SUSAN ROTH Narrator

DAVID GRABITSKE Interviewer

SUSAN ROTH Narrator

DAVID GRABITSKE Interviewer

Copyright © 2012 by Minnesota Historical Society

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy and recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Oral History Office, Minnesota Historical Society, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55102.

Susan Roth

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Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office Staff, 2011.

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THE INTERVIEW

Susan Roth Narrator

David Grabitske Interviewer

March 1, 2012 Minnesota History Center, Saint Paul, Minnesota

Susan Roth - SR David Grabitske - DG

DG: Today is Thursday, March 1, 2012. My name is David Grabitske and, today, I’m interviewing Susan Roth, recently retired National Registered historian, in the Gale Conference Room on the second floor of the Minnesota History Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Susan, thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. It’s a great honor for me to be here today.

SR: Thank you. It’s my pleasure to talk with you today.

DG: You and I share something of a background in the sense that we’re from the same part of the state, you from Silver Lake and me from Arlington. I remember riding my bicycle up to Glencoe and occasionally passing through Silver Lake as a kid. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I’d get to work with someone from Silver Lake. It just didn’t cross my mind in those days.

To me, Silver Lake provides something of a context for you, so I’d like to begin with your origins. Tell me about your parents and the circumstances under which you were born and what it was like growing up in Silver Lake.

SR: Silver Lake, at the time that I was growing up there in the 1950s and 1960s, was a community of about 600 people. Except for an occasional organized bus trip to the roller rink in Hutchinson or to summer swimming lessons at Lake Marion, which was south of Hutchinson, there weren’t a lot of organized things for kids to do like there are today. So we were left to our own devices. We could go ice-skating on Silver Lake. We could go sledding down the big hill behind Saint Joseph Catholic Church. We had marathon softball games in the park, which was right across the street from where I lived. Or the good thing is, as you said, you could get on your bike and you could ride all over town. The only requirements were, of course, that you came home for lunch and dinner and you got home before sunset. That was very good, because kids today can’t experience that kind of autonomy. In large measure, you had to find your own entertainment. I think at the end of the day, all the kids, and myself included, were pretty worn out. It was a good place to live as a youngster.

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DG: I can certainly imagine that autonomy helped you as you grew in your professional career, too.

SR: Well, it did, because it made you be aware of things, and it made you look for opportunities, and it gave you a certain amount of curiosity. If you weren’t curious about poking around or discovering places, then you were at home and that’s not where you wanted to be. It really gives children an imagination, which, I think, served me well all through life.

DG: You mentioned the Catholic Church and you’ve often mentioned to me your Catholic education upon which you’ve drawn extensively, I think. Tell me about that.

SR: I attended Saint Joseph’s Catholic parochial school for eight years, grades one through eight. The teachers were Notre Dame nuns, whose motherhouse was in Mankato. At that time, of course, there were sufficient numbers of nuns so that all of the grades were staffed by teaching sisters. The education, at the time, I would say, was fundamental. The sisters drilled you in reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithcmentic with great emphasis, of course, on religion. They were pretty good disciplinarians. The education was fundamental. They taught you to be good students. I think that also served me well because getting into, then, public high school was a real awakening. But what you learn the first eight years, you take with you. All in all, it was a pretty good experience.

DG: You’ve often told me about your trip to Mankato to see the house.

DR: That was interesting. Sometimes I thought the sisters were recruiters. Unfortunately, they didn’t recruit enough. But they did take us to Mankato once. I think they were trying to impress upon us the need to go to high school at Good Counsel [Girls] Academy. We walked through and I noticed that the girls were in large dormitories. I walked into one room where there must have been a dozen beds in this room. That was for the underclassmen. When you got to be a senior, you were able to share a room. I took one look at that and then thought about my bedroom at home, which was nicely appointed and which I had to share with no one. I decided at that point that that definitely wasn’t the life for me, but, then also, decided, too, that if the sisters were looking to recruit any of us for a career, that wasn’t it either. While they were very able teachers, that sense of autonomy that I had experienced as a youngster would certainly be given up for that. Grateful for the reading, writing, and arithmetic, but didn’t want to pursue that career choice any further.

DG: Do you recall any of you classmates actually going in that direction?

SR: None. None. You know that was during the time of Vatican [Council] II. The Catholic Church was opening up. Even the sisters themselves were putting away their traditional habits and the church was becoming modern and, quite frankly, the young women of the time, being influenced by the feminism of the 1960s and 1970s, were no longer interested in that. What is so telling is that in 2011, the Catholic school closed. There were no longer even enough students or families who wanted to send their children there and it was too expensive to maintain because there were no more teaching sisters.

DG: This is the school at Silver Lake.

11 SR: That’s correct, yes.

DG: Following that, you did go to high school.

SR: I attended Silver Lake Public High School, again not a large school. Today, Silver Lake has merged with Glencoe, as many schools have had to do in order to survive. At the time, however, Silver Lake was its own independent school district. I had a class of forty-seven. It seemed large to me. Of course, when you compare it to some of my colleagues in the office who went to school with hundreds of students in their class, it doesn’t seem possible.

The classes were, again, fundamental. There were not a lot of classes outside of the ordinary. Bringing in in a Spanish class was considered quite novel at the time. But the teachers were good. They were animated. They were interested in you. On the whole, high school was fine…none of the issues that you read about happening in high schools today, so it was a good four years.

I was involved in a few activities, which was enough to keep me busy, not again like today where students need to be involved eighteen hours a day. There was certainly adequate time for homework and, you know, weekends were free.

DG: From there, you went to Southwest [Minnesota State University], which I’ve always thought was interesting, being that you’re a historian and you love history and, yet, that’s a rather new school.

SR: Well, the choice was intentional, because of my classmates who went to college or a university, most of them went to Mankato [State University] or Saint Cloud [State University]. I had looked at Mankato and, at the time, I didn’t like the split campus. Surprisingly, Saint Cloud to me seemed to too big. I came from a town of 600 people. I was looking at both Southwest in Marshall and at Bemidji [State University], because they were far away and they were smaller. In the end, I decided on Southwest, because it was new. I thought this was the time to try something new. It was a decision I have never regretted.

Going there, it was still small, not a lot of students. In fact, (in 1968) there were only two grades: freshmen and sophomores. The campus was small. It was a lot like Silver Lake because there weren’t a lot of organized activities. This college was still trying to gain a foothold. So you had to find your own entertainment. You made friends with the students. The students were bright, energetic. They were interested in course work.

Of course, being out on the prairies, you might think, well, that’s not all that far from Silver Lake. But Silver Lakeis on the edge of the Big Woods. Marshall is the prairies. When I got there, I couldn’t believe how hot, dusty, dry, and windy it was. After a while, you really came to like it. The other thing, too, is that first winter there in 1968 and 1969 was a terrible winter and you didn’t dare leave the campus for fear that you’d get caught on the highway and, literally, get found in a ditch. In that respect, it was kind of an adventurous place to be. During the winter, we walked to classes between snowdrifts. It was great. It was a great deal of fun and I still look back on those years very fondly. 12

The other thing, however, was that because you were out there in a new school still kind of finding your way, everyone developed a curiosity, or at least those in my history classes did, of what was going on here historically that attracted people to settle. How could they survive out there on the prairies? But then, at the same time, you’d go to Lake Benton and you see the Coteau [des Prairies] and you wonder where did this hillock come from? So, again too, the curiosity was there to discover how did this place come to be and what was it that attracted the people that you saw settle all these little towns and farms in the surrounding area. It was a great place to be.

DG: I can certainly see how that would cultivate your curiosity about a sense of place.

SR: It was. The best thing about that was that served me well later was that—perhaps, I leap forward—when we as staff were given the opportunity to select areas for survey, I was appointed or given southwest Minnesota. I was delighted because if you put me in the trees or you put me among the iron ore tailing, I lose my sense of direction. In southwest Minnesota, you always know where you are. The places are “square to the world” because of the layout of the townships, the counties, the county roads. Out there, you always know west from east.

DG: Indeed.

This University education prepared you for your work as a historian. Just in general terms, can you reflect for just a moment on the demands of historic preservation for education to have degrees and to have that training before they get into this work, and how your education prepared you for your job as National Register historian?

SR: At the time I was at Southwest—that would have been from 1968 until 1972—the course work again, and I have to use this word again, was traditional. The professors there taught the courses in colonial history, European history. There was no course work in preservation, much less local history. However, the professors were very good in that they were disciplined and required discipline of their students. So, in terms of doing research and looking at your source material and understanding your source material, it certainly set all of us up for those of us who pursued history to be able to at least do those basics correctly.

Much to my good fortune, when I was heading into my junior and senior years and had to select a major and not only that but a career choice, it dawned on me that teaching was not what I wanted to do. That was a bit frightening, because, at that time, it was kind of assumed that a history major led you into teaching political science and history in a high school.

Fortunately, I had run across an internship program here at the Minnesota Historical Society. The internship program was available in two areas: Archaeology or, at the time, Archives and Manuscripts. I thought, well, archives and manuscripts might be interesting, but archaeology, I knew the term but I didn’t know the discipline and I chose archaeology.

What worked out really well was that when I came to the Archaeology Department, they had me do research. So I wasn’t doing excavations but I was excavating MHS [Minnesota Historical Society] 13 Library and the Archives and the Manuscript Department focusing on researching the list of fur trading posts that Grace Lee Nute published in a 1930issue of Minnesota History. Now, here I am coming out of a history background that taught colonial history and British history looking at fur trading posts in Minnesota and it was wonderful because it got me into some wonderful primary documentation and it also taught me discipline, because archaeology is certainly a disciplined exercise. I mean, if you’re off by two or three feet, you may miss the archaeological site. So it was stressed that I do my research in a very precise way, to bring up the documentation that would allow archaeologists to find the location of these fur trading posts. It was great. The Library allowed me a carrel back in the stacks, so I had my own little study area. I spent most of my time at 690 Cedar [Street, Saint Paul] doing research in both Archives and Manuscripts and the Library. It was a splendid three months.

Towards the end of the three months, Alan Woolworth walks up to me and says, “Would you like a job?” At that time, the economy was not good and graduates, like today, were finding it difficult to find jobs. I looked at him and I said, “Really?” He said, “Yes. After you graduate, come on back.” I thought, well, okay, I’ll be here.

About three weeks before I graduated, I called Alan and I said, “Alan, do you see still want me?” He said, “Yes. When can you start?” I said, “Could I have a couple days off after graduation?” He said, “Yes, come on in on the sixteenth of June. This didn’t happen. That’s how I transitioned from Southwest State University to the Historical Society. I have been grateful to Alan for extending that to me, because I don’t know what would have happened had he not offered me that position.

DG: That seems to fit well with something I’ve been often told is that the Society in those days very much was looking to employ women and broaden its scope in that way, that it would do something that Russell Fridley [Minnesota Historical Society director] had looked for. Your story seems to fit with that.

SR: Of course, it’s important to remember that during Russell’s administration, and even before, there were some very learned and professional women at the Historical Society: [Bertha L.] Heilbron, [Grace Lee] Nute, [June Drenning] Holmquist, [Lucile M.] Kane. They were incredibly intelligent, accomplished women who were really doing the hard work of the Historical Society. Of course, the director was the face of the organization and did all of the necessary activities to promote the organization, but it’s those women, Lucile Kane in Archives and Manuscripts, June Holmquist in Publications, Grace Lee Nute also in Publications, Rhoda Gilman in Publications, who were turning out the products, the publications, the books that gave the Minnesota Historical Society the reputation that it had.

Now, later, when I came on board in 1972, the Historical Society was changing. They still had what was called its core programs, you know, Library, Archives and Manuscripts, Publications, but there were these new programs, Historic Sites, Archaeology, and then the State Historic Preservation Office that had to bring in kind of new historians who were not doing the fundamentals in the strict sense of the word, but had a working knowledge of historic site rehabilitations, who understood the new preservation program, and who were doing archaeology. That needed a whole new group of people. At that point then, they were bringing in veritable youngsters, like me, who were engaged in 14 these programs. So, as a result, yes, I was working with a number of people who were basically my age or a few years older and more women, because, now, women were getting into those disciplines as archaeologists and historians, site interpreters, those kinds of things. So there was a whole new group of people starting to come into the Historical Society in the early 1970s.

DG: Were you able to work with some of those that you’ve mentioned, Kane and Heilbron and so on? Were you able to work with many of those?

SR: Keep in mind that the Archaeology Department and the State Historic Preservation Office in the early 1970s was housed out in Building 25 at Fort Snelling. Building 25 is now gone. So my contact with any of those people would have been when I went to 690 Cedar Street. While I saw them in their offices, I didn’t have a lot of contact with them other than to say, “Good morning.” I always felt that they were formidable women and always appeared rather stern; although, I don’t think they were. I had other business to do and certainly casting a shadow across their office door was not one of them.

DG: Before we come back to your career here at MHS, let’s stop for a moment and further define the context. We all live in our own context of our own families and so on. I’d like you to talk about your friendships with your colleagues. I’ve known you for about a dozen years or more now and observed you with both Michele Decker and Britta Bloomberg, in particular. I’ve rarely noticed as close a relationship as I have in those circumstances.

SR: I think the very nature of our liberal arts education makes us curious about those with whom we work and I think many people here at the Historical Society form a social relationship with their colleagues as well. We’re generally curious about them, where they came from, their families. It’s our nature to almost form a genealogy with those with whom we work.

Of course, over the years, I have worked most closely with Michele Decker and with Britta Bloomberg, but if I could talk about Michele first… Her assistance as administrative secretary is really critical to the success of the National Register [of Historic Places] program. Michele has an innate curiosity about how the program works. She wants to know about the federal regulations. She wants to know about the procedures and the processes that guide that program. As a result and because of an ability to be incredibly organized, she was certainly my right hand person when it came to implementing the program in terms of all of the notifications we had to do, all the timelines we had to follow. She was right there and I never worried about getting things out on time, because we always had our paperwork, our notifications and everything, done early. I think that was very helpful. There were so many things to do in an average day, week, and month that being able to kind of stay ahead of that was very helpful. As a result, she and I had a wonderful working relationship and, over the years, it has developed into a good friendship which we’re still able to maintain and for which I’m very grateful.

Britta Bloomberg came onboard, I believe in 1979, as a surveyor who was looking to identify properties in counties. Britta eventually became Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer. She had a working knowledge, of course, of what the day-to-day responsibilities were, and then, of course, as she moved into the deputy position, she had greater management responsibilities, particularly with 15 the budget. I know that that consumed a great deal of time. What was good about working with Britta was she let me run the National Register program. I appreciated that, but I always knew that when things got difficult, for example, when I was trying to write a letter to a client and the letter was complicated and the issues were complicated, and I had kind of written myself into a corner, Britta was able to look at these letters, kind of soften them up a little bit, because I tended to be kind of fact oriented and, perhaps, not as cordial as I could have been, so she put a more human edge to them. At the same time, too, when I was having issues with clients when we couldn’t seem to be talking about the same thing, she certainly interceded to help convey the message that I was trying to convey. In that respect, it was very good to have her there to take care of those things.

DG: She really did have a knack for communication.

SR: She did. She did. Sometimes, I became so involved in the process or the regulations or the criteria that she helped to convey that message in terms that the client could understand better.

DG: That’s something I always appreciate about Britta, as well.

Your home life also changed over the course of your career. So I thought it might be useful to talk about some of those significant changes that have shaped your life in that regard, too.

SR: Well, back in 1971, when I got my internship at the Historical Society, I needed a place to live. Of course, it was terrific, again because I found an efficiency apartment in a big house on Summit Avenue. I mean, talk about living on the street. Then, of course, when I came back, it was no question that I would live in Saint Paul. So I have lived in Saint Paul ever since, first living in the Mac-Groveland [Macalester Groveland] Neighborhood and, then, after I got married, moving to Highland Park. I’ve always been comfortable in Saint Paul

Then, of course, married in 1985, married my husband Robert Hyman, who was a software engineer at Unisys, a somewhat unlikely pairing…someone so steeped in liberal arts and, then, marrying someone who started out majoring in physics and, then, going into computers. But it was great, because his way of thinking helped me refine my way of thinking in terms of being more clear with our clients. The Preservation Office had this habit of using what I called wiggle words: probably, possibly, maybe, could. Those words didn’t convey to our client, I think, what we really needed to. One day, my husband looked at one of the letters I had been writing and said, “What’s all this probably, possibly? Tell the client what they need. Is their property eligible or isn’t it? They need to know.” I kind of looked at him and thought, you know, you’re right. If we want to give them the kind of assistance that they’re asking for, we need to tell them. If your property is eligible, it means one thing and if it isn’t, it means another. So tell them. Ever since that point, I think my letters have improved in terms of letting the client know what they need to know.

The second thing was, of course, my husband was involved in computers. I don’t know what it is but, for some reason, I could never warm up to them. You have to keep in mind that I grew up with making notes on three-by-five note cards and going through that wonderful card catalog in the MHS Library. So the techie world never appealed to me. My husband’s stamp is on, I think, every Power Point presentation I ever did. He scanned the photos. He helped me with some of the technical 16 difficulties I always found myself in and, then, always joked that at the end of a Power Point presentation, he said, “Leave it alone. You’re done with it. You keep picking at it.” He helped me over that and I was really grateful for that. Power Point presentations, I sometimes think, aren’t as honest as a slide presentation for how you can manipulate the data. There’s always this urge to change it in some respects, which then changes the message. You can’t manipulate a slide, but you can manipulate Power Point. So I’m always cognizant of that fact to present an honest Power Point presentation thinking of it as a slide presentation.

DG: I know you’ve told me about the first time you got a computer at work. Could you, please, tell us that, too?

SR: We were out at Fort Snelling. That’s where the Preservation Office was at the time. We received computers, I think, in the early 1980s. They deliver my computer and my monitor in a big box and they plunk it in my office. I looked at it and I said, “Well, if it’s going to be that way, I’m going to put a doily on it and turn it into a coffee table.” It sat in my office for a couple of months that way. Finally, someone came in and set it up for me. The first thing I did on the computer was rewrite my position description. After that, I warmed up to it. But, at that early time, the first software we used was WordStar. That was clunky. Then, of course, you were on a DOS system [disk operating system]. You had no backup in the sense that we have it today with an IT [information technology] staff. If you hit the wrong key, your document was gone. Those early days were fraught with anxiety and maybe it caused the kind of damage that I never recovered from. Then, of course from WordStar, we went to WordPerfect and, now, today, I think everyone is in much better shape. But those early years, there were pretty clunky. On top of it, there was no training. You just kind of had to feel your way. That probably explains why I still like the three-by- five note cards.

DG: Me too.

DG: We’ve talked a little bit about how you joined the Minnesota Historical Society as an intern and how Alan Woolworth recruited you into that. What was the tenor of the Society in those days?

SR: Of course, when I started, I started in the Archaeology Department and the Archaeology Department was, I think, in Building 27 out at Fort Snelling. Buildings 25 and 27 were known affectionately as the “mule barns,” which, indeed, they were. They were very rudimentary buildings. I think today someone would look at that and say, “I’m not working there.” But in the 1970s, they were fine. No air conditioning, which means that during the summer months, they could get up to 105 degrees and you still worked. You had the windows open and no one thought twice about it. The staff, at that time, was very young, the Archaeology Department in particular. All of those who worked in Historic Sites were a very young crowd. Then, of course, the Preservation Office that came under the administration of Donn [M.] Coddington in the Historic Sites Department was housed out there. They were also a very young crew. Those were great times. Staff interacted well. The Archaeology Department had a reputation for being kind of boisterous and they were. They also worked very hard…very bright, inquisitive people.

17 Then, of course, at the same time, the Preservation Office was getting up and running, first under the administration of Donn Coddington and John Grossman, who was also the Fort Snelling historian. That program started in 1969 and I think that soon Russell, who was State Historic Preservation officer, and Donn realized that the program needed to grow. At that time, they brought in Charles Nelson and, then, Charles brought in a number of other staff that I didn’t work with, because they were already gone when I came onboard in 1972. They started a survey of Minnesota to start to look at properties that could qualify for the National Register.

However, at that time, from 1972 to about 1975, I was doing research for the Archaeology Department working primarily with Doug Birk and Doug George who were doing an archaeological survey of north central Minnesota. So I was continuing my archaeological research.

Back in about 1975, Donn came into my office and said, “You’re being transferred.” I said, “Where?” He said, “You’re going into the Preservation Office.” I said, “Oh, really?” He said, “Yes. You will be helping Charlie survey and document the Historic Hill District [Saint Paul] for nomination to the National Register.” What’s so surprising about that today is there was no paperwork. You were just turned over to someone else. Today, of course, there’s a whole different process, probably for the good. But, at that time, things were a bit more casual. I wasn’t so keen about the transfer, because I really liked the Archaeology Department. But there was no room for negotiation.

So I started with Charlie Nelson surveying the Hill District, I think in the dead of winter and I froze but certainly learned a great deal about architectural history from Charles, who was as good an architectural historian as he was an architect. I worked on that for a number of months and, eventually, the Historic Hill District in Saint Paul was nominated and listed in the National Register. So that was my first project with the State Historic Preservation Office.

DG: You’ve also recounted stories of the staff in those days with their holiday parties and in particular one at the CSPS [Cesko Slovanský Podporující Spolek] Hall.

SR: In my years at the Historical Society, I had the opportunity to look at a lot of photos, so I saw a few photos of what I believed were MHS holiday events or holiday parties. They looked to be rather sedate. Of course, with the influx of younger staff, there was a whole sea change in terms of personality. So out at Fort Snelling, there were Christmas parties and they were pretty good affairs in terms of bountiful beverages and good food. Of course, today, you wouldn’t be doing that, but those were very different times.

Later on, of course, the Historical Society felt it important to host a holiday party and they were called Christmas parties at the time. One of the first was at the CSPS Hall, which is the Czech Hall, Czechoslovakian Hall on West Seventh Street [Saint Paul]. I believe those festivities probably started at two, three o’clock in the afternoon. Food was provided and so was the open bar. Three staff provided the musical venue. They called themselves the Rocking Santas. I believe it was Steve Hall, Marx Swanholm, and Frede Salomonsen. Things got rather boisterous. I recall standing there watching Russell Fridley walk in, maybe about six o’clock or so, and the look on his face was priceless. I don’t think he stayed long. That Christmas party has become the stuff of legend. There 18 have been subsequent Christmas parties that I think have gone better. Then, of course, the Christmas party kind of morphed into a winter party, perhaps a certain reluctance to focus on Christmas. So we had winter parties. Now, unfortunately, I think due to budgetary concerns and those kinds of things, there haven’t been any for some time. The winter parties that followed I think were very pleasant events and not quite as boisterous.

DG: You mentioned starting out in the mule barns at Fort Snelling. That’s where the Preservation Office was. I know over the years, it’s been in a number of different places. Could you kind of give me a chronology of how the office has moved around?

SR: The feeling at the time was—that has changed now—that there was the core institution and then there was the rest of it. The core programs were at the main building, 690 Cedar: Library, Publications, Archives and Manuscripts. The new programs, Historic Sites, and, eventually, the State Historic Preservation Office, were out at Fort Snelling. That distinction was very apparent, that Historic Sites and the Preservation Office were not core.

The Preservation Office started in Building 25. Then, eventually, it grew in numbers and, in about the mid 1970s, it was moved to the [James J.] Hill House, because, at that point, MHS acquired the Hill House from the Archdiocese of Saint Paul. Being in the Hill House was a wonder. At the time, it was not open to the public. We had run of the building. The building was being rehabilitated and we could go anywhere we wanted and it was great.

A couple of things that I noticed about using the Hill House or walking into the Hill House… To this day, it gives me a thrill to turn that ornate doorknob and open up that big wooden front door. I mean, you think about the people that have walked through that entry. If you ever have the opportunity to do that, look down on the doorstep, because the sandstone is worn from where the people put that first step and you think about the thousands of first steps.

The other thing I noticed about the Hill House… I don’t know why I see those details, but I was in the laundry room when we first moved into the building. I had read that the laundress for the Hill family was kind of cranky, I guess for lack of a better word, and her hands were always chapped. I thought, well, that makes sense, because she didn’t have a Maytag in the laundry room. I looked in the laundry tubs, enormous laundry tubs, and they were framed with a wooden frame around the edges. In one of the laundry tubs, the wood was grooved out and smooth from where I believe the laundress kept running the inside of her arms against the wood. I looked at that and I thought, oh, my gosh, to see that little bit of domesticity in the Hill House. Later, I was in that same laundry room and that wood had been replaced. I didn’t say anything at the time. I don’t know what the restoration protocols were, but I hope they kept that piece of wood where I believe the laundress wore out these grooves as she was doing the Hill family’s laundry.

Anyway, I digress.

Being in the Hill House was wonderful and the most wonderful thing was during the summer to have your lunch out on the porches. I mean, you could sit there and listen to the [Saint Paul] Cathedral chime noon and have your lunch. Those were wonderful days. 19

Then, of course, in 1982, early in 1982, 1983, the new History Center out at Fort Snelling was completed. So the few of us that were left there at the time moved back out to the Fort Snelling History Center, the new one. We were there until 1992, when the new History Center [at 345 Kellogg Boulevard West] was completed and, then, we were moved here.

Moving to the History Center, not everybody was wild about that idea. We liked it out at Fort Snelling. But it was a great move for two reasons. First of all, it put us in touch with larger MHS staff with whom we were starting to work with more and more. It put us with the Library, which was very convenient, and it put us in the same building at the State Historic Preservation officer. We had never worked with the State Historic Preservation officer in the same building. So, finally, the Preservation Office was all under one roof.

DG: What was it like then to participate in the development of the Historic Preservation Department and then the program over the years?

SR: Well, the program was new and staff, in a way, was feeling its way. None of the staff as far I know came from collegiate preservation programs. Those programs were being developed, but all of the staff came with degrees other than in historic preservation. The staff had to; literally, put together a program and a strategy to implement the program. So there were a great number of discussions about how to do this and where do we start. How do you put together the files? How do you organize the data that we knew would be coming in? So there was a great deal of discussion about how to do that. There was also a great deal of discussion, particularly when you were doing county-by-county surveys, of what to inventory.

Believe it or not, back in about the late 1970s, there were robust discussions about whether or not the staff picked up resources constructed by the Federal Relief programs. You think about that today and you say, “Well, why?” At that time, they were just reaching the fifty-year age. Strange as it might sound, they were perceived as kind of modern properties. Today, of course, one wouldn’t think twice about inventorying anything built under the Federal Relief programs. But, at that time, there were real issues about are these a group of resources that need to be inventoried? Fortunately, the response was, "Yes, let’s get them.” Of course today, we’re having the same discussions about what to survey in terms of modern architecture. That discussion will probably never end.

DG: Very true.

How has the scope of the Department’s function evolved?

SR: The core function remains the same. One needs to keep in mind that it is the responsibility of the office to identify historic resources, evaluate them to determine whether or not they might be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, designate or register them in the National Register, and, if the time comes, treat them or mitigate the effect of any federal or state projects that could affect these properties. That core function remains the same.

20 The thing that has changed is that the identification process has now been turned over to a very good group of historical consultants. So most of the data, that now comes in to the office is being produced either by historical consultants or by historical consultants working for federal or state agencies. However, the evaluation, registration, and treatment issues are still being handled by Preservation Office staff.

DG: Why do you think that has occurred, that part of that function has shifted toward contractors?

SR: Well, that shift started in 1980 when the [President Ronald] Reagan Administration was elected into office. That administration wanted to reduce size and scope of federal spending in agencies. As a result, federal support for the State Historic Preservation Office, which is basically a federal program that operates under the auspices of the National Park Service, that funding was held up for nearly a year. At the same time, state support had also dwindled.

So in 1981, the Office staff knew that there were going to be changes, and, indeed, there were. In December 1981, the statewide archaeological survey was ended and the staff in the Preservation Office was reduced by about seventy-five percent. So beginning in 1982, the Preservation Office became an office that contracted and managed historical projects, but no longer did the kind of fieldwork that a much larger staff used to do.

DG: Since I’ve been in the Department, we’ve often prided ourselves on having a greater sense of urgency, perhaps, than the rest of the institution. Over time, do you think that’s been largely true?

SR: It is, because the Office deals with large numbers of federal and state projects that need to be reviewed. The Office deals with incredible numbers of requests by the public to evaluate properties, to rehabilitate properties, and because you are dealing with either agencies or members of the public who need to get things done, you need to respond. So there is no time for dawdling. You need to get to these people and that is part of, I think, the public service that they expect and they should get, because, after all, this is a public program that is being paid for with taxpayer money. So you need to understand that Preservation Office staff is here to help and so the urgency to get back to people. Let’s face it, we are dealing with, particularly, members of the public who have property that they need to either develop, rehabilitate, save, and they’re on a budget and they’re on a calendar. So you need to get back to them. I don’t think there is any department in the Historical Society that has that kind of pressure to respond and not only to respond but to respond in a way that gives the client or the agency some concrete answers so that they know how to proceed.

DG: Do you think that sense of urgency is heightened due to the fact that this is people’s personal property that’s at stake?

SR: Preservation Office staff really needs to be cognizant that this is personal property, this is private property, and, in this country, there are still property rights. These people still have the ability to manage their property and the Preservation Office staff have the responsibility to help them the best they can, but with the understanding that the property owner still has a great deal to say about the property. I think that’s important because property rights issues are certainly in the forefront and they will continue to be. We need to treat not only the property but the property owner 21 with respect. If you can do that, then you will have an ally when it comes to the appropriate treatment of these historic resources.

DG: Timeliness is certainly part of respect.

SR: Timeliness is and staff, I think, recently has been put to the test in terms of timeliness, because of the number of new initiatives that have been brought forward. I would hope that the public and the agencies would understand that the staff is working very hard. There is certainly an increased workload that everybody has to recognize.

DG: I think that issue of timeliness and the pressure to be timely has had a great impact on what we’re able to say. One of the things that you’ve impressed upon me is how we need to think about what we say. It can have profound implications going forward. I’d like you talk a little bit about that.

SR: I think whenever staff look at a project, of course the first thing is to determine the significance of the property. That can take a great deal of effort. Fortunately now, there are resources in place to help with that. I don’t know a lot of other places where the decision the staff makes needs to be correct from the get-go. They don’t have the luxury of saying, “Well, it’s significant,” and, then, coming back three weeks later and saying, “Uhhh, no, it isn’t.” Because too much can happen in those intervening weeks, there is real pressure to do it right the first time. There is really no going back because of the resources that are going into the preservation of a particular resource. I can’t impress enough the responsibility that one always still has to be a really good historian so that you can make the best possible decision based on the information you have, because you only get the chance to do it, I think, once.

DG: Right. I think that has implications now for private property but, then, with grants and tax credits and other monetary issues, it affects people’s ability to plan.

SR: It does. There’s a tension here in that I think it’s important to recognize that the State Historic Preservation Office is a historical institution. It’s a historical program. It’s not a development company. It’s not a financial institution. However, the opinions of the Preservation Office affect both development and financing. In one hand, you have to keep that in mind but in the other hand, you have to stay true to your core function, which is history…so all the more reason to make sure, be positive that the opinion that is rendered is correct. Then, if it is correct, the other things fall into place. I think it’s important not only for staff but for developers and financiers to understand that they are working with a historical program and that the function of the Preservation Office is to identify historical resources from which, then, these resources will be able to take advantage of grant programs and the tax credit programs. If that can be understood, then there is a good working relationship between Preservation Office a property owner or developer.

DG: Yes. So important then was your work from the beginning on the survey to sort of set that baseline of information. I’m often told that Minnesota is one of the few states that ever completed that baseline survey.

22 SR: I don’t know. I’m sure that by now, today, that most states have some kind of nearly complete inventory of resources.

The thing to keep in mind was that back under Charlie Nelson as Department head, the survey in counties began and, then, back in 1976, it was really formalized. The reason that it was in 1976 was there was something floating around at the national level that we were supposed to be done by 1983. Can you believe that? So with that in mind, the Office determined that we better establish a presence in each county. That was begun in Carver County and, then, it went on from there. Well, by 1983, perhaps, wiser minds prevailed and that kind of a requirement was lifted. But by 1988, the Preservation Office had, indeed, surveyed in every county. That baseline survey, when you look at it today, was pretty rudimentary. I mean, some of the survey data may include just a small picture and some basic information, like an address. But whenever you go into the file and pull an inventory for it and you see that, you have to ask yourself, “What was it about this property that caused the staff person or the consultant at the time to take a picture of it?” That, at least, starts you on a quest to determine what the local significance of this property might be within the context of the community or the township in which it is located. It’s been very helpful in that respect. The staff and the consultants…you had no formula really for looking at properties, but you had the basic historical background and the architectural history background to recognize kind of a notable property when you saw it. You may not have the time to do the kind of research, but that picture in and of itself is certainly enough today to pursue it further.

DG: Tell me about a typical day in the field for you.

SR: Ahhh…well, for me, a typical day in the field, of course was in southwest Minnesota. We were given the opportunity to survey during spring and summer and fall. We didn’t have to go out in the dead of winter. The survey staff went out for a week at a time. So you went out on a Monday and you came back on a Friday. One staff person who had the Red River Valley went out for two weeks total and, then, came back and took five days off and, then, went back out for two weeks again. That was some pretty strenuous surveying.

DG: Who drew that straw?

SR: The person who drew that straw wanted that straw. That was Thomas Harvey, who is now professor of cultural geography at Portland State University in Oregon. He wanted that straw, because he was very interested in railroad town site development and what better place to go for that than the Red River Valley. That is what he did, I think, all of one summer.

I had southwest Minnesota. Dennis Gimmestad, for example, took the counties that he was most familiar with: Redwood, Blue Earth, Brown. So he had that neck of the woods. Other staff carved out northeast Minnesota. Britta Bloomberg, who grew up in Chanhassen, did Scott and those counties around there. The nice thing about it is that we were able to take the counties that we had an interest in, not that, perhaps, I couldn’t do Crow Wing County, it had too many trees. So southwest Minnesota was more preferable.

23 You started your survey by contacting local historical organizations and talking to them about properties in the counties that they felt resonated with local county history. Many times, they accompanied you to the properties, introduced you to property owners, gave you access to their local records, and, literally, acted as kind of your introduction to the county. Then, from that, it was a Monday through Friday visit to all the cities in the counties and, then, target particular properties in townships, for example, township halls, rural churches, those kinds of properties. Of course, driving to them on the way, you noticed other properties that you were able to inventory.

In the end, you put together an inventory of all of the properties. You plotted them on maps and, then, from that selected properties for further research, which, if the documentation was there and the significance was established, you took them forward and nominated them to the National Register.

DG: How were the hotels in those days?

SR: The recommendation was that you find modest lodging. The good thing was that after a while, they had smoking and non-smoking rooms, but at the beginning if you got a smoking room, that was a very long week. You stayed at a lot of mom and pop places. Quite frankly, they were always glad to see you, particularly for a whole week, and, even more so, when you told them you were coming back. There were places where the accommodations were rather rudimentary. One motel I had stayed in, the bathroom mirror was so high I couldn’t see in it. [Chuckles] But, on the whole, you know, it was pleasant.

The only thing that sometimes was a bit problematic was limited places to eat. Quite frankly, at that time, I think none of us were such connoisseurs that that was ever a problem.

DG: You’ve also told me about other adventures that you had…a llama or alpaca or something along those lines.

SR: I believe I was in Cottonwood County and it was one of those wonderfully hot, windy summer days. I had been in the southern tier of townships in Cottonwood County and wasn’t drinking enough water and I kept driving into the next county. That was no good You’re not supposed to cross the county line. You’re doing Cottonwood County. So I was sitting on the side of a gravel road looking at the map, because I’d just gotten lost. I look out the window and a llama walks by the car door. I look at this llama and I think great. I’m in Peru. I’m sitting there and I’m watching this llama go trotting by and, the next thing I know, there’s a young man on a horse with a lasso. He comes up to the car and asks me if I’m seen a llama. I go, “Yes, oh, by the way, I have. Just go down the road. What happened?” He said that some fellow had something of a wild game farm and all the animals had escape, so he was going to go lasso the llama. At that point, I started the car and I drove into town. That survey work for the day was complete. But when I thought I was in Peru, I thought this is, again, another story—and I had a picture of a llama.

[chuckles]

24 SR: Another occurrence which I do have to smile about is I was surveying in Minneota in Lyon County one early spring day. I had met with people in Minneota and Bill Holm, who was of starting his career at Southwest State [University] teaching and starting to establish himself as a writer. We were looking at the Big Store and, then, we had walked outside the building and the sky turned lumpy and pea green and all the sirens went off. I looked up and I thought, you know, there are worse places to die than Minneota. Something’s going to happen. Bill Holm looked at me and he said, “You can’t stay here. You better come home with me.” I looked at him and, you know, I’d talked to him for half an hour and I thought tornado or Bill Holm? I’ll go with Bill Holm. He somehow managed to fold himself up into my Ford Pinto and we drove to his house. We came to the house and we walked up on the porch and there’s this big moose head hanging on the porch. We walk into the kitchen and he opens up the trap door to the cellar and says, “You need to go down there and oh, by the way, let me give you this.” He gave me his first edition of Moby Dick, two small crystal glasses, and a bottle of Rebel Yell whiskey. He came in after me and shut the cellar door. We talked about a number of things, none of which I recall. About an hour later, Darrell Gislason, I think was his name, pounds on the floor and says, “You know you can come out now. The storm cleared an hour ago.” So we crawled out of the cellar and Bill took one look at me and says, “Well, you can’t drive.” So we sat there for another hour or so and drank coffee, after which I left and he said, “You can’t do survey in Lincoln County without a seed corn cap.” So he gave me a seed corn cap from the local grain elevator and I was on my way.

Now, I think about that today and I think I wouldn’t do that today in a million years. But, back then, we were all much younger. That is certainly one of the experiences that I recall.

DG: Certainly all of those things, plus the baseline survey, had to mean a lot for your work.

SR: It’s great, because who else had the advantage, or very few people have had the advantage, of being able to travel the state like that and I think who else looks at a community quite the way that Preservation Office staff do? You walk into a community and what do you do? The first thing you look at is the layout. How is this town laid out? Where is the railroad? Many, many, many Minnesota communities were established because of the railroad. Then, you start to look to see what does this town have? Does it have the resources that are quintessential small town? You look for churches. You look for banks. You look for the city hall. You look for the post office. You look for libraries. You look for distinctive residential architecture. I don’t know how many people go into a community and start to size it up quite like that. I think, to my dying day, that is what I am going to look for whenever I go into any small town in any city in any state. You want to know how or why does this community look the way it does?

DG: I think I have the same sort of way of looking at it going into a town and be able to dissect what’s going on here?

SR: Yes, exactly.

During the early days of the survey, back in the 1970s, someone said, “Go to the cemetery. Look at the gravestones. You will know which groups of people settled the community.” And it was true.

25 DG: Of course, these days with a sixty percent rate of cremation, that’s really going to change.

SR: That whole method of research, yes, you’re right, that is changing. Back then, when you walked into a cemetery in Carver County, you pretty much knew who the first settlers were.

DG: You mentioned this before that January 2, 1982, is a really important date to you. Can you tell me about that transition from the early program to the program that followed that date?

SR: Of course, on January 2, 1982, the Preservation Office staff, or what was left of it, was on the second floor of the Hill House. That day, Charlie Nelson, Dennis Gimmestad, Florence Regan (Secretary) and I walked in the Office and we were it. All of the other staff had been laid off. I looked at Dennis and I said, “What do we do?” We were in shock. I mean, here we are in this wing of the Hill House where there were once over a dozen people and there were four of us. He looked at me and he said, “We better go find the federal regulations and the professional standards.” Up to that point, it’s not that we didn’t use them, but I think Dennis recognized the need, because there were so few of us, that they were going to be our friends and that they would guide our efforts. So we got the regs. We got the standards. It really helped kind of settle us down, get us focused, and start to do work systematically and efficiently. We didn’t have any other options.

Of course, starting then, the whole program shifted in that the work was now being done by historical consultants of which there were few. Of course, now there are many very good historical consultants who are doing the work. But, we, literally, had to start a program where we managed the work of others. That kind of began with the survey of Ramsey County and Saint Paul, which began in 1980 and concluded in 1983. That was really a landmark survey that was directed by Patricia Murphy, who is now director of the Oberlin Heritage Center in Ohio, and Susan Granger, who is now a principal investigator of Gemini Research out of Morris [Minnesota]. That survey was incredibly well done, very detailed, and that kind of set the standard for all of the surveys that followed. It really put some meat on the bones of inventoried properties. So using that as a model, that’s how the surveys went on after that.

DG: It probably would be good to recount who all has led the Office over the years, as well.

SR: Some of those early years, believe it or not, for three years, I wasn’t there. Beginning in 1969, of course, I think Donn Coddington and John Grossman were responsible for the Office. Then, they brought in Charles Nelson, whom I believe came from the Model City Historical Buildings Survey, Minneapolis Housing and Redevelopment Authority. He came in and directed the program for a couple of years. I believe that Charlie, though, didn’t want to manage as much as he wanted to be out in the field. I think that was a good choice on his part and I think most everyone would agree. After Charles Nelson, I think a person by the name of Tom Lutz came onboard for a while and was kind of Department head. Tom, I think then moved on to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Chicago and Washington D.C. He was followed by Lynne VanBrocklin who, I think, directed the Office for maybe two years or so. Then, Russell Fridley brought in Charles Skrief, a graduate of, I think, the Virginia Law School. Charles brought a greater attention to detail in the Office in terms of he understood the preservation law and the regulations and set up the Office in terms of notification procedures and legal files which was very helpful, because that is very 26 important in our line of work, particularly the notification process. Charles was Department head from the late 1970s to about 1981, at which time Dennis Gimmestad took over. Dennis was Department head until about 1991at which time Britta Bloomberg became Department head and, of course, assumed the responsibilities of deputy Preservation officer as well.

All in all, I think it was helpful that they kind of promoted from inside because the new Department head was familiar with staff and the process, particularly under the administration of Dennis Gimmestad who initiated some very good programs and guided the Office during this kind of transition period when we were down to four people and, then, gradually grew back. That was very important. Then, Britta, too, who managed a lot of our contracts and had responsibility for the budget. The Preservation Office budget is no simple budget, particularly since she had to deal with both federal and state funding. Then, of course too, Britta helped to establish all of the procedures for the new state tax program and for the Legacy Grant [program]. So she really had a full desk for the last couple of years before she retired.

DG: Then, above the deputy, of course, you’ve mentioned some of the State Historic Preservation officers and you were privileged to work under all of them to date. Can you tell us a little bit about those Preservation officers and what it was like to work with those?

DR: Well, of course, Donn Coddington, head of Historic Sites, and a deputy Preservation officer, had that position until he retired. It was always good to work with Donn. He was a scholar and a gentleman. Donn was always very good to me. Even that he pulled me out of the Archaeology Department and put me in the Preservation Office in 1975 was a very good move. I look back at that now and appreciate it.

Of course, you have to keep in mind that the Preservation officers, beginning with Russell Fridley and Nina Archabal, were always in another building. They were at 690 Cedar. So there was something of a disconnect with them, because they were there and we were out at Fort Snelling. So a lot of the interaction with them was done by either Donn or whoever was Department head.

Russell, however, I think understood the Preservation Office and what it could do for the Historical Society. I believe that he saw it as a way of establishing a greater foothold in Greater Minnesota. Of course, you need to give him credit for the well-established local and county historical societies that are out there. But the Preservation Office was a way to extend the presence of the Historical Society and a federal program, into Greater Minnesota. We, as a staff, didn’t see a lot of Russell, but the one thing that I do remember is that Russell had very good attendance at the State Review Board meetings. Of course, I was there for many of them and I could always see him in the audience. So he always made it a point to attend.

Of course, when Nina became Preservation officer and director of the Minnesota Historical Society about 1985, she was at 690 Cedar. Nina had, I believe, a number of things she needed to do. First of all, she had to manage the construction of the new history center and she had to lead the Historical Society into the twenty-first century. We, as a staff, appreciated that Nina didn’t micro-manage our Office. The one thing we knew though is we could rely on Nina. If there were issues that required the voice of the Preservation officer, we could count on her. Some of those, of course, were the 27 Minneapolis Armory when Hennepin County was looking to demolish that. No doubt, she had stepped up to the plate when the Washburn A Mill burned. I mean, it would be an entirely different landscape had she not done that. While the preservation of the old Guthrie Theatre was not possible, Nina spoke up as to the importance of this particular theater in the Twin Cities and what it did for theater throughout the state. So, in those respects, when we needed Nina, she was there.

Of course, after Nina retired, Michael Fox assumed her responsibilities. He came in at a time when there were severe budgetary issues and he was having to deal with those. However, Britta and I both remarked that when Michael was needed to, perhaps, talk with a client, write a letter that came from the desk of the Preservation officer, he was always willing to do that and spoke in a very clear voice, which we appreciated.

Director Stephen Elliott, of course, I know less. He was only onboard a few months before I left. One thing that the whole staff had commented on was that Steve attended the [31st Annual Statewide Historic Preservation] Conference in Faribault [Minnesota, September 22-23, 2011] and he attended for a whole day. While other Preservation officers attended, their attendance was quite brief, but Steve made a day of it and we knew the kind of demands that were on his schedule. He also gave a presentation that kind of introduced himself to the audience and let everyone know that was well grounded in issues regarding historic property management and historic preservation.

DG: You’ve seen a lot of transition also at the federal level. How has that evolved under your watch and what have you had to do as a result of that change?

SR: I think that at the federal level and at the state level, the staff was learning the program. In those early years, there wasn’t a lot of contact between state staff and federal staff. Quite frankly, I think the federal staff was busy establishing the program, writing National Register bulletins, which, of course, guide everyone in evaluating properties.

Somewhere along the line, and I think it was probably back in the early 1980s, the federal staff included reviewers who were responsible for a collection of states and they reviewed the nominations that these states submitted. The reviewers were the same age as the people in the state offices. So in Minnesota, one of our reviewers was Beth Boland. I worked with Beth for maybe fifteen years. She had Minnesota. We developed a really close working relationship and it was so good to be able to call Beth with questions about properties, about criteria, any number of things. She was always very helpful. Then, over the years, the federal staff came out, came to the Office, did reviews, looked at the program to see how you were doing. So we had a really good working relationship with the staff and I was always grateful about how available they were.

The same held true for National Park Service staff who are in regional offices, because Minnesota also works with the Park Service office out of Omaha, Nebraska. We work closely with them on issues, say, for example, dealing with National Historic Landmarks and landmark documentation. So over the years, in particular, I have developed a working relationship with that staff.

The most telling thing about the National Register staff was under Dennis Gimmestad’s Administration… He and I were discussing some issue about a property or something, and we could 28 not figure it out. Dennis looked at me and he said, “Oh, call the keeper of the Register.” I said, “Oh, sure,” like the keeper of the Register is going to talk to me. I said, “Oh, what the heck? Let me try.” I got on the phone, called the keeper of the Register, and she picks up the phone. That would be Carol Shull. I asked her a question and she answered it. You think at what federal level can you call the head of the department and get them on the first ring? That, I think, says something about the availability of the staff and their willingness to work with you.

Then, too, this extends to the Park Service staff who are reviewing projects that apply for the federal tax credits. They are also very available and come out to Minnesota frequently to look at projects.

DG: Thinking about the helpfulness of that federal staff, has what they’ve considered to be historically significant changed at all over time?

SR: I don’t think it’s changed, but what I think they’re seeing is a great deal of properties of local significance. I mean, there are still going to be properties out there of national and state significance, but I think, on the whole, a lot of them have been designated. So the responsibility now is to look at properties of local significance.

The good thing about the program is that the National Register criteria have stood the test of time. It still works and it works well. The issue, however, is working with ubiquitous local properties and applying National Register criteria in a consistent fashion. I think National Register staff now are constantly working with states in order to have them apply the criteria consistently and to be honest regarding the significance of local properties.

DG: One of the things for me in the last dozen years that I’ve been in the Office—I don’t recall in the early days, and maybe I just wasn’t attuned to this—is that the national staff seem to be coming here more frequently now. Is that true?

SR: Up until I think the early 1990s, National Park Service staff conducted program reviews and they came maybe once every five years or so to look at how states are running the program. One review in particular when we were still out at Fort Snelling in the new history center, the Park Service staff was coming out to review the program, and I remember that Dennis and I worked every weekend for three months to make sure that everything was in shape for the review. That’s what those reviews were like. Of course, the object was to pass the review and we did every time. We did well.

After that, I think it was diminished resources and increased demands on staff time that those reviews aren’t being done. However, the National Register staff came to recognize that the staff in the state offices were seasoned employees now. They understood the program. National Register staff doesn’t come out anymore unless they start to see that there are issues with National Register nominations. Then they come out and will talk with staff about the program. National Register staff have never had to come to Minnesota to do that kind of review.

DG: Maybe it’s the other Preservation folks that I’m thinking of. It just seems like we’ve gotten more attention lately, but maybe that’s just a false impression. 29

SR: Well, of course, the staff in Washington who work on tax projects come out about once a year. I think that’s just because the issues regarding property rehabilitation and the desire on the part of developers to…mmm…fudge on the standards, quite frankly, requires them to come out to take a look at a property. The documentation that’s sent in can be good, but, you know, there’s nothing quite like being able to walk through the building.

DG: One of the things you mentioned was how staff eventually became fairly seasoned and, therefore, trusted. Can you talk about the continuity between early nominations to the National Register and those that have been done more recently?

SR: Well, the early nominations, and I mean early, those nominations were written with limited guidelines. No one really knew the amount of detail that was really important, so some of those early nominations are incredibly thin. Over time, of course, staff, I think, came to recognize that good history can only help you. So nominations started to improve.

However, in the late 1970s—I don’t know exactly where this idea came from—nominations that were submitted to Washington could only be one paragraph. In some respects, it was great. You could turn out incredible numbers of nominations, but, of course, you look at that documentation today and it just doesn’t provide the kind of detail that you need. After that, it became fairly evident that those nominations weren’t doing what they were supposed to and that nominations needed to have more because they were not only satisfying getting a property listed in the Register, but they could be used for interpretation, they could be used for rehabilitation and, in some instances, they needed to stand up in court., and, in some respects, they were a legal document. So the documentation was getting better.

One thing in particular that I remember was that Jeff Hess who established Hess, Roise [and Company] Historical Consultants said, “These nominations can be better. They need to be footnoted. We need to have our sources.” So I think Jeff kind of turned on a light in terms of having or insisting on these documents being better researched and better written.

Then, of course, after that when we were relying more and more on consultants, Susan Granger with Gemini Research had a number of contracts to survey western Minnesota counties. Her nominations got better and better and better. I think she started to set the standard for very good nominations. Of course, today, the nominations, I think, are wonderful. The historical consultants being seasoned, too, understand what makes a property important and I think really capture the essence of a property’s importance.

I’ve always told people in the Office that we’re going to be judged by the quality of the documentation we leave behind. I think, while that early documentation was thin, those were the requirements at the time, but I think, now, it is so very much better.

DG: So quality is the most striking contrast between early nominations and those today?

30 SR: I don’t know. Quality can be a word… The early nominations had quality. I mean, they weren’t necessarily inaccurate, but the nominations today provide adequate context, placing the property within a theme, place, and time so that anyone who reads a nomination understands what the property means. I think that is important because properties are not important because they’re old or they’re intact, but they have to have had some kind of quantifiable impact in the community in which they are located, and the nominations today address that. That’s the critical difference.

DG: Thinking about how staff has written them in the past and how contractors write them, do you think that the National Register program, in general, is adhering to its mission for which it was created?

SR: I think even more so, because I think that the rigor of the evaluation in the Preservation Office winnows out the properties that are not eligible for the National Register and identifies those which truly are. If that consistency of evaluation can continue, if the application of the National Register criteria is true, if the research is solid, then I think that the Preservation program embraces all that the National Register program intended it to do.

DG: Let’s talk about that public role in the National Register process. What have you observed about National Register nominations written by the public over the years?

SR: The Office receives a lot of what I would call draft nominations. Property owners, members of the public are interested in knowing if a property might be eligible for the National Register. The documentation that we see is rather basic. We get the basic kind of biographical information about a building, you know, age, original owner…

[Break in the interview]

DG: We were talking about the public’s role in the National Register process over the years and their ability to write nominations.

SR: I mentioned that much of the initial documentation that’s submitted by the public on a property is rather biographical, providing basic information, date of construction, original owner, and, perhaps, a little bit about the property’s history. The real contextual issues, putting this property in a theme, place, and time within the community, they have more trouble with. Of course, some of the documentation that they submit is what I call very sentimental. It’s not surprising, particularly for properties that might be schools or churches. Their comments are, “My whole family attended this church,” or “I went to school as a child here.” It’s difficult and it’s not always, I think, right to go back and say, “Well, we need more information.”

Fortunately now, if an initial look at this draft nomination reveals that there might be some kind of kernel of significance there, the Legacy program is available and has a category that allows for a consultant to be brought in to provide an evaluation of the property, which gives Preservation Office staff more documentation on which to render an opinion regarding the property’s significance. That has been wonderful, because, up until that point, I often asked a member of the public, “Is there more information?” Or I have tried to go up in the Library and do a little bit of research. Time was 31 always short and I was never able to dig into a property as much as I’d like. Now, we have that mechanism to do that.

DG: How important is it for the public to remain engaged in the National Register program?

SR: They have to. The majority of the properties that are nominated and listed in the National Register are privately owned. It is important that the property owner or the property manager stay engaged, because the truth is that after a property is nominated and listed in the register, Preservation Office staff have to move on to the next property. While staff is still available to be contacted regarding preservation and rehabilitation issues, there aren’t enough staff to be able to maintain the kind of presence that you would like to within an area when a property is listed. So one has to engage the property owner and hope that the documentation that’s produced and the momentum that comes from being listed will continue to keep their interest so that they can provide for the preservation of the property.

DG: How easy is it, do you think, or difficult now to nominate a building or a property to the National Register?

SR: Well, I suppose my response would be if the documentation is there and argument can be made, then that process shouldn’t be difficult. However, there is certain rigor required to do the necessary research to accomplish that task. I also think that there is a desire on behalf of the State Review Board and, perhaps, anyone who needs to refer to a nomination in the future, that that documentation be as complete as it can be. Working with the Review Board for as long as I have, I’ve come to recognize that the Board members want to see good nominations and they want to see well- developed historical context. They want to see good building descriptions. So there is a need and a desire to do it well, and I think there’s nothing wrong with that.

DG: Let’s stay with the Review Board for just a few moments. Can you tell me what it’s been like to work with the Review Board over the years and some of the folks who have sat on that Board and, perhaps, chaired it?

SR: I worked with the Review Board or have been involved in the Review Board, of course, since the early 1970s. The Board has become very sophisticated in their evaluation—not that they weren’t there earlier. The fact that the Review Board needs to comprise two historians, two architectural historians, two historical architects, two archaeologists, and, then, six members at large who have a demonstrated interested in historic preservation means that you bring to the Board very knowledgeable people. Because many of the professional members come from various academic institutions, they are looking for very high quality documentation, sometimes ever over and above what the National Register requires. A discussion that I’ve had with the Board is whether or not this documentation fulfills the need to support the significance or doesn’t it? With any academician, there’s always room for more research, so, many times, the Board will say, “Well, it could be significant here and it could be significant there.” I always had to remind the Board, “You’re right, it could be. It’s not that the route of investigation couldn’t be continued in the future, but does the argument before you make the case for the property’s significance?” So we’ve had some very spirited conversations with the Review Board at Review Board meetings. 32

DG: You mentioned briefly that there is sort of a role for real estate developers and so on with the National Register program. What are the benefits and intellectual liabilities of the federal tax and credit program in terms of the National Register?

SR: I’ve told my colleagues in the Preservation Office that it’s the National Register of Historic Places, not the National Register of Properties that Want Grants or Need Tax Credits. If it can be understood by all that history needs to be kept in the National Register, as Russell Fridley said, and if it can be recognized, once the historical significance is established, that grants or tax credits are then available, it will continue to be a strong program. The Legacy Grant program and the federal and state tax credits are the greatest asset, but they, also, bring in, I think, pressure to consider a lot of properties eligible simply because the economy has not been good and grants and tax credits become an important part of the financing package. But the Preservation Office has to be true to itself and, as I’ve said before, recognize that it’s a historical program. The Preservation Office is not comprised of accountants or financiers or bankers. They’re historians. If they can stay true to that profession, then the credibility of the National Register program will be maintained.

DG: How have you dealt with arguments about the bottom line in these projects when they come up against your analysis of the history of the property under redevelopment?

SR: I can’t. I think that it’s important to be honest and say that we, the staff, are not accounts, property developers, and we shouldn’t be asked to lend expertise in areas for which we have none, that we are offering the best service if we can speak to the historical significance of a property, and we need to leave the financing aspects of it to people who do that. It’s quite simple.

DG: Are there in your mind any striking examples of particularly difficult properties that you’ve had to deal with in terms of developers and the history that was associated with the property that they were looking at?

SR: I have to say, “No.” Up until the time I left, the documentation that has come in on properties has either been clear enough for the Office to say, “It’s eligible,” or if the Office has disagreed, the comments back stating the reasons why we didn’t think the property was eligible were clear enough that the property owner understood it and did not proceed with the project.

DG: That theme that you’ve come back to a couple of times about this is a history program… Let’s talk about your work as a historian. For a lot of years, I think you were probably about only person at the Society that had historian in your title. Describe the process of a historian and how you use that to understand whether something is historical or not.

SR: It’s surprising—or maybe it isn’t, I don’t know; things have changed a lot—that the National Register historian position, as you said, was the only position in the organization with historian in the title. It says, perhaps, something on how the very nature of the greater organization is changing.

33 Britta and I talked about the position quite a bit during the summer of 2011 when we both knew we were leaving. I told Britta that we, as a staff, have always said that one of the core pillars of the program was the National Register. I said, “Of course, the National Register being a historical program needs a historian.” The historian sorts out all the wheat from the chaff. A historian is critical to the success of the program because of the historian’s ability to basically understand Minnesota history—I keep going back to this point—and be able to understand what a property means within the context of state or local history. Without that, I don’t know what the program is. You have to keep going back to understanding the property’s meaning. David, you and I have had this conversation on numerous occasions when I’ve asked you to help me look at a property. I think the first question out of my mouth, or the second question, is “What does the documentation tell us and what does this property mean?” I think that only a historian can get down to that level of detail to render an opinion that stands the test of time and stands up to the rigor of National Register criteria and subsequent review.

DG: As a historian, what do the words significant and integrity mean to you and to the program?

SR: Two things, but, at the same time, they go hand in hand. I’m producing something of a disconnect here.

Let me start with integrity, though. We’ve grappled with that a lot with the staff, because we talk about the word integrity and what does that mean? Here we go again. What does significance mean? What does integrity mean? Integrity is not intact. Many people will tell me, “My property is intact.” Well, yes, it is, but does it have historical physical integrity? Over the years, I’ve looked at a property and I’ve used a different word sometimes. I looked at a property and I’ve asked myself, “Is it physically authentic?” I believe that when anyone goes to a place and looks at a resource, they want to know two things: am I in the right place and if I lay my hand on this resource, am I touching the real building? They are looking for authenticity. They are not looking for a property that has been moved to a place where history did not happen. They do not want to lay their hands on vinyl siding. So that’s integrity: physically authentic property. Then, of course, significance means that the property has inherent historical value. It has a historical impact. Sometimes, you will have a property that has integrity and is authentic, but it will still need the historical value, the historical significance. If we have both of those, then we have a property that is eligible for the National Register.

DG: Of course, as the work of a historian, we run across, as you mentioned before ubiquitous properties and, immediately, my mind went to the rural white-framed Lutheran churches. Could you talk a little bit about applying your skills as historian to some of these types of ubiquitous properties?

SR: Of which churches, schools, township halls, banks, post offices, all of the kind of quintessential properties that comprise a community of a rural area… Several years ago, I’d found a statistic that said there are 5,000 houses of worship in Minnesota. I thought, oh, my gosh. Of course, not all of them are built during times past; many of them are modern buildings, but 5,000! Then, of course, I started to think that, in terms of function, churches, schools all have a function that people find important. But, then, you go back to the criteria which tells you that just because you value function 34 or even just because you value a profession, such as a teacher or a clergyman or a banker, doesn’t necessarily mean a property is eligible for the National Register, which, then, of course, means that you have to kind of go beyond function and go back to the things that I mentioned previously of looking for impact, historical value, or a larger contribution to the community that transcends its immediate function. That is, perhaps, one of the more difficult things to convey to a client who submits a property, particularly if it’s their family church or a school that their grandfather attended. You need to talk about the property almost being bigger than itself. That’s, I think, what any historian has to look for when evaluating these kinds of commonplace—I say that with all respect— properties.

DG: You recently gave a forty-five-year retrospective on the National Register at the 31st Annual State Preservation Conference, which you mentioned before, at Faribault. Can you elaborate on just exactly how the program has evolved over those last forty-five years?

SR: Well, when asked to do that, I took that on. I have to say that being home for three weeks during the state shutdown in July gave me the opportunity to think about the presentation. I sat at my dining room table and thought about what is this National Register program? Being the historian, you know, I felt it important particularly for the people I knew who’d be in the audience, to let them know that the National Register program didn’t just suddenly appear in 1966, that the National Register program, the whole preservation program at the federal level and at the state level, came about as a result of activity, legislation, and people who were doing a great many preservation- related things well before the establishment of the program. Today, everyone is so busy doing the work that I didn’t know if anybody often had the opportunity just to sit there and think about what came before. And isn’t that the job of a historian, to think about what came before? So a good portion of the presentation talked about what came before or the events leading up to 1966 and the formation of the program. I thought that was important. Afterwards, many people came up to me and said, “Gee, I hadn’t thought about that. Thank you for letting us know about the legislation and all the rest that led up to the program.”

Then, of course, after that, I talked about preservation issues, evaluation issues. I talked about some successes, about some failures that almost didn’t have to be but, of course, happened, and it gave me the opportunity, at that point, since everyone knew that I would be retiring, to recognize Preservation Office staff with whom I worked, and to recognize—I think it’s very important—the contribution of historical consultants who have been doing very excellent work in Minnesota.

DG: In your mind, what were some of the most significant things that led up to the point of 1966?

SR: I didn’t focus as much on the federal or the congressional action. That, I think, was a steamroller that was moving.

I looked at the things that were happening in Minnesota. There were some very telling points of in early article in the Saint Paul paper, I think, in the mid nineteenth century calling for the preservation of Fort Snelling. My gosh! Fort Snelling was still a military post and there was talk of preservation. I talked about communities starting to establish preservation programs, the fact that communities were publishing little booklets of walking tours of the historic resources in their 35 community. I talked about early National Register nominations and the fact that the Landmark Center in Saint Paul, the U.S. Courthouse and Customs House, which came within a breath of being torn down, was listed on the Register and saved. You look at that today and you think how could anyone talk about tearing down the Landmark Center? Well, maybe fifteen years or so someone’s going to look and say, “How in the world could they have torn down the Guthrie?” Well, history allows you to do that. I talked about the passage of legislation at the state level, which set up the historic sites network that established Minnesota as a real giant in terms of historical programs, not just at the main institution, but established across the state.

Then, of course, I looked at some building losses that are truly unfortunate…whether they be arson sometimes, there’s not a thing you can do about that. One thing that just really troubles me is the loss of Murray County Courthouse, that wonderful building at the head of Main Street [in Slayton]. When you look at neighboring courthouses in other counties down there, they have been rehabilitated and they’re wonderful. The Rock County Courthouse, what a beauty. That this could happen in Slayton, it just kind of breaks your heart.

Those were the kinds of things that I wanted the people in the audience to have an opportunity to think about, and I think it resonated with the audience.

DG: It certainly was the talk of the conference and thereafter.

SR: Oh, was it? Okay. Good to know.

DG: People were very excited about that.

We’ve been talking a lot about the past and what’s led up to now. Looking ahead, what should your successors, in fact your first one, Dennis Gardner, presuming the program lasts into perpetuity, understand about the integrity of the National Register program?

SR: I believe that if my successor and those who come after him are good historians and can withstand the pressures that are here now and will continue to be present in terms of a listing of properties for, perhaps, more than historical reasons, and if they are well grounded in the state’s history, the integrity of the National Register program can be assured. It will also be assured if those who manage the Preservation Office at higher levels understand that the credibility of the program and the Historical Society will be supported by good history and good historical decisions, then the integrity of the National Register program and the institution will continue.

DG: What do you see as the future of the National Register program?

SR: Well, with the presence of the Legacy Grant program and the new state tax credits, I think the National Register program is going to continue to be busy. I guess the question will be can it be sustained with federal funding and will there continue to be state support for that? Federal funding might be more problematic. However, at the state level, I think that now the National Register program and the State Historical Preservation Office, believe it or not, have now become a core program; whereas, before, it was Publications, the Library, Archives and Manuscripts as core 36 programs. The very fact that the Preservation Office has moved into, now, the History Center, it has established itself as a program within the Minnesota Historical Society. If it can maintain the support in this institution, and I think it certainly it has support on the state level, then the program will continue, and if there are good historians managing the program, I think its integrity will be maintained.

DG: I’m just thinking about the trajectory of the program while you were here. Are there trends in it that you see continuing? Are there sea changes that you might project coming at all?

SR: You would think that with the tax credits all that the program might be seeing are properties that would take advantage of that, which are income-producing properties. But that’s not the case, because it has been nicely balanced by the Legacy Grant program. The National Register program is seeing properties that may not qualify for tax credits but qualify for Legacy grants. So then, the National Register program is looking at a mix of properties from across the state. This was a very fortuitous time for two programs to become developed at the same time, because then you see a greater selection of properties. I think it works out real well, because it would not be good if all that you saw were income-producing properties. Quite frankly, it would be big commercial properties, warehouse buildings, those kinds of big-ticket items that would qualify for credits and you wouldn’t see the smaller properties associated with non-profits or units of government that wouldn’t qualify for tax credits. There is going to be, and from what I’ve heard, numbers of properties being scheduled for future review board meetings, the likes of which I didn’t see during my time as historian in the Preservation Office.

DG: Of course, as historians, we always like to have a little bit of historical objectivity, some time elapsed from an event, before we pass judgment on it. But, in your mind, is the co-development of the tax credits and the Legacy program a net positive or does it represent any kind of a threat?

SR: It’s certainly a positive in that there were years during my tenure where there weren’t a lot of nominations simply because the Office didn’t have the resources to support, say contracts for nominations and the nominations coming from the public needed a great deal of work for the eligible properties. The Legacy Grant program, when it was established, was very wise in putting in a section that allowed for the evaluation of properties. So that will help the National Register historian winnow out properties that might not be eligible. At the same time, it provides a mechanism for nominations that can be contracted out and supported by the Legacy Grant program. Of course, with the state tax credits, the people who are managing properties and interested in tax credits usually have the resources to bring in someone to do that work. This is fine.

Of course, at the same time, it puts a great burden on a very small staff to react in a timely manner and to insist upon quality documentation. My gosh! There’s only one National Register historian who is responsible for the National Register program, the projects coming out of the Legacy Grant program, and all the projects coming out of the tax credit program. That is a lot of work, and I would hope that those who manage the program are going to recognize that, to maintain the quality for which Minnesota is known, there will need to be brought in additional staff to handle what I think is going to be an ever increasing work load.

37 DG: Yes, it certainly is going to be a great bit of trial, I think, all the way through 2034, as long as the Legacy limit endures.

SR: [Chuckles] Oh, my gosh.

DG: If you think about it, if I’m eligible to retire at age sixty-seven, 2034 is just three years before that. It will span most of my career.

SR: Yes.

DG: Before we conclude, I wanted to talk about something that I’ve truly appreciated over the years and that’s your clever humor, a number of things that you’ve done over the years. Tell me about Claude.

SR: I’d be happy to. But what I want to say is that I’ve noticed that unlike any department in the Historical Society, the Preservation Office has more pressures and more stress than I think your average department. The staff holds up well, but I think they hold up well because they talk to each other, the voice concerns, they debate, they argue. It helps; I think to relieve the tension. I’ve often felt that a little bit of humor makes us a little more human and also helps to relieve the stress.

So years and years ago, I found a catalog that sold little concrete figurines and wouldn’t you know it, there was a gargoyle in it and I bought one. Then, of course, in my office, there was the perfect opportunity to display this little figurine, put him on a pedestal and put him in the window. Then, over the years, staff and even volunteers came in with outfits. The gargoyle got named Claude, because aren’t most gargoyles on French cathedrals, so Claude seemed to fit. Then, pretty soon, Claude celebrated Christmas and Easter and the [Minnesota] State Fair and other seasonal holidays through these little outfits that people brought in. I was even told that some of the staff used to take pictures of him with their I-phone and send it to family members. So I guess he had quite a following.

DG: I remember the first year I was in the Office, David Nystuen had created a calendar of Claude.

SR: Exactly, Claude had a monthly calendar. It was a hoot. I think staff came to look forward to seeing what was the next costume change that Claude was going to have. Claude’s come home with me, so, now, I guess that next spring, he’s going to be catching bugs out in the garden.

[Chuckles]

DG: Claude has retired, too.

SR: Yes.

DG: Other things like hour humor file… I’ve really enjoyed those, particularly the witches with the… 38

SR: Highway cones, yes.

DG: The highway cones.

SR: The New Yorker Magazine provided me with a great deal of historical humor. Then, of course, I kept strange correspondence, pictures, most anything else that came in. When the situation called for it, I’d put something like that up on the bulletin board, or say, the image of Santa and the reindeer on a modern house with the reindeer losing their footing. I thought, well, this was a perfect opportunity to make a comment on modern architecture.

DG: I think one of the funnier things was at every election season, you were running for sheriff.

SR: You know, the idea of preservation police, you hear that term a lot. So one summer, I was out East on vacation and Susan was running for sheriff and one of my fellow vacationers obtained a campaign poster and, fortunately, it fit in my suitcase, and I brought it back with me. So every election, I put the Susan for Sheriff sign in my window.

DG: And you always won in a landslide.

SR: I always won, yes.

DG: I loved that book with a certain amount of gravitas that was labeled, “The National Register of Historic Places,” that sits on our file cabinet.

SR: Well, there’s a story behind that, too. I had walked downstairs on Level A and there was a whole palette of these beautifully leather-bound covers minus the contents, which, I believe, were probably microfilmed and, then, discarded. They probably were county register of deeds, tax things. I looked at that and I remembered using them, because all of the inscriptions were done with a fountain pen and in, most of the time, a wonderful script. I looked at this palette of covers and I thought, what’s going to happen to these? They were going to be thrown out, so I asked if I could have one. Of course, one thing leads to another. I brought it upstairs and put it on the filing cabinet and Tom Cinadr [State Historic Preservation Office, Survey and Inventory] was able to print out, “The National Register.” Then, I was out at Fort Snelling and bought a quill pen. Tom, again, gave me an inkwell, and, then, over time, I put in the pictures of all of the State Historic Preservation officers and the keeper of the National Register. More recently, I was told that in the early history of the National Register program, there was, indeed, a ledger in which someone in Washington [D.C.] entered the names of the listed properties. So I think that, in some respects, the Office is continuing that tradition.

DG: Yes, too funny.

The other thing that sits on top of our cabinets are all the “family” photos.

39 SR: It started in the summer of 1978 when someone decided that they wanted a picture of the Preservation Office staff out at Fort Snelling. We all trotted out in that space between Buildings 27 and 25, and along with Donn and Russell and the staff, we had our picture taken. Of course, I kept the picture, and, then, starting when the Historical Society Administration gave departments morale money, we, as a staff used to go out on kind of field trips, looked at historic sites or historic places, grabbed some lunch. It was a nice day. Of course, someone always took a camera and I was able to either threaten or cajole the staff to stand for a picture. Again, one thing led to another and every time we went out, we had a staff picture and, hence, the row of pictures on the cabinet. One of the best photos is the one taken in November 2011, when Britta arranged for Eric Mortenson to take a picture of the staff. That was one occasion where the whole staff was present. That wasn’t always the case with some of the other photographs. But, in this case, we were able to include the whole Preservation family, and I think it is one of the better photos.

DG: I often find them to be good reminders of just our own history as a department.

SR: I find that staff still sneak a peak. Those who use the files, the public or the consultants, I find them standing and looking at the pictures. Of course, the comment is of how much we’ve changed, but isn’t that what history is all about?

DG: Yes.

The other, I think, piece of humor that I always looked forward to is at Christmas-time, the village of moved-in-non-contributing buildings.

SR: Again, there’s a story to that. Rolf [T.] Anderson, one of the historical consultants with whom I have worked since 1983, used to come in at Christmas with a box of Frango mints and a little building that was kind of rustic in nature made out of paper or cardboard. It’s kind of like a Christmas tree ornament. Well, every Christmas the staff started to ask, “Where’s the box of chocolates?” every Christmas, so Rolf continued that tradition and, every year, brought in another little house. Over time, when he couldn’t find one, I went out and found one. Then, we started to put them out on the cabinets and one thing leads to another and we have bridges and figurines and school buses and snow and, pretty soon, we had, as you said, our village of rustic-moved-in-non- contributing buildings, of course, working on the theme that once a property is moved, it is usually not eligible anymore, because it loses its historical antecedence. So every Christmas, that went out and it came out on a special time. It always came out the first Monday after the first Sunday of Advent, and it was always put away following the twelfth day of Christmas. So there was a definite process or scheduling procedure for that, as well.

DG: I find all of those things amazingly funny.

I think another piece of the humor that developed in the Office, too, that we ought to talk about for just a moment is your love for the typewriter and the typewritten post-it notes.

SR: My handwriting was never good and I truly loved my 1983 [IBM] Selectric 3 typewriter, and I needed it because, early on, you needed it to correct nominations and, again, one thing led to 40 another. I wrote all my notes on it. I still like to leave notes for staff and I figured out how to type post-it notes. So staff came to recognize that any little note on their desk, particularly one on a post- it note, came from me. I managed to—I, again, asked permission—salvage a Selectric 3 typewriter out of the dustbin of the Historical Society and had it reconditioned, and I have it at home, and I’m still able to type all my notes on my typewriter.

DG: I think that’s one of the pieces of your integrity in the Office was all of those typewritten notes and I’ve really enjoyed seeing those.

SR: And hearing the clatter of the typewriter?

DG: Absolutely.

SR: Good to know, because, sometimes, I kind of wondered just how disruptive that was, but the notes certainly had a certain amount of clarity to them.

DG: Well, you’re forced to when you have such a small space on a post-in note. No, I think the clatter was one of those signals…

SR: Sue’s in the Office.

DG: Yes, Susan’s in the Office and I’m in the Office now, too.

Before we leave this, do you have any final thoughts that you’d like to share?

SR: I do, because I’m still thinking about the Office; although, I have to say on mornings, particularly like yesterday, when I could read the paper and have a cup of coffee and watch all the snow outside and not have to be in it was quite pleasant. I still think about the Office. Every time I read the paper and I see a newspaper article I think, oop! I need to clip that so I can put that on the bulletin board or put that in the file.

More recently, I was driving through a couple of small towns in Meeker County, and there is still that overwhelming need to evaluate the properties. I don’t know if I will ever get over that but I think, in time, it will be more enjoyable just to look at the buildings and not evaluate them. I don’t know if I will ever be able to rid myself of being a Preservation Office staff member. Forty years, or almost forty years, was a long time, and, as a result, you know, I will never look at a community or a building the same way. It will always be is this historic and what does this property mean?

DG: Well, let me ask that then, what does the State of Minnesota mean to you now that you’re traveling about but at least not willingly letting go of this need to evaluate? What does Minnesota mean to you?

SR: The time spent in the Office and the fact that I was able to travel the state and to anyone of my colleagues who can do that, imagine the satisfaction of being able to go places and to understand a place…I mean, to know its history. Not many can do that, go to the Red River Valley to understand 41 bonanza wheat farming, to go on the [Iron] Range and understand mining, to look at southeast Minnesota and to understand that that began as an agricultural area with wheat and, perhaps, not the dairying or the mixed ag that you see today. What’s very interesting is that whenever I go out with my husband who’s from Maryland, he has the same curiosity and we always travel with Minnesota Place Names [: a Geographical Encyclopedia by Warren Upham] because he’s always looking up why is this place named the way it is? So what’s so wonderful is that curiosity is maintained and the fact that I’ve spent all the years I have in the Office doing the research or reading the documents I have, you understand Minnesota and it makes sense to you. As a result, every place you see, every building you see, you can put it in context and you can understand its meaning. Can that get any better for a historian? I don’t think so.

DG: That’s almost like what you mentioned at the beginning of our oral history, which was that sense of autonomy. You could get on your bike and go anywhere just so long as you were back for dinner and supper.

SR: Yes, and before sunset. Now, I can go anywhere in the state and it talks back. That, I think, is what you look for.

DG: What Professor Annette Atkins [Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, and College of Saint Benedict, Saint Joseph, Minnesota] talks about: legibility.

SR: Truly. Truly. Truly. You have this conversation as you’re driving along. It’s speaking to you or you have the ability, somewhat, to read the landscape. So it’s all a big history book.

DG: How wonderful.

Anything else?

SR: I think that’s about it. I thank you for this interview. I was both a little embarrassed and pleased that you felt that it was important to talk to me, and I appreciate the opportunity.

DG: When it was announced that you and Britta were leaving, one of the things that I’ve often treasured in my role working with local historical organizations across the state is that I have the oral histories of both Arch Grahn and David Nystuen in their work.

SR: Yes.

DG: I don’t use them, maybe, every day, but, oftentimes, it will be once a week or every couple of weeks that I’ll pull one of them out because there’s some question that comes up. I find that things that have happened in the past, while maybe not occurring exactly the same way that they did, they have a certain resemblance. It’s often comforting to know about how my predecessors handled that and it gives me a little bit of comfort. I recognized that both you and Britta had contributed a lot to your respective programs and to the way that the state has preserved its history, so I simply asked the question, “Will you have them go through an oral history [interview]?” I asked that of Pat

42 Gaarder. She said, “Yes.” I think that’s going to be extremely helpful, this interview, and, hopefully, Britta’s, as well, to their successors going forward.

SR: It certainly gives all new meaning to be called senior staff, hmmm?

DG: Yes.

Thank you for complying with the request to talk about your role over the last nearly forty years.

SR: I’m still available for questions.

DG: Oh, absolutely. We may have to follow up.

SR: Thank you.

43