Honeymoon in Hot Springs

Oh, yes, we have many who get married and honeymoon in Hot Springs. Those who know of the numerous beautiful spots tie the knot here. Somewhere among the special loveliness the couples take the plunge to live together, for better or worse until one of them takes their last breath.

Now our city and chamber have decided to promote all this specialness in our area for couples contemplating taking the big step or other couples who want to renew their vows. And why not? Hot Springs has the quiet charm of renewal, relaxation and restoration. From the bubbling river that winds through town to the red rock canyons of area parks, Hot Springs is the place!

We are a veterans town and a home to many who love the sport of the motorcycle. This area of mild winters encourages bikers to feel the wind in their faces most times of the year. Bikers and veterans often decide to make their solemn vows in this valley of beauty and serenity in the southern Black Hills.

VOWS AND VIEWS IN HOT SPRINGS, SOUTH DAKOTA

 With this ring......

 In front of the mural at the American Legion.

 The sandstone Episcopal church on the side of the hill with the red door.

 The waterfall on the Freedom Trail river walk in downtown Hot Springs.

 They are off to the spectacular view at the Blue Mesa retreat center.

           
              The mayor of Hot Springs preformed this ceremony this past week.

Cheers From the Veterans Town

So, there was a trunk show at our American Legion for our town's own Miss South Dakota. We gathered, veterans and town folks, to view the dresses that will be worn by our Hot Spring's candidate. We celebrated with a meal and a silent auction, all to raise money to send Autumn Simunek to the Miss America contest in Atlantic City.

How appropriate to join together in sending off our home town candidate at the American Legion. She has always supported our veterans in a veteran's town. We watched her grow up, attending events for veterans, selling poppies on the steps of the post office, visiting veterans at our very special VA. She never refused an invitation that involved our veterans.

She has honored the veterans, and the veterans appreciate and love her. It has been 30 years since a local gal won the Miss South Dakota contest and our town is rejoicing. Whatever happens in the final Miss America pageant, we citizens of Hot Springs will be rooting for our home town candidate. Even many of us who never before watched the contest will be at the TV, cheering on one of our own who we know worked humbly and tirelessly to perfect her talent, poise and appearance, so that one day she could walk down the aisle into Miss America history.
                                         

Who Remembers Calumet Location?

There is the familiar saying, "You can't go home again." I have returned to my childhood home many times over the years. Early on it was to visit my parents and relatives. This month a high school friend and I stopped to visit former high school chums at a class reunion. (Bob did the driving, or I would not have gone. It totals to about 16 hours of drive time.)

Each time I have returned to Ely, MN, I stopped to wander around the ideal spot for growing up during the depression. It was called Calumet Location, located a mile from town, in the north woods, next to a large freshwater lake. I wrote about this idyllic spot in my first book, A (not so) Simple Life.

During the iron ore mining boom on the Iron Range of north eastern Minnesota, the Olive Iron Mining Company built small locations of company houses for the miners to live in, close to the mines, with rents modestly priced. After the closing of the mines the houses were sold to the miners occupying the houses and moved away. We had been told that the ground was sinking under the location because the closed mines were filling with water and the land was collapsing into the empty tunnels.

A company mining house in Calumet Location

The first time I visited my old stamping grounds I recognized the sidewalks, the alley and the very spot our house had been. Over the years all of this disappeared, devoured by the forest and several new landowners who had built on the former condemned property. The land beneath the mines had become a crystal lake, filled with fish and a walking path built around it.

Calumet was so very special to all of us who once lived there that I included several chapters about this precious garden of Eden in my book. I did not want it to disappear from maps and memories. At one time I purchased a brick for a downtown street with the names of my parents, including the words, "Calumet Location". As the town would change and former residents would leave with new arrivals taking their turn, I wanted them to see that brick and ask someone, "Where was Calumet Location?"

This last trip to my hometown of Ely, Minnesota was truly "bitter-sweet". There were no family members remaining to tend to my parents grave and I spent some time attempting to renew the names on their headstones. My book about Ely and my present home of Hot Springs, SD, was no longer available at the local bookstore. I asked some locals what they knew about Calumet Location. I received only blank stares. The brick in the downtown area was blurred with age and barely visible.The former library was condemned and barred from curious visitors who wanted to view the beautiful murals on the walls just one more time.

What did I expect? I know change happens. It is part of life. But as I sank into a depression over my struggle to fight the change, a few things happened that renewed hope. I made a trip to the local bookstore and while browsing the shelves came across a publication titled, Where in the World was Calumet.....

It listed all of the former mining locations, all 9 of them. As I leafed through I found our family name on the location of our home in Calumet, and further on a page titled, "The Former Residents Speak...." The author, David Kess, from the Ely-Winton Historical Society quotes from my book "A (Not So) Simple Life." Of course it is about my childhood years in Calumet Location.

Later I visited the Ely-Winton Historical Society and Museum located in the Vermilion Community College. Once again as I walked through years of Ely history from logging, mining and tourism and the Boundary Waters, I viewed familiar places and faces. I found another book by David Kess, More Than Just Ore. The Era That Really Made Ely. As I thumbed through many recognizable faces and places I found a photo of my father in the "cage" (elevator) of the mine entrance that brought the miners to and from the depths of the mine.

All of this was comforting to me, a former resident, who still subscribes to the Ely paper, who lives in a town so very similar to the one I grew up in, and who so deeply desires to have her former childhood location remembered as it once was, filled with laughter of children playing in the woods, swimming and fishing the lake, dreaming dreams of their future in the world "out there", hard working miners who toiled underground to give their children a better life above the ground, mothers and wives who ironed, washed, cooked, canned, pickled, preserved, hung clothes on the line, made pasties for their husbands lunches and poticas for weddings, funerals and other celebrations.

I do not want this place lost in memory when I and the last of my family and friends have left this earth. Now I know that it will live on, not only in my book, but in the books of David Kess and other Ely residents and in that museum in the former Ely Junior College that I once was fortunate to have attended, and that was paid for entirely by the Oliver Iron Mining Company and the sweat of the immigrant miners, who were proud of the schools that would raise their children to a better life out of the damp and dangers of the underground iron mines.

Stranger than Fiction

"You guys come from Sturgis?"

Of course I was referring to the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, SD each year. This year they were celebrating the 75th anniversary and Sturgis expected a million visitors for the event.

"Yeah, we just came from there" responded one of the two bikers sitting on a bench outside the gas station/restaurant along Highway 90 in Minnesota.

My husband and I were on our way to the Black Hills after a week in northern Minnesota and had missed most of the excitement. The bikers saw that we were driving a car and when they found out we were from the Black Hills one of them asked if we had left to get away from the commotion.

"Actually, I really enjoy seeing all the bikers. My husband and I went to many a rally in Sturgis in past years. In fact, my husband used to race motorcycles in the old days, but now we both prefer to visit with bikers at a distance from the rally itself. I hated to be gone during this week, but I had commitments in my home town at a class reunion."

I was curious about the numbers that attended this year. "Were there a million motorcycles", I asked the bikers.

"Oh, I think there were at least that many."

"What about accidents?"

"There were a bunch. In fact, my buddy here helped at one of them. He was right at the scene."

"Yeah", said the other biker. "I put on a tourniquet, but I couldn't save his leg. The strange thing is that I am a nurse and the second person on the scene was a doctor. And then, strangest of all, someone who stopped handed me some morphine. I gave it to the injured guy to help his pain. I really don't know where it came from, but there it was, just when needed."

A registered nurse, a doctor and morphine, all at the scene in the midst of hundreds of bikes in the remote forest of the Black Hills. A man's life was saved until a helicopter arrived. It was 45 minutes before it got there. The tourniquet saved a life and the morphine eased the pain.

"The funny part was I never did know where that morphine came from", puzzled the biker nurse from Wisconsin. He paused, looking at me quietly. "This is a rally I will never forget."

Somewhere in this country there is one biker, minus one leg, who is not apt to forget either.

Gus

"Dad, where did you get this cute donkey?"

I was referring to a small brown, hand carved donkey, teeth showing in his smirking grin. I held it in my hands, admiring the marksmanship.

"Oh, that's Gus."

"Dad, I know you're not a democrat. What are you doing with it?"

"Do you remember that fellow I told you about that I was helping as he got older? Well, I used to help him out and drive him around, and at the end I went to visit him daily in the nursing home. Before he died he told me that he wanted me to inherit his money. He said he had no family and I had been his only friend as he got older. I told him I didn't want his money. Too much money can only cause trouble. I had enough with my pension and social security to take care of your mother and myself. I had all I needed for a comfortable life.

"Well", he told me, "What should I do with my money? I have no one in this world who cares a fig about me except you."

"I suggested he leave his money for scholarships for students to help them pay for a college education. Education is the gateway to good jobs. I hate to see kids settle for work in the mines if they have higher ambitions."

"Gus liked the idea, but he still wanted me to have something to remember him by. I took his old car that I had been chauffeuring him around in since he could no longer drive and this little donkey standing by his bed side. That made Gus happy. Now I have this donkey that I named Gus to remember him by. His memory lingering on was what mattered to him."

Today the donkey, Gus, stands on my living room book case. Every time I look at him I remember Gus and my Dad. Each spring when I get my home town newspaper I look at the list of high school graduates that receive scholarships. Each year as I read the names of the Gus Killeen scholarship receivers I say to myself, "Thanks, Dad. You gave promise to eight young people who could not afford college without the help of the man who only wanted to be remembered long after he was gone."

Those fortunate students may not know who was responsible for their college help, but on receiving the scholarship, they hear the name of this lonely man who was fortunate in his life to have had my father for his friend.

As long as Gus, the donkey, remains stolidly on my bookshelf, both my father and his friend, Gus, will be remembered. When I pass the donkey on to a family member I want this person to know the story of the love between two old friends and the value they had in passing on an opportunity for learning to the kids of the future.

Today as I dusted Gus, the donkey, I thought I would write this story in the memory of two extraordinary men and the legacy that will be carried on for years to come.