Hello from Minocqua, Wisconsin! Day 25 of our Summer trip continues here visiting with Jane’s cousin Paisley Woodside. We got into town Saturday from Madison and had dinner with her at Mama’s Supper Club. It was the first time Jane and Paisley have been together in 43 years! After we left the Black Hills, we motored into Sioux Falls, SD to visit more cousins, this time from the Timmerman side. Most all of the Kostboths live near here. We had lunch with Allan, Karen, and Charles. They are children of Jane’s dad Donald’s youngest sister Lonnelle.
We went downtown and visited Washington Pavilion, which used to be Washington High School. Don graduated from here in 1937. It is mostly used as an arts center now; remodeled inside with a nice theater to replace the old gym. They kept part of the third floor as an archive of the original school and we found a couple of photos on display, including one of Don participating in the high jump, that we hadn’t seen before.
Next we stayed a couple of nights in Myre-Big Island State Park in Albert Lea, MN, before moving on to Mendota County Park near Madison, WI. Jane and all of her siblings (except Kathy, who was born in Portage) were born here and lived here until moving to California in 1963. We checked out the old house on Mohican Pass before heading downtown to see the U of W campus and the capitol building. Don was on the 1941 NCAA champion U of W Badgers basketball squad and we found a nice display case at the Kohl Center with some memorabilia of that historic team. We were able to track down the archivist there and donated Don’s old uniform for future display in that case. We also went by the Delta Delta Delta sorority house, where Don met Jane’s mom Jeanne for the the first time.
Cottage Grove is just east of Madison and is the spot were Jane’s great grandfather settled in 1859. Gottlieb and his brother Frederick farmed 100 acres there until Fred’s death in 1888. Gottlieb moved his family to Piedmont, OK shortly thereafter. It’s a beautiful little town, and really hasn’t changed much. We expected it to be an over-developed as a suburb of Madison, but the old Timmerman land is still used to grow stuff.
About 35 miles north is Portage, WI, the hometown of Jane’s mom and her family, the Woodsides. We went by the old house on Franklin Street and visited the family cottage out on Swan Lake near the Portage Golf Club. We had lunch downtown, visited the cemetery, and then drove west to Spring Creek to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s estate, Taliesin. Really cool place with some interesting Wisconsin history. We headed up here to Minocqua the next day.
Of course, no Hogue trip would be complete without the exploration of my morbid curiosity of celebrity death. While in Albert Lea, MN, I drove down to the site of Buddy Holly’s (along with Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper) 2 Feb 1959 fatal plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, about 45 minutes south. We also tracked down a marker commemorating the plane crash that killed Otis Redding and his band in Lake Monona in Madison on 10 Dec 1967.
Okay, that’s all for now. We are passed the half way point of our trip and start heading west tomorrow, stopping in Taylor’s Falls, MN before moving on to Fargo, ND, then to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Hopefully I can get one more update (depending on WiFi availability) before we get back to Oregon. Thanks for following along!
P.S. Some of the pics in these galleries need to be fixed (they don’t expand like I want them to), but I’ll have to do that later today or in the morning, Sorry about that!