LOOKING INTO THE MINNESOTA PAST
.Todd’s mother Marge Kirkpatrick Mahy was the daughter of Hattie and William Kirkpatrick. Her brother was Bob Kirkpatrick and her sister was Norma Lea Kirkpatrick Larsen. It was Norma Lea’s memorial service, Todd’s aunt, who died earlier this year at 100, whose memorial service we were coming to.
We spent the day driving through Minnesota where the Larson family lived in the little town of Oakland, shopped in the larger town of Albert Lea and went to high school in the still larger town of Austin.
We also visited the Fairview Cemetery in Moscow where the Kirkpatrick parents and other relatives with Lyle as their last name were buried. As a boy Todd came with his mother to visit here and had fond memories of Oakland where many of the buildings including the small school have disappeared.
It was another little town that was slowly declining. In Austin we drove by the church where Todd’s mother, Marge and father, John Mahy were married and looked at the high school that she attended.
We then drove through the wooded rolling hills along the Mississippi to the small town of Caledonia where a plaque honored David Kunst, the first person to walk around the world. He was joined for awhile by his brother who was killed when they were attacked in Afghanistan by bandits.
Wednesday night we stayed outside of La Crosse, a university town, in Onalaska, at the Lake View Hotel on the mighty Mississippi River. The next morning we drove through the pretty Mississippi River front town of Tremeleau
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 