What I did on my summer vacation! :) August 31, 2010

I remember being asked to write essays with that same title in school. Since students are in school this month it is appropriate to look back at what was a memorably busy summer of 2010. 

Meeting this lovely lady was one of the highlights. Ileana Colvill Myers is 93. Sharp as a tack and is the last of the “Split Rock Bunch.” The original lightkeepers and their families at Minnesota’s iconic Split Rock Lighthouse. Her father was a lightkeeper for decades. Ileana grew up at the lighthouse living there from 1922 (before Highway 61 was even built) to 1944. I wanted to videotape her recollections of living at Split Rock and how life changed once the highway came through. Let’s just say Ileana has tales to tell and we visited for hours! She’s now living in Colorado Springs and while I initially thought an interview with Ileana could wait until enough pre-production/research money was raised, when someone like Ileana is still around and willing to talk, well…you just can’t wait!! Ileana (EYE-leena) is kind, funny and a walking history lesson! This is a photo of Ileana and her Dad at the lighthouse. 

We used some of what she had to say during another memorable Summer 2010 event. I was a speaker at Split Rock Lighthouse’s 100th birthday celebration. As part of the festivities, the beacon was lit and it is an amazing sight!!! My camera simply doesn’t do it justice. People packed the grounds of the lighthouse, along the shoreline, along the highway and on Lake Superior to see what often isn’t seen by the general public. Once the beacon was lit, the flashes from cameras looked like a thousand fireflies in the July night. I thought of Ileana and her family and how many times they enjoyed the same sight. 

What an honor to have been asked to participate in festivities surrounding one of Minnesota’s best known (certainly most photographed) landmarks. The plan is to include a much longer story about the lighthouse and the role it played as an anchor along Highway 61 for the “Tales of the Road” sequel. Having first person stories from Ileana Colvill Myers is like stumbling upon a rich vein of gold. 

June included the wrap up to the city of White Bear Lake’s new community wide reading program that featured “Tales of the Road” as the first-ever selection. I was asked to be the White Bear Manitou Days parade Grand Marshal, an honor that also included my husband. He was a bit, um, bemused when he noticed his “second banana” billing on the side of the boat, but got into the event and ended up doing very respectable parade wave!!

“Floating” through the streets of White Bear Lake in a vintage wooden boat is one of those experiences you only do once in a lifetime. Kudos to White Bear city leaders for organizing such an important program that gets the community reading and talking about a specific book. I’m honored it was “Tales.”

My original plan called for staying OFF the road this summer and doing very little highway history. Turns out the sidetrips and detours were the most memorable parts of the whole summer sojourn. Isn’t that the way life goes? 

September 1 finds me back in the archives of the Minnesota Historical Society scrolling through microfiched newspapers…digging for nuggets. I’ll keep you up to date on progress!