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The Victoria

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The Hat lady Continued

         Elaborating on their family situation, Virginia explained, “This was just after the Depression years and times were still hard.  Pa also tended bar at Schmitty’s in Victoria.  I think Frank Schmidt owned it then and I’m not sure if he was a Schmid or a Schmidt.  I used to get ice cream cones there.”

         Memories continued to flow from the hat lady.  “I remember when Victoria was just a regular little town,” she said.  “Before the highway went through, it was a lot nicer.”  Before 1950 the route of Highway 5 through downtown Victoria was Stieger Lake Lane, fronting on Schmitty’s, the Feedmill, the Creamery, and Notermann’s. 

         “When we visited my aunt in town we could hear music coming out of Hardy’s and I loved it,” said Virginia.  “Seems they always played ‘Open Door Richard’ and ‘Good Night, Irene.’”  Today, in 2009, music continues to come from that establishment now called Floyd’s.

         “My dad had milk cows and a pasture and field down by Stieger Lake but we called it Victoria Lake,” said Virginia.  “We always had a dog to bring the cows home.  We had a garden and a big strawberry patch across the road where Goodman Park is today.  We had hay in there too.  Sometimes we found bottles that people threw off the train.”  Those old tracks disappeared in 1981, not long after the train stopped running.  Today the old railroad bed is the Regional Bike Trail through Victoria.

         “I drove a team of horses for the harvesting,” said the farm girl.  “Pa would pick corn and shuck it by hand out in the field.  My cousin and I used to catch frogs in that field.  He sold them to the Blue Liner in Excelsior.  They were for bait.  The Blue Liner was a cafe on top and  a bait shop on the bottom, over by the Amusement Park.”

         Since Virginia’s siblings were much older, they left home before she started school.  “My brother Bob went in the Army,” she said.  “My sister Joyce was teaching Morse Code to soldiers in St. Louis and Sioux Falls.  It was war time and I was pretty much alone.”  Except for some neighbors.  “I used to play with Carol Wartman, who was the daughter of Harold and Millie Wartman,” she said.  “Carol was such a nice person and she died so young.”

         There were also neighboring farms and farm families up the road stretching toward Lake Zumbra.  Today, in 2009, there is very little evidence that farms ever existed along Park Drive.  There are some old berry and apple trees near the paved trail but Three Rivers Park District, who came to own the land, has returned most of the property to native trees and habitat for wildlife.

         “Henry and Nellie Ripple owned a farm by what is now the Dog Park, and their land skipped across the road to Schutz Lake,” said Virginia.  “There was a barn up there that stayed for quite a while but bums came in there and deer too.  The Park took it down because they didn’t want to get sued for anything. I think that barn was the last thing to go up there.”

         “There was also the John and Mamie Ripple farm where the little gravel parking lot is located, also near the Dog  Park,” she said, “and their land skipped across the road to the other side to Stieger Lake.  I always thought that was funny how each of the Ripple farms had shoreland on the opposite side of the road.  When the John Ripples got old, they moved to Smithtown Road and were there quite a while.  Then Lloyd (Butch) and Doris Hedtke moved onto the farm.  They’re shirttail cousins.  Doris worked at the Lake Auburn Home for the Aged and did Ma’s hair sometimes.  Anyhow, the Park came around after the Ripples were gone so I’m not sure who the Park bought the property from.”

 

Click here to continue The Hat Lady.

November 2009

Herb Hedtke and baby Virginia on the homeplace in Victoria where Virginia was born and still resides today.  That’s Schutz Lake down the hill in the background.