The “real” Raging Ford, Minnesota, in the “Second Treasures Mysteries” and the upcoming “Laura Keene Cozy Mysteries”

Posted on October 7, 2020 by Margaret

[Note: Click on the links!]

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Many have wondered and asked me about this small town called Raging Ford. Are the people there really that nice? How is that possible? And who would put marble floors and walls in a high school bathroom? What’s up with that?

 

Finally…(drum roll)…the answers! In a previous post, I mentioned that Raging Ford was based on my mother’s home town of Hibbing in northern Minnesota. The riches from the millions of tons of iron ore scooped from the world’s largest open-pit mine in the world (now known as the Hull-Rust-Mahoning Mine) built this town. It has an amazing history and as the demand for iron ore grew, so did the mine, and subsequently the town and how the founders built the infrastructure.

 

Hibbing High School was only one of the many original buildings to benefit from the iron ore riches. The halls had marbled floors, the school bathrooms were floored and walled with marble, just to begin. The school library was painted with gigantic murals of the town’s mining history wrapped around the main library lobby walls. Hibbing High was also the first high school in Minnesota with an indoor swimming pool, half the Olympic length. My tour guide a few years back (the principal, now retired) took us to the floor below the swimming pool to see the “windows” (made of thick, thick, thick–did I mention thick–glass) on both sides of the start/end of the pool so judges could “see” who touched the wall first and won the race. So very cool. But beyond that, the student auditorium looked like something from Austria or Paris! Rows and rows of red velvet seats with crystal chandeliers above them faced a spectacular stage.

 

Bet you didn’t know that Bob Dylan was born and raised in Hibbing. His family’s home is still there, and he played his first “concert” in the Hibbing High School auditorium!

 

You can see lots of views of all of these wonderful things at Hibbing High School, or Google for more views of the high school and town. If you’re more interested in the history of the town itself, just Google “Hibbing Minnesota history.”

 

There’s also the most amazing little “house” that was converted to a bigger structure to house all the town’s historical photographs, very similar to the one I “recreated” in fictional Raging Ford. They have everything–all the photographs going back to the beginning of the town. [One recent update here (Sept. 2022): The Hibbing Historical Society has since taken over housing all the historical storage and displays of Hibbing's original photographs.]

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Then there’s the Hibbing Historical Museum. My grandmother’s wedding dress is there in the “Kohrt” section. My grandparents were among the “founding or first families” in the town. My grandfather and his two brothers owned and operated the Kohrt Brothers Meat Market, which also sold a lot of “general store” goods. While they lost the store in the 1929 crash, it was one of the original stores in Hibbing, which, like many others, had to be “moved” (dismantled and moved and rebuilt) to a different part of town when the mine had to be expanded to meet the ever-growing demands for iron ore. The move also explained why there is an Old Cemetery (where one of my uncles was buried) and a New Cemetery where all the rest of the Kohrts (and some Keenes - my grandmother's family) were buried (just like in my fictional Raging Ford).

 

Now for the people. I have never met nicer people than those in Minnesota. They let you into the traffic lane ahead of them if they see your turn signal. No horn honking. And in the grocery store, they stop and let you go ahead of them. Kind, giving, sharing people. My mother’s family used to use the word “nice” a lot. Now I understand why. THEY ARE NICE, not something you see too often, at least consistently, in our busy world these days. I can’t shout this out enough.

 

I will finish with saying that, regardless of all the riches poured into Hibbing’s infrastructure, the town remains a small town with all of the flavor of a small town, to this day. They welcome visitors, so please go visit there for a taste of something very special.

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Author’s Note about upcoming nonfiction treatise – Worse Than the Princess and the Pea: Sensitive People in an Insensitive World

Posted on August 10, 2020 by Margaret

“The concept for this treatise was developed prior to the Coronavirus pandemic that began in 2019, decimating everyone’s lives and killing so many of our loved ones and friends. My greatest hope is our global recovery will not necessarily put everyone back in the same boat in which we struggled to live our lives prior to the pandemic. This treatise may give us all a more enlightened view for successes and balance among all the things we love to do and those that we must.”   (Margaret Evans, August 2020)

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The Real Brenda Christmas

Posted on August 10, 2020 by Margaret

The story behind Brenda Christmas (Deadly Cost of Goods)

 

The real Brenda Christmas, the inspiration for this character, is actually Brenda Todd, a very gifted cake baker/ decorator and creator of unique and beautiful party favors (ones you want to keep forever in a curio cabinet). She throws amazing themed parties with exceptionally designed cakes and party favors. For a peek at her talents, visit her Facebook page, and guess what! She has expanded her recipes to include a lot of Maryland seafood and bakes for curbside pickup in the DelMarVa area. Send her a note and ask to see her cakes and favors as well.

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A Companion For Empress Isabella?

Posted on May 19, 2019 by Margaret

I started thinking halfway through this series that the mysterious cat in Laura Keene’s shop might like to have a “friend.” You need to keep an eye out for the friend to show up in Vol. 5 of the Second Treasures Mysteries, Deadly Cost of Goods. You’ve already met the puppy named Peeks, who likes to “peek” around corners to see what’s going on before he jumps back into hiding and belongs to Will Kovacs, the baker extraordinaire. Watch what happens when Will decides to bring Peeks with him into Laura’s shop.

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The Story Behind The Second Treasures Mysteries

Posted on May 18, 2019 by Margaret

The Second Treasures Mysteries and Raging Ford, Minnesota, are based on my mother’s home town of Hibbing, located on the very edge of the Mesabi Range. Hibbing boomed during the iron ore hey-days. The marble bathrooms and indoor swimming pool in the public high school, as well as the historic mural in the library, that you’ve read about in these mysteries, all exist. At one point, for safety, they had to move some stores and homes in the town (brick by brick, beam by beam) to a location farther away from the mine when they needed to blast for more iron ore. The Hull-Rust-Mahoning mine is one of the largest open-pit mines in the world and is still operational today, providing taconite which can be processed into iron pellets. The town currently sits where it was moved, but you can still see some of the front steps of homes and shops where the old town used to be. My grandfather and his two brothers jointly owned the Kohrt Brothers Meat Market, a shop that had to be moved, but it closed in the crash of 1929. The original cemetery is intact, and one of my uncles who died in infancy (Franklin Kohrt) is buried there. A lot of family love is poured into these stories, and I hope you enjoy the entire six-book series and the little touch of Minnesota in your lives.