 Erwin "Lefty" Johnson in England, 1944. (Courtesy of Erwin Johnson) Erwin “Lefty” Johnson
Adapted by Levi Magnuson from the exhibit "Doing Our Part: Clay County in WWII" June 6, 1944 saw the beginning of the end of Nazi occupation in Europe. The United States and several allied nations lead an invasion in Northern France under the codename Operation Overlord. The D-Day landings were the important first step that led to the ultimate victory of the allies over the axis powers. Erwin “Lefty” Johnson was one man who helped make this victory possible. Erwin Johnson, born and raised in Hawley, joined the army so he could afford to study engineering at the University of Minnesota in November 1941. A month later the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the United States joined World War Two. For the rest of the war, “Lefty” Johnson found himself at the forefront of some of most consequential moments of the war. As the platoon leader for the 531st Engineer Shore Regiment, Johnson’s specialty was invading enemy-occupied beaches. He and the other combat engineers were tasked with clearing minefields, building roads, and fixing or destroying bridges, all while under enemy fire. “It was all part of the mission of being an engineer,” he said in a 2011 interview. “When you’ve got somebody that’s working on a job, and your part of that job and the mortars come in and there’s some shrapnel and some people getting cut up; that’s just part of a day’s work.” Johnson stormed the beaches of northern Africa at Algiers in August 1942. He landed in Sicily in July of 1943 and Salerno, Italy, three months later. Because he had so much experience invading beaches, he was picked to help plan the most important beach landing of the war: the invasion of Nazi-occupied France on D-Day. He was given the security clearance called “Bigot,” a level above Top Secret that meant he was one of the very few people who knew the exact beaches where we would land. Johnson landed at Utah Beach on D-Day. Utah Beach was one of the five beaches as part of the initial assault on the Normandy coast. Johnson’s unit helped to clear beach obstacles and build causeways to make it easier to bring equipment ashore. By the days end and despite strong currents moving the landings off course, allied forces managed to secure the beach head by the days end. By the end of September 1944 all of France had been liberated and the push to Berlin from the West began. Johnson built roads, camps, and bridges through France and Germany until the war ended. He returned to Hawley after the war and used his engineering expertise on several projects, including the Hawley Rodeo Grounds, the softball complex, and the golf course. Through the 1970s, he became very involved in Robert Asp’s Hjemkomst Viking Ship project. Johnson’s leadership solved the problem of getting the 16-ton Viking ship out of a potato warehouse and onto a truck bound for Lake Superior. Erwin "Lefty" Johnson passed away at the age of 95 on June 23, 2015.
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 Grace Berg was the daughter of a Lutheran pastor O. G. Berg and Lillie Berg. Originally from Nebraska, her family moved to Moorhead when she was young. Berg would attend Concordia College between 1939 and 1941 studying nursing. While attending Concordia she was involved in the music program - singing in the choir, playing in the band, and involved in the Music Club. She was one of 57 students selected to be in the choir by Professor Paul Christiansen. Berg would transfer to Swedish Hospital in Minneapolis to finish her nursing studies. After the start of the war, America need as many nurses as possible to care for the sick, injured, and dying service members fighting overseas. Berg enlisted in the Army Nurse Corp on February 4, 1943 and attended basic training at Camp Hale, Colorado. Lt. Grace Berg served as a nurse aboard the US Army Hospital Ship Shamrock in the Mediterranean Sea. She cared for wounded soldiers of all countries as they were transported from warzones to safe hospitals away from the fighting. Hospital ships were considered neutral and protected from attack by international law as long as they were only used for medical care. To make sure everyone knew it was a hospital ship, the USAHS Shamrock was painted white with green stripes down each side, had large red crosses painted on it, and was brightly lit with lights each night. Back home in Moorhead, the Concordia College newspaper called Grace Berg the “Cobber Angel of Mercy.” While on leave in 1944, she told the Fargo Forum about her time at sea taking care of men. She said that there was no "giving up" in them and that they were hopeful for the future. Berg’s ship followed where the fighting was, first tending to those wounded on the battlefields in North Africa, then going along for the invasions of Sicily, Italy, and southern France. During the war, Grace fell in love with the ship’s pharmacist, Robert Harkrider. The two married in May of 1945, 11 days after Germany surrendered. They raised four children together and made their home in Atlanta, Georgia. In the Mediterranean, aboard a defenseless ship designed to be as visible as possible, she bravely bet her life that our enemies would show mercy to her ship of wounded soldiers.   Fenwick H. Watkins - center holding ball - in his high school yearbook from 1905. Identity can be complicated. We know that there are people in our local history who, for a variety of reasons, tried to avoid being identified as Black. Some found it advantageous personally, professionally, and for safety, to identify as white. Fenwick Watkins may have been one of them. Fenwick Henri Watkins was born in 1885 in Burlington, Vermont, to an African American family. He studied Civil Engineering at the University of Vermont where he was a standout athlete in football, baseball and basketball. Fenwick Watkins was the first Black athlete of a predominantly white school to captain a college football team. After graduation, he moved to Fargo. With the exception of the 1930 Census, all known records about Fenwick Watkins list him as white while living in Fargo. He coached and led the sports program at Fargo College from 1909 to 1915. He entered the real estate business and coached part-time until 1920 when Fargo College closed. After one year as Assistant Coach at North Dakota Agricultural College (NDSU today), Watkins took over the athletic department at Concordia College where he remained until 1926. For a time, he worked for the Home Owners Loan Corporation, a program notorious across the country for refusing home loans to African Americans in certain neighborhoods - a practice known as Redlining. He continued in the real estate business in Fargo until his death in 1943. Watkins' life highlights the complicated history of African American identity and sports history.  Fenwick Watkins', back row on left side, Fargo College football team, 1910.  Orabel with painting tools. Orabel Thortvedt was a local historian, animal lover and trained artist from the Glyndon area. Born into one of the earliest families to settle in Clay County, she was raised hearing stories of their travels and trials moving from Norway to Clay County. This storytelling instilled in her a life-long passion for her family’s history and that of her neighbors. She showed artistic talent at an early age. Orabel studied at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the University of Minnesota and developed a long and successful career painting animal portraits and historical scenes. Her introduction to art began when at age six she drew a caricature of her teacher in a snow bank with a stick. Though her teacher was unimpressed, her parents recognized her talent and encouraged her. Orabel had a love for animals and a special talent for capturing the personality of a dog or horse in her art. She was a good writer. In the early 1920s Orabel began a series of scrapbooks documenting her experiences and the lives of her family members and neighbors. Her parents’ stories inspired her to create an illustrated manuscript depicting her family’s travels and travails in Norway and the US. It occupied her for over 50 years. Orabel moved to Minneapolis to study art in 1930. After both her parents died in 1936, Orabel continued to work in the Twin Cities for a time but returned to the farm permanently in 1938. Blessed with supportive and perhaps indulgent family, Orabel was allowed to just be Orabel. She continued her artistic career, painting animal portraits and historical local scenes for neighbors and friends. Orabel died from heart disease November 1, 1983. She’s buried with her parents in Concordia Lutheran Cemetery. From Prairie Daughters: The Art and Lives of Annie Stein and Orabel Thortvedt Orabel's historical notes are housed at the Clay County Archives. Her notes have proven a vital resource in the work of the HCSCC. They are currently being scanned and transcribed so that they can be more accessible and preserved for future generations. To learn more about Orabel and Annie Stein, another local artist, copies of Prairie Daughters: The Art and Lives of Annie Stein and Orabel Thortvedt available at the Heritage Gift Shop or our online store.  Notes written by Orabel on Edward Grover.  Orabel (left) and another student working on drawing a horse. Animals were a common motif in Orabel's art and she kept extensive notes on the horses, cats, and cows her family raised.  Anna Gates in 1922 Anna Gates, nee Liedahl, was born in Norway in 1869. Like so many in this region, she immigrated with her family to the United States and by 1881 had settled in Leonard, North Dakota. She would later move to Fargo and work in homes. In 1896, Anna married Elbert Gates, a mail carrier from Moorhead and moved across the river.
Anna was unlike many suffrage supporters, she was working class and an immigrant. At the time, many of the suffrage supporters in the country came from wealthier backgrounds and had more established American families. Still, Anna didn't let this stop her and she would eventually become Chairmen of District 49's Minnesota Woman's Suffrage Association. Although living in Moorhead, she often worked across the river in both Fargo and the rural parts of Cass County. She helped bring Jane Addams, the founder of Hull House which served the immigrant communities of Chicago, to Fargo in 1912. Two years later, she was described in the Wahpeton Times as, "...doing quite a little quiet work for suffrage among the farm women near Leonard reports a very encouraging prospect for suffrage in that region.” Along with her suffrage work, Anna was part of several veteran auxiliary organizations, Order of Eastern Star, WCTU, and the Fine Arts Club of Moorhead. After suffrage was achieved, Anna continued to work in her community. She was made a police officer, sometimes referred to as a Police Matron, in 1920 by the city of Moorhead. Her position had her in lots of roles. She was part cop, social worker, and city food inspector. She was often tasked with handling cases involving women and children. During the early years of the Great Depression, she was tasked with distributing food aid to the poor and needed of the community. Anna would remain a part of the Moorhead Police department until she retired in 1933. Upon her retirement however, she told one journalist that, "I have a great deal of work planned ahead, and I know I will not be sitting a minute." She later added that while she was planning on remaining active, she also was "...going to 'get acquainted' with my home. I haven't seen much of it these years, for a policewoman's job is a 24 hour position." Elbert passed away in 1936, however Anna managed to live until 1950. She had three sons with him: Ernie, Dewey, and Donald.   Farmer William Thornton Montgomery had more land than any other African American in Dakota Territory. From about 1881-1900, he owned 1,020 acres two miles north of Christine, ND (about 20 miles south of Fargo) plus more land in Cass County and Manitoba. Local newspapers describe him as “a most worthy man,” and “the greatest Colored farmer of the Northwest.”
W. T. Montgomery had a fascinating life. He was well educated (against the law) as an enslaved child. He served in the US Navy in the Civil War. His family bought the plantation where they were once enslaved, and for a time they were among the wealthiest merchant-planters in Mississippi. William’s appointments as a postmaster and a constable in 1867 make him likely the first African American to hold public office in Mississippi. He moved to Dakota Territory in 1881 because he was pessimistic about the prospects of African Americans receiving fair treatment in the South. William Thornton Montgomery spent most of his fascinating life in Utopian Communities. Robert Owen’s Worker’s Utopia Robert Owen was a wealthy British factory owner who became an early philosopher of Utopian Socialism. He turned his bleak Scottish Industrial Revolution textile factory into a utopia for his workers. He shortened the work day to 10 hours and gave them health care, sick pay, and health insurance. He abolished child labor and put the children in school instead. In the 1820s he went to America to spread his philosophical ideas and set up new utopian communities. All of his utopias failed, but his ideas aged well. Joseph Davis’ Utopian Plantation In 1825, Joseph Davis met Robert Owen and tried to adapt his utopian ideas to the Mississippi plantation system. The 345 men, women and children on his unique plantation in 1860 had better living conditions than most enslaved people in the South, but they were still enslaved. They had better food and clothing rations, larger homes, and overseers could not punish anyone unless they were convicted by their peers in the Hall of Justice. People were encouraged to learn skilled trades to make extra money and to learn to read and write, which was illegal in the South. This is where W.T. Montgomery grew up. Jefferson Davis & the Civil War Joseph Davis’ land also included the plantation of his younger brother Jefferson Davis. When the Civil War broke out, Jefferson Davis became president of the Confederate States of America. The Davis “utopia” ended when the US Navy arrived in 1862 and all the enslaved “members” chose freedom. Several men including W.T. Montgomery joined the US military to fight the Confederacy. For the rest of the war, the US government took pleasure in using Jefferson Davis’ plantation as a place for the Freedmen’s Bureau to experiment with ways of easing formerly enslaved people into freedom and a market economy. The Association of Montgomery & Sons Benjamin Montgomery, William’s father, was the enslaved operator of the Davis plantations. He was highly educated against Mississippi laws, a mechanical and business genius, and charismatic. Before the war, a general store he opened on the plantation made him wealthy. As a freed man at the end of the war, he purchased the plantation from Joseph Davis. Montgomery shared Davis’ utopian philosophy, and he created a community of free African American sharecroppers he called the Association. For a time, the Montgomerys were among the wealthiest merchant-planters in the South, but the community was eventually undone by a combination of local natural disasters, the crash of the cotton industry, and a white court awarding Jefferson Davis much of the land under questionable reasoning. The demise of the Montgomery & Sons Association convinced W.T. Montgomery to move to Dakota Territory in 1881. Isaiah Montgomery’s Mound Bayou W.T. Montgomery liked Dakota Territory and tried to convince his family and other former members of the Association to move here. His younger brother Isaiah, however, decided to start a new utopian community of African American landowners and businesses in Mississippi called Mound Bayou. In the last decade of his life, W.T. Montgomery decided to join the colony, working as a director of the Bank of Mound Bayou and co-founder of the Mound Bayou Loan and Investment Co. (Text from Stories of Local Black History an HCSCC produced exhibit) We are excited to announce a series of spring History Harvests in the communities of Barnesville, Hawley, Ulen, and Moorhead. The HCSCC is hoping to interview people about built places in Clay County that have meaning to them. Anyone who has a story or a memory is invited to stop in and share, first-come, first-served. These buildings can still be standing or may be long gone. The interviews will be recorded and stored in the Clay County Archives. The stories about the places that result from the interviews will be shared with the public through the North Star Story Map (see https://northstarstorymap.org/).
North Star Story Map is a collaboration between the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Minnesota, Mill City Museum, and the Minnesota Historical Society. This collaboration is made possible by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the vote of Minnesotans on Nov 4, 2008. The scheduled gatherings include: Tues. March 4, 1-4pm at the Barnesville Public Library, 104 Front Street N. Wed. March 19, 1-4pm at the Garrick Theatre in Hawley, 509 Front Street. Wed. April 2, 1-4pm Ulen Senior Center, 60 Front Street E. Wed. April 23, 1-4pm Moorhead Public Library, 118 5th St. S. Light refreshments will be served. Please feel free to bring along photographs and historical objects or items pertaining to Clay County history to be photographed. For more information email [email protected] or call Maureen at 218-299-5511, Ext 6732. By Markus Krueger Every few years, the City of Moorhead calls in their engineers and surveyors to check the mast of the Hjemkomst Viking Ship to ensure it remains as close to 90 degrees as possible. If the ship’s tall mast leans one way or the other, it would put stress on the hull of the ship below and possibly keel over. I don’t know the last time this happened, but I recall writing a short article in our newsletter about it, so one could check if they wanted a date. In January of 2024, the City wanted to do it again. To lead this crew, they called Steve Ingersoll out of retirement to show the younger city crew how to do it. Ingersoll is the retired Survey Crew Lead for the City of Moorhead, and he has been surveying the ship’s mast with an assistant or two for at least the last 20 years that I’ve been doing it, and probably longer. On January 11, 2024, Ingersoll arrived with current Survey Crew Lead Eric Norstad, Engineer Technician Chris Vistad, and CAD Manager Josh Caroon. Hjemkomst First Mate Mark Hilde was called in to advise us in case we needed to tighten or loosen any ropes. Markus Krueger and Kevin Wander from the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County were here and so was the Hjemkomst Center’s Assistant Facilities Manager Michelle Griffin.
Surveyor Ingersoll and Hjemkomst crewmember Hilde are both already retired and might not feel up to climbing aboard the ship the next time we measure. Hjemkomst Center building manager Holly Heitkamp and HCSCC executive director Maureen Kelly Jonason will also be retired in two years’ time. All of us wanted to make sure our younger coworkers knew how to do this. One interesting aspect of bringing younger coworkers to the project is they have new ideas. On January 11, 2024, the city workers wanted to see if they could get the same or better information by using a drone with a camera. This would prevent the need to lug the surveying equipment into the back of the ship, and it allows us to take photographs. Hilde and Krueger climbed aboard the ship to take down the line from which the flags hang so it would be out of the way of the drone’s flight path. There was something very fun about a drone flying around a Viking Ship. The drone took a lot of photographs that may prove helpful in further analysis, but it was decided that the surveying crew needed to come back and do it the old fashioned way after all. The surveyors did bring out their equipment on the 11th to measure if the ship was listing to starboard or port – that is, if it is tipping too much to the west (starboard) or the east (port). They found that the Hjemkomst is listing to port…by 1/100 of an inch. This is good. They were all very impressed that the ship was so level from one side to the other. After determining that the work needs to be done the traditional way, Steve Ingersoll, Chris Vistad, Mark Hilde, Michelle Griffin, and Markus Krueger assembled again on January 16. Steve and Chris climbed into the stern (rear) of the Hjemkomst ship and set up their surveying equipment as far back as they can fit. There is a silver strip of duct tape on the floor that they use as a marker to return to year after year. There is also a silver strip of duct tape about seven or eight feet up on the mast itself that is also used for this surveying process. To get a clear view with their equipment requires Mark and Markus to take down the rear-most mast rest – those are the 7-foot-tall wooden capital Ts. The mast rests simply lift out of the hole they are in, but they probably extend 3 feet down to the keel below the deck. The Findings and the Concerns:
As has always been the case, the mast is reasonably straight at 90 degrees but, toward the top, the mast bends a bit to the port side (the east side). It might be off just a few inches. Mark Hilde said it never was completely straight even when they were sailing it. We can’t get the mast completely straight because…well…it’s not straight. The easiest way to see this, Steve Ingersoll says, is to walk behind the ship and look straight at it, right in the middle of the keel, so Igor’s Tail is blocking the mast – you’ll see the top of the mast jut out to your left. The bend in the mast begins right above the yard of the main sail. Some sailing vocabulary might be necessary here: the mast is the tall vertical pole that comes out of the deck of the ship and supports the sail. The yard is the horizontal pole that the sail hangs from – the top of the sail is tied to the yard. The main sail is the bigger sail and the top sail is the smaller sail above the main sail. The top sail is also tied to a horizontal wooden yard. So right above the horizontal wooden pole (yard) that the main sail is tied to, that is where the mast starts bending toward the east. Below that point, it is reasonably straight. Caption: The Main Yard in this picture goes from the upper left hand corner to the lower right corner. You can clearly see a cluster of wooden wheels that are used to help raise and lower the yard on the mast – the warp in the mast starts about there and bends to the left. We could make the mast lean more to starboard (to the west/right) if we tighten the ropes on the starboard side that connect to the mast, but that would make most of the mast crooked. And we are also concerned about what adjusting all that weight and tension would do to the structure of the ship. She is less than perfect, but we cannot make her perfect, and she has been used to sitting just this way since the roof was replaced and the sail was rehung in 2006-07. Recommendation: We leave it as it is. 2.The ropes are old and none of us know how long they will last. Mark Hilde and Steve Ingersoll both agree that their primary concern is the ropes, which date to the early 1980s or maybe even late 1970s, and have been in the same position, unmoved, since 2007. We would be interested in having an expert look at our ropes to either assure us that these old ropes are just fine or tell us when and how they should be replaced. Caption: The Main Yard in this picture goes from the upper left hand corner to the lower right corner. You can clearly see a cluster of wooden wheels that are used to help raise and lower the yard on the mast – the warp in the mast starts about there and bends to the left. We could make the mast lean more to starboard (to the west/right) if we tighten the ropes on the starboard side that connect to the mast, but that would make most of the mast crooked. And we are also concerned about what adjusting all that weight and tension would do to the structure of the ship. She is less than perfect, but we cannot make her perfect, and she has been used to sitting just this way since the roof was replaced and the sail was rehung in 2006-07. Recommendation: We leave it as it is. Just a quick aside to reiterate the importance of having someone who knows the ropes be a part of this process…There is a board that we all must climb over to get to the stern of the ship with all of the surveying equipment. You will climb right between these two pins with ropes wrapped around them. The one above left is what is keeping the main sail from crashing to the ground. The one on the right is what keeps the top sail from crashing to the ground. Don’t mess with them unless a knowledgeable person that you trust tells you they need to be messed with. There will come a day when our Hjemkomst crew members won’t be able to climb the ladder to guide us anymore. When that day comes, we need to have an experienced sailor on board to make sure we are doing things safely. We have never adjusted these ropes as part of the surveying process, but we did adjust other ropes (namely the one the flags are flying on) and it is essential to have someone who knows that we want to pull on this rope, not that rope, and can perhaps save the day by tying the right knot at the right time. Recommendation: HCSCC and/or the City of Moorhead should get a specialist to look at our ropes and tell us if there is a problem or not. This might take a structural engineer, and it might take a grant to pay for it.It may be a good idea to install some kind of fail-safe system that will catch and support the yard if this rope breaks. by Maureen Jonason, Executive Director  Throughout 2023, HCSCC met all of its budgeted fundraising goals and paid all its bills on time. Programming fulfilled our mission to collect, preserve, interpret and share the history and culture of Clay County and our two strategic priorities to 1) “Expand the circle” to include Native Americans, immigrants, other recent arrivals, and under-represented groups and 2) Continue to develop experiences that invite people to share their own stories and those of others.
Exhibits The Ralph’s Corner Bar exhibit continued into 2023. In the hall cases and atrium, Downtown Moorhead: 150 Years of Change and WDAY TV Negative Collection drew a lot of visitors the first half of the year. The traveling exhibit Patient No More took up the atrium all summer. Aug. 1, At Last: Ten Years of Marriage Equality in MN opened and continues into 2024. The traveling exhibit Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories shared the difficult history of this US government initiative Oct. – Jan. The Ihdago Manipi: Clay County at 150 exhibit continued in the lowest level through 2023. Events A busy year of programs began with wine culture classes at the Hjemkomst Center and special wine dinners at the Comstock House, a total of 4 classes and 3 dinners throughout 2023. In February, our Black History Month presentation on the Rondo Brothers of Moorhead was held at MSUM. In March, a special jazz concert celebrated the legacy of Dr. James Condell, a longtime Moorhead jazz musician and MSUM psychology professor, who died in 1998, as part of the Ralph’s exhibit programs. HCSCC Programming Director Markus Krueger gave a live-streamed tour of the Ralph’s exhibit in April and continued his monthly History-on-Tap presentations at Junkyard Brewery October to May. May is always packed with school tours with about 1500 children seeing the exhibits. June included the HCSCC annual meeting and a Juneteenth celebration while tours of Comstock House began. HCSCC also started offering monthly sensory-friendly Tuesday nights. An opening reception for the At Last exhibit took place Aug. 1, and Aug. 12 was an Ojibwe jingle dance demonstration. Sept. 12 a large crowd learned about the history of pockets from textiles curator Susan Curtis, and Sept. 26 Brain Cole presented on his new book Once a Spud . . . 150 Years of Moorhead Public Schools. On Oct. 24, Ralph’s Corner Bar fans raised a final glass to celebrate this iconic watering hole at the exhibit’s closing. On Nov. 14, Dr. Denise Lajimodiere presented on her book Stringing Rosaries: The History, the Unforgivable, and the Healing of Northern Plains American Indian Boarding School Survivors for the opening of the Away from Home exhibit. The 29th annual Pangea—Cultivate Our Cultures Festival took place with over 1000 visitors on Nov. 18. On Dec. 2, over 200 people gathered to hear Bud Larsen, Fargo Spelemanslag, and Loretta Kelley perform hardanger fiddle favorites and learn about this national instrument of Norway with a reception of Scandinavian goodies afterward. Special Projects: With the support of grants, we accomplished a number of special projects in 2023: The Minnesota Historical Society (MHS) provides funding each year for HCSCC to manage the Comstock House. In addition, MHS funded an Historic Structures Report for the Rollag One-room Schoolhouse to assess its conservation needs, the construction drawings for Bergquist Cabin for future conservation treatment, the conservation treatment of a 1934 painting done by Swedish immigrant Erik Ahlberg, a new flat textiles cabinet and metal quilt stand, the printing of the book Prairie Daughters: The Art and Lives of Annie Stein and Orabel Thortvedt which will be published in 2024, and interpretive signage to be installed adjacent to the Felix Battles monument at MSUM. by Lisa Vedda One issue that some museums in Minnesota face in their historical collections is abandoned loans. These are objects that a patron has loaned to the museum for display, research, or another purpose, but for whatever reason, the lender did not respond to attempts by the museum to arrange for the items to be returned. This can be a problem for museums because these items take up space in the museum’s storage and require resources to care for their preservation, but the museum does not hold clear title to the objects and so cannot remove the object from its collection and possession if the object is deemed to no longer fit the museum’s collecting objectives. When the Clay County Historical Society opened its first museum in 1936 in the basement of McLean Hall at the Moorhead State Teachers College, many objects were given or donated to the museum, but many more were loaned for the first educational displays of Clay County history. The terms of these loans were often informal, with the lender allowing the museum to use the objects for as long as it needed to, and the museum giving license to the lenders to stop by to pick up the objects whenever they would like. Over the years, many items were returned, but many still remain in the museum’s collection. HCSCC no longer accepts loans of objects without a defined end date.
In 2004, the state’s museum community achieved the goal of having legislation passed with a path for museums to follow to acquire clear ownership of these types of objects in their collections, called the Minnesota Museum Property Act. The law outlines clear steps that the museum must take and document in order to be able to declare ownership of abandoned pieces in their collection. The museum must first attempt to notify the lender of the abandoned property by certified mail one final time at their last known address. If the lender or their heir does not come forward within the time allotted after the delivery of the mail notification, the museum must publish notice in a local publication for a specified period of time. If the lender or an heir does not contact the museum within the designated time frame after the public notice, the museum may claim ownership of the loaned objects. The collections staff at the HCSCC has begun the process of identifying objects and collections that were loaned in order to begin the process of acquiring clear title to them. It will be a time-consuming project and will incur some costs, but it is a necessary task for responsible stewardship of the society’s collection of artifacts that document the county’s history. |
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