‘Tales from Pioneers & Soldiers Cemetery’ Archives
Buster Keaton”'s “The Cameraman” with live soundtrack by “Dreamland Faces” share Memorial Day Highlights while fundraising and plans begin to replace over 60 Civil and Spanish-American War marble markers
By Sue Hunter Weir While our friends on the East Coast are digging out after their second worst blizzard in recorded history, we”'re thinking spring. That”'s right. Even though it”'s February in Minnesota, we are getting ready for the Cemetery”'s reopening in April. In addition to our usual winter-time activities, such as planning a Memorial Day observance, organizing some tours, and giving some talks to people who want to know more about Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery and its residents, we have a few other projects that we”'re working on. The first and easiest (because we”'re now doing it for a third time) is planning another Cinema in the Cemetery for Memorial Day weekend. It was so easy, that we”'re already done. On Saturday, May 28th, at sundown, we”'ll be showing Buster Keaton”'s “The Cameraman.” Local musicians, Dreamland Faces, will be back by very popular demand to perform a live soundtrack. If you [...]
Descendant of Norwegian seafarers chose baking, centuries later in Norway and in Minneapolis
Grandson writes from scarce documents By John Ferman, Guest Author Inside the Main Lake Street Gates and just beyond the Civil War plots stands a columnar marble marker. Its legends are barely readable save for the name at the bottom: FERMAN. Here lies one of the early Minneapolis bakers: John Christian Ferman with his wife, Josephine, eldest daughter, and youngest son. John descended from a long line of Norwegian seafarers stretching back to the 17th Century. He was born the 24th of November 1856 in Kragerø, Norway and christened Johan Christian Winther Fermann. Johan was the seventh of a brood of eight. John was 8 when his father, Peter Biørn Fermann, was lost at sea. John”'s eldest brother, Niels Paulsen Fermann, was lost at sea ten years later when John was 18 in 1874. A year later Johan was in the 1875-Folketelling for Kristiana,** Norway as a journeyman baker. The year of John”'s* immigration is uncertain but was somewhere between 1879 and 1882. In [...]
Early deaths plague Montain family
Albert Montain and his friends were just fooling around. His friends dared him to climb to the top of the telegraph pole at the corner of 7th Street and Cedar Avenue on the West Bank. He made it, but as he turned to wave to his friends he made contact with the electrical wires and was electrocuted. It was September 26, 1911, and Albert was sixteen years old. Albert had lost both of his parents by the time that he was six. His mother, Christine, died from tuberculosis on January 16, 1901, and his father, Adolph, died from brain fever on March 29, 1903. The responsibility for holding the family together fell to Albert”'s older siblings. Richard, the oldest, was 18 years old when their father died; Hilma, the oldest daughter, was 17. The other three of six children were Ellen, aged 14, George aged nine and Walter aged eight. Their parents, Adolph and Christine Montain, were born in Sweden. They married in 1883 and the following year left Sweden for Minnesota. By 1884 Adolph was [...]
