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A community newspaper serving Browerville, MN and surrounding areas. USPS 067-560

Thursday, December 30, 2010

 Volume 98; Number 29

 www.bladepublishing.net

Wed. Dec. 29

 Partly Cloudy

31°/27° 

Thurs. Dec. 30

 Rain/Snow

36°/24° 

Fri. Dec. 31

Snow Shower 

27°/3° 

Sat, Jan. 1

Snow Shower 

8°/-1° 

Sun. Jan. 2 

Sunny

8°/5° 

 Mon. Jan. 3 

 Partly Cloudy

16°/7° 

Tue. Jan. 4

 Mostly Sunny

19°/9° 

 W EEKLY W EATHER REPORT

75¢Herman Vennewitz - immigrant, miller,and generous neighbor

A review of the year 2010 ANUARY 2010

New Year’s babies were: Sophia, bornn. 1 to Breanna Karolus and Dalercher of Long Prairie and Chase Owen,

orn Jan. 1 to Nikkea and Jessey of aples.January was off to a cold start with

mps of -40° in the area.Former Branch Assistant Nancy Potter 

as promoted to Branch Manager of Longairie Public LibrarySherry Wangerin, Bertha, was the win-

er of $500 from the Todd County ADAairy promotion held during the month of 

ecember.Gary and Rita Stracek’s grandson,andon Schmitz, brought down an 800 bull elk with a single shot while huntingIdaho.Todd County Commissioner David

rcher was sworn in as the 2010hairman. Commissioner Mark Blessingas elected Vice Chair.

Members of Girl Scout Troops 316 and46 cleaned the Browerville Elementarychool windows and doors on January 7. An extensive investigation resulted in

umerous arrests and charges after a bur-ary occurred on property belonging to auple from the Long Prairie area who

ere wintering in Texas.

Daryl Brever was set to be theowerville Public School Boardhairman.

Walter Paulson, rural Parkers Prairie,ed in a house fire on January 19.

Matthew Tuttle, of Staples, was sen-nced for violent attacks he made on a

Wadena County Deputy and another while holding a four month old infant.

FEBRUARY 2010

Laura Duncan and Lucas Kalina wereselected at recipients of the2010 Browerville High School‘Triple A’ Award.

Champions of the DistrictFree Throw Contest were:Brendan Emery, NatePetermeier, Quinn Kircher,Megan Pachan, CrystalPearson, Katelyn Kellen, KylePetermeier, Trent Johnson,

and David Bachmeier.The Browerville Lions Clubserved nearly 200 breakfastsbefore the Superbowl.

  Austin Butler and AveryKuhnau competed in the 9thGrade and Under StateIndividual WrestlingTournament.

Six elementary Broncowrestlers, Landon Gode,Brendan Johnson, CaelLorentz, Carter Meiners,Mason Gode, and Levi Line,qualified for the State Jaycees Tourney.

Several inches of fresh, powdery snowcombined with strong winds to create

harsh driving conditions on February 8.Todd County was the recipient of a$10,000 grant from the InitiativeFoundation. The grant will be used tofocus on the needs of an aging ToddCounty population.

Chelsea Jones was the winner of the

local Spelling Bee and advanced to theRegional Spelling Bee.

Gene Tschida, Browerville, landed a38”, 16 lb. northern while fishing on

Horseshoe Lake.The fifth and sixth grade class from

Christ the King School took a trip to LongLake Conservation Center from February22 to February 24.

Brandon Tolifson’s family and friendsparticipated in the JDRF Walk for a Cureand raised over $3,100 for diabetesresearch.

MARCH 2010

In a flurry of rescinded, new, and dead-for-a-lack-of-a-second resolutions, ToddCounty Board of Commissioners attempt-

ed to put a lid on the contro-versy swirling around theVeterans Memorial Highwayat their March 2 meeting.

Lakewood Health Systemheld a grand opening for thenew Browerville Clinic.

Travis Borchert and RandySchamp were headed to thestate wrestling tournament.

Travis Borchert improvedhis record to a perfect 45-0 bywinning four matches at the2010 Minnesota State HighSchool League WrestlingTournament.

Brendan Emery advancedto the State FreethrowContest after making 21 of 25freethrows.

Browerville SportsmansClub held their 8th AnnualWinter Picnic.

The Annual BrowervilleSportsmans Club Banquet was also wellattended.

The Browerville BPA officers raised

nearly $80 to help fight world hunger.Five BPA members won at the statecompetition and moved on to NationalCompetition in California.

The Browerville 5th grade basketballteam took 1st place in the Detroit LakesShootout Basketball Tournament.

Six teams participated in the AlumniBasketball Tournament held at BHS.

Browerville City Employees andSentence to serve workers spend severalhours clearing a house located just east of Farmer’s Co-op Feed Store. The househas been condemned and the city hasdecided to dispose of the house.

Fred Bisel, of Eagle Bend, wentthrough the ice with his snowmobile onLake of the Woods and died on March 21.

Joyce Bednarz, Browerville, was thewinner of the $100 drawing for BrowervilleBlade subscribers.

The boys basketball team challengedand beat the FOOSHA (Fat, Old, OutaShape, Heart Attack) team in a game toraise funds for the Make-A-WishFoundation.

APRIL 2010

The Eagle Valley school bond referen-dum election failed.

Over 550 people attended theFarmer’s Co-op Feed Store Annual OpenHouse and Customer Appreciation Day.

Former Senator Mark Dayton met withvoters at Griff’s Pizza in Long Prairie.Later he stopped in Staples as part of hisstatewide tour of Minnesota’s 87 countiesin 87 days.

Browerville/Eagle Valley elementary

wrestling Broncos had three state champi-ons: Landon Gode, Cael Lorentz andCarter Meiners.

Browerville kindergarteners visitedKonetzko’s Meat Market and were given atour and shown how sausage is made.The class has been visiting the market

The mill Herman Vennewitz built on Vennewitz Creek near Long Prairie may have looked

mular to the restored Phelp’s Mill in Ottertail County.

Continued on back page

This is the fifth story in our series aboutthe settlers who built Todd County in thelast half of the nineteenth century.By Rin Porter 

One of the earliest settlers in Todd

County was Herman Vennewitz, who arrived

in the Long Prairie area in 1868.

Herman Vennewitz was born in Kriesen

Buren, in the Westfalen area of Germany, in

1824. Passenger records show him arriving

at the port of Philadelphia in 1847 on the ship

Brig George Delius. From there, he made his

way to St Louis, Missouri, where he lived for 

a number of years.

Herman Vennewitz married Theresa

Wefenselle in April 1850, at St Louis. They

had a son, Berthol, born in 1853. Theresa

died in June 1853, and Herman remarried inSeptember. His new wife was Dorothea

Bedlingmeier. The Vennewitzs journeyed to

Marystown, in Scott County, Minnesota,

soon after, and their son Philip was born

there in 1854. Back in St Louis, they had five

more children (Dorothea, Herman, Anna,

Margretha, and Frank) during the next eight

years, and in 1863, they again went to

Marystown, Scott County, Minnesota, where

three more children (Carl Joseph, Barbara,

and John) were born.

While the Vennewitzs were in

Marystown, they lived in Sand Creek

Township. The History of the Minnesota

Valley lists 11 other settlers in the township atthat time. This book also reports that Herman

Vennewitz was elected a town supervisor in

1858. It may have been the case that the

Vennewitz family traveled back and forth

from Scott County, Minnesota, to St Louis,

Missouri, between 1854 and 1863, but we

don’t know why. Since Herman was elected

a town supervisor, he must have had a con-

tinuing presence in Scott County.

Their eleventh and last child, Bernard,

was born in December 1868, in Long Prairie.

O.B. DeLaurier, the Long Prairie Leader 

reporter who wrote down a great deal of 

Todd County history, wrote on Dec. 24, 1942,

that Herman Vennewitz “found nothing at

Long Prairie and was thus thrown complete-

ly upon his own resources to support hislarge family. He was a man of energy and

eager to cooperate with his neighbors as fast

as they arrived. He bought land and built a

house on the site of the present high school

building, where he lived until his death.

When new settlers arrived and had no place

to go, they were sure of the hospitality of 

Herman Vennewitz.”

DeLaurier wrote that Herman Vennewitz

was a religious man, and “was instrumental

in having the first Catholic services held at

Long Prairie after he came with his family.”

Continued on page 6