The billion-year-old pink quartzite formation that creates the waterfalls of our largest city is hard to top, but see what a quarter-million holiday lights can do as accents. That’s the attraction of Winter Wonderland in Sioux Falls’ Falls Park. Photos by Nancy Tesdall. You can see more of her work at www.throughmylens-tez.blogspot.com.
My husband Jeremy and I are trying to squeeze every last bit of fun out of this summer. I honestly can’t remember the last weekend we just stayed home — and my messy house proves it. We had a free Saturday last weekend so we decided to check out Split Rock Creek, Palisades State Park and Devil’s Gulch.
Our day trip started at Palisades State Park south of Garretson. Jeremy wanted to go for a run on one of the hiking trails along Split Rock Creek but some areas were a little too rocky for that. Big surprise, right? It’s a destination known for its purple and pink quartzite formations. Some geologists speculate that an earthquake divided the rock into a canyon ages ago, thus the name Split Rock Creek. Within the quartzite are spots of rare pipestone, a rock used by native tribes to create sacred pipes, war clubs and other tools.
The hike along the softly burbling waters was lovely. A light drizzle was a welcome respite from the usual dry summer weather, though it did make rocky parts of the path slippery. The Palisades look to be a popular weekend destination for picnicking, kayaking and fishing. The other visitors we met didn’t seem to mind the rain. There was even a wedding at one of the large picnic shelters. Personally, I’d love to while away a weekend at one of the campsites or adorable little cabins tucked between oak and ash trees along the water.
Once we finished exploring the Palisades, we made our way north to Devil’s Gulch in Garretson. Crossing Devil’s Gulch was on the”Summer ‘Oughta Do’ List for Kids” in our May/June 2011 issue. Jeremy and I are a couple of big kids so I knew we had to do it. Legend has it that outlaw Jesse James jumped Devil’s Gulch on horseback in 1876. Today an iron footbridge spans the 20-foot gap in quartzite.
It’s proven that James, his brother Frank, and a gang of six robbed the bank in Northfield, Minn., and fled west. No one is sure of their escape route, but one story says they split as they neared the state lines and Jesse followed Split Rock Creek. Supposedly a posse gained on him, he spurred his horse and leapt the chasm. Jeremy doesn’t think it really happened, but after crossing the footbridge I think it’s possible. And some say the creek was narrower back then and the gap has widened due to erosion. Why not take a Labor Day road trip and decide for yourself?
 |
| Harold Kindred, Orville McDonald, Ed Kindred and Earl Hormann were a few of the orphans housed at the Dell Rapids Home. |
Note: The Odd Fellows Home, built in 1910 in Dell Rapids, was a refuge for orphans and elderly members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and their sister organization, the Daughters of Rebekah. In 2001, Amy Dunkle visited with a few of the former residents still living to learn what orphanage life was like.
The Odd Fellows Home was home in every sense of the word for about 100 children who arrived without either material belongings or the innate sense of security that someone would take care of them. In fact, for many of these youngsters, the Home in Dell Rapids was the last stop in a string of homes.
In 1927, Earl Hormann was nine years old, living on a farm southwest of Mina with his parents and his younger brother, Darwin. Then the boys’ mother, only 28, died in childbirth along with their infant sister. Days later, on a blizzardy February night, their house burned down. “Dad farmed us two boys out,” recalled Earl Hormann. “Back in them days, it was pretty slim pickings. We went from house to house. Finally, they just couldn’t take care of us.”
Ed Kindred’s dad, a fireman in Sioux Falls, died in the 1918 flu epidemic. His mother’s second marriage didn’t work out, and she couldn’t take care of Ed, then six, and his brother, Harold. Despite the turmoil in his early life, Kindred showed no trace of bitterness, no sense of being a victim at being brought to the Home in 1923. “They just put us there. We adjusted pretty good.” Referring to his mother, he said only, “There wasn’t much love there for me and my brother.”
Russell MacDonald was also six when he came to the Home from White River in 1922. Arriving alongside him were five siblings. Russ was three when his father, a farmer and veteran of the Spanish American War, died of tuberculosis. Their mother died of pneumonia.
 |
| Girls at the Dell Rapids Odd Fellows Home posed in their new overalls. |
Elaine Bokker lived on a ranch north of Bear Butte until her father died in a 1932 farm accident. She was six then, and her mother moved her and her sisters into town. Four years later, her mother died of scarlet fever. The girls’ grandmother had remarried, and her new husband came with his own family to raise, so the girls were deposited in Dell Rapids when Elaine was eleven.
They were a few of the South Dakota youngsters who spent their childhoods at the Home; they became known around Dell Rapids as the Home Kids. Despite the passage of time and the paths they took in the world, the memories of their first days remained clear.
“I was scared to death — cried my fool head out,” remembered Earl Hormann. “My brother and I hid in the closet, crying. But there was a bunch of kids there besides us. We finally made friends with one another and all that good stuff.”
In time, new Home Kids bonded with the other children and with the elderly people who lived at the Home. They experienced the simple joys of growing up and learned the invaluable lessons that would carry them through life. It was, in the words of Russell MacDonald, a good place, a good home, and good times.
The Home’s typical occupancy ran about 28 children and 15 elderly, according to Ed Kindred. “The old people had one part, and the kids usually had the north end. The old people were just like grandparents to us. When we first got there, there was maybe 10 of us. Bedtime was 7 o’clock at night, summer and winter. For the older kids, it was 9. They’d have a high school girl from downtown come up and read a story to us.”
We just kind of stuck together, played like everybody else…
“Every meal, three times a day, we lined up in the hall at the north end, from the oldest kid in the bunch to the youngest,” Kindred said. “We’d say the Lord’s Prayer, go into the dining room and the matron would say grace. The little kids had to sit with the matron. They taught us table manners. We had a nurse who took care of us. We were quarantined with measles, scarlet fever. They put a red tag on the door. We all had chores, even the little ones.”
From scrubbing hallway floors to planting potatoes and butchering farm animals, the Home Kids learned to tackle their jobs. Their dishwashing skills were nothing short of legendary, said Roberta DeVaney, a Dell Rapids historian who died in 2009. “They had a reputation for really being able to wash a sink full of dishes in record time.” Of course, with no transportation other than their own two feet, there wasn’t any alternative. Twelve blocks separated the Home from school. Youngsters got home at noon and had to eat dinner, do dishes, set the table for supper and make it back to school by the 1 p.m. bell.
“We didn’t fool around,” said Darwin Hormann. He remembered swapping labor with 10 or 12 local farmers so no one had to hire workers.
But along with the work came plenty of fun. The Home bought a pony, Flossie, and a horse, Jim, that never stopped giving rides. The kids also adopted a pup, Buster, born on July 5, 1925. A farmer had put the puppies of a Newfoundland dog in a burlap bag, placed the bag in the horse tank to drown the puppies and then buried them.
“We heard something in the hog yard — two were still alive,” said Ed Kindred. “We took them to Matron and begged her to let us keep one. He lived to be 20 years old. Wherever you saw the dog, you knew the Home Kids were around.”
 |
 |
 |
| Ed Kindred, Elaine Bokker and Russell MacDonald — former Home residents. |
There weren’t any luxuries. No television, no radio. There was a phonograph that the boys would wind up so the girls could dance. And, said Ed, “We shared our toys. Mother sent a toboggan, sent it for Christmas, and it was community property. It only lasted half a winter. Most of our toys were stuff we made ourselves — slingshots, bows and arrows, little airplanes.”
In time, the Home Kids managed to carve out a typical childhood. “We didn’t know any better,” Elaine Bokker said. “We knew other people had parents. We just kind of stuck together, played like everybody else, met our friends downtown.”
“I tell ya, we had a wonderful matron, Eleanor Kingery,” Earl Hormann added. “She was very strict, but she was kind. I think that made the difference. She made us mind. We did a lot of foolish things, like sneaking out at night. We didn’t do anything wrong, just to prove that we could do it. We’d go swimming when we weren’t supposed to. We were the first ones to swim in the river when the ice was still in.”
When it came to discipline, the boys who stepped out of line were forced to wear dresses, complete with bloomers. “I didn’t know if I was a boy or girl till I was eight or nine, I was in a dress so much,” laughed Ed Kindred.”We’d stuff the dress in the bloomers. But the kids never teased us.”
One time, the Kindred boys ran away from the Home. Ed was about eight. They got as far as Lone Tree. Upon their safe return, he said, the brothers got a spanking and solitary confinement with bread and water. But the older kids snuck in food. “They were pretty tough,” Ed said of the matron and others who meted out discipline. “If they caught you in the apple orchard when the apples were green, Matron had a big jug of castor oil. We all hated that stuff. Me and my brother, one time, we had to kneel on buttons with our chin up against the wall. That hurt.”
Time passed, and the Home Kids went out into the world. Most of the boys served their country in World War II. They married, had children and settled into steady jobs. Ed Kindred was at Pearl Harbor in WWII, and made a career of military service. Earl Hormann became a truck driver after service as a medic. Darwin Hormann flew B-29s over the Pacific, and worked in construction when he came home. Russell MacDonald farmed and quarried stone. Elaine Bokker married her downtown boyfriend and was the mother she lost to her three kids. Wherever they went, Ed Kindred said, “Every one of those kids were successful in what they did. They were taxpaying citizens. Never had serious trouble.”
He contemplated what exactly it was that built such a solid foundation for these children who had lost parents and homes, and weathered the Depression. “The Odd Fellows, they got us off on the right foot,” he said. “When we left the Home, we knew we had two strikes against us, that times would be tough. We didn’t have anything and we didn’t expect to have anything.”
As the Home Kids carved out their niches in life, Kindred said, they found they were just as good as anybody else. What’s more, despite the hard knocks early on, they looked back on their childhoods with fondness and appreciation — the discipline, the dishes, the small town of Dell Rapids, and the elderly Home residents who filled the role of grandparents. And, of course, with her castor oil and caring, matron Eleanor Kingery.
Years later, Ed Kindred mused about how lucky he and his fellow Home Kids were. “The penitentiary,” he said, “it’s full of ëem up there. Kids that never had any love at all.”
Editor’s Note: This story is revised from our July/August 2001 issue. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.
 |
| Unlike Jesse James, modern visitors don’t have to worry about the 70-foot-drop at Devil’s Gulch, thanks to an iron footbridge. Photo by SD Tourism. |
Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the July/August 1994 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.
The sheer beauty of quartzite cliffs towering above Split Rock Creek are enough to attract visitors to northern Minnehaha County near Garretson. But the scenery is only part of the magic. Most come to see the spot where legendary outlaw Jesse James supposedly jumped an 18-foot-wide gorge in 1876 to escape a posse after robbing a Northfield, Minn., bank.
That same year, gold was discovered in the Black Hills. Custer’s cavalry was obliterated by Indian warriors. And Wild Bill Hickok was murdered in a Deadwood saloon by Jack “Broken Nose” McCall. Considering all the goings-on in western Dakota Territory, Jesse James’ flight through the region wasn’t particularly important at the time. But James, a Missourian who turned to crime to support his family when he was refused amnesty from the Civil War, had a Robin Hood image to many pioneer Midwesterners who weren’t especially fond of most bankers and railroaders, anyway.
He stole enough horses and scared enough people to create stories that have been passed down from generation to generation by Minnehaha County families, but the storytelling always returns to that 18-foot chasm over Split Rock Creek. Did he jump it? Like the No. Ten Saloon in Deadwood, only on a smaller scale, travelers come from around the world to take a gander. They look across the gulch and grin to one another. How could it be?
Local people are too honest to maintain that the jump absolutely occurred. There’s room for doubt, they’ll agree. But it could have happened. And they provide supporting evidence. In 1991, the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution built a cabin near the jump site and stocked it with memorabilia about the gulch and the James brothers — photos, news articles and other historical exhibits, all of which support the theory that Jesse may have jumped the gulch to safety.
Volunteers staff the cabin in the summer months and they do their best to answer questions, even from Japanese and European visitors. Foreigners are especially interested in the Jesse James legend. “A guy from Belgium asked me if I thought he could have jumped that and I told him sure, but it wasn’t a Belgian horse,” grinned Melvin ”Buck” Jones, one visitor center volunteer. “He got a big kick out of that.”
Elaine DeBates, another former volunteer, heard numerous family stories about the James brothers. “Local people are convinced of it from the stories that have been passed down.” She said the terrain leading up to the gulch had changed since she came to the area in 1932. “When we first moved here, there were no trees and it was smoother. Now it is a lot rougher because of erosion,” she told us when we visited in 1994.
Perhaps visitor center workers have a vested interest in perpetuating the myth. So we asked others in the Garretson community if the legend stands on solid ground.
We found Charles Bonte about a half mile southwest of the gulch. Bonte farmed and owned horses before he retired and moved to town, so he seemed a credible source. “A good horse could have made it if the rider took him up first and showed him the place,” he said. “Otherwise he might have just slid into the creek.”
Gregg Kringen, a farmer and horse trainer from rural Garretson, agreed.”Everybody thinks a saddle horse couldn’t jump that. But if he was riding a good one he could have made it. If trees could talk, we’d know what really happened.” Kringen said the terrain is so rough now that it makes the jump seem impossible. But he said old pictures of the gulch make the approach look reasonable.
To get a West River perspective, we called Dale Lewis of Martin, an expert on Old West lore and good horses. He thought the 18-foot jump was physically possible. “A big horse would be up to eight feet in length, and I would think he could jump twice his length,” said Lewis. Human athletes can jump over 20 feet in a long jump, Lewis noted. “Horses have four-wheel drive, and they’ve got those strong back legs to leap with, so I would think a horse could jump at least that far. I bet it would scare the hell out of you. But if the posse was coming hard, maybe you’d be scared already.”
So the legend continues. Did Jesse James jump the gulch when he escaped into Dakota Territory? If only cedar trees could talk.
 |
| Nearby Palisades State Park. Photo by Chad Coppess. |
When you visit Garretson to see Devil’s Gulch, allow some time for other stops.
A walking tour of the gulch has been established which is about an hour or more in length. It is an opportunity to not only enjoy the scenery, but also learn about the wildflowers, trees and shrubbery of the river valley.
Don’t let the peaceful river fool you. Some areas of the canyon are reported to be “near bottomless.” Local people dropped 600 feet of plumb line just under the bridge and still could not find the bottom.
Camping, picnicking, hiking, canoeing and fishing are welcomed at Split Rock Park, a scenic spot highlighted by a waterfall of native blocks built by WPA workers in the 1930s.
On the south side of town, beautiful rock formations can be found in Palisades State Park. It may be one of South Dakota’s best-kept camping secrets.
For information on Garretson, visit www.garrestonsd.com or call 605-594-6721.
Musicians came from all over the United States to perform at the 4th annual South Dakota Rock and Roll Music Association induction ceremony on April 21st. The event was held at the Ramkota Exhibit Hall in Sioux Falls.
Inductees were The Bleach Boys, Chevelles, DJ and the Cats, Gemini 6, Gordon Bird & the Sting Rays/Original Sting Rays, Jay-Bee & the Kats, John McCormick & Something New, Kenny Miller, Scotty Lee & the Stingrays, Gestures, Dee Jay & the Runaways., David J Law, Ray Ford and KISD, Curt Powell, the Vivian Dance Hall, and Island Park Ballroom of Milltown.
The bands all were formed in the late ’50s to late ’60s with members reuniting to play one more gig. Photos by Ron Nelson of Spectrum Photography in Lake Preston.
Patience is a virtue. We’ve all heard the phrase. I’m not sure our”need it now” culture is very good at practicing it, however. I know I struggle with it. Just ask my co-workers how well I wait for the latest project to get done. I guess they just don’t understand how much I need to get the work off my plate. I need to move on to the next project. Unfortunately a hurried project usually ends up needing to be redone. Thus creating more work, which means I really could relearn a lesson or two in patience. Once again, my photography hobby has an answer: a lesson in patience involving”star trail” photography.
During the night, the stars above seem to move across our sky due to our planet’s rotation. All stars do this except Polaris, the north star. Astronomy tells us that Polaris is positioned as close to straight above our planet as any other visible star. So when our planet rotates, the star seems to be fixed, much like how the point of a spinning top stays centered. A Paiute legend tells of a mountain sheep who was an excellent and sure footed climber. He found the tallest and steepest mountain and began to climb. It was nearly impossible to reach the summit and at one point he had to go through a long vertical cave in order to reach the highest point. After going through the cave, a rockslide closed up the entrance and the climber was stuck at the highest point of the peak with barely any room to even turn around. His father then turned him into a star. This star became the north star and the stars of the constellations around him were other sheep trying in vain to find the path up the peak, and that is why they circle the north star.
I’ve always been impressed by photos that capture this phenomenon and resolved to learn how to do it myself. I’ve found a couple different methods. One is to get a tripod and a remote cord and set your camera on”bulb” and open up the exposure for a long period of time. The trick is to figure out just how long to keep the exposure open in order to get the length of trails desired as well as adjusting for any ambient light that may spill in from a nearby city or the rising moon. It is not an easy balance to find and my patience has been tested at almost every attempt. For every one good image I get, I wreck about three or four exposures. Imagine waiting for an hour to see what was supposed to be an amazing star trail photograph totally overexposed and ruined. That’ll try anyone’s patience. Once you get it right, however, it makes the photo all the more meaningful and fun to look at.
The other method to make a star trail image is to take multiple exposures of a star scene and layer these images together in an image editing software program, adjust the layer modes to”lighten” and magically all the stars show up together to make star trails. I just discovered this process and applied it to some image sequences I made at Palisades State Park in February of 2010. I was pleasantly surprised by the final star trail images that I didn’t even know I had hidden in my files. Whatever way you choose to go about shooting star trails, it is a very rewarding and fun way to capture some of our unique South Dakota scenes. I particularly like to shoot old and/or historical buildings in order to symbolize time passing and the relative short time we have here on earth. Added to that, the whole process is a huge patience builder. Which is good for me as I’m told patience is a virtue I could use a lot more of… and the sooner the better.
Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midcontinent Communications he is often on the road photographing our prettiest spots around the state. Follow Begeman on his blog.
South Dakota may not be the yoga mecca of the U.S., but there are classes galore at fitness centers and studios throughout the state. Yankton alone has at least seven yoga teachers, and two of them work right here at South Dakota Magazine. I personally teach a basic, flowing style of yoga — linking poses with the breath then ending class with a guided relaxation. And it’s not just an exercise class — yoga is a 4,000-year-old tradition originating in India that helps to strengthen the body, improve flexibility, and calm the mind. An added benefit for us in the Western world is that it helps to manage stress.
One thing South Dakota has lacked is a hot yoga studio. Hot yoga classes typically take place in a room heated to 105 degrees Fahrenheit with 30% humidity. I tried a workshop once at the Dharma Room in Sioux Falls. I expected it to be a vigorous, powerful class, but was surprised by the slowness and gentleness of the practice. The class consisted of 26 poses and two breathing exercises. The heat allowed me to feel more flexible in poses that normally would have been out of my reach. But, since it was a one-time workshop, I hadn’t been able to have a go at it again.
Now I am in luck. Two hot yoga studios have popped up in South Dakota in the last few months and both have events this weekend. Deena Rushton opened Yogaversity in November. It’s located in the new Old Market Galleria in downtown Brookings. The studio is hosting their first workshop tomorrow from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and the cost is only $20.
Also new to South Dakota is Santosha Hot Yoga at 5003 S. Bur Oak Place in Sioux Falls. Their grand opening is tomorrow with the first class starting at 10:00 am. According to instructor Jennifer Long’s blog, Saturday’s class has a waiting list, but you may still be able to get in on Sunday’s class at 4:30 p.m. I recommend calling 275-YOGA to sign up. All December classes are only $5.
Yoga in a 105 degree setting is not for you? Then try a different type of class in your community. It’s a fantastic way to improve your overall health and you will be glad that you did.
The McQuillen Creative Group recently created a video using film footage from the 1940s to tell the story of Aberdeen’s special treat for World War II servicemen passing through town on their way to war. Watching those images of smiling soldiers and industrious women bustling around the Milwaukee Depot got me thinking about other fragments of South Dakota life in bygone days that I’ve seen floating around the Internet. Here are just a few.
Films recording snippets of daily life in Depression-era Britton can be viewed at the Internet Archive. Ivan Besse recorded what he saw around town and created short silent films which he would screen for audiences at the Strand Theatre, where he was a projectionist.
Bob Purse has an enormous collection of reel to reel tapes. He occasionally shares some of his finds on the blog of New Jersey radio station WFMU. One of the tapes in his archives features a fellow named Burl Thompson asking women in early 1950s Renner about their families and which side of the road they live on. Apparently there’s less dust if you live on the south side.
An excerpt from the book Six: a Football Coach’s Journey to a National Record by Marc Rasmussen appeared in our November/December issue. Here you can see footage of the record-setting Claremont Honkers football team in action.
Last week, Marc reminded us of the amazing resources available at the Library of Congress website. Their prints and photographs collection contains images of South Dakota life taken in the 1880s on. Photos included cover everything from an 1888 all-Chinese firehose team race in Deadwood to a 1942 Timber Lake barbershop to the Porter Sculpture Park in Montrose in 2009.
As a student at South Dakota State University in Brookings, I found myself in Lincoln Music Hall quite often. I can’t count how many times I passed the bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln, which serves as the centerpiece of the building’s marvelous marble foyer. Never once did I wonder who made it. Turns out, it was a quiet Norwegian who learned to sculpt using Minnehaha County mud and became one of the most well known artists of his generation.
Gilbert Risvold grew up on a farm near Baltic. He went to country school, where teachers noticed the boy’s talent for crafting images from mud. He attended South Dakota State College and studied under Ada Caldwell (who also taught Harvey Dunn). Caldwell saw Risvold’s potential and recommended he apply to the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago.
As is the case with many artists, Risvold struggled to find his place. Nearing the end of his patience with sculpture, he entered a contest that challenged artists to create a statue of renowned Illinois politician Stephen Douglas. Out of 75 entries, Risvold won. The state bought his sculpture and placed it at the state capitol in Springfield, where you can find it today.
Risvold’s success with the Douglas statue propelled his art career. He did a statue of Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg, created a war memorial for Oak Park, Illinois and crafted the Mormon Battalion Memorial (perhaps his most well known piece), which stands in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Riswolds (many have substituted the “v” for a “w” in the surname) still live in Minnehaha County. In fact, they gather every summer for a large family reunion at East Side Lutheran Church. A distant relative sent me a note about the event, which is how I discovered the art of Gilbert Risvold. In addition to his bust of Lincoln in Brookings, his statue of Mother Sherrard, founder of South Dakota’s first children’s home, stands in the state capitol.
