Janis Obst Narrator

Rhoda R. Gilman Interviewer

Saint Paul, Minnesota

April 11, 1990

RG: Janis, we’ve been reviewing your career with the [Minnesota] Historical SocietyProject a little bit, and maybe I’ll just try to get some of that on the record before we start. You were hired in 1958 as a museum assistant. You stayed with the museum at the main building at 690 Cedar Street until the spring of 1969, when you went to Historic Sites as head of historic houses. And then in 1977, you left that position and undertook several, more or less short-term, research and development projects including the work of refurbishing the Commandant’s House beforeHistory your retirement in 1980.

First off, Janis, I’d like to have you tell me a little bit aboutOral your personal background. What was the path that lead you to the MHS [Minnesota Historical Society] in lateSociety 1958?

JO: Well, I didn’t get my degree in history at the University; I’m about fourteen credits short. And I also had courses in journalism. Just before I applied for the job at the Society, I had been in the news bureau and alumni division of Hamline University.Society At that time, I was contemplating a divorce and I had a number of children to support, and I was lookingHistorical for something with a little more security.

RG: Had you had other jobs before, or was this a matter of getting back into the working world after having been a wife and mother pretty much?

JO: No. In my first job I hadHistorical after I was married, I did reports for Dunn & Bradstreet in my home. This was interesting. It was farm-related and would be taking documents and letters and so forth and compiling reports. I guess thisMinnesota helped me a lot in my love for writing, putting ideas together.

RG: Yes, and keeping records.

JO: Yes,Minnesota keeping records.

RG: So how did you happen to get the job at MHS? Did you see it advertised?

JO: No. I wrote a number of letters to companies, businesses and other organizations where I felt I would like to work, and one of them was to the Historical Society. Bob Wheeler called me the day he got my letter and had me come in, and I got the job the same day.

RG: Bob didn’t waste any time when he made up his mind.

9 JO: No, he didn’t. I think that he was anxious to fill the job in the museum at that time.

RG: Yes. I started in 1958, also. I started in February. So I had been there a few months before you. As I recall, this was about—wasn’t it in November or December ‘58?

JO: I believe so.

RG: Bill Gamber had just been made head of the museum, as I recall.

JO: Yes, right.

RG: Sandy Cutler had left in the summer, and Bill had accepted the job sometime in the fall. Project JO: Right—

RG: My recollection is that the one person that was working in the museum at that time was Karen Haase, now Karen Avaloz. History JO: Right. Oral RG: And she then was transferred to the Donnelly project and workedSociety with me for a couple of years on that. That’s how I got to know Karen. During that sort of interregnums between when the museum did not have a head, between the time Sandy left—Sandy had hired Karen in the spring, and then he left in the middle of the summer—the museum was without a head until Bill was hired in late fall. I know she felt that it was a prettySociety tough time for her, fresh out of college, just a kid left in charge of that museum up on the third floor therHistoricale, all alone most of the time with a variety of supervision, including Chet Kozlak, Arch Grahn and Bob Wheeler. Less of Bob than the other two, I think. She liked Bill very much, but you had already been hired, and she had essentially been fired. But I think Bill argued—at least the story Karen told me was that he argued that an injustice had been done to her and, therefore, she was rehired for the Donnelly project. So, what were your duties at that time? Were you the onlyHistorical one on the staff besides Bill?

JO: That’s right. We gave schoolMinnesota tours. We accessioned artifacts. We did research for the exhibits. [Laughter]

RG: Exhibits didn’t change very much in those days with that tiny a staff. Minnesota JO: No. They couldn’t.

RG: One of my early recollections is the way the museum was constantly short on space and spread around the building. Now you had the galleries on the third floor, and your office space was in a closet up there, as I recall.

JO: That’s right.

RG: The storage areas were down in the Northwest Terrace then?

10

JO: Yes, although there were some closets in the galleries on the third floor.

RG: Oh, that’s right.

JO: We called it the “gun closet” and the “costume closet.” But after I’d been there about four years, in looking over the records, I wondered where all the silver was that was in the catalog, and I wasn’t able to find it. One day the fellows were moving one of the big cases and something rattled, and we opened up the bottom and here was the silver. [Chuckles] But that was the case with the storage. Artifacts were put wherever there was a spot or where it would fit.

RG: Tucked away in corners. That brings up a question, too, about the records. Record keeping was pretty abysmal, as I recall. Project

JO: Yes, it was. Except I did feel that the woman who had been there maybe three or four years before—maybe her name was Esther?

RG: Esther Sperry. History

JO: Okay. She had made an attempt to get the records in order.Oral I started working on the card catalog immediately, because otherwise in the condition it was in, it was practicallySociety impossible to find what you wanted. And my criteria for organizing that was, “If Russell Fridley should send Ardene [Flynn, his secretary] up to get something out of the catalog, would she be able to find it?” And I used that.

RG: That was a good. . . Society Historical JO: . . . Not especially, except at the museum.

RG: But very practical under the circumstances.

JO: Practical, right. Historical

RG: That raises another question.Minnesota Did Ardene often come up on such an errand?

JO: No. [Laughter]

RG: I recallMinnesota in that era it was quite customary for us to loan out things like our costume collection to groups that wanted to have benefit fashion shows or historical pageants or whatever.

JO: We did try and tighten that up, though. But oftentimes we would be nay-sayed by the director.

RG: By the administrative office.

JO: Right, the administrative office.

RG: I guess, my impression has been that at that point as well as later on, in some ways the museum

11 was really regarded as a bit of a stepchild of the institution.

JO: That’s right.

RG: We had a very strong library, manuscripts, and publications departments, but the museum was just there.

JO: That’s true. In addition, money for exhibits was very scarce.

RG: Yes. Now, at that time, Chet Kozlak was on full time. He did most of the exhibits, is that right?

JO: Yes. Project RG: And we had not yet acquired Historic Sites, so his energies hadn’t been drained off into doing sites. Did Arch Grahn have much to do with the museum at that point?

JO: No. History RG: You didn’t feel that he. . . Oral JO: . . . I didn’t feel that he—I don’t recall that he had any kind ofSociety a controlling position.

RG: Well, he was the field director. But I asked him the same question. He answered it much the same as you, though he said as a close friend of Chet’s, he was often called on. It was a personal connection more than an organizational one.Society And certainly Arch wasn’t particularly close to Bill Gamber. Of course, Bill didn’t stay very long. HeHistorical was only there until—well, about a year I guess, before he quit to go into the priesthood. Then Alan Woolworth was hired in 1960. Do you feel that that made a big change in the museum now that it had a permanent head who did stay for a good many years?

JO: Yes, I do. I think that itHistorical did. Looking back, I think it was a bit tumultuous at the time, because Alan had come—I think he had worked in the Henry Ford Museum. Minnesota RG: I know he was in Michigan. He came to us from Michigan.

RG: Right. But he did have a museum background, and I believe he had some experience in exhibits,Minnesota too. So we did have some controversies about the exhibits.

RG: You mean between Chet and Alan?

JO: Chet and Alan, yes.

RG: I see.

JO: Alan really was head of the museum and the exhibits, and I think it was hard for Chet to relinquish authority, because he had taken control when control needed to be taken.

12

RG: During the period when there was no director, he had been in charge.

JO: That’s right.

RG: I don’t know whether he was actually acting director or not. That would have been a little before your time. But then after Bill left, it was another six months before Alan was hired. And I assume Chet was, more or less, in charge then, too. My recollection is that Bob Wheeler had formal or sort of titular supervision of the museum operation, but he never had a great deal to do with it. Is that right?

JO: That’s right. Project RG: How did you and Alan get along?

JO: We got along fine. Of course that’s because Alan let me do what I wanted. [Laughter]

RG: Well, that’s one way to get along with people. I always had theHistory sense that the two of you worked as a team pretty well over the years. Oral JO: We were, yes. Society

RG: Now, that would have gone on from 1960, basically, to about 1969. During that period, what major acquisitions were made? I remember, what was it, the Tracy something room? Society JO: Oh, Tracy Marsh. Historical

RG: Tracy Marsh. I could not recall the name.

JO: Eighteenth century furniture. Historical RG: That’s one that I recall. Minnesota JO: Right. Furniture.

RG: But there must have been some others, too. Minnesota JO: Other acquisitions?

RG: Now, at this point, you were basically in charge of keeping the records and the collections and doing whatever, including conservation work.

JO: That’s right. And also doing any research for the exhibits that needed to be done.

RG: You would help Chet with the exhibits then?

13 JO: Right. And I did put on some small exhibits. I was allowed to do that. I don’t know if you remember that one on Minnesota women.

RG: Oh, indeed I do remember that. The first little piece of women’s history we had in the institution.

JO: That’s right.

RG: The actual tour guiding—there was a tour guide hired, as I recall, not long after Alan started, a Marge Towson?

JO: Oh, yes. And I helped with tours, too. In fact, everyone did, except Alan. When Lolly [Lolita Lundquist] came as a volunteer—I don’t remember what year that was. Project

RG: No, I don’t recall what year.

JO: She and Marge and I—we all planned the tour talks. History RG: And I recall that Marge had the first actual position of tour guide. Oral JO: That’s right. Society

RG: And she stayed for quite a while, too.

JO: About two years, I think. Society Historical RG: Oh, only two years? I thought it was longer than that. I remember her chiefly for her interest in the circus.

JO: Oh, yes, yes, yes. Can I tell you something funny? Historical RG: Please do. Yes, any recollections you have, that’s what we want to get. Minnesota JO: Do you remember Mary Proal Lindeke?

RG: Oh, yes, I do. Minnesota JO: Mary Proal had done volunteer work in the manuscripts department, and then she came to the museum. Anyway, during this time, she discovered that her mother’s wedding dress was in our collections. So one day she brought some of her friends up to show them her mother’s wedding dress. And Marge Towson took care of that group. So when the dress was brought out, Mary Proal said to the women, “Now, this was my mother’s wedding dress.” And Marge said, “Oh, it couldn’t be. It’s not the right period.” And Mary Proal, who was about two feet taller than Marge, looked down at her and said, “I know my mother’s wedding dress!” [Laughter] Can you just see it?

RG: I sure can. Did that shut Marge up?

14

JO: Yes, it shut her up. [Laughter] Marge believed in astrology.

RG: Oh, I didn’t know that.

JO: Yes. And she guided her every day by that. And I soon realized that in order for us to have peaceful days, I had to look at her astrology book before she came in the morning to see what it augured for the day. And then if it was something that I thought might be difficult, I’d try to counteract it. [Laughter]

RG: Well, that’s one way to manage. You’ve mentioned that Mary Proal Lindeke came as a volunteer and that Lolly Lundquist came as a volunteer. You must have had a good bit of volunteer help and also work experience. Project

JO: That’s right. We had men and women, and we did get some much needed secretarial help, typing help. Very interesting because actually at the outset I was a bit opposed to going into the work experience program in the office part of it, because we had an obligation to further the skills of the people who worked with us, and we didn’t have enough help toHistory do what we were supposed to do in the first place. But we did. We did try. Two incidents stand out, two of the women. One woman had worked for us for about a year and a half, and her skillsOral had improved greatly. In fact, so much so that she went out to get another job, and she was successful. SheSociety brought her first paycheck back to us and said, “This is my first paycheck. But look at what at what they took out for taxes!” And we said, “Yes, we know.” [Laughter]

The other one was a pretty young woman whoSociety was also trying to get back in the work field in the secretarial area, and she was a single mother withHistorical children. At that time, I was still kind of scraping along bringing up my children. But she would go to jewelry parties, and she had new clothes and things that I couldn’t even afford, and I was getting a regular salary. The final indignity was that at this time I was living out at White Bear, in the country. We had some land out there, and a man who boarded horses asked if he could use some of my land for his horses to graze. So I said, “Sure.” We weren’t using it. And I foundHistorical out that this young woman had a horse, and her horse was eating my grass. [Laughter] Minnesota RG: And yet she was on work experience.

JO: She was on work experience. Minnesota RG: That’s interesting. [Laughter]

JO: I think one of the sad things about the project was that because of the openness of the museum storage, especially below ground in the lower terrace there, so many people had access to it, and I know that a lot of things just walked off. Security was very poor. I guess the one area that we were most concerned about was the gun closet.

RG: Yes. Well, guns are always such an object of interest to collectors and thieves. My understanding is that when Alan came, one of the first things he did was change all the locks on the

15 doors of the museum, probably for very good reason.

JO: They were changed frequently over the years.

RG: They had to be.

JO: Especially on the back door.

RG: As I recall, the storage conditions down in that terrace were such that you really would not have known whether anything was missing or not.

JO: That’s true. Project RG: Things were piled on top of each other. It was only later that we got the shelving down there.

JO: We did get some shelving from the Science Museum when they were moving into their new building. History RG: Oh, I hadn’t realized that. Oral JO: For the costume collection—fabrics. Society

RG: Now, my recollection is there were two levels to that northwest storage area.

JO: Right. Society Historical RG: And the upper level had shelving and was in a little better condition.

JO: That’s true.

RG: The lower level was whereHistorical all the large objects—as I say—were sort of piled up on top of each other. My recollection is that budgets were very tight for the museum. We did not have a budget for acquiring anything. Is that right?Minnesota

JO: That’s right.

RG: WeMinnesota only got what was given to us.

JO: What was given, right.

RG: And I recall a number of appeals to the staff for different objects over the years, and usually, I suspect, the staff was one of our best sources for the museum collection. Maybe that’s why they so heavily represent the Twin Cities middle class. [Laughter]

JO: True. True. I tell my daughter that sometime in the future they’ll have an exhibit on sixties fashions and her little miniskirts will be shown. [Laughter]

16

RG: Did we ever get much in the way of donations from people like those belonging to the Women’s Organization and the Council?

JO: Not really. I think that the Women’s Organization probably after—who was there before Cutler?

RG: I think Esther Sperry.

JO: Oh, no. I mean the director.

RG: Oh, before Russell [Fridley] was Harold Dean Cater. He had created the Women’s Organization. Project

JO: Yes, right.

RG: And they had complete responsibility for the exhibits for two or three years there. History JO: And they did work hard. I could see evidence of that in the records and so forth. But I think after Russell came, probably, the organization was not usedOral as much as it had been before. And I always feel that this was a sad mistake, because these women wereSociety some of the—their husbands were the movers and the pushers in the Twin Cities area, and I feel that if they had really continued to be cultivated that the Society would have benefited a great deal. In fact, I still feel that way about the Women’s Organization today. Society RG: Well, my impression is that they are somewhatHistorical more active today than they were for a while.

JO: Right.

RG: But there again, I think my perspective was that there was always a certain amount of tension over the very existence of theHistorical Women’s Organization, because of the strong professional women on staff who felt that if women were involved, they should be involved as equals and not as a segregated group. So there was,Minnesota I won’t say hostility, but a fair amount of coolness towards the Women’s Organization.

JO: Well, it also takes time. It takes staff time to work with that organization. Minnesota RG: Absolutely. Exactly. It doesn’t exist just by itself.

JO: I’d like to digress right here while we’re talking about women’s groups. It seems to me that what the Society has missed along the way is the ability to attract groups of people such as support the Minneapolis Institute of Art and Walker Art Gallery. I think one of the reasons is that people who support those kinds of institutions like to party. The women like to get dressed up, and the men, I guess, like to see them get dressed up. And I feel that the Society really would like to have seen them develop some kind of a social-strata program.

17 RG: That’s certainly one of the things that I recall as characteristic of the late fifties and then the sixties. We never had a big party for an exhibit opening. That was unheard of.

JO: No, those parties didn’t come until quite a bit later.

RG: That’s right. Nina Archabal introduced those, really. There was a certain amount of socializing among the Council members. In fact, the Council was really more a social organization than a governing organization.

JO: That’s true.

RG: But you’re right, other groups were not involved. Project JO: But the Council could have been a catalyst for getting more people involved in this kind of thing. So many people that I’ve talked with over the years, and sometimes I would go into some of the homes of the old Minnesota families—the Ordways and so forth—and they expressed that idea that the Society didn’t have anything social for them. History RG: That’s interesting. I hadn’t heard that fact before, and you probably. . . Oral JO: I felt that. Society

RG: As a museum person, you were called on to talk to those people more than, for example, librarians or press. Yes, I recall that within the press—and again I reflect June Holmquist’s point of view there—was the regret that Russell didn’tSociety try to involve more academic people on the Council, getting more scholarly history. There was alwaysHistorical that pressure from June and also to a degree from Lucile [Kane], I think—two very strong members of the staff—and perhaps to some degree from Jim Dunn, though I think less so. I think he was more socially inclined than the other two.

JO: But it could have been a mix. Historical RG: It could have been. It didn’t have to be exclusively one or the other. Well, some of that, too, may have been a reaction to theMinnesota strong emphasis on that during the Cater years. And Cater left under such a cloud and was so thoroughly disliked by the staff, that it may have been, to some degree, a reaction.

JO: AndMinnesota also it may have been because groups of women are hard to control. [Laughter]

RG: You noticed!

JO: You know that. And it could be that there was no one there that could have done it. It takes a certain type of a person, too.

RG: I think that, perhaps, is true. I think that is one area where Russell never felt terribly sure of himself.

18 JO: No, he didn’t, no.

RG: And Bob might have had a better shot at it, but he wasn’t interested.

JO: Well, no.

RG: Well, then during those years, those roughly nine years that you worked in the museum, it saw a slowly increased staff.

JO: That’s right.

RG: But not a great deal of increase in budget. Project JO: I don’t know how long Lolly was a volunteer, probably for two years, and then she was hired.

RG: She was hired, right. Was John Yust hired at any time while you were there or was that later?

JO: That must have been later, because I don’t remember workingHistory with him. I do remember when I was curator of historic houses, and I hired him up at Moorhead to paint the Comstock House. That was his first brush with the Historical Society. [Laughter] Oral Society RG: Well, counterbalancing the general increase in our budgets, and they did increase quite dramatically through the sixties, was the growing historic sites program. And my sense is that drained, also, a good deal of not only staff energy but artifacts from the museum. Is that true? Society JO: That’s true. Historical

RG: To furnish a historic house they would rummage through the museum collection. I know that at Mille Lacs, even though they had a very magnificent collection that they received with the museum, they still supplemented it. Historical JO: That’s right. And in the Mayo house at Le Sueur. Minnesota RG: Oh, yes.

JO: Not the Comstock House, not the Ramsey House. Minnesota RG: That’s right. The Ramsey House had all of its own furnishings. How about the Griggs House?

JO: No.

RG: That also had its own. Oh, we had a lot of houses at one point. We had the Folsom House at Taylors Falls. But that’s sort of getting ahead of the story here. Maybe we should just move on to when you joined Historic Sites yourself. At that point, was Chet already working at Sites?

JO: I don’t believe so.

19

RG: I know he had worked up at the Mille Lacs Museum through the late sixties. But I really don’t know what his positions were at the various stages. Some of this got very foggy to the rest of us, especially as Historic Sites grew into a large division on its own, physically removed from the rest of us.

JO: And I think that people probably had a leg in each camp.

RG: Yes. Yes.

JO: Everyone was doing. . .

RG: . . . It was a project-by-project sort of thing. In any case, Alan became headProject of the museum and Sites. I presume that was at the time when Alan Tolbert left to become a pilot, and that was July, 1967. At that point, as I recall, Sites still did not have a separate removed office space.

JO: Where was their office? They had an office in the museum. History RG: They did? Oral JO: Up near the elevator. Society

RG: Oh. There is an office near the elevator, and I think that’s where Alan Tolbert was. That was the Historic Sites office. Society RG: I see. And was that Alan’s office, Alan Woolworth’sHistorical office?

JO: No. He had one of the closets at the end of. . [Laughter]

RG: . . . I assume that that appointment was understood at the time to be temporary—that he would be in charge of both the museumHistorical and Sites. But maybe not. I’ll have to ask him, I suppose.

JO: I don’t know. Minnesota

RG: You don’t have any sense of what went on there? But then in January of ‘69, he became head of archaeology at Historic Sites—or at least of archaeology, and eventually that became part of Historic MinnesotaSites. Do you know whether that was a welcome change for him?

JO: I think it was.

RG: Well, that was six months after Donn Coddington was hired. Was that position under Donn Coddington at that time, or do you know?

JO: I don’t know.

RG: In any case, about the same time, you became head of historic houses. What did that involve?

20 A lot of travel, I know that.

JO: A lot of travel. I didn’t have a lot of help, and the push was on to open as many houses as possible in a hurry. And I guess my one regret is that I didn’t have the time or the help at that time to keep some of the records and notes that I should have on the development of the sites. But it was just impossible.

RG: Now, each site had its own manager.

JO: That’s right.

RG: What were your duties as head of historic houses? Project JO: My first duty was to check out the house and see what had to be done as far as the period furnishings, which would be relative to each house’s age. Then there would be cleaning to be done, which we’d have to plan for.

RG: You had to get the place up and running. History

JO: Right. Right. And the interpretation had to be planned.Oral Tour guides had to be hired. Often times you’d be working with organizations in the town—for instance, atSociety Le Sueur and at the Folsom House.

RG: What organizations were you working with? Society JO: At Le Sueur, it was the Carver County HistoricalHistorical Society.

RG: Oh, yes.

JO: I don’t think that the Carver County Historical Society was very active at that time, but there were some people in it whoHistorical really were interested in the project. In Taylors Falls, the Folsom House, that was a little different. The Comstock House was also quite a bit different. Minnesota RG: Different in what way?

JO: Well, this will never get back will it? [Laughter] Minnesota RG: No, you can certainly restrict the tape any way you want.

JO: I guess I still remember that Mrs. Comstock said that she ran me out of town. [Laughter]

RG: Did she?

JO: Almost. I was under Russell Fridley’s instructions at that time to get that house open. And Mrs. Comstock really fought me all the way, and it was very difficult because she’s a very strong-willed person. It was very difficult for her to understand that the interpretation of the house had to do with

21 Solomon Comstock and Ada Comstock Notestein and not with Mrs. George Comstock. I was told to hire tour guides after I had the house ready to go, to hire tour guides and train them. And I did. I hired students from Moorhead College, and we’d been planning a training session for this one Saturday. Mrs. Comstock got hold of a list of the people who had been hired, and she told them they didn’t have the job. She was going to hire who she wanted.

It was also very difficult because I was able to get the newspaper to give publicity, and she couldn’t understand how I could get publicity and they wouldn’t do anything for her. So one of the last times that I was up there—it was when the house was almost ready to go, but there were still problems between us—I checked in at the motel without telling her I was in town. And evidently she drove by and saw my car, and she went up to the front desk and got my room number, came right to my room without even calling. The door was unlocked, and she walked right in. And so we sat on the beds there, and we had quite a combat. I was left quite disturbed, and I just had to leaveProject town. I couldn’t take any more of that lady.

RG: What did happen about the house? Was another staff member sent up there to handle Mrs. Comstock? Or what happened? History JO: Yes. I think a man went. She liked men. Oral RG: Well, I can understand that, and perhaps somebody with a littleSociety more title and a little more authority would have found it easier to handle. I’m interested that you say you were under instructions from Russell Fridley to get it open. Who exactly did you report to?

JO: Well, of course, I did report to Donn Coddington.Society Except when there was something that Russell felt very strongly about, I think that he wouldHistorical just jump over Donn. And so sometimes I was getting mixed signals, which was difficult.

RG: Naturally, this did involve a certain amount of relations with local groups, as you pointed out, people and groups. Historical JO: Right, and Russell would. . . Minnesota RG: . . . Potentially political.

JO: Right. And because the historic sites division was trying to do so much, trying to get so many places open,Minnesota it was a difficult time. I’m surprised that we were able to meet the deadlines that we did with the limited staff that we had.

RG: During those years, from 1969 to—well, really it started in 1965—but from 1969 to 1980, we acquired sites faster than we could digest them.

JO: That’s right.

RG: Do you think, perhaps, it was too fast?

22 JO: Yes, I do.

RG: In some cases, I suppose we didn’t have too much choice. They were given to us.

JO: I think that what was decided later by administration was that they wouldn’t take anything that there was not of. . .

RG: . . . Statewide significance?

JO: Right. Not only that, but also a trust.

RG: An endowment? Project JO: That had an endowment with it.

RG: Yes. They learned that the hard way.

JO: That’s right. History

RG: So basically your function as head of historic houses—whatOral I’m hearing is that you really were, in some ways, the troubleshooter when we acquired a house—whichSociety we did almost every year—to scope out the situation and, as I say, get it up and running.

JO: Yes. Society RG: Once it was running and had a site manager—didHistorical you hire the site managers?

JO: Yes.

RG: And did they continue to report to you then? Historical JO: They did until Al Galbraith came, and then he. . . Minnesota RG: . . . When was that?

JO: Well, now, I don’t know when he came. Minnesota RG: I didn’t find any record of just when he joined the staff. I’ll have to ask Donn, I guess.

JO: It’s a little bit fuzzy, because I know I was still, say, in charge of the Ramsey House, the operation of it. I can’t remember.

RG: You spent quite a bit of time at the Ramsey House. Were you ever the only person in charge of that? It seems to me that you were.

JO: Oh, I was.

23

RG: For a good many years?

JO: Yes. Right. Right.

RG: So that was in addition to your other duties?

JO: That’s right. Interpretation and planning programs.

RG: In addition to your responsibility for all the other state sites?

JO: Right. Right. Project RG: I guess I didn’t realize that you were carrying a double job then.

JO: Right. And then the Griggs House came in after that, and that was a big job. I really felt badly about the Griggs House. I mentioned before that it takes people and time to, say, court people who are doing things for the Society. And I think it’s important that thatHistory is recognized and listened to. I feel about the Griggs House that if there had been more time and interest shown in Mrs. Burke, that it wouldn’t have ended as it has. I think she would have beenOral willing to put much more into it. I know that it’s a controversial site, but having worked closely with Societyit, I really feel that it fit into the all over scheme of the preservation and interpretation for the Historical Society. I feel that it told what a certain social strata in Minnesota was able to do during the 1920s and ‘30s. We had some wonderful programs at the site there. One of them I especially remember is “A Night With Louis XIV,” where we had little chamber groups in each of the bedrooms,Society and we had a man—what would you call him? I can’t even remember what you’d call him—someHistorical kind of portiere down in the hall. He would blow a trumpet when it was time for the people in each bedroom to move to the next room for another mini-concert.

RG: One of the rooms in the house was from the Louis XIV period, as I recall. Historical JO: That’s right. Minnesota RG: So that would have been the tie-in for that.

JO: That’s right . . We had Clement Haupers. They had an open house for him at that time before he had beenMinnesota sort of picked up by everyone, and he had a showing there.

RG: He lived almost across the street.

JO: Right. Right. Then we invited the history groups from different colleges to come. The University of Minnesota School of Design came to study the furniture and the furnishings and the architecture. And this was becoming very popular. They were coming.

RG: Yes. Did you hire Vera Stanton?

24 JO: Yes. There was a. . .

RG: . . . Best hire you ever made.

JO: Best hire I ever made. [Laughter]

RG: I don’t think you’d get much argument on that.

JO: No.

RG: At the present time, everybody remembers Vera with real admiration. At the Ramsey House, I’m trying to recall, we had a couple of site managers who didn’t work out too well—John Daugherty for a while and then Luther Thompson for a while. Then it was closedProject for repairs. I assume that it was at that point that you became responsible, when it was being repaired and reopened under you.

JO: That’s right. It seems to me that Luther and his assistant were there when I was, just briefly. History RG: It could have been. Right. And then Edna Reasoner. Oral JO: Yes. Society

RG: As I understand it, she was moved from the Capitol because when we took over the Capitol tours in—I think it was about 1976 or ‘75, maybe—she was thrown out of a job. As a condition, we hired her for the Ramsey House. That workedSociety out fairly well; at least that was always my impression. And then you had an office in the RamseyHistorical House during that time.

JO: For a while, yes.

RG: Where was your office permanently? Or did you have a permanent office? [Laughter] Historical JO: I had little spots all over. Actually, I was out at the mule barns, you know, at Fort Snelling. I never had air conditioning, in allMinnesota the years I worked at the Society.

RG: You never had any. You were always in these historic houses.

JO: Right.Minnesota

RG: Well, a lot of the air conditioning did come in in the 1980s.

JO: That’s true.

RG: What was your relationship in the organizational structure to John Ferguson? Did you report to John or were you sort of co-equal with him or what?

JO: He was in charge of structural repairs, that kind of thing. I think that it’s unfair to look back and

25 think about some of the controversies that we had within the department, because everyone in Historic Sites was carrying such a big load.

RG: More than they possibly could.

JO: Right. Right. And there was overlapping, and I don’t think there had been a structure put together which defined where one person’s responsibilities ended and another one’s began. It’s very difficult when you’re working with a building and a program together.

RG: Not to mention a dozen of them.

JO: Yes. Project RG: Yes, that’s true. Functions would overlap.

JO: And senses of responsibility, maybe, were stretched when they shouldn’t have been.

RG: Well, there were quite a few people working, perhaps more inHistory that program than in some of the others, for whom history was their life as well as their job. In other words, they were history buffs first, and perhaps employees second. I don’t know. Do youOral feel that was true? Society JO: Yes, I think so. I think so, because much of it was sort of a physical kind of a thing—putting a building to rights. Interpretation, of course, would be different.

RG: You mentioned that interpretation at theSociety houses was entirely up to you. The interpretation department at sites consisting of Nancy Eubank, andHistorical the exhibit builders really had very little to do with historic houses, is that right?

JO: That’s right. They did come several years later than I, and Nancy, I believe, and Marvin. . .

RG: . . . Marx Swanholm, yes.Historical When we built the carriage house at the Ramsey House. I know they installed exhibits. Minnesota JO: That’s right.

RG: And Marx wrote the pamphlet. But that had very little direct influence on the interpretation of the houseMinnesota itself.

JO: That’s true.

RG: It was sort of supplementary.

JO: Right.

RG: We were talking about where your office was. You mentioned that one of the things we needed to talk about, too, was the many places you lived. You lived and breathed historic houses.

26

JO: That’s right. [Laughter] Before Fort Snelling was restored, the officers’ quarters out there were vacated by doctors from the Veterans Administration who lived there with their families. There had been vandalism, so the Society decided to rent the officers’ homes to staff. And I think that we— some of the staff—lived out there for probably a year and a half before work was done on them. It was a wonderful time out there, because we became very close to one another. I remember Dorothy Gimmestad was there, and Liza.

RG: Liza Nagle?

JO: Right. And, let’s see, who else was out there?

RG: The person you were trying to think of, we didn’t get the name, was ChuckProject Diesen.

JO: Right. And one of the women who worked in the publications department.

RG: Oh, yes, Virginia Martin. History JO: Yes, Virginia Martin. And then one of the secretaries in publications, Lou something. Oral RG: I don’t recall a Lou in publications. There was a Lou Dario inSociety the business office.

JO: No.

RG: I don’t recall who that would have been.Society My recollection is that some of us were amazed to find this out. We never heard that the buildings wereHistorical even available to staff for rent. I think there was no very concerted or open way of advertising, probably because the Society didn’t want it widely known that they were using them that way, though there was good practical reason to have them occupied.

JO: I remember when we wereHistorical out there, the gates had to be closed at night—we did have them. And one night the person who was in charge—oh, Steve Osman lived there, too. Minnesota RG: Really.

JO: Sure. Before he was married. And he, and I think Chuck, knocked on my door one night, a rainy night, andMinnesota they brought this little bedraggled black dog, a little poodle, who was evidently lost out there. And they thought I should take care of it. So I did and I called her Abby after Abigail Snelling. [Laughter]

RG: Did you keep her?

JO: I kept her for a while. And then I lived in the carriage house. Debbie, my younger daughter, and I lived in the carriage house for probably a year and a half. At the Griggs House.

RG: At the Griggs House, right.

27

JO: And before I lived there, John Grossman and Chuck Diesen had lived there. When you lived there, you paid rent, but the rent was nominal. One of the requirements was that if the burglar alarm rang, you were responsible to go and see what was happening. [Laughter]

RG: Or call the police.

JO: Right. And that happened several times. There was always the talk that it was probably ghosts up in the Griggs House that were tripping the alarm system.

RG: That’s a rather isolated spot.

JO: Very. Project

RG: Were you ever nervous living there?

JO: Not really. Not at that time. I think I would be today. But one of the thoughts that I had some years later for the use of that site was to establish a school for restoration.History And at that time I felt it would have been possible to do. I did write a proposal and sent it to Russ, I guess, and John Wood. But it didn’t meet with much success. But I felt that it wouldOral have been possible, probably, to get funding for it, and I would have worked on that. Because in those Societydays we didn’t have artisans in the area here who could repair or restore artifacts, and we had to have people from Chicago, or send things away. I really felt it would have been a good plus for the Society to have started something like that in Minnesota. Society RG: You say you sent the proposal to Russ and JohnHistorical Wood. Did Donn strongly support it?

JO: I don’t know. He was given a copy of it, too. I didn’t get much feedback from it.

RG: This is the second time you’ve mentioned directly operating under instructions from Russell or communicating directly withHistorical him. It again makes me ask, what were the lines of authority here?

JO: Well, I did the chain of command.Minnesota And I didn’t mind. Donn and I got along very well.

RG: I’ve always sensed that you and Donn were good friends.

JO: Right.Minnesota

RG: And Donn is not one to assert a chain of command.

JO: No. No.

RG: Possibly not enough sometimes.

JO: That’s true. But he always listened, and he was encouraging. Not only encouraging, but he had that wonderful habit—and it is a habit—of giving people credit for what they did. At that time when

28 everyone was working so hard and when tempers were short, it helped so much to have someone come and say—you know, give you a little pat and say—“Oh, I know it’s difficult, but you’re doing a good job. Just keep it up.” And it was good. I don’t know if that’s still working today.

RG: I have never worked for Donn. I’ve only worked with him as a colleague. I think the whole attitude is rather different today, a little more impersonal or bureaucratic. I think, personally, Nina goes out of her way to talk to people about their work, but she is so removed from most of the staff that they either don’t hear it or she isn’t aware of their ongoing projects. It varies, as it always has, with department heads. I think now, though, there is more of a sense throughout the Society that it’s just a job rather than a life work, as it was and had to be with some of you people.

JO: Yes. It’s interesting that you brought that up, because I really feel that at that time, throughout the whole Society, it was more than just a job. I think that we all felt that we wereProject pulling together. of course, it was smaller. When I came there were—what? Forty people on the staff?

RG: Thirty-seven, if I’m not mistaken.

JO: All right. Okay. It grew rapidly. History

RG: It grew very rapidly after that, yes, and the variety ofOral things we did grew so rapidly. Society JO: Yes.

RG: How were you transferred from the museum to Historic Sites? Did somebody ask you if you wanted to make the choice, and who talked toSociety you about it? Historical JO: Russ evidently suggested me, my name, to Donn Coddington for either that job or else the one that Nancy had. And so I did have a choice. I don’t remember what the title of her job was.

RG: I don’t recall either. Historical JO: That was before Nancy came. And I had a little time to think it over. I did like to work with the public. I liked three-dimensionalMinnesota objects and their interpretation, and I figured it would help me to develop and be able to be exposed to some of these areas that I was more interested in.

RG: Now we’ve mentioned before that with the growth of the historic sites program, in some respects Minnesotathe museum collections were dispersed—at least in part—to sites as needed. There developed, at least in later years, a considerable difference of approach to three-dimensional objects between the people at sites, who were daily engaged in interpretation, and those in the museum who largely had their collections in storage to be pulled out as resources for exhibits. I think you have been aware of some of those changes. Do you have anything you particularly want to say about that?

JO: Yes, I guess I do. Because I had worked in the museum and had been responsible for the care of the artifacts, I had a great respect for artifacts. I never would have thought of using an original artifact for demonstration purpose, where it would be used over and over and over again, say by the public, or handled. And I feel and felt that it was perfectly all right to use duplicates.

29

RG: Replicas.

JO: Replicas of artifacts, rather than to use the original. And I didn’t want to see that happen. But I knew there was a cavalier attitude by some of the staff who were more willing to see the original artifacts used that much.

RG: Can you think of some examples of this? I'm not asking you to name names particularly, but can you think of some examples.

JO: I can’t, but I know it happened. I can’t think of any specific one. I know that there were feelings, very harsh feelings, about not being able to use the collection items, and that the “museum curator was clutching things to her breast,” you know. I think that there’s a mediumProject road there that has to be taken, and I don’t think that the museum artifacts belong to the museum curator in any shape or form. I think that they should be used for study purposes and for exhibit but not for general use.

RG: You mentioned Al Galbraith. What was he hired to do when Historyhe first came? The subject of artifacts brings him to mind again, because I know his last assignment was to catalog all of the artifacts at sites. Oral Society JO: It seemed to me he worked under John Ferguson more in the repair and construction. I believe that was what he did at first. Are you going to interview him?

RG: I don’t really know where Al is now. HeSociety hasn’t been at the Society for some time. I hadn’t really planned to. I can’t interview everyone we’veHistorical had.

JO: No.

RG: I’m trying to concentrate on the longer-term people who saw changes and got a sense of the institution and some of the Historicalpeople they worked with. We’ve already talked a little about Donn. Other than the fact that you obviously worked very well with Donn over the years, do you have any particular observations about himMinnesota as basically a very key figure developing our historic sites department?

JO: Donn is a nice person. Minnesota RG: We all know that.

JO: I did feel that there was a great deal of chauvinism in the historic sites department.

RG: Male chauvinism?

JO: Yes, male chauvinism. And I did feel that some of the men out there were treated more gently than the women were in respect to the output of work that they did. I think there was a great. . .

30 RG: . . . More was expected of the women?

JO: Yes. I was aware, at the time, that there were certain people out there who were getting more salary than I was who were not doing their work, and they were kept on and kept on and kept on.

RG: My recollection is that Donn inherited some of those people and perhaps he didn’t feel he really had the authority to get rid of them.

JO: That’s true.

RG: Again, there’s no particular point in going into naming names, but I know that in the rest of the Society where, as I have mentioned before, professional women were in positions of considerable authority and leadership, there was a very strong feeling that Historic Sites was Projecta bastion of male chauvinism. In some ways, they didn’t seem to even try to hide this particularly.

JO: No. I think the one who really helped me a great deal during those trying times—it was trying when the people who were really putting out the work could see that there were others dragging their feet—was June Holmquist. I had June to talk to, and I felt that I couldHistory be very frank with her, and she was very kind to take the time with me to talk things over. Oral RG: How did you get to know June? Society

JO: Just from. . .

RG: . . . Working in the same building? Society Historical JO: Yes, working in the same building.

RG: I guess I hadn’t realized that you shared some of your problems with June.

JO: Oh, yes. Historical

RG: That’s interesting. I thinkMinnesota a lot of things like that about June would turn up if you went and talked to a lot of staff members.

JO: I think that she was a different person to different people. Minnesota RG: Very much so. Very much so. You and Nancy Eubank seem to have been the only two women who really survived out there, above the level of secretary, for any time at all. There were other women hired but they left.

JO: That’s right. It was too large a department for one person to supervise. What else did they have? For two years, they got a grant to do some survey.

RG: Oh, yes. The historic site survey? I mean, the state resources survey.

31 JO: Yes.

RG: Right.

JO: So there were four or five people working under that.

RG: Yes.

JO: Remember Kathy O’Brien?

RG: That was never under Historic Sites, though.

JO: Oh, wasn’t it? Project

RG: I supervised that.

JO: You did? Okay. History RG: They were actually located in one of the buildings downtown, in the Metro Square Building. Oral JO: Oh, really? But they were out there. . . Society

RG: . . . They worked out of Sites some, I imagine. Kathy O’Brien. Jane Lilja. Jane later became— no, it was before she had the resources survey—she was for one fateful year Dave Nystuen’s assistant. Society Historical JO: Oh, yes, and she was at the Ramsey House, too, I think.

RG: No, Jane was employed at the Capitol. She was hired by Viki Sand, and then rather summarily fired after a couple of years. And then when I took on the interpretative center survey, Russ hired Jane as my assistant. Fortunately,Historical I did not object to that because Jane and I had always gotten along. She was my assistant for a year and a half on that, and then, again, I think Russ hired her as Dave Nystuen’s assistant. Minnesota

JO: Oh, okay.

RG: I couldn’tMinnesota entirely blame David for not taking too kindly to that, because, unlike me, he did not get along with Jane. [Laughter] And that ended at the end of a year with them not speaking to each other, I think. So I then again hired her as the head of the resources survey, which she held for two years and then left the Society.

JO: One of the disadvantages in working out at the Fort in the project that I had was that we had no library out there, and given the nature of my work, the interpretation and so forth, I needed to have resource material. So I did a lot of traveling back and forth to the Historical Society main building.

RG: Yes. Well, I think everybody out there had that problem. They gradually built up a library of

32 sorts.

JO: And no library for period interior design. So I developed a large library of period interior design of my own. Then when I was at Murphy’s Landing—we’ll come to this later—they didn’t have a library either, and I gave them my library, which I regret now. But you can’t take books back, can you? [Laughter]

RG: I guess not. Well, theoretically our library was always open to buying books that we requested and that we needed for our jobs. Now, sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn’t. Apparently, in your case, it didn’t work very much of the time.

JO: Not too much. Because interior design is much different than the requests that other people, say, publications or . . . Project

RG: . . . Well, this had changed over the years, and I can’t recall. As long as Jim Dunn was in charge, you could get what you needed without too many questions asked. But in more recent years they have adopted a stringent collections policy, and anything that a particular department wants has to come out of the department’s budget. But in your case, you had Historyno budget for books.

JO: No. Oral Society RG: Did you have a budget that you administered for Historic Houses?

JO: Yes, I had to submit a budget every year for paying the interpreters, but not for any physical repairs. That was John Ferguson’s . . . Society Historical RG: . . . I see. And if there were any exhibits.

JO: And costumes for the guides, and if they did a demonstration or food, you know, groceries— this kind of thing. But oftentimes when I would—programs, also, were so difficult because we had no money for programs. AndHistorical at the Ramsey House I really wanted to make that a place where people would come several times a year for interesting programs, and so I had to oftentimes beg people to appear on the programs.Minnesota For instance, Karlin Kaufmanis.

RG: Oh, yes.

JO: I hadMinnesota him give one and didn’t have anything, and he did it free. I happened to know a few people that I could ask to do things.

RG: Cashed in your brownie points with friends.

JO: Right. One of the difficulties concerning programs was I don’t think that some of the people at the Society felt that they were necessary. But I felt that they were very necessary for exposure’s sake, because even though people did come to tour the site, I think that the publicity and so forth that you got from the programs helped to bolster the admissions.

33 RG: Yes. Well, certainly once the sites were open and running, I think we gradually, very slowly as an institution, came to it.

JO: The money for programs came very hard.

RG: Very hard, right. I think it came first to the education department. We started some public programs, and very quickly after that, other departments started doing it. But I suppose in the years that you were principally working at Historic Sites, up until 1977, the pressure just to get the sites running was so great that there didn't seem to be any margin or any need for the programs.

JO: That’s right.

RG: One of the things you were mentioning is some of the people that were hired.Project My impression also was that Historic Sites in some ways was—to use a rather loaded term—the dumping ground for a number of political appointments.

JO: Yes. History RG: Were you concerned with that at any point? Did you have to hire somebody? Oral JO: I think I did, but I can’t—I’m thinking of one person right now,Society but I just can’t think of who it was.

RG: Do you feel in general that this was true, that Sites had quite a few. Society JO: I think it was true. Historical

RG: And obviously Donn was willing to go along with it.

JO: Right. Historical RG: That was another distinction, I always felt, between Historic Sites and, say, the manuscripts or the publications departments. IMinnesota don’t think Russell would have dreamed of asking Lucile or June to take on somebody they didn’t want to take on.

JO: No. Minnesota RG: But with Historic Sites it was very, very different.

JO: That was true in the museum though, too.

RG: It was.

JO: I did. There were several people there that I was asked to take on as volunteers.

RG: I’ve often wondered why the difference. I suppose the best way to explain it is the lack of

34 strong leadership in those departments and the museum as well.

JO: Yes, I think so. And then being that Historic Sites was a new development.

RG: And to some degree directly under Bob and Russell, of necessity, for a while.

JO: Looking back, I think a lot of the problems that we had were just growth problems, because there were not enough people to do the work that needed to be done.

RG: And the sites were so very public.

JO: Right. Project RG: And so politically sensitive in many cases.

JO: That’s right.

RG: It was really a whole different world. History

JO: Yes. Oral Society RG: When you moved out of the historic house management, you turned that over to Maureen McKasy. She had worked under you for some time, hadn’t she?

JO: Yes. Society Historical RG: You had sort of trained her in for the job.

JO: Yes.

RG: I understand that MaureenHistorical is now head of historic houses for the National Historic Preservation Commission. Minnesota JO: Right.

RG: That pleased me to see that. Then you said that you had a period of—do you want to tell me what youMinnesota did next?

JO: I was given a year’s sabbatical to write a book on Minnesota interiors of the nineteenth century. And I was into it. I had my headquarters and stayed at Fort Snelling for that, and I went to work every day.

RG: Now, what year would that be?

JO: That would be probably 1977.

35 RG: Okay.

JO: And I did a lot of research on it.

RG: That would be the year that you were paid out of the historic resources survey budget. [Laughter]

JO: All right. I knew it was a different check.

RG: We both knew that that was happening. Nobody ever told either of us.

JO: No, that’s right. I knew that the check looked different. I looked it up. But, anyway, then the Society got the money from the Great River Roads Project to furnish the Commandant’sProject House. So I was offered that job, and I couldn’t turn that down because that was quite a plum. Then after that was going and finished, I did research on interpretative material for the Fort Snelling guides. I did one on women and children at Fort Snelling—children’s life. I did one on Abigail Snelling.

RG: I remember your interest in Abigail Snelling. History

JO: I think they’re still using some of those today. So whatOral I did at the end, before retiring, was this research for the interpreters at Fort Snelling. Society

RG: I see. And then in 1980 you retired, and you did volunteer work at Murphy’s Landing for a while? Society JO: No. I did volunteer work with the Hmong forHistorical about five years.

RG: Oh, really? I didn't know that.

JO: Yes. Through the Minnesota Literacy Council. I had formed some good friends. I worked with quite a few of the people. That’sHistorical another story. Then Russell told me that they were looking for a director at Murphy’s Landing, which had had quite a troubled past. And I guess at that time I was just ready to dig my teeth into Minnesotasomething. And so I took it on. I worked there for, I think, almost three years. Very difficult. The most difficult task I’ve ever taken on in my life. For one thing, the board of directors was composed of people who were not especially interested in history. They just wanted their site to make money, and they didn’t care if it was like a tourist trap or not. And I came with a purityMinnesota of purpose, which probably was not appreciated, and which I should have recognized early on was not appreciated. I did manage to make some big changes there. I opened a restaurant, a gift shop, started some restoration projects, and was able to develop a training program for the tour guides.

RG: Sounds like you did a major management job there.

JO: I did.

RG: It leads me to the question of why did you retire when you did? It sounds like you weren’t

36 really ready to retire.

JO: I guess I wasn’t. I think if something great had come along in 1980, something that was challenging, I probably would have taken it.

RG: You sort of felt that you had been in temporary projects for some time, and there really was no big new challenge there.

JO: Right. That’s right. I really wanted to get into it again. I needed something like that.

RG: Is there anything you’d like to say? We sort of passed over the Commandant’s House very quickly. Were there any particular problems that you had in the restoration of that? Or how did you go about it? It seems to me you did some traveling . . . Project

JO: . . . I did. . .

RG: . . . in research on that, too. History JO: Right. And I studied any manuscript-type of material we had. Except there’s one big thing—it’s a black mark against me, and I don’t really feel like takingOral the whole responsibility for it because I don’t think I have to. I furnished it with the idea of furnishing it asSociety it would have been considering the backgrounds of Abigail and Colonel Snelling, using whatever material there was available and what was done around the country at other forts of the period. I guess one of the wonderful things that came out that was in Snelling’s inventory, he had been given bed curtains by his father. So I got the Minnesota Homemakers and Minnesota SocietyHome Economists in Homemaking to do crewel embroidery for bed curtains for Snelling’s bed. ThisHistorical was a project that took two years. And they jumped into it, and they did a beautiful job. I was satisfied with what I had done. I had good comments from people in the field who came from out of town.

After the fire, I think that Maureen felt that she had to put her own stamp on it and probably Steve Osman, too. I don’t think SteveHistorical really appreciated the fact that he didn’t have more say in the furnishing of the Commandant’s House, but he had a full plate. He didn’t need more. And I guess it would have been difficult for meMinnesota to have worked with Steve at that point. I think he’s mellowed quite a bit since then. [Laughter]

I asked Glenn [Stille] and Steve if they had a copy of Colonel Snelling’s diary, and they said yes they did,Minnesota and they gave it to me. What they did not tell me was that it was not complete, that there was more in the manuscripts department that they had not copied. So I was unaware of this. And I heard later was that there were things in the diary that led them to believe that the house was not furnished as nicely as it was when I had planned it. And that really hurt because I feel that Glenn and Steve—I really felt that they withheld this from me. I felt there was a pulling all the time. Glenn didn’t especially care if he was consulted or not, but I think Steve did. But if he had been consulted on everything, we would have never gotten the project off the ground because there would have been, I’m sure, disputes about it.

RG: Well, I didn’t hear any of the details of this. I know that after the disastrous fire in 1981, then

37 they redid it and they didn’t do it in exactly the same way.

JO: Well, they didn’t have to. I understand that any new person coming on a job has to put his or her stamp on it.

RG: Several different ways that could be done.

JO: Right.

RG: Nobody knows for sure since no one has any photographs of it.

JO: And I think they did have the—it was only a year since it had been done, and it seems to me that they could have borne with that a little longer before redoing it. Project

RG: That may have had something to do with the self-study we had in 1979, when we, for the first time in some ways, got a lot of peer review from historic site and museum people from around the country. And as I recall, there were some criticisms of some of our interpretations in that. History JO: But I still stand by the research I did for the Commandant’s House, for what was available to me. Oral Society RG: For what was made available to you, right. We were going to talk, too, about your professional activities. This would overlap your time at the Society and also your retirement. What organizations were you active in? Society JO: Well, the American Association for State andHistorical Local History, and I did consulting work for them. One of the projects was at Scarsdale, New York, a Quaker house and museum there.

RG: What time was this?

JO: That would have been,Historical probably, ‘76.

RG: Oh, while you were still working.Minnesota . .

JO: . . . I took a leave of a couple weeks to do that. I also was on the programs of their regional meetings in the areas where I had some experience. Minnesota RG: Did you often get sent to the annual meetings? My recollection is that Historic Sites was always . . .

JO: . . . Yes, I did. I could go to any of them that I was able to.

RG: Good.

JO: I was very fortunate in that. I didn’t have any problem with that. I think some people probably did. I think some women probably did at the time. Then I did another consulting job at the Robert E.

38 Lee House in Virginia, and that had to do with interpretation and training of tour guides. That was interesting. I was there for a week. I don’t remember—I did about five throughout the United States of that kind of thing. And I was on panels for their workshops and so forth. I also worked at some of the counties in Minnesota here, getting them set up with their cataloging procedures.

RG: Were you active in the Victorian Society?

JO: Oh, yes. In fact, I started that.

RG: Oh, you did?

JO: Yes. Project RG: Well, tell me more.

JO: Well . . . [Laughter]

RG: . . . You’re so modest, Jan. History

JO: I just think about these things, you know. We met overOral at the Hennepin County Historical Society, and we had a nucleus in the beginning of, I think, about sixSociety or seven people who were interested in it. But it never did get off the ground, and no one wanted it after I was the president for, probably two terms, or whatever. I couldn’t get anybody else to take it, and so it just sort of fell apart. Society One other program that I’m really proud that we diHistoricald was at the Griggs House. It was on interior design. We had a speaker from Scalamander, the fabric place, and we had representatives from the Twin Cities with their exhibits and so forth, and lectures on period design, wallpaper, paint, marbling. Did you ever meet Alex Wilson?

RG: No, I haven’t. Historical

JO: He’s a Scotsman. He wasMinnesota trained in Scotland on marbling and full work in woodworking. He could make something look like cherry. In fact, he did the kitchen at the Ramsey House. He did the doors there, which were pine and were made to resemble—what?—maple? I can’t remember what. He did the floor, also. Minnesota RG: Now, was this what they were originally. . .

JO: . . . They were originally done that way. It was very popular.

RG: I see.

JO: In fact, some of my doors in my 1887 house here are that, made to resemble something more.

RG: Or a fancy wood.

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JO: Yes. Anyway, the Victorian Society just dissolved.

RG: That was the local chapter.

JO: Right, the local chapter. But I was also on some of their programs when they had them in Philadelphia. And I also did a lot of traveling at that time. There weren’t the workshops and so forth then that there are now like at, let’s say, Cooperstown. The thing is it takes time to do. Although I did attend some seminars at Cooperstown, visited Williamsburg, spent like a week there, went to the Smithsonian. I did research in the National Archives on Colonel Snelling and Abigail, and found something there that I wish somebody would try and pick up on sometime.

When I was there, I did research at the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution]Project library. I’d finished my research of what they have in the catalog cards, and I had a little time to browse, and they let you go through the stacks there, you know. I don’t know if they do it anymore. But I just happened to pick up a volume, opened it up, was thumbing through it, and here was one page, a little biography of Colonel Snelling I’d never seen before with a little print of—what are those little History RG: . . . A cameo or medallion? Oral JO: Yes. Right. Of him. And it said that it was in the possession ofSociety some—I can’t remember. I still have a copy of it here. Some wealthy family had that. And, in fact, I sent Tom a copy of it, thinking sometime he might like to try and track it down. It’s kind of interesting to have. That was kind of fun. Society RG: I imagine that you were called on to do quiteHistorical a bit of consulting for county historical societies, too, around the state. I don’t know whether Dave Nystuen was holding workshops at that time or not.

JO: Yes, he was. Historical RG: You were, I’m sure, involved in a lot of those. Minnesota JO: Right.

RG: You were certainly around, too, in about ‘77, ‘78, maybe it was ‘79, when the museum collectionsMinnesota were transferred to 1500 Mississippi Street and put in boxes. That was after the collections became part of the library division. And also quite a large share of the collections were taken out to Fort Snelling and stored in the mule barn. Do you have any comments on that?

JO: Oh, I thought that was a terrible place to have them stored, because there was no heat in the mule barn. There were no temperature controls. And, again, the security was very poor.

RG: That’s true. There were some break-ins out there, as I recall.

JO: Right. In fact, every time the collections were moved, it just gave me a headache. Because every

40 time you move—especially furniture—large pieces, you know, they suffer.

RG: You risk breakage, yes. Being in charge of exhibits, one of the problems we had once—they were all put in boxes—was simply finding artifacts for the exhibits. This involved a lot of unpacking and handling of artifacts.

JO: I guess the primary reason for putting them in boxes was to protect them from dust. I don’t think they even thought about their possible use.

RG: The Society didn’t have much of an exhibits program at that time, so it’s understandable how that was overlooked. Well, are there any other particular recollections or observations you’d like to make? Project JO: Oh, I think I’ve done a lot. I’ve talked a lot. [Laughter]

RG: We’ve just about filled a ninety-minute tape now.

JO: Really? Oh, I guess I have to say this in conclusion, that the yearsHistory I worked for the Society were the happiest years of my life. My personal life had kind of settled down, and I had a secure job. My family was doing well. And I guess first and foremost becauseOral I’m the kind of a person who likes a challenge, and I kind of like to do my own thing. I like to put my stampSociety on things, and I don’t know of any other job where I could have done it like I did, especially with the historic sites projects.

RG: You enjoyed the historic sites in particular. Society JO: Right. Historical

RG: Well, it was certainly a challenging time for all of us with the vast expansion. There was a never-to-be-repeated opportunity there.

JO: Yes. I don’t think we couldHistorical have envisione d, back when you and I both started—when you say thirty-seven people were there—what would have happened fifteen years later. Minnesota RG: Right. It was certainly a great era to have lived through and all sorts of opportunities.

JO: I guess I’d like to say one thing in closing in support of Russell Fridley. I’d like this to go on there. I don’tMinnesota think any of us should forget what Russell did for the Minnesota Historical Society. The sad events that happened later probably, maybe, have colored some people’s feelings about Russell, but I don’t think that that is a fair coloration, because with his political know-how, he really put the Society on the map. He did some impossible things. He had an impossible job, really, taking over at the time he did with the dreams that were there to be fulfilled and the tremendous expansion.

RG: It’s certainly true.

JO: So I give him full credit for all the wonderful things that he did.

41 RG: You must have had a fair amount of personal contact with Russ. Obviously, you had worked under his instructions, directly, sometimes.

JO: Yes.

RG: Did you find him generally a pleasant person to work for?

JO: Yes, I did. He listened. He listened. When he asked you to come in his office and shut the door, and when he got up and got the coffee himself, you felt that you were important.

RG: You had his full attention.

JO: You had his full attention, and he would tell Ardene to hold his calls. Project

RG: Thank you, Janis.

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