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| 12/4/2007 2:00:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Celebrating the women of Minnesota's tiniest town
In 1928, the Town Hall of Tenney, Minn. needed a cookstove. The hall was where the action was - like so many small, rural towns - and that action usually involved food. The addition of a cookstove in the Town Hall would mean the women of Tenney could move the meal preparation from their own kitchens, scattered across town, to the hall itself.
But - like so many small, rural towns - Tenney's city coffers couldn't support a luxury item like a stove.
From that need, the Tenney Quilt was born, a quilt which anyone could sign for a dime, and, once completed, was auctioned or raffled off to the highest bidder. Little did the women who worked on this quilt know, embroidering the signed names and carefully piecing the squares together, that their quilt would inspire a book 79 years later.
The Tenney Quilt, by Heidi Haagenson of Willmar, explores a history both unique to Tenney and universal to small-town Minnesota. Through the stories of Tenney's women, Haagenson paints a vivid picture of life in Tenney and the surrounding areas that's unique in its perspective. An introduction to the book reads, "Our history as a nation has most often been told by men. In Tenney, Minnesota in the year 1928, a group of women became writers of history as they captured their tiny town through the careful stitching of names onto The Tenney Quilt."
"I literally researched every person on the quilt," said Haagenson. From her research, she dove deeper into the interesting stories that began to emerge.
The women and their lives that Haagenson describes include her grandmother, Audrey (Polifka) Larson. Audrey's signature on the Tenney Quilt came at a time when she was working at the Larson Store, filling in for Linda Larson, who had become ill with tuberculosis. About a year after Linda's death in 1929, Audrey married A.N. Larson. Their daughter, Helen Johanna, is Haagenson's mother.
It's here, after Audrey's marriage to A.N. Larson, that Haagenson reveals a deep connection with Glenwood. In 1947, the Larsons sold their store in Tenney and moved to Glenwood. While A.N. Retired, Audrey continued working, taking on a position at Corner Drug in Glenwood. She worked there for 30 more years until retiring at the age of 80.
Haagenson writes, "I can remember so many trips to that drugstore as a child - even as a young adult... seeing Grandma there waiting on a customer, looking up with a big smile once she heard, 'Hi Grandma!'"
Audrey also served as Haagenson's "personal Christmas gift shopper" in her job at Corner Drug. "I would come into the store with a certain amount of money," Haagenson writes. "Grandma would help me choose appropriate gifts... Strangely enough, there always seemed to be enough money in my pocket to cover whatever gift I wanted to buy. Grandma would tell me that almost any item was 'on sale.' I didn't realize until my early teenage years that the Corner Drug really did not have a lot of sales; rather, my sweet Grandma Aud was supplementing my meager gift budget."
Haagenson herself was born in Glenwood; her father, Earl Leaf, taught English at Glenwood High School from 1955-1963.
Haagenson's great-aunt LaVanche, also a signer and major force behind the 1928 Tenney Quilt, moved to Glenwood as well, moving when she secured a job as a county welfare worker at the Pope County Courthouse. She and Erick Solvie, a custodian and bailiff, married and lived across the street from the courthouse. Haagenson said the parking lot of Glenwood Lutheran Church is where her great-aunt's house once stood.
Through her words and research, Haagenson brings LaVanche to life for readers, describing an ambitious, adventurous woman who stretched the boundaries created for her by her time.
And really, stretching boundaries is what The Tenney Quilt becomes. Rather than focusing just on Tenney, and life inside its small borders, Haagenson takes readers on an historical tour of the region through the real-life characters within the pages of the book. Using the quilt itself as both an anchor and a diving board, Haagenson deftly delves into the lives of the women she describes and into the unique history of the places and times they encounter.
"When I look at [the quilt] and touch it," said Haagenson, "it's a pretty awesome feeling to know my mother, grandmother, great-grandmother ran their hands over it. It's a powerful image to me." Of the 530 separate people who signed the quilt, Haagenson is related to 41 in some way. But The Tenney Quilt isn't a family history; it's a step into the past as seen through the lives of the women of Tenney.
Haagenson writes, "...there is a quilt that sits in a glass bookcase in my home... a decorative, visual response to the lives and values of the women of Tenney, but also a historical document representing the social structure of the village of Tenney and the surrounding area as it existed in 1928. The entrusting of this quilt from one generation to the next - to the next - begs that someone along the way tells the stories of these Tenney women."
The Tenney Quilt can currently be purchased online at Amazon.com or by emailing Heidi Haagenson at tenneyquilt@yahoo.com. Haagenson said she's working on getting the book into retail locations, including Glenwood, as well. Haagenson also has some upcoming signings in surrounding areas: Saturday, Dec. 8, Ranch House Bar & Restaurant in Campbell from 2-4 p.m.; Saturday, Dec. 15, Book World in Willmar from 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.; Saturday, Dec. 22, Victor Lundeen's in Fergus Falls from 1-3 p.m.
About Tenney
In 1930, just two years after the Tenney Quilt was made, the census recorded only about 60 people living within Tenney city limits. The 2000 census recorded a population of only six. That number earned Tenney the designation of "smallest town in Minnesota" and the smallest statutory city in America. The city's main economic feature is a single grain elevator located near its southern border.
The city's population peaked at about 200 in 1910, according to an unpublished town history written in the mid 1980s. Before 1910, city businesses included a church, three grain elevators, a hardware store, two mercantile stores, a butcher shop, bank, machine shop, implement shop, blacksmith shop, pool hall, lumberyard, and a hotel, which also housed the barber shop, saloon, and post office. In 1909 a small post office was built and used until 1952.
After 1910, Tenney experienced a steady population decline. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau indicates that the population fell to 102 in 1920, 89 in 1930, 89 in 1940, 62 in 1950, 35 in 1960 and 24 in 1970. As local establishments burned down or went out of business they were not replaced, and finally the post office was discontinued in 1980 when the population was pegged at 19. Today the only remaining business in town is the elevator.
About Heidi Haagenson
Heidi Haagenson is the Special Projects Coordinator at Ridgewater College in Willmar, serving as technical writer for many academic initiatives. She graduated from St. Cloud State University with a Master's Degree in Rhetoric and Writing, and The Tenney Quilt is her first book. Heidi grew up in Minnetonka, where she developed an appreciation for history from her father, an amateur historian and genealogist. She is married, has two adult children, and one perfect granddaughter.
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