We have been exploring the history of Camden State Park, our southwest Minnesota wilderness. We learned that Norwegian immigrant, Andrew Dale, bought a farm in the “Camden Woods” upriver of Lynd in 1911 because the valley reminded him of Norway and he thought it would be great for livestock.
Andrew and his spouse, Caroline, farmed through the 1910s, helped by their six children. But the dream of farming and raising a family in their wooded valley came to a tragic end on July 16, 1921 in a collision with a passenger train west of Marshall. The accident killed Andrew and Caroline and left their eldest son, Helmer, and youngest daughter, Esther, hospitalized. The accident upended the Dale family in an instant.
The Dale children immediately confronted big decisions. They arranged a funeral for their parents in Marshall the following Tuesday. Lyon County Probate records show Helmer petitioned the same week to appoint his grandfather and the Dale’s friend, Frederick W. Vanstrom, Lynd’s banker, as executors of his parents’ estate. The family also agreed 5-year-old Clifford should live with his uncle, Christ Dale, in Stevens County, Minnesota.
The accident and Helmer and Esther’s hospitalization left the Dale’s eldest daughter, Nora, age 16 years, in charge of the Dale home, farm, and her younger brothers; 14 year-old Alfred and 12 year-old Victor.
A family history published in 1986 by Barbara Swedenburg described the challenges Nora faced. Caroline Dale’s parents (Norwegian immigrants, Nels and Britta Lee) had moved to a nearby farm in April 1921 which the Dale’s called the “upper farm.” So their nearby grandparents were able to help. But the Lee’s were in their 70’s and Nels was suffering from a cancer that took him in February of 1922. Moreover, Helmer had helped the Lee’s operate the “upper farm,” so his hospitalization meant Nora, Alfred, and Victor had to operate both farms during Helmer’s months-long recovery.
The responsibility of running two farms made attending school a luxury the Dale kids could not afford. With Nora taking the lead, they tended their homes and farms, attending school only during the winter months when farm work demanded less of their time.
After Nels died, Britta built an addition to the Dale farmhouse and made her home with her grandchildren. She died there in September 1926.
Helmer returned home after several months’ hospital recovery and became the primary operator for both farms. Clifford stayed with Uncle Christ about a year and was then placed in several homes for possible adoption. But he could not adjust to living away from his siblings. Nora Dale’s daughter, Marian Pagel, reported that Clifford repeatedly ran away, the last time almost drowning in the Redwood River at age six, trying to return to the Dale farm. So, the court let him stay with Nora and his brothers. Esther returned from the hospital almost two years after the accident, reuniting the family.
The children were growing older, though, and other paths beckoned. Helmer married Ella Nordstrom in 1924 and they made their home at the “upper farm.” Nora married Henry Schroeder in 1928 and they moved to a farm west of Marshall. Alfred and Victor continued to help Helmer operate both Dale farms.
Peggy Vanstrom Cobb, daughter of the Lynd banker who was a friend of the Dale’s and executor of their estate, described her father’s efforts to promote a park in the wooded valley of the Dale farm.
“My dad recognized this as an area that should be shared with a lot of people. Dad contacted state officials in St. Paul; brought some to this area; and conducted a tour through what is now Camden State Park. This was in the 1920s.”
Nothing came of this early effort to interest the state in a park in the Camden Woods, but Mr. Vanstrom was only one member of a citizen’s group interested in establishing such a park.
Drought conditions in the early 1930s combined with a national depression to create a farm crisis. Federal records from that time reveal Lyon County averaged 18% less rainfall; experienced only 69% of usual crop conditions; and produced only 60% of usual pasturage during the 1930-35 growing seasons. Lyon County was a designated drought county during 1934 and that brutal growing season produced less than a third of a normal crop.
A 1936 National Park Service report on Camden State Park by the project’s landscape architect explained the difficulties the Dale’s confronted operating the valley farm during the drought years.
“[T]rees were damaged within grazing height as the drought period which had preceded the park development had made all the natural pasturage dormant and the only green feed for stock were the green branches and leaves of the trees. Formerly green pastures in the valleys and on the slopes were simply dead, brown sheets of dry and dusty landscape.”
The report also explained the local and state actions that led to the park. First, the local committee had generated considerable interest in a park. State officials asked the National Park Service to assess the site and their team recommended the area for a park. The local committee and State then negotiated a sale with the Dale family of 469.96 acres of the “lower farm” to the state for $11,407.
Nora’s daughter, Marian Pagel, explained, “They just couldn’t make it, so they sold it to the state.”
Thus, Andrew Dale’s dream of a livestock operation in a beautiful, wooded valley that reminded him of Norway became the beginnings of a Minnesota state park.
I welcome your participation in and ideas about our exploration of prairie lives. You may reach me at prairieview pressllc@gmail.com.
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