2016 Family Reunion

In anticipation of next year's Fitzpatrick Family Reunion (and associated St. Vincent Town Reunion II), I wanted to post information regarding lodging, etc. so if people need to make reservations, they will have that information well in advance.  I've also included area attractions and historical sites for those that want to explore beyond the reunion itself while in the area...

Family Reunion Info:

(July 15-17, 2016)

Lodging

Red Roost Hotel (Pembina) - (701)825-6254

Budget Host Caribou Inn (Hallock) - (218)843-3702

Valley Motel (Hallock) - (218)843-2828

Gateway Motel (Hallock) - (218)843-2032

Restaurants/Bars

Caribou Bar & Grill (Hallock) - (218)843-3740

North Branch Bowl & Grill (Hallock) - (218)843-8868

Gastrak (Pembina) - (701)825-6275 [NOTE:  Deli/Fast Food only]

Corner Lounge (Pembina) - (701)825-6581

LaMoure Memorial Golf Course (Pembina) - (701)825-6619

Places to Gather

Pembina State Museum (meeting room) - (701)825-6840

Pembina Community Center (meeting room/kitchen) - (701)825-6326

Sites to See

Pembina State Museum

805 ND-59

Pembina, ND

701.825.6840

Kittson County Historical Museum

332 E Main St

Lake Bronson, MN

218.754.4100

Fort Dufferin (Emerson, west side of the Red River)

http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/sites/fortdufferin.shtml

http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/mb_history/23/dufferin.shtml

http://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=12688

Established in 1873 by the North West Mounted Police (later the Royal Canadian Mounted Police), Fort Dufferin was the headquarters and winter home to the British-Canadian contingent of the International Boundary Commission from 1872 to 1874. A few of the buildings that once sat at the site still exist there today (Officer Quarters, stables, etc.)

A monument at the entrance to the site bears two plaques. One plaque, erected in 1997 by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, describes the westward march of the North West Mounted Police. The other plaque commemorates two constables in the force, W. C. Brown and A. McIntosh, who died in 1874 at Fort Dufferin and are buried in unmarked graves near the site.

Travel Manitoba (Information Centre, Emerson)

St. Vincent Cemetery

Pembina Cemetery

Pembina Metis Cemetery

Joe River Cemetery

Lake Bronson State Park

A Walk in the Rain

Arrangements were made for the cremation. This morning it took place. My companion and I met Tom the undertaker, at Riverside's crematorium at 8:30am.

We met the two men who do the cremations. We watched as the box with Mom's remains was taken and placed in the furnace. I thanked the men, and Tom, and we walked away.

It was gently raining, and as we approached the car to leave, I asked my companion if he'd mind taking a walk through the cemetery. We got our umbrellas, and proceeded.

I don't often have a chance to walk through a cemetery when it's raining. No wind, so amazingly quiet, peaceful, and empty...except, of course, for the silent city around us.

The huge, old trees throughout the cemetery made me think of home, the home my mother lived in most of her life. It, too, had great old trees surrounding it. There's something amazing about trees, and seeing such trees gave me comfort as I glanced back at the crematorium and saw the waves of heat rising out of the chimney on top.

As we walked past the gravestones, we noticed white-tailed deer further on, one standing, and one beyond that was laying down under a tree. I watched them watch us.

We turned a corner, then another, heading back to the car, when we noticed a small flock of birds in the distance coming out from behind the mausoleum. Wild turkeys, a small band of males. We headed up the small hill and around the building, and caught them as they disappeared behind, shaking their feathers, looking up, and stepping ahead under the falling rain.

It was a magical morning walk, a very special walk I will never forget...

Grace

I grew up across the field from the town cemetery. My grandfather was the caretaker, and later my father. It was a part-time, voluntary town position which they gladly undertook. I think both of them enjoyed the solitude of the cemetery and felt it was a duty worth doing.

My Mom would walk with me up and down the aisles between plots, teaching me to respect the graves and not walk on them, not to mention they could sink in from settling. We'd talk about who some of the people were, some were relatives, some she had known. Some she didn't know. Both she and Dad would show me subtle depressions in the grass in the lower portion of the cemetery that indicated those that were pauper graves, unmarked and forgotten by most. My grandfather had shown them where they were, and I in turn now knew. I often wonder if anyone back home knows anymore.

I've been doing some research on poor farms or poor houses in Minnesota, and it brought to mind those graves. Listening to this documentary touched me greatly, and made me think how there are always those among us, as Jesus said, that need a helping hand. There but for the grace of God go I...

What life was like when I was 4 years old...

Chickens, Smoky chasing chickens, me chasing Smokey chasing chickens...fitting through the chicken house chicken door and squeezing through between the gate and the fence (was I ever THAT small?!)

Butcher shop and bakery and luthweit druggist in emerson

Mccall's in pembina, george's store in st. vincent, sawatski brother's in emerson...hardwood floors and high tin ceilings, bolts of cloth so high it took ladders and hooks to bring them down to measure and cut

Visiting dad at the depot, big trains smoking and clanging and squeeling and chugging

Friehboldt's garage scantily clad women on calendars in the pits where oil ran black and slick and a grape soda was only a fridge door and 10 cents away

Collecting bottles of candy money, collecting acorns in cider jugs for grandma, following dad and big sisters while they mowed cemetery

'helping' in the garden, hoeing, collecting raspberries, going out on chokecherry pickings in the river woods

Milk pods and birds nest and blue robin eggs

Neighbor cows and horses, high pasture grass, dragging the road and nuisance ground runs

St. vincent fair, quansot hut bbq's and pies and 4th of july parades

Church potlucks jumping off the high church front steps, basement Sunday school, prayer meeting circles all heads bowed who prays first? Amen.

Running away, on my tricycle, running away to grandma's house, Mom running after me, me hiding in the woods in the ditch by Skjold's pond, Mom sounding so sad and desparate but me so mad I won't say a word if it kills me

Climbing the storm-pushed, might oak tree, fallen by the clothesline, shouting see me see me up here mom, up here mom continues to whistle and hang clothes she's younger than I am now were we ever that young she and I?

It's all like it's yesterday and all like it's another life and all like it's yesterday I want to go back there was something so NEW so amazing, so possible...

My grandfather, Sheldon Albert Fitzpatrick, was an extraordinary man. He kept bees and made his own honey. He ran a farm, and did the family's cobbling. Much to my grandmother's chagrin, he made homemade beer. A man of letters, he loved literature, passing that love down to my mother and thus to me. He cared about his community, and was Treasurer, Mayor, and keeper of the cemetery books and grounds at various times for our little village. Most of all, he was remembered as a warm man with a wonderful sense of humour, well-loved by all who knew him. I was only 5 years old when he died, so my memories of him are limited. I remember an old tall man who wore a hat, took naps on the porch, let me sit on his lap where I would give him sloppy kisses and in retaliation he would give me whisker rubs (I would squeal with laughter and love every minute of it)...and oh yes, the pink peppermints, the peppermints he would share with me that he loved so much...

I sat with my grandfather sometimes during his last days on this earth, when he was laying in his bed at home. When I would come to him and talk to him, he would call me his little girl, and my mother would weep saying I was the only one now that he seemed to recognize. I didn't fully understand that then, but cherish that memory now. It reminds me of when my own father said his last words to Mom and I, Mom saying "No more Hawkeye and Chingascook"...an allusion to other memories of a time when I shared special moments with my father as a little girl...

Stream of Consciousness II

overalls wide paintbrushes kerosene cleaning tree swish swosh swish swosh bark stained with years of paint leading down a path to a pet cemetery and Hawkeye and Chingascook can I be Chingascook today Popeye shared bathwater Iten's water service cisterns graindoor sidewalks hand-me-downs Outer Limits ceiling grate peek nightmares slanted ceilings that certain smell as I press my nose against the window screen noon 6pm 10pm town whistles county fair quansit hut blue ribbon jam Egg Pants Tonto George's general store from another time Friehboldt's Garage dime fridge pop swinging from the gas sign Dad filling up Old Man Friehboldt checking the oil exploring behind discovering old jail bars ghost firehouse horse-pulled truck curling rinks town pumps Bordnick's farm equipment cacophony vs. Hughes' livestock menagerie potato bugs canning wringer washer hanging reaching pinning squinting gathering folding the smell oh the smell crisp stiff alive tarp paper garages anti-anti-I-over scared running laughing screaming late Sunday night meetings jumping off church steps hide 'n seek around the church in the fall cold running until we see steam rising off our skins in the moonlight breathing so deep sore throats in the morning no regrets alive so alive so young was it all a dream