‘Tales from Pioneers & Soldiers Cemetery’ Archives
Suicide by Melancholy Dane leaves family of 12 children
On April 1, 1904, the Minneapolis Journal ran a human-interest story under the headline, “A Big and Happy Family in Peter Clausen”'s Home.” They were, according to the reporter, “probably the most interesting family in the city of Minneapolis.” What made them interesting is that Peter and his wife, Marie, had 13 children, ranging in age from 21 years to seven weeks old. Peter and Marie were both born in Denmark. They met and married in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1881, and shortly afterward moved to Minneapolis. They never had much money; Peter Clausen worked for the Minneapolis Furniture Company, and the family lived in a small house at 2115 22nd Avenue South. The house was crowded but the family made room for a piano and a number of musical instruments. The children, at least those who were old enough to play an instrument, were all musical. Mr. Clausen was a great believer in the value of education and all of the children who were old enough were either in [...]
“Who Dyed?” “What is next to Which?” “Who”'s on First?” *
By Sue Hunter Wier Uncle Peter first? Joan Wardwell second?, all at Hodsdon”'s at Bloomington and Lake Farm next to Layman”'s In the late 19-teens and early 1920s several newspaper articles claimed that “Uncle” Peter Wardell (sometimes Wardwell or Waddell) was the second (or even the first) person buried in Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery. He was buried, so the stories go, either under what is now the bus stop at Cedar Avenue and Lake Street or in the far southeastern corner of the cemetery at Lake Street and 21st Avenue. Supposedly, Uncle Peter was an employee of Martin Layman who had moved to Minnesota with members of the Layman family in 1853. There”'s only one problem””“Uncle” Peter didn”'t exist. The confusion about this imaginary man is understandable, though. There is a person with a similar name who was among the earliest burials in the cemetery. Her name was Joan Robbins Wardwell. Mrs. Wardwell [...]
Deaths of entire family grieves Cora Stickney Deaths of husband and three children within 15 years grieved Cora Stickney greatly highlighted by 80 day vigil of daughter”'s “trance”
By Sue Hunter Weir It wasn”'t often that the death of someone buried in Layman”'s Cemetery was reported in the New York Times, but the story of Cora Stickney”'s burial was a most unusual, almost gothic, tale. Cora was the daughter of John H. and Ann Stickney; her parents were transplanted New Englanders, who moved to Minnesota shortly after the Civil War. Mr. Stickney was a Civil War veteran who served in the 16th Maine Infantry. After arriving in Minneapolis he went into business but by the early 1870s was in poor health, and on March 20, 1876, two weeks shy of his 34th birthday, he died of “quick consumption”. Less than six months later their youngest son and namesake, John Hanson Stickney, died from scarlet fever at the age of two. Ann Stickney went to work as a teacher to support her two surviving children, Cora and William. The 1880 federal census shows that Cora, then age 12, was no longer in school but working as an apprentice to a hair [...]
