The joy of getting lost in imaginary places on the first day of spring

Lois Glewwe Contributer

Most of us in Minne- sota know the old adage about the month of March: in like a lion, out like a lamb. Of course, we also know that the lion can return at any moment, including on a so-called spring day in April. When I was a kid, the arrival of March meant a renewal not only of green leaves, fresh grass and the first sign of spring crocuses, but also a return to my daily imaginary life. Allow me to explain.

Over the years, many people have asked me why I am so interested in history and why I’ve been writing stories, articles and even books since I was young. It all began at the public library. I was an avid reader from the time I was in kindergarten and my favorite books were “Little House on the Prairie,” “Cad- die Woodlawn,” “Anne of Green Gables” and any other pioneer girl stories I could find. I longed to go back in time and wear long dresses and lace-up boots and help my mother cook over an open fire.

As for the writing, I credit that to my imagination. Whenever I had time on my own, while falling asleep or taking a walk, I’d imagine a story in which I was the pioneer girl heroine encountering all kinds of dangers in a matter of minutes. It only made sense to write down those stories when I rejoined the world of reality.

When spring arrived, I would resume walking to school, traveling from my house on 15th Avenue South to Jefferson School on Marie Avenue. Marie was a gravel road in those days, with only two or three houses and many vacant lots. The first balmy morning I walked out the front door and got a whiff of what I realized was the smell of spring, I immediately headed across 15th Avenue and cut through the Gackstetters’ side yard to get to the alley that ran between 15th and 16th Avenues. There I would find a little creek or a spring that bubbled over on one side of the alley. The sight of it always sent me back in time to a long ago woodland where brooks and ponds were scattered among the fields. I’d play in the water for a moment or two then exit the alley to Marie Avenue. There were no sidewalks then, so it was easy to imagine that I was a young pioneer girl walking to school on the old gravel road. To amuse myself, I created stories about the lives of the people living in the few houses I passed along the way. One was an old farmhouse that I peopled with a farmer’s wife who often beckoned me in to treat me to a piece of warm freshbaked bread with honey. A short way up Marie was a little brick cottage so charming that I imagined it to be the house of Princess

Velvet, a beautiful young woman who was an invalid and spent her days in a chair reading romance novels. I’d create other characters along the way until I got to what is now about 18th Avenue. There were no houses after that point, just wildly overgrown fields. It was then that I took on the character of a poor pioneer child lost in the woods on her way to school. As the wind blew and the reeds and branches slapped against my coat, I’d submerge myself in this imaginary scene. Then, in an instant, I’d step out of the woodland and onto the sidewalk that led me to Jefferson School. My imaginary friends were immediately forgotten as I entered the school and headed down the hall to class.

Those walks mostly ended by the time I was in the sixth grade, when it was more fun to get teased by the boys and walk home with one or two of them; they always chose to take the Southview route. As a result, I no longer indulged myself in my daily pioneer fantasies. Today, however, if you see me ambling along by myself, you may assume I’m in the middle of a story that I’m writing in my head as I walk along.

When March arrives this year, I’ll eagerly look forward to the day I can open my front door, pull down the storm window and let the warm breezes of spring waft inside. When that happens, I know I’ll have a sudden longing for a piece of warm bread with honey, or I’ll wonder what Princess Velvet would be reading if I stopped by.

Whatever springtime means to you, I wish you the joy of celebrating the end of winter and the arrival of the season of new birth.

Lois Glewwe’s columns introduced me to a wonderful city and a beautiful woman

Leslie Martin

Copy Editor

The news of Lois Glewwe’s passing had me teary-eyed more than once in the days that followed and I’ve been trying to figure out why. I never met Lois but after reading her columns for nearly 20 years – and only rarely making any editorial changes to them – I feel as though I knew her.

When I was hired as copy editor for this newspaper, around the same time Lois began writing her South St. Paul history column, I knew one thing about the city: you could renew your driver’s license here. I didn’t know it at the time, but Lois was about to fill that huge void.

From the glacial age that formed the land on which the city rests to the latest goings-on about town, Lois knew South St. Paul’s his- tory and wrote about it in engaging detail. She could chronicle a shootout that happened 75 years ago and make it seem like yesterday. Her impassioned account of the threatening skies and winds of a “100-year storm” – on the city centennial’s parade day, of all times – was real enough to spark my fight-or-flight response. No exaggeration.

How could one not be drawn in by such headlines as “Under our feet,” “The house that disappeared” and “The Muckle Girls and the Grand Hotel.”

In her writing, Lois treat- ed everyone equally and with dignity, bringing to life long-ago individuals from the Mdewakanton Kaposia band of Dakota and from every ethnicity and social and economic status in the city’s history. She wrote respectfully of the beginning