Scott County Memories: Hairdressing

These recollections were dictated by Ione Theis of Shakopee in 1980 and originally shared in the collection “As I Remember Scott County”

We have read of some of the great women in history and their attempts to beautify by dressing their hair - Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette and others. But what did our mothers and grandmothers do to beautify their hair? If she was a prairie wife or a village matron at the turn of the century, she caught rainwater from the drain spout so she had soft water to use in washing her hair. She may have used homemade soap, or perhaps a product purchased from a traveling peddler, a bar of Castile Soap or Tar Soap. Many preferred to finish with a vinegar rinse. She probably braided her hair in long plaits and wound it around her head as she worked. Many young girls wore their hair in braided pony tails, but on special occasions mothers put their daughters hair up in rags to make long tight bouncing curls.

Women also saved combings form their hair brushing and kept them in celluloid hair receivers to shape into buns or rats which they used to fill out their hair arrangement. They used an assortment of pins to hold this all in place, including common wire hairpins, celluloid hairpins and combs, ranging from plain to jeweled ornaments.

During the years of World War 1, it became fashionable to cut the hair short, and women had to find a new method of dressing the hair. They first attempted to curl the ends using a curling iron with wooden candles bent over the glass chimney of a kerosene lamp. They tested it on a piece of paper for heat and to remove soot, but I suspect many burnt and singed ends resulted.

In the late 1920s and 1930s we were introduced to a professional hairdresser in the area. She had taking training in the Twin Cities and was trained in marcelling, cosmetology and permanent waving. Marcelling gave a rigid wave that was both popular and enduring.

One of the early hairdressers of Scott County was Rosella Dressen Ries who distinguished herself and Shakopee by being chosen “Miss Minnesota” of 1929. She was a contestant at Atlantic City. Rosella operated and managed the “Modern Beauty Shop” on first avenue from the 1930’s through many years.

Ione Theis and Rosella Dressen Ries "Rosie" standing in front of the Modern Beauty Shop, 1944.

As a recent graduate of the Brady and Rogers School of Beauty, I arrived at the Modern Beauty Shop in the late 1930’s and trained in the methods of the time. Marcelling the hair was giving away to the ore popular spiral wave. The hair was wound on long slender rods, then with a lotion saturated pad was baked on an electrical machine that could be described as a torture device! Somewhat later, and even more popular, was the invention of the Frenchman, Monsieur Crogonle. It gave a tighter curl to the ends of the hair, but still used the heating machine that resulted in many casualties of the scalp. Later, Mr Willette invented the “cold wave”, the forerunner of the permanent wave we enjoy today.

Hairstyles and hairdressing today, for both men and women vary according to individual choice but are far removed from grandmother’s rain water and vinegar rinse.

The History of St Lawrence Township Part 1: The Minnesota River

St Lawrence township was originally platted in 1858. The area was nestled up against the Minnesota River, situated between Belle Plaine and Jordan on the Eastern side of Scott County. 

“Gathering Wild Rice”. Painted by Seth Eastman around 1850

The Minnesota River had long been an essential part of transportation for communities in what is now Scott County. Dakota towns along the river had used it for transportation, trade and food. Trade networks branched throughout the continent, facilitated by the Minnesota river and other waterways. Fish were speared in the river, and wild rice was cultivated and harvested in its waters. 

The state is named after the Minnesota river. The Dakota name for the river was “Mnisota”, meaning (roughly) sky-tinted water. When European Americans originally entered the area, they called the river St Peters. In 1852, the US Congress, acting on are request of the MN territorial government, decreed that the river should be “renamed” with it’s Dakota name. 

When European Americans began to resettle the region after the treaties in the early 1850s, they also wanted to live near the river. Rivers were the superhighways of the time, providing conveyance for keelboats, flatboats and, most importantly, steamboats. The first steamboat attempt on the Minnesota River was in June of 1842. The boat made from Fort Snelling to the Dakota town that would later be called Shakopee. This was the first of several expeditions between 1842 and 1850, each reaching farther down the river. Many of these expeditions had the air of a big party. Prominent elected officials and business leaders would be aboard. Copious amounts of drink would be served, and bands played to lighten the mood. 

Steamboat at the Lewis Street Bridge in Shakopee, 1880. Photo from the SCHS Collections.

River travel was essential to early European Americans in Scott County. Settlers, goods, and news came along the Minnesota River via steamboat. Many people came to the area to farm, but the region grew too fast to ever be entirely self- sufficient. Steamboats carried in needed goods and supplies, and later brought goods grown in Scott County to other parts of the nation to be sold. 

St Lawrence was platted and community structures were built with this in mind. The goal was to turn St Lawrence into the premier river port of the area, and capitalize on the Minnesota River and the stagecoach lines that ran alongside it.

Scott County Memories: Experiences Traveling with a Band

These recollections were dictated by Mayme Dvorak Borak of New Prague in 1980 and originally shared in the collection “As I Remember Scott County”

Chaska Sodality band around 1920. Photo from the SCHS Collections.

I was a freshman in high school in 1919 when I was asked to play the piano with a seven piece band by the name of Borak and Boudin. It was the best modern and old time band around New Prague. We would rehearse at the Frank Borak house once a week. Then we were hired two or three times a week to play for wedding dances. K.C. dances and Fireman’s dances- as far away as the Iowa border.

It really wasn’t much fun to travel 64 years ago in summer or winter. The roads were narrow and when it rained it was very muddy because there was no gravel or blacktop at that time. In winter we would travel with horses and a sleigh which had hay in it for us to sit on to keep warm. Many times, if it was stormy, the horses went into the ditch and topped over the sled and all the instruments were scattered on the field. It took us many hours to get home. I would sleep maybe two to three hours and then go to school.

In 1926 we got uniforms, and I believe I was the first woman to wear slacks. We has tan slacks and brown corduroy jackets.

At some dance halls they had very poor pianos. St. Patrick had a small piano and I had to chew gum to past the black key on in order to play it. Then at St. Thomas, they had an organ which I had to pump with my feet all night to keep up with the band.

I played with different bands for over twenty years and enjoyed every bit of it.

History of Credit River Part 5: Memories of Early Credit River

Susan Allen (Sherin) grew up in Credit River and was interviewed in 1928 as an elderly woman. Her parents, like many others, came from Ireland, and then to Credit River by way of Dubuque. They traveled to St Paul by steamboat, and then to an Ox Cart into the township. She recalled dances at the village hall: “Everybody had a far better time than young people do nowadays. My goodness, I thought nothing of dancing all night when I was a girl and most of our dances were quadrilles too, that kept us moving lively. Even the waltzes were far more lively than they are now because we whirled round” 

She also mentioned the hard work that it took to run a farm. Her father cleared land using horses, and she remembers him planting wheat and corn among tree stumps. She said, “Hard work and hard times didn’t trouble farmers in those days. In fact, they didn’t expect anything different. Life in a log cabin and work in the woods and the fields all day were the lot of all the settlers”

Of school, she recalled ““we had to walk quite a distance and carry our dinners”. She also said “the curriculum was vastly different then today but still we learned quite a bit”. She also said that the hair ribbons that she could get growing up in Credit river were “just a little bit better” then those she could get in 1928. 

Rosella Lyons taught at the Credit River school in the late 1930s, and was interviewed in 1987. She remembered “We turned out a lot of talented people. Several priests and sisters and some attorneys. We had a wood shed and one day in the fall all the children would pile the wood in the shed. We would be done by mid afternoon. Then a couple of children would be selected to go to the store and get peanuts and candy. We had a couple of dollars allotted to us”. 

The school at the time had 20 or 30 students from first grade through highschool. Lyons recalled 1936 as a banner year because they had 10 children in first grade alone, and a total of 20 in the elementary school.

On January 17th, 1999 a large reunion was held for people that grew up in Credit River Township. Several of the attendees shared photographs, articles and stories, and these were put together into a scrapbook. The introduction of the scrapbook reads “No business aside from the agricultural pursuits of farmers is carried on in the town. No wonders of natural scenery vary the beauty of the landscape, consequently the history of Credit River is told in few words”

Scott County Memories: German, Baseball, Church Bells and Slot Machines

These recollections were dictated by Richard Mertz of Shakopee in 1980 and originally shared in the collection “As I Remember Scott County”

Shakopee has been most fortunate in the type of people it has attracted over these many years. It has an interesting and colorful past so it us pure fun to remember and relate some of the most pleasant memories.

Today we have many nationalities and most of our families are such a mixture that we can only say we are Americans. Not so forty or fifty years ago when most of our families were first or second generation German - or a European nation of close proximity. All of our people are hardworking and completely honest, but English sentence structure was absolutely foreign and vocabulary was not unlike Archie Bunker’s

In one of the early grades, we had a kid who would say “I’m going the hall across”, which was much to the amusement of those who had moved to Shakopee from some town that had an English speaking background.

I recall the evening when five or six of us, all teenagers, were chatting at home not far from where we live today when a lady from out of state, visiting our friend’s mother, mentioned that there was a great deal of activity around the house.

“Ach Ja” she said, “This coming and this wenting and this wenting and this coming this is me something” . Many times she would call her husband George from the garden with “George, come once from the outside in the telephone is calling you”/

Another time a picnic was being planned when our neighbor lady said “Ach Ja No, we have to insulate our new minister that day”.

Over these many years I have enjoyed telling a story that occurred in about 1939 when Shakopee was hosting the State Baseball Tournament and Superintendent of Schools, John Metcalf (later a distinguished state senator) was the announcer. In those days we didn’t have a lighted ball field, so many of the games were played in the morning. John found it necessary to leave the press box which also served as the announcer’s office. He left just as there was an argument on the field that turned the microphone over to one of our leading fans who soon announced “Owatonna is playing this game under protest, claiming that the Beardsly left fielder is illegitimate”. It brought the house down, and I doubt if anyone an remember to this day who won the ball game

I wonder how many people remember the time that the Presbyterian Church bell was ringing every night at midnight? The town was rife with rumors and guards took up posts around the church - all to no avail. The bell kept ringing at the appointed hour. Eventually, some brave soul climbed to the tower in daylight. There he found numerous chunks of lead from 22 rifle shots fired by one of the town characters.

Or the days when Scott County ha slot machines in almost every bar (Shakopee had over 30 bars at the time), barbershop, and gas station. Liquor was served in the 3.2 beer bars. Every time the state liquor control officers came into the county, phones rang at all those 3.2 bars warning the bartenders of a possible raid. On one such occasion a feisty Irishman had hardly hung up the phone when two men in suits arrived and sat in a booths. Now most people didn’t wear a suit until Saturday, so this was a dead giveaway. Then, sitting in a booth confirmed the worst because no one ever sat in a booth unless he had a wife or girlfriend along - or unless he was a liquor control agent. One order charged water, the other ginger ale, Mac, the Irishman, went behind the bar, returned with the drinks, and rang up the register. The agents announced that there was no liquor in their drinks. Mac just said that it was policy of the house not to serve liquor to liquor control agents. The other patrons howled with laughter, and the agents left hurriedly without drinking their soft drinks.