her brother.

Back in Arizona, authorities searched LeRoi and Samuelson’s cottage. They found an “immaculate” kitchen with “several dishes which apparently had been prepared just moments before the women met their deaths.”

They also discovered a partially completed letter in Samuelson’s typewriter — its contents now hauntingly eerie in light of what would later unfold.

“Dear Amy,

I have just 15 minutes of leisure before the Sherlock Holmes radio play. We have all the doors locked and windows barred in anticipation of an exciting time. Then we shall douse all the lights and get deliciously frightened. Isn’t it silly? Two grown women with the mentality of children. When it is all over we are both too frightened to even go to bed, usually.”

That was where the letter ended.

Their doors might have been locked, but they let Judd in that night. An argument — the details of which are still not clear — started and turned deadly.

Judd states her case

After her arrest, Judd told police she went to the women’s home to talk to Samuelson about some nasty things Samuelson said about LeRoi. Then things got out of hand.

She said Samuelson got a hold of a gun and shot her in the left hand.

“I struggled with her and the gun fell. Mrs. LeRoi grabbed an ironing board and started to strike me over the head with it. In the struggle I got hold of the gun and Sammie (Samuelson) got shot.”

She said LeRoi continued to come after her, so she shot her, too.

She said she was devastated that her two friends were dead, but she shot them in self-defense.

However, at her trial, the prosecution presented a coroner’s report that stated it appeared the two women had been shot in their sleep, both in the temple and Samuelson again in her chest.

Judd claimed that Halloran helped her dispose of the bodies in the trunks and their plan was to send the bags to California, where her brother would throw them in the ocean. Halloran was indicted on accessory to murder charges, but not convicted.

Judd, however, was found guilty and sentenced to death. To avoid the death penalty, her attorney convinced her to plead insanity so she could serve her sentence in a mental hospital. She reluctantly agreed, hoping that Halloran, with his connections, could get her out.

He didn’t.

Once at the asylum, newspapers reported she “quickly charmed her way into the hearts of patients and employees.” She even set up a beauty shop where she could “wave and dress” everyone’s hair.

She must have tired of the tresses as six years later, she began her decades-long quest to escape.

In 1939, she broke out twice, once for six days and later for 12 days. She was eventually found and returned to the asylum. She would escape six more times over the next 23 years. Her final escape was in 1962, when she tasted freedom for seven years. She was found working as a domestic servant named Marian Lane.

She returned to serve out her sentence.

She was granted parole in November of 1971 and moved to California, where she promised to live a quiet life.

North Dakota native tells Judd’s story

Jana Bommersbach, a native of Gwinner, North Dakota, became fascinated with Winnie Ruth Judd’s story when she became a writer for the Arizona Republic in 1972.

Bommersbach died last summer, but in a 1993 interview, she told The Forum, “Winnie Ruth Judd is one of those legends that won’t go away.”

After publishing a story in the newspaper seeking to find out whatever happened to the infamous Winnie Ruth Judd, she received over 75 phone calls from individuals claiming to know the truth about the case. She interviewed 50 of them, turning the story into a two-part news series that ultimately became the book “The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd

”

After three years of trying to get Judd to talk, Bommersbach was finally granted a sit-down interview with the now elderly convicted murderer, who looked more like a sweet bingo-playing grandma.

Bommersbach called it “the most interesting experience in my career, but also the most frustrating.”

“The interview was all over the map. As a journalist, you try to steer the interview and pin people down. But it was clear that if I did much steering, she wouldn’t talk at all,” Bommersbach said.

Although Judd did not divulge as much as Bommersbach would have liked, the newspaper series and book were highly acclaimed, and the author walked away with a definitive opinion about a very complex case.

Among Bommersbach’s conclusions were that Judd acted in self-defense and was railroaded by Halloran and other members of Phoenix society.

She believed Judd’s claim that Halloran was involved with all three women — Judd, LeRoi and Samuelson — and that he even bragged to several credible people that Judd took the rap for him, showing up at the mental hospital where she lived to taunt her.

Bommersbach also said there is no way Judd, who weighed 103 pounds, could have cut up her friends, stuffed them in trunks, and then taken the trunks to the railroad station. She had to have had help.

Bommersbach wasn’t able to get a second interview. Judd died in 1998, taking to her grave what happened the night of Oct. 16, 1931.

“After I got to know her, I realized she still feels guilty — about the fact that she killed her two best friends, even if it was in self-defense, about having an illicit affair, about being thought crazy. She has spent as much time as possible looking forward and not looking back. She’s no longer interested in being exonerated, only in being left alone,” Bommersbach said. “I know she had found some peace at the end. I only hope I helped.”

As for one of her victims, “the demure” schoolteacher with the shy smile, North Dakota’s Hedvig Samuelson was buried on Nov. 7, 1931, in Minneapolis.

You can find Bommersbach's book "The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd" in bookstores and on Amazon. Additionally, New York Times Bestselling Author Laurie Notario published "The Murderess: A Novel" in October 2024 and dedicated it to Sunny Worel, a relative of Samuelson who has done extensive research on Hedvig and also provided some photos for this story.]]>

Stressed? 120 years ago, Minnesotans were popping 'Pink Pills for Pale People'

Tracy Briggs — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 19:43:51 GMT

As you read this story, the 2024 Presidential Election may or may not be decided. If it is over, one side will sigh with relief, while the other might have trouble getting out of bed.

No matter who you voted for, you might wonder today whether the knot in your stomach will ever dissipate or if your frayed nerves will ever be intact again.

Will guzzling a beer (or six) or eating a Girl Scout Troop’s entire inventory of Thin Mints ease the stress of living in politically divided America?

I wouldn’t bet on it.

People will consume what they can today to feel better (or celebrate). Moderation may or may not be achieved through booze or brownies.

Of course, medicating your troubles with drugs, alcohol and excessive amounts of sugar isn’t recommended. Better advice is to exercise, eat right, meditate and talk to a doctor about whether your mental health concerns could warrant prescription medicine or counseling.

As we work to manage our post-election anxiety in healthy ways, perhaps it could be enlightening — and even soothing — to explore the age-old remedies our ancestors once relied on to ease their stress.

A trip through the newspaper archives is the place for that. It yields page after page, advertisement after advertisement of so-called experts hawking their perfect potions for dealing with “nerve problems.”

Disclaimer: you're probably better off with the Thin Mints and a trip to the doctor.

Dr. Williams Pink Pills for Pale People

This gem of an advertisement was found in a Minnesota newspaper in 1903 and if the name of the product doesn’t draw you in, I’m not sure what will.

As a person of the pasty, freckly persuasion (thanks English, Scottish and Irish ancestors), I first thought this was the medication of my dreams. But Dr. Williams, whoever he was, didn’t promise glowing, bronzed skin with a pop of a pink pill. Rather, he claimed his product was “the most powerful nerve and spinal tonic in the world.”

Not only did it knock out anxiety, but aches in the head, back and joints, rheumatism, paralysis and indigestion.

Wow, that’s an all-purpose drug.

Bertha Kennedy was a believer, saying in the newspaper ad, “I was entirely without color, thin as a rail, nervous and irritable, tired and lifeless. Then I began to take Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People, and with the first few doses began to feel better.”

Well, there you go.

So what was in these magic pills that looked like jelly beans?

They were coated in pink sugar and contained iron sulfate, potassium carbonate, magnesia, powdered licorice, and sugar. So, there wasn’t much more in this magic elixir than an iron supplement, a laxative and sugar.

Hamlins Wizard Oil

John Smith of Starbuck, Minnesota, sang the praises of Hamlins Wizard Oil in another newspaper ad.

“I have been in bed for four weeks with a sprained back caused by too much heavy lifting. I have tried almost everything to cure it. Seeing what Hamlins Wizard Oil had done for others I tried a bottle and in two days, I was able to work.”

Smith might have heard of Hamlins because traveling performance troupes advertised the product in medicine shows across the Midwest, including parts of Minnesota.

The company, founded in Chicago in 1861 by former magician John Austin Hamlin and his brother Lysander Butler Hamlin, primarily marketed the product as a potion for sore muscles, sprains, bruises, burns, scalds, cuts and wounds. However, they claimed added benefits, including relief of earaches, toothaches and headaches.

Oh, and by the way, they said it also cured pneumonia, cancer and rabies.

It was heralded as “a comfort to parents” and an “old-time reliable family medicine” to always have on hand, to use topically or consume internally.

Why could you rub it on your skin and drink it? It was up to 70 percent alcohol. It also contained camphor, ammonia, chloroform, sassafras, cloves and turpentine.

Pemberton's French Wine Coca

Cocaine-laced wine anyone?

Created in the 1880s by Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton, Pemberton’s French Wine Coca was a cocaine-infused libation and the Coca-Cola Company's forgotten predecessor.

Pemberton was inspired by a popular and exotic French Bordeaux wine blended with the mysterious South American coca leaf. It was called Vin Mariani, named for its creator, Angelo Mariani, who believed in the healing powers of coca leaves (which is where cocaine comes from).

Vin Mariani became the “it” drink for Parisian high society. Celebrities like Thomas Edison and Ulysses S. Grant even endorsed it.

Pemberton wanted to make the cocaine-infused wine for American tastes and soon advertised it as a cure-all for “men and women worn down in mind and body by the labors and cares of life.”

One advertisement claimed, “Pemberton’s French Wine Coca is the great nerve restorer and invigorator. (It) acts as a direct means of restoration, giving perfect health to mind and body, dissipating every feeling of depression and lassitude and imparting calmness, energy and happiness.”

For decades, Pemberton’s elixir contained both cocaine and alcohol. But in 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act demanded transparency regarding certain ingredients, including cocaine.

This eventually led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration, which cracked down on the plethora of “wonder” drugs on the market and their sometimes outlandish claims to cure everything from hangnails to hysteria.

Pemberton’s French Wine Coca faded into history. Coca-Cola, without cocaine and alcohol, survived.

So, my fellow stressed-out Americans, you can no longer imbibe in cocaine Coca-Cola or guzzle wizard oil or pop pink anti-pale pills, but that’s OK.

If you must, have an icy cold beer or a sleeve of Oreos.

Relax, take a deep breath, and know that we won’t have to go through another presidential election for four more years.

Next week we'll take a look at a hair tonic made by 1880s version of the Kardashians and how people in the Midwest were enthralled.

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Minnesota women demanded change when 9-year-old girl got married in 1937

Tracy Briggs — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 12:45:00 GMT

HANCOCK COUNTY, Tenn. — The little blonde girl wore a short cotton dress and held a baby doll as she stood beside the 6-foot-tall, dark-haired man.

It was Jan. 30, 1937, and the dark-haired man had something to tell his parents.

He got married.

The bride — then 9 years old and holding a doll that was her wedding present — was Eunice Blanche Winstead, and she wasn’t playing make-believe.

It was all very real. She was in third grade and now a wife.

Her groom was Charlie Johns, a 24-year-old farmer. They had married 10 days earlier on a country road in Hancock County, a mountainous but impoverished region of northeastern Tennessee. The Baptist preacher charged them $1.

The Winstead and Johns families were not at the wedding.

Eunice later said, “We slipped it over them,” meaning they slipped out and got married. “We are going to build a house and go to housekeeping.”

Perhaps the most shocking thing was that neither family objected and, in fact, gave their blessings.

The mother of the 9-year-old bride, Martha Winstead, 33, said: “Charlie has several acres of land, some cattle and other livestock. Eunice had claimed Charlie for hers ever since we lived here. Of course, we never had any idea they had a serious thought about each other and they were married before we knew it.”

Getting married young was a family tradition for the Winsteads. Martha married at 16, and Eunice’s older sister married at 13.

The bride’s and groom’s families might have been OK with the marriage, but the rest of America was outraged when word spread in hundreds of newspapers across the country.

Minnesota was one of the hot spots for criticism.

'Horrible'

The headline across Page 1 of the Minneapolis Star on Feb. 3, 1937 read, “Child-Marriage Flayed by Women Here” with the subheadline adding “Minneapolis Terms Tennessee Case ‘Horrible.’ ”

According to the story, women were outraged and wanted something changed, despite the marriage happening nearly 1,000 miles to the south.

Members of local women’s groups were among the most vocal, including the Philanthropic Educational Organization, or P.E.O. The international nonprofit focuses on motivating, educating and celebrating women. Mrs. George Estes, a Minnesota P.E.O. committee president, said there had to be some people in Tennessee who could do something about child brides.

“Of course, much harm has already been done, but an immediate annulment should be arranged somehow. If the parents are not able to care for the child, she should be placed in an institution,” she told the Star Tribune.

Minnesota’s Daughters of the American Revolution also chimed in, encouraging their Southern sisters to get involved and make this a national issue.

“I think the clubwomen of Tennessee should bring this terrible thing before the legislature in an attempt to annul it,” said Mrs. Francis Olney, DAR regent.

Olney, the past president of the Council of Federated Church Women, said she couldn’t believe a minister would agree to perform the wedding ceremony.

Florence Davis of the Hennepin County Child Welfare Board said it couldn’t happen in Minnesota, as the minimum age of marriage was 15 as long as the parent consented. (At the time, there was no minimum age limit in Tennessee. Even so, Eunice lied and said she was 18. The preacher said later he thought she looked young for her age.)

Mrs. C.W. Mattison, described as a Minnesota housewife and mother, said: “The whole United States should rise up in protest against this horrible thing. I hate to even think about it.”

First lady Eleanor Roosevelt agreed. She joined the Minnesota women and prominent Washington, D.C., leaders in calling for a censure of Winstead’s and Johns’ child marriage. She encouraged the enactment of uniform marriage laws in every state.

So did the laws change?

Tennessee, undoubtedly embarrassed by the uproar over the 9-year-old bride, soon passed a bill setting the minimum age of marriage at 16.

However, in the weeks and months to follow, a widespread change in the law across the United States did not occur. Only two other states, Rhode Island and Minnesota, along with Washington, D.C., increased the minimum age for marriage to 16.

Today, most states’ laws have set the minimum age of marriage at 18, but some allow for exceptions to the rule, including parental consent or pregnancy, which could drop the minimum age much lower. Each state has different requirements for issuing marriage licenses.

In North Dakota and South Dakota, individuals as young as 16 can be married with parental consent.

In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill in May of 2020 that eliminated all provisions for marriage by minors in the state, prohibiting marriage by anyone under 18 in all circumstances.

Life as a 9-year-old wife

After the initial flurry of media attention, including a full spread in Life magazine, the Johnses settled into home life.

Eunice quit school shortly after getting married after a teacher whipped her with a switch for allegedly misbehaving.

Charlie angrily confronted the teacher and told him he had no right to whip another man’s wife.

Since there was no legal requirement for married children to stay in school, Eunice never returned to the third grade.

According to the podcast episode “The Child Bride,” the Knoxville newspaper came back to visit the couple on their first anniversary. They found them still together and staying with Charlie's parents. By their second anniversary, Charlie said, “She’s pretty good at milking and washing, but she hasn’t learned much about cooking yet.”

In 1942, at the age of 14, Eunice gave birth to the first of their nine children: four girls and five boys. In an interesting twist of fate, that firstborn, a daughter named Evelyn, eloped at the age of 17 despite her father’s disapproval. Charlie previously had her fiance, John Antrican, arrested twice for abduction and perjury. Evelyn said her mother approved of the union.

She later told the paper she didn’t understand why her father was so upset.

“After all, Papa married Mama when she was only 9 years old,” Evelyn said. The Antricans were married for 46 years.

What happened to the Johnses?

Charlie and Eunice Johns built a fairly prosperous life for themselves. Charlie did well with his 150-acre hillside farm and was also paid handsomely for some underground mineral rights he had owned. By 1960, a newspaper account described a comfortable life in their six-room “spotless” home, where they listened to the radio (but no TV) and used a wood-burning stove, although the house was wired for electricity.

Eunice and Charlie were married for 60 years before Charlie's death in 1997. It was only after his death that Social Security records proved that he was even older than he had stated on his marriage license. He said he was 22, but he was at least 24. (One birth record shows he might have been as old as 26 on his wedding day.)

Eunice died in 2006 at the age of 78, already a great-grandmother.

Reflecting back on her life in 1960 and 1976 interviews, she said her only regret about marrying so young was dropping out of school in the third grade. While she said she had a good marriage, she advised women to wait until they were 21 to become a bride.

“I was lucky and got a good man. But you never know.”

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British family needs help solving the mystery of their old Minnesota dairy truck

Tracy Briggs — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 15:30:00 GMT

FARGO — Who doesn’t love a British mystery? Well, here’s one for you.

The other day a woman named Helen Finch emailed The Forum seeking help in solving a mystery.

I wonder if you can help us here in the U.K?

Our 24-year-old son purchased a 1950 Dodge Pilothouse here in the U.K. six years ago because he loves American vehicles—he has two others as well.

We were told that it was originally owned by a dairy for deliveries and we want to try and find out, if possible, what one it was so we can have the name painted on the side as a nod to its heritage. We haven’t been able to find out what dairy it came from so we saw you

ran an article about the couple who have an old truck they restored and thought we would reach out to you

.

We hope you can help.

Many thanks,
Helen and Roy Finch

As a fan of everything from Agatha Christie to “Grantchester” I jumped at the chance to solve a British mystery. What shall we call it?

“The Case of the Dairy Delivery Dodge?” or “The Mystery of the Minnesota Milkmobile?”

Less a ‘whodunnit’ and more of a ‘whoseisit.’

I replied to Helen’s email right away. Through our correspondence, I learned that the family Helen, husband Roy and sons Thomas and Luke are all car lovers/collectors and live in the eastern outskirts of London in Romford, Essex. Thomas bought the Dodge truck when he was 18 after seeing it in an advertisement.

“The main reason he liked the old-style Dodge was his fascination and love of the film “Cars” and Tow Mater (the character voiced by Larry the Cable Guy.) So you can imagine when he saw this advertised, he just had to have it,” Helen said.

She said the paperwork on the truck was scant, but she knows it was already in the U.K. in 2018, and there was no documentation about how it crossed the Atlantic. However, the original 1950 license plate indicated that its first home was in Minnesota. And the seller told them it had once been a delivery truck for a dairy. But which dairy and where? It’s an udder mystery.

We both knew finding exactly which dairy owned this truck and in which city would be a long shot, but I started digging through the archives anyway. It’s what all those detectives on PBS Masterpiece would do.

Unfortunately, this one has me stumped. I’ve been surfing like Moondoggie on Mountain Dew through state government and private websites for information on how to track details from a 1950 license plate. Records from that long ago do not seem to be readily available. And even if they were, I’m not sure I would be allowed access to the information.

I also reached out to John Larson, who is featured in that initial story Helen mentioned in her email. John and his wife Sharon live in Moorhead and repurposed a vintage dairy truck in 2017.

He suggested connecting the Finches to one of the many international Dodge car collectors clubs that could possibly help trace a serial number. I will leave it to the two of them to communicate, with a request that they keep me posted.

In the meantime, I’d love to see if any of you have any suggestions.

For those of you who were alive in the 1950s and lived in Minnesota or neighboring states, do you recall ever seeing a dairy delivery truck like this driving around your city?

If you do, let us know!

“It would be great to have some historic identity as it’s 75 years old,” Helen said. “It may be that he (Thomas) will get one of their adverts (if we could find one), put it in a frame and display it at events with a couple of milk churns. The name may be painted on the side to add authenticity.”

Again, we know it’s a long shot. But even if you don’t know exactly which Minnesota city or dairy this truck might have come from, why don’t you tell me about your hometown dairy?

Perhaps we can talk the Finches into painting

your

hometown dairy’s name on the outside of their truck.

I mean, it’s kind of close, right?

Midwestern American dairies of the 1950s have to be pretty similar to each other.

“If he (Thomas) had the opportunity, he may one day travel to the USA,” Helen said. “He loves country music and bought himself an original Dodge brothers enamel sign and has a Stetson on the back shelf of his Chrysler together with a Texas flag.”

He needs a Minnesota flag, too, right? We can invite the family here for a cold glass of milk and a Scotcheroo bar for a true Minnesota experience.

Most importantly, Thomas needs the name of that Minnesota dairy that owned the old Dodge before he did.

Come on, milk, cheese, and ice cream-loving friends from the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Let’s get churn up those memories and help the Finches find their dairy.

Where there’s a will, there’s a whey.

If you think you might know which Minnesota dairy owned a delivery truck like this or if you just want to share the name or stories about your favorite hometown dairy, email me at tracy.briggs@forumcomm.com.

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British family needs help solving the mystery of their old Minnesota dairy truck

Tracy Briggs — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 15:16:00 GMT

FARGO — Who doesn’t love a British mystery? Well, here’s one for you.

The other day a woman named Helen Finch emailed The Forum seeking help in solving a mystery.

ran an article about the couple who have an old truck they restored and thought we would reach out to you

.

We hope you can help.

Many thanks,
Helen and Roy Finch

As a fan of everything from Agatha Christie to “Grantchester” I jumped at the chance to solve a British mystery. What shall we call it?

“The Case of the Dairy Delivery Dodge?” or “The Mystery of the Minnesota Milkmobile?”

Less a ‘whodunnit’ and more of a ‘whoseisit.’

I also reached out to John Larson, who is featured in that initial story Helen mentioned in her email. John and his wife Sharon live in Moorhead and repurposed a vintage dairy truck in 2017.

In the meantime, I’d love to see if any of you have any suggestions.

For those of you who were alive in the 1950s and lived in Minnesota or neighboring states, do you recall ever seeing a dairy delivery truck like this driving around your city?

If you do, let us know!

Again, we know it’s a long shot. But even if you don’t know exactly which Minnesota city or dairy this truck might have come from, why don’t you tell me about your hometown dairy?

Perhaps we can talk the Finches into painting

your

hometown dairy’s name on the outside of their truck.

I mean, it’s kind of close, right?

Midwestern American dairies of the 1950s have to be pretty similar to each other.

He needs a Minnesota flag, too, right? We can invite the family here for a cold glass of milk and a Scotcheroo bar for a true Minnesota experience.

Most importantly, Thomas needs the name of that Minnesota dairy that owned the old Dodge before he did.

Come on, milk, cheese, and ice cream-loving friends from the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Let’s get churn up those memories and help the Finches find their dairy.

Where there’s a will, there’s a whey.

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How walking like a cow saved rural Prohibition bootleggers from the law

Tracy Briggs — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 16:05:00 GMT

FARGO — Close your eyes. You can almost picture the conversation on any given day of the Prohibition era.

“Hey, Johnny, I need you to run this hooch to the next town. Make it quick and don’t get caught.”

“Sure, Clyde, let me put on my cow shoes.”

Huh?

Cow shoes?

Maybe you know them better as “heifer heels?”

No?

You were clearly not a bootlegger in 1920s rural America.

Cow shoes, or heifer heels, were made from blocks of wood carved to look like cow hooves. Bootleggers, moonshiners, and anyone else looking to avoid getting caught while transporting or manufacturing booze would strap them to the bottom of their shoes to throw off police, deputies and federal agents.

If law enforcement authorities were looking for suspicious activity, a series of human footprints could be a red flag for possible illegal activity there.

But they'd probably think nothing of seeing a few animal tracks, like those left by a cow walking by (or a human wearing these shoes).

“Nothing to see here, let’s move along.”

The shoes were particularly popular in rural areas where liquor needed to be transported through fields, woods, and grass rather than over the concrete of the urban jungle.

These particular shoes, seized by prohibition agents in Florida, were shown off to newspapers of the time.

The headline in the May 27, 1922 issue of The Evening Standard in St. Petersburg read:

“Shiners wear cow shoes!”

The story went on to say that as clever as these shoes were, they were not invented by the bootleggers.

A common rumor is that bootleggers got the idea from a popular Sherlock Holmes story called "The Adventure of the Priory ��."

In the story, a murderer evades police by putting fake cow hooves onto horses so they wouldn't know he was riding a horse.

Other sneaky tricks

While rum runners, moonshiners and anyone wanting to imbibe during prohibition might not have come up with the idea of cow shoes on their own, they certainly were a creative lot in how they hid their illegal booze.

In rural parts of America, including the Dakotas and Minnesota, liquor was hidden inside animal carcasses like pigs or game birds hanging in the barn.

Newspaper reports in North Dakota detail the arrest of farm families who hide bottles in the bushes surrounding their homes or under the floorboards of sheds or outhouses.

In 1923, a Stanton, North Dakota, man was arrested for filling 10-gallon canisters in the barn with mash and moonshine instead of cream.

You have to wonder if his wife got the shock of her life while making her morning coffee.

On Christmas Day 1922, a man from Warwick, North Dakota, named Carl Bengston was arrested for tucking a bottle of booze in the branches of the community Christmas tree.

But he wasn’t hiding it there for himself. In the spirit of the season, he was giving it away.

According to the newspaper, he put a gift tag on it addressed with the name of “a lady of Warwick who had been active in assisting in the enforcement of the Prohibition law.”

When someone delivered the gift to her home, she was not amused.

Other rural folks around the country found new ways to avoid detection via car by turning rhododendron roots into fuel. It’s hard to say just how bad it was for the car engine, but on the bright side, the exhaust was nearly smokeless.

Those who wanted to take their booze with them found ingenious ways to store it on their person or in everyday objects like cans, crutches, or books. (They were the precursors to modern-day gadgets that help you sneak spirits into concerts and football games.)

Even nice Minnesota girls did it

Hiding their hooch

Women smuggling illegal liquor in Minneapolis in 1924.

Ordinary objects like canes or books could be used to hide alcohol

A woman in an overcoat doesn't necessarily look suspicious until you see what she has under her coat.

While those in the temperance movement viewed alcohol as a destructive force in homes, marriages and workplaces, it’s pretty clear consuming alcohol wasn’t dampening the creative powers of those hoping to get away with something.

By 1933, Prohibition was over.

Those who liked to drink no longer needed to be sneaky to do it.

Cream could go back in the canisters, plant roots could be taken out of the gas tank and no one ever needed to walk like a cow again.

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Minnesota couple travels 1,500 miles to see a hair-raising piece of the past

Tracy Briggs — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 16:08:27 GMT

WASHINGTON, D.C. — People all over the world go to Washington, D.C. for many reasons. But Dan and Jeanine Backer surely have one of the most unusual reasons to visit the nation’s capital — to go see his great-great-grandfather’s whiskers.

Hans Langseth owns the Guinness world record for “The Longest Natural Beard Locks (male)." It’s a title Langseth, who died in 1927, has owned for 97 years. Backer thought it was about time he checked it out.

The couple from New Ulm, Minnesota, took the trek east to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History to dive deep into the archives for a glance at a piece of the past.

But first, a look at how this unusual family story started.

From Norway to North Dakota

Hans Langseth was born in Norway in 1846. He immigrated to the United States when he was 21 years old and settled in Iowa, where he built a life with his young bride Anna Berntsen. The couple had six children before Anna died. She was only 40.

For whatever reason, the family moved north. The 1900 census shows Langseth and at least one son living in Elkton Township in Clay County, Minnesota (about 20 miles southeast of Moorhead).

By 1910, they had moved to Antelope, Richland County, North Dakota (about 20 miles west of Wahpeton), where Langseth farmed. He was already getting known around town for his beard, which he had started growing when he was 19 for a beard contest back in Norway. (There is no information on whether he won anything in that contest, but he never stopped trying.)

During this time as a young husband and father, the beard was getting to be several feet long. When hair gets longer than four or five feet it starts to break, so to strengthen it he was able to tangle the hair into a dreadlock of sorts. Then he’d roll it around a corncob and carry it in a pouch around his neck or tucked it into his clothing.

Occasionally, he’d unroll it and let children jump rope with it or use it as a fishing line.

Langseth eventually toured the country as part of a sideshow exhibition, where he went by the name of King of Whiskers. He later quit because he didn’t like people pulling on his beard insisting it was fake. But according to family members, he did like it when the Fat Lady washed it.

In 1922, Langseth entered another “Longest Beard” contest in Sacramento, California. He finished first. The beard measured 17 feet. Langseth died just five years later and seemingly his beard had grown another six inches to reach the record-breaking mark of 17.6 feet.

However, some in his family claim his beard was closer to 18-and-a-half feet long, since the son who cut the beard, left his dad with about a 12-inch beard as he lay in the casket. (The family didn’t want him buried clean-shaven as none of them had ever seen him that way.)

What happened to the beard?

Backer, who is 59 years old and descended from Hans’ daughter Emma, said following the funeral, the locks were considered missing for 40 years. But in 1967, they were discovered in a paper bag in his great aunt’s attic.

“It was quite preserved and has held up now for almost a century since Hans passed,” he said.

After it was discovered it was donated to the Smithsonian Institution, where it was on display from 1967 to 1999.

It was then removed and packed away in storage at the museum. In recent years, many museums have taken down displays that include human remains — including hair — citing ethical concerns. However, Backer said the museum has given family members special permission to view the remains.

Backer said seeing the beard has been a dream he’s had since he was a kid. He grew up with a photo of Hans hanging on the wall of his childhood home. Additionally, his great-grandmother Emma (Hans’ daughter) raised Backer’s grandfather directly across the street from where he lives now.

So the family folklore was strong and got stronger as he told his buddies at school about his famous ancestor.

“When I was 9 years old and in third grade, we got the opportunity to order books from the Scholastic Book Fair catalog. Being my classmates were skeptical of my Hans story, I ordered the 'Guinness Book of World Records' to be able to show them,” Backer said.

It was from that book that he learned the whiskers were in D.C. and he vowed he’d take a trip to see them someday.

However, life got busy. He grew up, got married, became a father of three, and never made the trip. But Backer said now that he and his wife are empty nesters they're traveling more. The time was right.

“My wife usually selects our destinations, but recently, I told her ‘It has been 50 years since I learned of the fact that Hans beard is at the Smithsonian in D.C. It is time. We need to go and see the epic beard!’” he said.

The visit

After visiting with Sabrina Sholts, the Curator of Biological Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and filling out some paperwork, a visit was planned.

The Smithsonian Institution holds nearly 155 million objects. Most of the items — about 146 million — belong to the Museum of Natural History. And many of them, including the beard, are packed up in storage.

“Were were taken down many hallways and downstairs to the bowels of one of the 21 Smithsonian Museums. The room was full of cabinets and cupboards. It was kind of like that scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” where Indiana Jones is in the warehouse with all of the crates."

Backer said it was “kind of cool” to be behind the scenes at the Smithsonian, but the real excitement came when he first laid his eyes on his ancestor’s beard.

“I got emotional and teared up slightly,” Backer said. “How many people can say they have seen a part of their great, great grandfather?”

He was caught off guard by how moved he was.

“When I first thought of this idea, I had this vision of me holding the beard up to my face. But once I got there, I became really respectful of the whole thing. Out of respect for him, I just didn’t want to touch it,” Backer said.

Nonetheless, he was fascinated looking at it.

“It was interesting to see that the part that was attached to his face, the first five or six feet of it, was gray, but it had yellowed because it aged ," he said. “But it was super intact. You could even see kernels of wheat in the beard from when he was a wheat farmer.”

He said many people have asked him if there was an odor to it. He said there was not.

During the Smithsonian visit, Backer was surprised to spot something else accompanying the beard.

"One of the relatives that came to the museum at one point brought a beer bottle from Norway with Hans' likeness on it," Backer said. "It's a brewery over there that used his likeness for many years on a beer called Bestefar, which means grandfather in Norwegian."

The beer is not sold in the United States, but Becker has talked to some distributors to see if they might be interested in carrying it.

Backer said he knows some people think the whole idea of the beard is creepy, but for him, it was a special moment of connection. He’s as proud as ever to be Han’s great, great grandson and loves that he has new photos and stories to add to Hans' legacy. He already gave his three grown children framed photos of Hans with his history on the back.

“His story is one I want to see continue and that only happens if you tell stories to the next generation,” Backer said, “I now have two grandkids and I plan on telling them all about their great, great, great, great grandfather."

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