June 17th started with a call to our daughter Connie to wish her and Eric a Happy 10th Anniversary! Then we got a call from our son DJ. Didn’t break camp until 10:20 to head off across Northern MN to Detroit Lakes via route 200. Stopped by the Northern Lights Indian Casino to try our luck on the slots for a few minutes. We left with a net win of about $35, mostly Pat’s fortune! Not bad for a retired hour! Next came Akeley, MN and a huge statue of Paul Bunyon where I got a photo of Pat sitting in his hand. This trip along route 200 is a beautiful roadway with many small lakes and of course trees everywhere. Not a place for “city folk” who don’t like outdoor scenery. Stopped at Leech Lake for lunch where we errantly took a small road exit to the roadside park and rather violently rocked our way through some gigantic mud puddles trying to find our way back to route 200.
We got to Detroit Lakes and the American Legion Campground around 3:45 and set up with full hook-ups in the very busy park located right across form the lakeshore and very near the commercial lakefront shops and beach. The last 25 miles before Detroit Lakes (DL a
s locals call it) saw the terrain flatten considerably and change into nice farmland from forests. John and Cheryl Flatt (photo left) came to the RV to greet and welcome us. They gave us a pack age we had shipped to them by a vendor. It is a Tow Car Shield, a leather like cover to put over the Saturn when towing it on gravel or dirt roads which we expect to encounter in Northern Canada and Alaska. We thanked them and then went into the RV and shared old family photos of the Flatt family that we had brought just for the occasion of the Flatt reunion scheduled for Sunday. John and Cheryl then gave us a quick city tour and treated us to a nice Chinese dinner while we learned more about each other and the family ties. John is the one who has assembled much of the Flatt family information and has had a hard bound book published for the descendants of Joseph James Flatt who is Pat’s Great Great Great Grandfather. When John had gotten to Pat’s grandfather when assembling the book, he had only that her father and his brother and an unknown child were born of his marriage to Mabel Smalley and nothing further. It was only by chance that one of John’s cousins had met Cindy Conley Vipond, a cousin of Pat’s on her mother’s side in Phoenix, AZ last winter. When Cindy saw the cousin’s last name of Flatt she inquired if he had relatives in California and that led to her giving Pat’s name and address to him. The cousin passed the information on to John and John called Pat and invited us to the reunion and it times in well with our Alaska trip. Sound confusing? It was to us to for quite awhile too!
Saturday morning John and Cheryl entertained us with a
delightful brunch in their beautiful home (photo right) on a small lake just outside DL. Following brunch we drove to meet John’s father, Herbert and his wife Stella. We then took off with John and Herb, now age 86, to visit cemeteries and the old Flatt homestead in farmland near Gardner, ND. The old homestead had been cleared away and the land is now cropland but Herb could point out where it was located. The trip took us over many miles of dirt roads so prevalent in the rural farmlands of ND. The weather was hot and we saw much of the flooding of the river by Fargo, ND
that was still occurring following very heavy recent rains. Late in the day we returned to DL and met up with Merle and Marion Flatt from Valley City, ND and Stella and Cheryl joined us to make a nice group for dinner at the former Elks Lodge now a restaurant. Since today is our 39th Wedding Anniversary we bought wine for all to help us celebrate that with a group of new found relatives.
Sunday June 19 we slept in a bit in the RV. Then Pat fixed prepared a nice Father’s Day breakfast of pancakes and bacon. After making a veggie pizza to take along we went to the reunion being held in the American Legion Hall adjacent to the RV park. There were about 22-25 people there and we spent
most of the time meeting them and sharing the Flatt family photos with them in hopes of identifying many of the unknown folks in the old photos as well as letting them reminisce over them. We left the large box of photos with John Flatt to allow him to digitally scan any of them he wishes to. The event was a pot luck meal also and the food was excellent! We chatted quite a bit with Merle and Marion Flatt, Merle has many features that very much remind Pat of her father, Bob Flatt who passed away in 1987. The resemblance is very close. Merle is a semi-retired farmer and they graciously invited us to visit them in Valley City where they would show us Pat’s grandfather Gordon Flatt’s grave. We quickly accepted their kind offer.
That evening after the reunion we spent some time making a VHS video for John of a digital videotape Dick had made of John’s father Herb telling us stories and about the places we had visited with him and John on Saturday. We left the tape at John and Cheryl’s. Dick had a great Father’s day as he also received calls from both Connie and her family and from Dick Jr. and his family
We got to Detroit Lakes and the American Legion Campground around 3:45 and set up with full hook-ups in the very busy park located right across form the lakeshore and very near the commercial lakefront shops and beach. The last 25 miles before Detroit Lakes (DL a
s locals call it) saw the terrain flatten considerably and change into nice farmland from forests. John and Cheryl Flatt (photo left) came to the RV to greet and welcome us. They gave us a pack age we had shipped to them by a vendor. It is a Tow Car Shield, a leather like cover to put over the Saturn when towing it on gravel or dirt roads which we expect to encounter in Northern Canada and Alaska. We thanked them and then went into the RV and shared old family photos of the Flatt family that we had brought just for the occasion of the Flatt reunion scheduled for Sunday. John and Cheryl then gave us a quick city tour and treated us to a nice Chinese dinner while we learned more about each other and the family ties. John is the one who has assembled much of the Flatt family information and has had a hard bound book published for the descendants of Joseph James Flatt who is Pat’s Great Great Great Grandfather. When John had gotten to Pat’s grandfather when assembling the book, he had only that her father and his brother and an unknown child were born of his marriage to Mabel Smalley and nothing further. It was only by chance that one of John’s cousins had met Cindy Conley Vipond, a cousin of Pat’s on her mother’s side in Phoenix, AZ last winter. When Cindy saw the cousin’s last name of Flatt she inquired if he had relatives in California and that led to her giving Pat’s name and address to him. The cousin passed the information on to John and John called Pat and invited us to the reunion and it times in well with our Alaska trip. Sound confusing? It was to us to for quite awhile too!Saturday morning John and Cheryl entertained us with a
delightful brunch in their beautiful home (photo right) on a small lake just outside DL. Following brunch we drove to meet John’s father, Herbert and his wife Stella. We then took off with John and Herb, now age 86, to visit cemeteries and the old Flatt homestead in farmland near Gardner, ND. The old homestead had been cleared away and the land is now cropland but Herb could point out where it was located. The trip took us over many miles of dirt roads so prevalent in the rural farmlands of ND. The weather was hot and we saw much of the flooding of the river by Fargo, ND
that was still occurring following very heavy recent rains. Late in the day we returned to DL and met up with Merle and Marion Flatt from Valley City, ND and Stella and Cheryl joined us to make a nice group for dinner at the former Elks Lodge now a restaurant. Since today is our 39th Wedding Anniversary we bought wine for all to help us celebrate that with a group of new found relatives.Sunday June 19 we slept in a bit in the RV. Then Pat fixed prepared a nice Father’s Day breakfast of pancakes and bacon. After making a veggie pizza to take along we went to the reunion being held in the American Legion Hall adjacent to the RV park. There were about 22-25 people there and we spent
most of the time meeting them and sharing the Flatt family photos with them in hopes of identifying many of the unknown folks in the old photos as well as letting them reminisce over them. We left the large box of photos with John Flatt to allow him to digitally scan any of them he wishes to. The event was a pot luck meal also and the food was excellent! We chatted quite a bit with Merle and Marion Flatt, Merle has many features that very much remind Pat of her father, Bob Flatt who passed away in 1987. The resemblance is very close. Merle is a semi-retired farmer and they graciously invited us to visit them in Valley City where they would show us Pat’s grandfather Gordon Flatt’s grave. We quickly accepted their kind offer.That evening after the reunion we spent some time making a VHS video for John of a digital videotape Dick had made of John’s father Herb telling us stories and about the places we had visited with him and John on Saturday. We left the tape at John and Cheryl’s. Dick had a great Father’s day as he also received calls from both Connie and her family and from Dick Jr. and his family
1 comment:
Dick ..
I was waiting to read the post you were going to do on your visit to Detroit Lakes, MN. Our daughter-in-law's parents live in DL! Their name is Schwartzrock (Jerry & Ardel). Until we met the Schwartzrocks, I'd never heard of DL. And here, you've known of it for years. You've known Dan Small for years. I've known Dan for a few years. Dan and I have been friends and working collegues for 3 years. And now, I know Dick Tracy (been reading about you since I was a kid.. Sorry, couldn't help myself !! "8^) And who knows, Pat's relatives - in DL - may know the Schwartzrocks.
Who knows, WHOM we'll both know on the next rotation of this 'connection dial'.
Amazing how small the world REALLY is, isn't it?
ofieldstream
Post a Comment