‘Tales from Pioneers & Soldiers Cemetery’ Archives
A Life in Six Paragraphs
from Tales from Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery By SUE HUNTER WEIR It’s been almost 150 years since Jacob Hodnefjeld died. Cemetery records have little to say about him. His burial permit notes that he was buried on November 14, 1875, but not the day that he died. His birth year was recorded as 1841 but doesn’t give a precise date and doesn’t mention where he was born. No cause of death was given. SOURCE: HODNEFJELD family He never married or had children but someone in his family knew his story and wrote it down. His photo and a six-paragraph biography are posted on ancestry.com. Those six paragraphs were published on page 273 of a family genealogy. As brief as it is, that biography fills in many of the gaps in Jacob’s story. It captures his hopes, his struggles, his relationship with family and friends, and offers a detailed description of the days leading up to his death.We now know that Jacob Hodnefield was born in Hodnefield, Norway on October 30, [...]
Tales from Pioneers + Soldiers Cemetery – Dec. ’23
Mother’s Biased Love and Loyalty Follows Chosen Son to the Grave and Beyond By SUE HUNTER WEIR Much, perhaps too much, has been written about Harry Hayward, the most notorious person buried in the Cemetery. Less has been written about his family. Harry was the youngest of William and Lodusky Hayward’s three sons. He was their golden boy, the son who could do no wrong—except that he orchestrated the murder-for-hire of Catherine (Kitty) Ging.Lodusky Hayward was perhaps the strangest member of the family. She was born in Illinois on August 5, 1836. In 1860, she married William Wirt Hayward. They had three sons: Thadeus, Adry, and Harry. Their only daughter, Williametta, died in 1870 when she was two years old.The Haywards arrived in Minnesota in the 1860s. William became a successful real estate dealer. Thadeus was a dentist, Adry a businessman, and Harry, who had no profession, was best known as a womanizer and gambler. Their lives were disrupted in 1894 when Harry was [...]
With No Vaccines and Antibiotics Thousands Died of Diphtheria
Vaccines and antibiotics have saved countless lives Tales fromPioneers and SoldiersMemorial Cemetery 216th in a Series By SUE HUNTER WEIR More than 800 people buried in the Cemetery, almost 670 of them children, died from diphtheria, a disease that has for the most part disappeared. It was a particularly cruel disease, one that often claimed two or more children of a family’s children within days of each other. Parents stood by watching their children struggling to breathe. So-called doctors and healers claimed to have liniments, ointments, and blood purifiers that guaranteed a 100% chance of a cure but it wasn’t true. There were no antibiotics, no vaccinations, nothing in the way of a cure. Fredricka Renlie, the beautiful little girl second from left, died from diphtheria on July 21, 1914. She was ten years old. She was one of more than 670 children buried in Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery who died from diphtheria. PHOTO: Renlie [...]
