Whatever the facts were – and most of them certainly were true – the end result is upper-midwestern art history:<\/p>\n
Yesterday would be the 110th birthday of my grandmother, Beatrice Berg.<\/p>\n
I need to get a little clearer on some of my family’s lore – my immediate family has always been terrible at passing its stories down. \u00a0Near as I can tell, she was the older daughter of a Norwegian immigrant farmer and immigrant from S\u00f8r-Tr\u00f8ndelag, Berndt Gr\u00e6sli (anglicized to Gresley), born not far from Thief River Falls, MN. \u00a0She grew up in or near Middle River.<\/p>\n
When she was in her late teens (as I recall the story) she took up with a couple of her aunts – who were, according to the accounts I’ve heard, the sort of thing that they’d write Lifetime movies about today; a couple of flinty, hard-bitten businesswomen who were in the business of starting photography studios around northern Minnesota. \u00a0Grandma worked at a few of these studios, learning the trade.<\/p>\n
It’s there that Grandma Bea did something that, likely, most of you are acquinted with. \u00a0She was working at the studio of Eric Enstrom in the small northern Minnesota town of Bovey, when…<\/p>\n
…well, I’ve never heard the definitive story; some of it, I got from my parents; others, from a Jamestown Sun <\/em>piece from the 1970’s that I still remember. \u00a0The stories include various elements from the following narrative, all of which I’ll relate just for simplicity’s sake. \u00a0One day she met an old guy in a mainstreet cafe, Charles Wilden, a travelling salesman namedwith a striking visage, whom she introduced to Enstrom. \u00a0And then helped dress the set and assisted with the photo shoot, and helped do some of the hand-coloring of the print afterward (along with Enstrom’s daughter – like I said, the story gets complicated).<\/p>\n Whatever the facts were – and most of them certainly were true – the end result is upper-midwestern art history:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.statesymbolsusa.org\/IMAGES\/Minnesota\/Grace-Minnesota-state-photo.jpg\")
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