Remembering Lois Glewwe, historian, author and city booster

Tim Spitzack Editor

Itis with heavy hearts that we say farewell to Lois Glewwe, our longest contributor to the South St. Paul Voice. Lois passed away at her home on Feb. 16. She was 72.

For the past 20 years, Lois had written a monthly history column for the Voice that shed light on the many facets of the community and how it has changed over the years. She wrote extensively about the Kaposia band of Mdewakanton Dakota – the first inhabits of the land that is present day South St. Paul – and about the stockyards, from their glory days to their closing and how it affected the community and the many people who worked to pick up the pieces of a shattered community. Just recently, she reflected on her own personal experiences in the city that reared her.

Lois was a native of South St. Paul, and while she left the city for a time, her heart always resided here. Born February 25, 1950, to Reuben and Ethel Hymers Glewwe, she had fond memories of an idyllic childhood surrounded by her loving parents and grandparents. She attended Jefferson Elementary and South St. Paul High School, and after graduation earned a bachelor’s in art history from the University of Minnesota and a master’s in Southeast Asian studies/Indian art from the University of Pennsylvania. She did post-graduate work in New Delhi, India, for a year then returned to the United States to work as the rights and reproductions director and curator of Indian art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Lois returned to South St. Paul in October 1985 and began work on a project that would forever solidify her reputation as South St. Paul’s resident historian. The City of South St. Paul hired her that year to plan and coordinate the city’s centennial cel- ebration, held in 1987. She also worked with the Dakota County Historical Society to produce “South St. Paul Centennial, 1887-1987,” a 528-page history of the city. This project led to similar ones in neighboring cities.

In 1989 she was hired to write “The History of West St. Paul, 1889-1989,” and in 1990 the City of Inver Grove Heights hired her to write “Inver Grove Heights: Minnesota’s Treasure.”

Lois loved reading, research and writing. In her final column (see below), she credited the South St. Paul Library with fanning those sparks into flame. In 2015, she worked with Arcadia/The History Press of Charleston, S.C. to write “Brief History of South St. Paul, Minnesota.” She also authored “The Glewwe Family History,” published in 1999, “The Journey of the Prisoners” in “Trails of Tears: Minnesota’s Exile Begins,” published by Prairie Smoke Press in 2009, and “Memoirs of George Schulte,” published last year by the North American Baptist Heritage Commission in Sioux Falls, S. D. Since 2001, she centered her research on Minnesota history, with an emphasis on the period 1800-1900. While working a brief stint as an audio transcriptionist for the medical industry from 2000 to 2002, she purchased transcriptionist equipment and later used it to record 19th century script. For one project, she transcribed more than 500 pages of the 1862 claims of settlers in Minnesota following the 1862 U.S. Dakota War. Lois was particularly interested in the Dakota Mission in Minnesota and the work of Jane Williamson, who taught at the mission. In 2014, she received an independent research fellowship from the Minnesota Historical Society to study her area of interest.

Lois was an active member of the community, working with the Dakota County

Historical Society, South St. Paul Garden Club, Chapter CC PEO and First Presbyterian Church, South St. Paul. She was also a member of the Minnesota Independent Scholars Forum and the Minnesota Historical Society.

“What a gem for South St. Paul to claim as our own,” said South St. Paul Mayor James Francis. “Lois was a tremendous wealth of history and was always willing to share the knowledge she had. It’s been said that when treasure keepers like Lois Glewwe pass away, they take an entire library of information with them. We are so very lucky that Lois wrote a lot of what she knew for us to have and look back fondly at our history. Lois Glewwe should have a research room dedicated to her at the new county library [in South St. Paul]. It would seem fitting for a woman who gave to our community so much written and oral history.”

Matt Carter, executive di- rector of the Dakota County Historical Society, agrees that Lois made a lasting impact on the comunity.

“Lois has been an important person to preserving Dakota County’s history for decades,” he said. “She has spent countless hours researching and advocating for not just South St. Paul’s history, but all of Dakota County. Growing up in South St. Paul, she had a soft spot for its history but her efforts expanded well beyond the borders of her community. She wrote several books, contributed multiple articles to our own Over the Years publication, and provided history articles to local newspapers and community magazines. While her research has been preserved in her works, the impact she had on the county’s history will be greatly missed.”

The funeral is at 11 a.m., Tuesday, Feb. 28 at First Presbyterian Church, 535 20th Ave. N, South St. Paul.