50TH ANNUAL SINCLAIR LEWIS DAYS July 14TH - 18TH
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The Stroeings’ great adventure Couple takes Sinclair Lewis advice, travels America’s Great Loop
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BY SARAH COLBURN | STAFF WRITER
ary Agrell Stroeing and her husband, Dan Stroeing, have been traveling the Mississippi River, living on a tugboat for the better part of three years. Though the two took a 17-monthlong hiatus that began as a brief stop for winter and continued due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Minnesota natives headed back on the water in May 2021 to finish their journey. They’re following one of the many routes known as America’s Great Loop. The trip was inspired by writers. Specifically, stories of Huck Finn and family stories of the Sinclair Lewis variety. Mary Stroeing is the granddaughter of Claude Lewis, brother to Sinclair Lewis. Her mother, Isabel, shared stories through the decades of her relationship with her cousin, Wells Lewis, son of Sinclair Lewis and Grace Hegger Lewis Casanova. The Stroeings’ inspiration to travel has been handed down through the generations. It’s said that Sinclair told Claude, “The most important education you can get is travel.”
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And so began a lifetime of journeys for the Stroeings. Despite Dan Stroeing’s near blindness, a side effect of being exposed to Agent Orange during Vietnam, he serves as the tugboat captain for the currentladen journey across the country. He turns the wheel to bring the boat to the dock, guided verbally by Mary on a headset. They started in Minnesota on the Mississippi River and headed down to the Gulf of Mexico, they crossed the Gulf and travelled up the side of Florida to Fort Myers, they crossed Florida by way of lock and dams and through Okeechobee, Florida. They went up the east coast side of Florida to New York City and then up the Hudson River to the Erie Canal, onto Lake Erie, Lake St. Clair and Lake Huron. They paused in September of 2019, and as of late June 2021, they were docked in Waukegan, Illinois, as they work to complete their trip. Through the years they’ve followed the examples of Mary’s ancestors, visiting Switzerland, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, to name a few. The two have traveled the world together in search of the Lewis history and in search of adventure. They even stopped once in Florence, following a post-marked letter from Sinclair Lewis to Isabel. They tracked down the old address, finding someone who knew it was how homes were identified during the Medici Era in Florence.
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PHOTOS SUBMITTED
(above) Mary and Dan Stroeing and their seeing-eye dog, Tori, leave Red Wing for a journey on the Mississippi River. (right) The Stroeings cruise into New York Harbor to greet Lady Liberty.
“The most important education you can get is travel.” Sinclair Lewis