The scrapblog editor, who often finds the present bewildering, has a soft spot for the past, especially for little stories that illuminate the humanity and vulnerabilities of those who have gone before us. It's strangely endearing to learn of them. She also has inherited the love our grandma, Maria Augustin Sprick, and her mom, Alverna Sprick Miller, had for long drives in the cou
ntry, especially when the country is the beautiful back roads of Goodhue and Wabasha counties west of Hwy. 61.
Today she kidnapped Aunt Anna in Red Wing and Uncle Joe in Lake City, who probably had a lot better things to do but were too polite to say so (an endearing Sprick family trait), and drove them way up into blufftop farm country in search of ancestral cemeteries and pretty vistas.
They found some ancestors in two tiny pioneer cemeteries in an area called Belvidere Mills, in Belvidere Township in Goodhue County. These cemeteries are beautiful, set on deep green hillsides off gravel roads far from any towns. In late August, the wind whistles through the big oaks and cedars and rustling cornstalks and tall prairie grasses, and the deer and foxes and meadowlarks and crickets go intensely about their business. Even if you're not looking for old relatives' graves, we highly recommend this drive, especially for us urban
cousins who don't see a lot of L-shaped farmhouses or 8-foot native buffalo grass on our cul-de-sacs. The area is pretty much exactly the way it was in 1850 (don't tell Jesse Ventura or Hale Irwin, please).
We drove west on Hwy. 63, then north on Wabasha County Rd. 15, which turns into Goodhue County Rd. 9, then went north through some serious boondocks on 280th Avenue and west on 370th Street (rustic roads that don't resemble urban avenues or streets in any way), and from there, I couldn't tell you where we went, frankly -- it was this cornfield, that oak stand, this crick, that hayfield, though we end up exactly where we wanted to be, another Sprick family trait.
Our first stop was at a well-kept old graveyard on a windswept emerald-green hillside across from St. Peter's Church. There we found the graves of Henrich (1853-1938) and Anna Augustin (1863-1909), Grandma Sprick's parents, as well as a very old, ornate, melancholy headstone for their little Johann, who died in 1894 at age 2.
Then we wandered a couple more miles on a gravel road (Betcher Trail, I think it was
) until we found Belvidere Union Cemetery, an even older cemetery on a hillside where there used to be a church but now is nothing but graves, trees and cornfields. There we found headstones for Frederick (1848-1920) and Adelheid Sprick (1848-1878), Claus' parents; Margaret Sprick (1863-1951), Fred's second wife, and two Sprick boys, Christ, who died in 1894 at age 10, and Alfred, who is unmentioned in the cemetery's list and in Alverna's family history, perhaps because he only lived one year, dying in 1901.
The scrapblog editor noted that both cemeteries hold way too many babies and children who died in 1894-95, which not coincidentally were years in which diphtheria, a horrific and highly contagious disease, ran amok. (Thank goodness, middle-aged cousins, that we live in the era of modern vaccines rather than in 1895; we've winced as our robust babies screeched through their DPT (diphtheria-pertussis (whooping cough)-tetanus) vaccines, but we've never had to sit stricken in a rural parlor where a little coffin sat propped on two wooden chairs, bearing the unbearable. Google "diphtheria" sometime to see what we've missed.)
If you're interested in genealogy, you'll find a treasure trove online. You can find info about the Spricks and Augustins all over the Web, including at
the Minnesota Historical Society site, the Goodhue County Historical Society site and several other eclectic ones
like this one about Belvidere Union Cemetery established by history buffs.
You can read the engravings on the tombstones pictured much more easily if you click on a photo to make it much larger.
Joe and Anna are especially great companions for cemetery field trips. Anna knew half of the people buried in the places, some of whom, quite frankly, she misses more than others, and Joe cleverly unlatched ancient gates and unearthed the tombstones of babies dead for more than 100 years. The conversation was fetching, too. Here's a sample:
Anna: "What did you just find, there, Joe?"
Joe: "Well, I believe we've just unearthed Christ's tomb." (That would be Christ Sprick, age 10, dead of the diphtheria in 1894.)
Anna: "That fellow over there [pointing to a grave], he had 18 children."
Joe: "He just couldn't be satisfied with 17, not that guy. Nope. Had to be 18."
The Hebrews 13:14 Bible verse in German on the Augustins' grave translates thusly:
"For here have we no abiding city, but we seek one to come." Much as we love Manhattan and Minneapolis, we hope heaven has some countryside exactly like that these cemeteries are set in. It seems pretty heavenlike to us.
The scrapblog editor, who often finds the present bewildering, has a soft spot for the past, especially for little stories that illuminate the humanity and vulnerabilities of those who have gone before us. It's strangely endearing to learn of them. She also has inherited the love our grandma, Maria Augustin Sprick, and her mom, Alverna Sprick Miller, had for long drives in the cou
ntry, especially when the country is the beautiful back roads of Goodhue and Wabasha counties west of Hwy. 61.
Today she kidnapped Aunt Anna in Red Wing and Uncle Joe in Lake City, who probably had a lot better things to do but were too polite to say so (an endearing Sprick family trait), and drove them way up into blufftop farm country in search of ancestral cemeteries and pretty vistas.
They found some ancestors in two tiny pioneer cemeteries in an area called Belvidere Mills, in Belvidere Township in Goodhue County. These cemeteries are beautiful, set on deep green hillsides off gravel roads far from any towns. In late August, the wind whistles through the big oaks and cedars and rustling cornstalks and tall prairie grasses, and the deer and foxes and meadowlarks and crickets go intensely about their business. Even if you're not looking for old relatives' graves, we highly recommend this drive, especially for us urban 
cousins who don't see a lot of L-shaped farmhouses or 8-foot native buffalo grass on our cul-de-sacs. The area is pretty much exactly the way it was in 1850 (don't tell Jesse Ventura or Hale Irwin, please).
We drove west on Hwy. 63, then north on Wabasha County Rd. 15, which turns into Goodhue County Rd. 9, then went north through some serious boondocks on 280th Avenue and west on 370th Street (rustic roads that don't resemble urban avenues or streets in any way), and from there, I couldn't tell you where we went, frankly -- it was this cornfield, that oak stand, this crick, that hayfield, though we end up exactly where we wanted to be, another Sprick family trait.
Our first stop was at a well-kept old graveyard on a windswept emerald-green hillside across from St. Peter's Church. There we found the graves of Henrich (1853-1938) and Anna Augustin (1863-1909), Grandma Sprick's parents, as well as a very old, ornate, melancholy headstone for their little Johann, who died in 1894 at age 2.
Then we wandered a couple more miles on a gravel road (Betcher Trail, I think it was
) until we found Belvidere Union Cemetery, an even older cemetery on a hillside where there used to be a church but now is nothing but graves, trees and cornfields. There we found headstones for Frederick (1848-1920) and Adelheid Sprick (1848-1878), Claus' parents; Margaret Sprick (1863-1951), Fred's second wife, and two Sprick boys, Christ, who died in 1894 at age 10, and Alfred, who is unmentioned in the cemetery's list and in Alverna's family history, perhaps because he only lived one year, dying in 1901.
The scrapblog editor noted that both cemeteries hold way too many babies and children who died in 1894-95, which not coincidentally were years in which diphtheria, a horrific and highly contagious disease, ran amok. (Thank goodness, middle-aged cousins, that we live in the era of modern vaccines rather than in 1895; we've winced as our robust babies screeched through their DPT (diphtheria-pertussis (whooping cough)-tetanus) vaccines, but we've never had to sit stricken in a rural parlor where a little coffin sat propped on two wooden chairs, bearing the unbearable. Google "diphtheria" sometime to see what we've missed.)
If you're interested in genealogy, you'll find a treasure trove online. You can find info about the Spricks and Augustins all over the Web, including at the Minnesota Historical Society site, the Goodhue County Historical Society site and several other eclectic ones like this one about Belvidere Union Cemetery established by history buffs.
You can read the engravings on the tombstones pictured much more easily if you click on a photo to make it much larger.
Joe and Anna are especially great companions for cemetery field trips. Anna knew half of the people buried in the places, some of whom, quite frankly, she misses more than others, and Joe cleverly unlatched ancient gates and unearthed the tombstones of babies dead for more than 100 years. The conversation was fetching, too. Here's a sample:
Anna: "What did you just find, there, Joe?"
Joe: "Well, I believe we've just unearthed Christ's tomb." (That would be Christ Sprick, age 10, dead of the diphtheria in 1894.)
Anna: "That fellow over there [pointing to a grave], he had 18 children."
Joe: "He just couldn't be satisfied with 17, not that guy. Nope. Had to be 18."
The Hebrews 13:14 Bible verse in German on the Augustins' grave translates thusly: "For here have we no abiding city, but we seek one to come." Much as we love Manhattan and Minneapolis, we hope heaven has some countryside exactly like that these cemeteries are set in. It seems pretty heavenlike to us.
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