history book

Nestled between Lakes and Wooded Hills

The Centennial History of the Avon Area

Jeanette Blonigen Clancy

Available for $29.95 at Avon City Hall, Avon State Bank, Dahlin’s Market, and the Quik Mart in Avon, at Cold Spring Bakery and the Stearns History Museum in St. Cloud.

In 2000, Avon celebrated its centennial of incorporation and published a history of the area, Nestled between Lakes and Wooded Hills: the Centennial History of the Avon Area. Many families have moved here since then and are unaware of its nearly 500 pages of historical research, entertaining stories, memorable personalities, and pictures.

You can hardly get closer to Lake Wobegon than Avon. So says Garrison Keillor. From the first time author Clancy heard him kidding about “Norwegian Lutherans,” she knew he was talking about her people, the German Catholics of Stearns County. They crowded out and dominated other populations in the county, the Polish in Holdingford and St. Anna, the Irish in St. Wendel, the Slovenes in St. Stephen, and the German Lutherans in Albany. Catholics outnumbered them and named all the sainted towns in this corner that time forgot. Read stories about them all and say, “Woe, be gone!” Here is one much-shortened story.

A single farm drive connects to the road between St. John’s and I-94. It leads to the homestead of Alois and Maria Himsl, immigrants from Upper Austria whose offspring still live there and around Avon. Alois Himsl had learned the art of brewing beer, a respected profession flourishing in Old World monasteries, and this brought him to St. John’s in 1883. At a monastery founded by Bavarian monks he was sure he could continue his profession.

What sent him out to the New World was a lawsuit by the Count von Salzburg. Alois left behind Maria and six children in Austria, who waited for “definite facts . . . and when he expected us to follow him,” wrote son Joseph Himsl years later.

Maria knew only that Alois worked in Minnesota at “St. John’s College” and a monastery called St. Louis of the Sea, endowed by King Ludwig I of Bavaria. No more letters arriving and her money dwindling, Maria decided to herd the children on trains (sleeping on the floors of depots) to the port of Bremerhaven where they boarded a ship as steerage passengers. Several adventures later they arrived at the port of Baltimore.

Using Maria’s scant information, trains in the New World brought them from Baltimore to St. Joseph, Minnesota. Son Joseph, the oldest at age eleven, remembered,

. . . no one at the depot and it was dark everywhere, and we were perfect strangers, mother with six children, one a dying babe in arms, and only fifty cents in money. Seeing lights, Maria headed for a saloon, hoping it was a Gasthaus. The saloonkeeper also had “a hotel” to put up the family, and inquiries reunited the family with Alois the next morning in time to see the baby die.

Alois had lived in a log addition to “the old Mathes Dilger [probably Dullinger] house, which stood on the south side of Island Lake,” wrote Joseph. As St. John’s Brewery did not exist, Alois Himsl did odd jobs but learned that St. John’s needed stonemasons. At the suggestion of a worker, he claimed to be a mason. Father Gregor, the supervisor, saw his lack of skill, but they needed workers and Himsl needed work. In 1885 he bought 80 acres of heavy timberland, the beginning of the farm off I-94.

A granddaughter of Alois and Maria became June Marlowe, silent film star and Miss Crabtree in Our Gang comedies. But Joseph Himsl’s story has no less interest. On the family picture taken after arrival from Europe, he stands tall and apart, behind the rest. He became a teacher, a lawyer, school board member, director of Zapp bank, vice president of Der Nordstern, probate judge and district judge.

The Himsl story in Nestled between Lakes and Wooded Hills: The Centennial History of the Avon Area lacks one detail that came to light after the book came out. Joseph was the illegitimate son of a nobleman who gave Maria a lot of money for the boy’s education. It is possible that he sued Alois and Maria because he was dissatisfied with how they spent the money. The Himsls were stripped of their belongings, separated from their children and imprisoned for several days. In Joseph’s words, they “were totally vindicated as they had done no wrong,” but it propelled them to a new life in America.

Did Joseph enter the legal profession because of his history? Did he even know his history? Enticing questions.

**********

In the Avon Hills publication, St. John’s, January 2010

A single farmstead connects to the road between St. John’s and I-94. It was the homestead of Alois and Maria Himsl, immigrants from Upper Austria whose offspring still farm there. But what brought Alois to St. John’s in 1883 was that he had learned the art of brewing beer, a respected profession flourishing at monasteries in the Old World. And what sent him out to the New World was a lawsuit from the Count von Salzburg.

Maria, left behind with six children in Austria, waited for “definite facts . . . and when he expected us to follow him,” wrote her son Joseph years later. She knew only that Alois worked in Minnesota at “St. John’s College” and a monastery called St. Louis of the Sea, endowed by King Ludwig I of Bavaria. No more letters arriving and her money dwindling, Maria decided to herd the children on trains, sleeping on the floors of depots, to the port of Bremerhaven where they boarded the ship Herman as steerage passengers.

With her scant information, trains in the New World brought them from the port of Baltimore to St. Joseph. The oldest at age eleven, son Joseph later remembered, “. . . no one at the depot and it was dark everywhere, and we were perfect strangers, mother with six children, one a dying babe in arms, and only fifty cents in money.” Seeing lights, Maria headed for a saloon, hoping it was a Gasthaus. The saloonkeeper also had “a hotel” to put up the family, and inquiries reunited the family with Alois the next morning in time to see the baby die.

Alois had lived in a log addition to “the old Mathes Dilger [probably Dullinger] house, which stood on the south side of Island Lake.” As St. John’s Brewery did not exist, Alois Himsl did odd jobs but learned that St. John’s needed stonemasons. At the suggestion of a worker, he claimed to be a mason. Father Gregor, the supervisor, saw his lack of skill, but they needed workers and Himsl needed work. In 1885 he bought 80 acres of heavy timberland, the beginning of the farm.

The Himsl story in Nestled between Lakes and Wooded Hills: The Centennial History of the Avon Area lacks one detail that came to light after the book came out. Joseph was the son of a nobleman who gave Maria a lot of money for the boy’s education. Perhaps dissatisfied with how the money was spent, he eventually sued. Alois and Maria were stripped of their belongings, separated from their children and imprisoned for several days. In Joseph’s words, they “were totally vindicated as they had done no wrong,” but it propelled them to a new life.

When I was interviewing seniors, no one used the term Avon Hills.

Sources I connected with this week: Urban Keppers, 88,

Lee and Donald Schmid, great grandsons of Nick Keppers, first owner of the land that became the townsite of Avon and who signed the original plat of the village along with rep’s of the railroad. Also grandsons of Frank Schmid, of whom Fred Schilplin, editor of the St. Cloud Times, said, “If there was ever such a thing as a one-man town, it was Avon and Frank Schmid was the man.”

Lee and Donald grew up in the 1930s and said they didn’t use the term Avon Hills, but they often skied and camped and hunted squirrels on Schlueter’s Hills [assumed that someone w the name lived around there; one big hill with smaller ones around it].

Don: Every Sunday they took their skis and headed south over Immerfall’s pasture to Linneman Lake. They skied across the lake, then climbed up the hills and skied down steep slopes between trees. Don: “There were no designated slopes.” “If you were real brave you’d go down steep hills with lots of trees.”

Urban Keppers had a job helping with wood cutting. “Hills were so doggone steep they wrapped log chains around the sled runners to slow them down because the horses couldn’t keep up” with gravity.

Schlueter’s Hills are between Linneman Lake and Lover’s Lane. They’re the hills we look at as we’re driving down Hoffarth Hill on Cty 9, Avon on the left, and the hills straight ahead. From Avon the hills we face crossing I-94. I think they’re also the hills that at one time were going to be turned into a ski resort.

The hills didn’t belong to anybody; belonged to State of MN. Could be bought just by paying the taxes—“tax title.” But no one wanted to buy them because “they weren’t good for anything, you couldn’t raise anything on them. No one had any money at that time either.”

The Avon Boy Scouts went camping there for 3 days at a time. They walked south of town into the hills and set up camp and went squirrel hunting. There were a few clearings where wood had been harvested—wood a big cash crop then.

Lee remembered during the dry years of the 30s cattle unloaded from the train, herded through town to the hills south, where trees were cut down so the cows could eat the leaves. Then in fall the wood was used for fuel.

Lee and Donald and Urban said the hills didn’t look much different from afar than they do now, but the things looked much different in the 19th C. p 162