Fargo, ND/Moorhead, Minnesota Historical Museum

Also in the Hjemkomst Center are several collections of personal memorabilia from a couple of prominent 1800's residents of Clay County. 

Now, the information at the museum identifies this as Annie Stein (1872 - 1923), but it sure does remind me of someone in "The Wizard of Oz..." 

Miss Annie's daddy started the farm with 148 acres, left it in 1861 to fight in the Civil War, and came home with a wife and baby son.  Her family operated the Georgetown hotel, a ferry across the Red River, a stagecoach station, and built up a farm of over 800 acres.  Her brothers ran a general store and a sawmill.

How does a well-to-do woman of the 1800's occupy her time while all the men are off tending to their businesses?  Apparently, if it was artistic, Miss Annie tried her hand (very successfully) at it.

In April of 1997, Grand Forks, just about an hour north of Fargo on the Red River, experienced a flood of Katrina proportions.  Their levies broke and almost the entire city was swallowed by flood waters.  The vast majority of structures we see today in Grand Forks are brand new, located farther from the Red River, behind larger levies.  Well, Miss Annie painted a scene that she witnessed of a Red River flood in Georgetown:   100 years ago, April of 1897,

She's a pretty good artist, eh?

She also painted scenes from the Spanish American War of 1898, scenes she copied from magazines like Harper's Weekly.  The horse is bleeding from a wound and the soldier is tending to it.

Yup, she was a pretty good artist.  There are lots more paintings and representations of her other artistic works, household items, and more stories from her life.  I really do like museums!