In September you met Cold Spring resident Ken Raschke who grew up on a Midwestern farm during the depression and WWII years. Ken told of a simple life as a child where ones ability to work and provide for all of your families needs was the foundation of survival on the farm.
Just a week after we finished producing this story for Ken who seemed healthy as a mule at the time, he ended up on a hospital surgery table in Rochester, MN. When the operation took a turn for the worst, Ken's wife Sylvia remembered the video we had captured and how thankful she was that these stories would live on regardless of the operation's outcome that day.
Today, Ken is doing very well and has recovered totally from the operation. He very much values the time he took to capture a few of his life stories on video as a part of his family legacy.
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View Ken's DigElogROCORI Story
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I met Herb Theis for the first time in the local nursing home during the fall of 2004. He had recently been diagnosed with a type of cancer that would most likely take his life in a short 3-6 months.
That same day, Herb and I captured over 3 hours of video where Herb told wonderful stories about his ancestors who were local pioneers. Then a few days later, when Herb was feeling up to it, we even visited the old family farmstead together, a place where Herb had lived all his life.
Herb had always been a local historian who was happy to tell stories about his pioneering family and his own life growing up on the farm.
Well, it gives me great pleasure to say that Herb has beat the odds makers and is still at the nursing home telling his stories to the many friends and relatives who come to visit. If you have a chance to visit with Herb, he'll tell you that there's only one person who can predict when it's your time to go and that's the "Good Lord" himself.
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To view some of Herb's stories:
"Why Did They Come To America"
House On The Sauk River
A Philosophy Of Life-Long Giving
The Day "All Hell Broke Loose"
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On Wednesday, April 28th, 2004, the old highway 23 iron bridge across the Sauk River in Cold Spring, Minnesota, disappeared from sight to make room for the new four-lane concrete bridge that stands there today.
A few weeks earlier, my good friend Ted Krebsbach and I paid our last respects to the "Old Iron Bridge" and took a series of photos to remember it by. Soon after that, Ted used this last visit as the inspiration to write a story about the old bridge and the "bridge kids" that enjoyed it as a giant playground and Olympic diving board over 60 years ago.
The photos and the story have now been combined into a video that you can view here at DigElogROCORI. It's a precious story that young and old alike enjoy. It's a story that deserved to be told and will now be remembered as a part of the "Land Of ROCORI" living legacy here on DigElogROCORI.
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To view "The Bridge Kids" story:
The Bridge Of Memories PART I
The Bridge Of Memories PART II
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If you have attended a parade in Central Minnesota over the past 30 years, you have seen this man driving one of his Cadillac convertibles along with three pretty girls sitting in the back.
Yes, Willie Scheel has been escorting the Queens of Paynesville, Minnesota, in every local parade since 1976.
Willie and I met at a wedding we both were attending. For me, the bride was marrying a good friend of the family. For Willie, he was attending another wedding where he and his pink Cadillac were escorting a previous Paynesville Queen and her new husband around town.
It wasn't long after visiting with Willie that I realized his story was something that needed to be captured on video. This was just one chapter in Willie's many life stories and I'm pleased we were able to record it so it could be shared here for all to enjoy.
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To view Willie's Cadillacs In The Parade story:
30 Years Of Queens Riding In My Cadillac
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Herb Hesse was born in Cold Spring, Minnesota in 1920. He was number 7 of 13 children in his family. In this story Herb tells about walking home from school along the railroad tracks hoping to find chunks of coal along the way. As the train would roll by on the tracks, chunks of coal would often bounce to the ground from the coal car right behind the locomotive.
Herb lived in a home that was typical for the times. Paper thin walls and a lone wood stove as the only source of heat during the winter. Herb tells about using coal in the wood stove as a way to keep the fire burning longer into the night.
Herb and Lorraine Hesse sat down earlier this year and video recorded over three hours of family stories. These stories were then edited and saved onto a 100 year DVD. Since that time copies of the DVD have been distributed to well over a dozen family members and will help carry along Herb and Lorraine's life legacy for generations to come.
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See Herb's childhood story:
Searching For Coal To Stay Warm
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"WHAT LEGACY HAVE YOU LEFT FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS?"
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