Chasing History: From New Ulm to Minneapolis / St. Paul for some fun and a ton of research!

We left the beautiful German gingerbread town of New Ulm and headed towards the big cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The green lush farms and and giant windmills that scattered the countryside gave way to multi-lane highways, on and off ramps and tons of traffic! YUP! We were lucky to arrive just in time to hit RUSH HOUR! This was not a whole lot of fun but we made the best of it and tried to navigate our way to our hotel.

Humor does enter the picture right about now as we tried to follow the directions of our phone apps. Jacob had his GPS app set to give directions by a lady with a very basic Northern American accent. Me, I like to shake things up a bit and set my GPS lady's voice to a lovely British accent. Personally, if I had the choice to have her sound like the Cockney Eliza Doolittle from My Fair lady, I would have chosen that just for fun. I always thought it would be great to have over-the -top options for the voice... Maybe a super thick Jersey accent, or an angry New York Cab driver... how about a Mob boss or Pirate giving you directions Aye Matey? I would love to hear the voice of a sweet Southern gentleman telling me that honestly, there is no rush, sure I made a wrong turn but hey, there is a lovely park nearby where we can picnic by a stream and have ourselves a Mint Julep should we choose to not "RECALCULATE" and continue on our journey.

So... long story short... in the midst of rush hour, Jacob's American lady and my British lady are neck in neck with their directions. It truly sounded like they were arguing because they were telling us different ways to go. I was getting confused and Jacob realized he plugged in the right hotel, but the wrong address. Thankfully, I had the right one but with both ladies telling us where to go it was getting crazy confusing! We had a good laugh despite the chaos. Jacob's lady kept saying "STREET PAUL" instead of "SAINT PAUL" for the "ST"abbreviation" My British lady had it right and so I teased Jacob that my lady was more intelligent. (I have an iphone, he has a Windows phone). This bugged him because he is ALWAYS telling me how much better HIS phone is than mine.

AHHHH the joys of car rides, being stuck in traffic, having phones that argue and teasing your son!

What could be better?

How about the MALL OF AMERICA?! YUP!

We checked into our hotel and after quite a bit of panic and me trying to help rescue a child who had gotten his hand sucked into the elevator door as it was opening (BEWARE PARENTS!!! KEEP KID'S HANDS AWAY FROM THE ELEVATOR DOORS AT ALL TIMES!) It was very scary and thankfully the child ended up being ok! Whew!
I took a few moments to calm down after my adrenaline rush from trying to help and then we hopped back into the car to find this giant shopping mall we had heard so much about. It was time for some fun!
We didn't get too much shopping in before it closed that night but we did enjoy some yummy crepes, walking around and looking at the giant Lego displays and amusement park rides inside! We decided to come back the next day and play and we sure had fun doing so!!!

Jacob's favorite cartoon when he was little. I made them pose... yeah, they still love me! :-)

Didn't go on this one, nope. My feet literally had a mind of their own and took off in the opposite direction and wouldn't let me go near it.. strangest thing ever!.

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

The face I would have made had I gone on most of the rides here.
Let's just say, I chose wisely, didn't have to make this face and my body thanked me for it!

Nope.. did not attempt this slide...

The other big adventure we had while in the big cities was to head to St. Paul and to the wonderful Minnesota Historical Society Gale Family Library. OH MY!!! What a treasure to be able to research my family history here! I got to look through the original old books that weighed a ton. I scrolled through microfilm reels and printed out death certificates. I found old articles I had never seen before. There were answers to questions I had regarding how people passed away on their death certificates. These documents told me details that I had never been aware of. Stories that had been told through the years were actually proved wrong when I saw the certificates. I don't believe people shared too many details of a person's death back then. I especially doubt they bothered telling children the tragic details of how someone died. Unless the child was right there when it happened, I can imagine the details being skipped over and the information being delivered in a less tragic manor. Newspapers however, were incredibly graphic when they described accidents and deaths as compared to the way they write about them today. Maybe family members were too embarrassed or felt shameful as to how their relative died and wanted to keep it out of the papers. Afraid of gossip and alienation by neighbors if the real reasons got out into the public. I could see that as a reason why some stories and information would be kept private. All I had to go on regarding my own family were stories passed down and a few scattered articles I had found online and on a microfilm at a history center years ago. Finding information at this library was a total gift and I was able to finally fit a few more puzzle pieces into the big ol' ancestry puzzle I had been working on for years!

While at the library I found out many of my family members passed away from Tuberculosis. A few dealt with depression and I can obviously assume that the medicine and care was not the best back then. The knowledge about disease and mental illness was definitely not where it is today! I took some time to look at other hospital records besides my own family that were written in a big book starting from around 1875. It wasn't difficult to diagnose these patients myself after reading some of their symptoms. One man's arm and hand shook uncontrollably and so he was put into the insane hospital for being demented. What they thought was demented, I see as Parkinson's disease. It is the same sad disease that affected my beloved Grandfather on my mom's side. He was definitely NOT demented as this other poor man had been labeled back then. My Grandfather was lucky enough to live in a time where he wasn't put into a mental hospital but instead helped as best as could be with therapy and medication. Women suffered from postpartum depression. One poor lady suffered obviously from PMS and was sadly placed in the mental hospital for years and years. A man was depressed because he had black skin and was in love with the daughter of a farmer who had white skin and the farmer threatened to kill the man. This made the lovelorn man upset and although he tried, he couldn't get the lady out of his mind and so guess what? You got it.. declared insane and demented and there he went into the insane hospital with the explanation regarding his cause of insanity..."disappointed affection"

Here are a few more reasons for insanity that I saw...

WOW...

I just have to say I am thankful for how far we have come in the medical world. I assume that someday our medical practices will be considered absurd after they come up for cures for things that we currently and very desperately fight to survive from. At least I hope so! I pray to GOD we find cures for things like cancer and mental illness! I pray that our children's children can look back at our medical records and say... "OH MY GOSH!!! I can't BELIEVE they thought Chemotherapy was the best option for getting rid of cancer back then! All they have to do now is get vaccinated with a tiny little shot as a child!"

The Gale Library was filled with so much amazing historical information... I truly need more than just a few days to research! I could spend months there just pouring over all the incredible books! I will be back... oh yes, I WILL!!!