Home on the (Iron) Range of Minnesota

A trip to the Iron Range

The first time I saw Minnesota, I was five years old, and I remember every detail of the trip. We drove from Pennsylvania through the midwest, Michigan, Indiana- and for the sake of this article, I’m not going to get out a map, but I felt like we covered the world as we drove.

There was a checkerboard of states to travel through before we reached Minnesota. I remember South Bend, Indiana, we stopped at Notre Dame. My father went to school there, and my mom had created the Architecture Library as a young librarian. They fell in love there, so I imagine that’s why we stopped. My parents made sure we went inside Sacred Heart Cathedral.

I remember a sunrise in Michigan. Dad stopped for breakfast, Mom helped us out of the car. We followed our parents into a diner, that was bright and shiny and clean. I remember the scent of the coffee, fresh bread and bacon. The trip triggered in me a lifelong love of travel, because even then, I felt the power of changing the landscape, and with it, your point of view. You can’t stay in any mood for long, when you’re determined to find something new where you’re going.

If you go to Minnesota today, and I hope you do, you will find the most magnificent landscape this side of Italy. Minnesotans take care of their lakes and rivers. I saw wind turbines and solar panels, and drank water from the tap, like we used to do when we were kids. Minnesota is lush and green, and the people are kind. The accent can almost sound British, but you soon acknowledge it could only be Minnesota.

When we drove from southern Minnesota north to the Iron Range, we experienced the beauty of the Land of A Thousand Lakes. By the time we got to Chisholm, I was certain we had seen 999 of them. The scent of the pine, the spindly black and white birch trees that lined Route 36 like a fence. The sun on the surface of the lakes, how everything shimmered green. I felt safe in the family station wagon, and a part of things. One of the great aspects of being from a large family is being a part of it- later, when the ego and intellect grow, you want your own voice, your own space, and to be heard on your own terms. In a large family, it’s about the group, looking out for one another. Individuality is not encouraged, cohesion and trust however, are.

My grandmother Lucia Bonicelli, called “Lucy” lived at 5 West Lake Street in Chisholm. From the upstairs windows, you could see Longyear Lake, split in two by a road that connected main street to the hills above town. Grandma was a storefront couturier, her husband had been shoemaker and repairman. He died when he was 39 years old, leaving his 35 year old wife with an 11 year old son and twin daughters. My mom was one of the twins.

Downstairs in her building, was a shoe shop, which she kept intact. She sold shoes in the front showroom, in the back, was her sewing workshop. There was a half bathroom, wooden floors, high windows cluttered with pots of red geraniums year round. There was a backyard with an old elm tree (long gone), and grass that grew in tufts like a man losing his hair. West Lake Street, on the storefront side was exciting: there was a bakery, department store, Choppy’s Pizza, Valentini’s Supper Club, and bars- a staple on the Iron Range, with names like Tiburzi’s. I remember walking by the cold, dark bar rooms in the daytime, you could smell the whisky and beer from the sidewalk. Wherever there is hard work to be done, iron ore mining or lumber, there is also hard partying to be done.

I wrote about Chisholm in The Shoemaker’s Wife, a novel that fictionalized my grandmother Lucia and grandfather Carlo’s love affair. For those of you reading this who love to read, you know what goes into a good story in the telling. For my fellow writers, you know the effort it takes to create the worlds on the page. Going home to Chisholm with my cousin Mary Theresa (and her daughters Angie and Amy and Rebecca) remind me of the first visit. The beauty of small American towns is that they don’t change much in a lifetime, so you can find solace and comfort and memories in a place as you experienced it. I felt young again, and it didn’t take a beauty cream, just a moment to sit and think about what once was.

The public library was always a big part of my life, whether it was the Chisholm Public Library or the bookmobile or the Slemp Library in Big Stone Gap. I have beautiful memories of the scent of books, chairs that fit my small size, small table to match, and rows and rows of books with pictures. When I recently returned to the library, I recalled the titles I read as a child those summers so long ago and found them: Astrid Lingren’s Pippi Longstocking, and The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Pippi was from Sweden, Wilder’s books were set in the great Midwest, and here I was in Minnesota- where there were plenty of Swedish immigrants (gorgeous people who worked hard and could bake delicacies I still crave!) and the hard but loving farm life of the Ingalls family. It was all so easy. I could see it all looking out my grandmother’s window.

Now, if this was a perfect world, she would be there. My mother would be sitting with her. There would be nothing but a black sky filled with stars outside the window. There’s be a swell of laughter as it rolled out on to the sidewalk from Tiburzi’s Bar. The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson would be playing on the television set in Grandma’s living room. My mom and her mother would be laughing, and I would be grateful that they were mine.