Stay tuned for In Our Range on the way next, brought to you by Westgate Nursing Rehabilitation and Assisted Living Center.
Good morning and welcome to In Our Range.
I'm Mike LeBeau.
Thank you for tuning in.
Joining me this morning is a voice that will be familiar to longtime WJMS listeners.
I'm joined this morning by local artist and historian Larry Peterson.
Larry was a part of the WJMS family for 35 years, hosting his segment's pages from the past and History 101, what they didn't teach you in school.
He also came up with the name for this segment, for which I'm really thankful.
I'm happy to bring Larry back this morning for a check-in and to discuss some of our local history and the opportunities to share that history.
Good morning and welcome back to WJMS, Larry.
Good morning, Michael.
It feels like old home week.
You know, it really...
it feels good.
We got the band.
Behind the
microphone.
Getting the band back together,
huh?
Yeah,
you know, just
do a reunion gig, you know.
I'm really honored to be able to come on and address some of the things that we've both been talking about.
Yeah.
Quite extensively.
Well, I know that our listeners have really missed you and I'm sure they'd love to hear an update from you.
So, how are you doing these days?
Not really well.
I had a triple heart attack.
Oh my gosh.
And I'm COVID
and
pneumonia all in one time.
So it was a variety pack and I ended up in Wasan.
The surgeons and not to mention the hospital as a whole were just fantastic.
Those people really are very good at what they do.
And this saved my life twice.
As a matter of fact, one surgeon says he almost went twice, you know, and I'm like, that's interesting.
Plus, you know, I'm beardless while I'm coming in again.
I
noticed they trimmed you up, huh?
They sure did.
Cut the hair, too.
But they, when they took my tail.
They braided it and kept it for me.
Oh, they did?
Yeah.
Okay.
So I don't know what nurse did that or who did that, but I was, I felt was very thoughtful.
That's sweet.
That's very sweet of them to do that.
Yeah.
I didn't know if you were trying to go for a job interview or what?
No,
but I was so grateful for what they did that.
I donated a dozen.
And I mean, really well done.
Abraham Lincoln's.
But they had a lot of beautiful artwork on the
wall
thrown there and the watercolors and all that.
And I'm like, I'm alive, you know, and it's because of these people.
And the nurses and staff, I mean, I swear, you know, some of them are psychic.
You know, it's like on the Thursday, there's a glass of water.
I don't want to go on and on about it, but when you get that close to death, you know, it sort of modifies the way you look at life.
and I'm really in the process of not taking anything for granted.
You know, I mean, there's a lot of things that I would have shot would have been doing with my life and I wasn't.
Having going through enduring something like this, you know, post-surgery and everything else, you know, you're leaking like a faucet half the time.
It really does alter the way you look at the world.
Well, I'm sure I'm glad that they took good care of you.
and glad to see you up and moving around and in here across the desk from me this morning.
I definitely have to take it easy, but I figure sometime in May and June, I'll be front and center, I'll be wandering around in one of the things that we're going to be talking about, which is the miners' memorial heritage park.
I see the possibilities as well as other people that were instrumental in bringing in about new possibilities.
And how we could enhance not to mention complement everything that's going on in the downtown area.
It's just a matter of sitting down and planning it out and figuring out what you can do and what you can do it.
And there is a lot we can do.
We got the 100th anniversary of the PAPS Mind disaster, you know, coming up in September.
And knowing Ivan, Ivan will be preparing for that probably four months ago.
yeah well maybe his whole life really if we're thinking about Ivan Helen you know he's like he's an incredible resource just a great guy.
Every time I walk down there I go up that little trail that he made his sister trail I'm I see people go there and you know they stand there in front of that tree for the longest time and they begin to realize just the magnitude of that accident.
and that it was in papers all over the place.
What does somebody in California care about 43 miners underground?
Well, just a lot of human drama
in there.
A lot of human drama and those mining accidents weren't uncommon back in the day.
They happened all over the country.
We just had an anniversary.
of a coal mine collapse from 1911.
I think it was.
We
had one accident in 1892 that took 10.
You had some that took 8.
You had maybe half a dozen fours and threes and a lot of twos.
Now if you get down to single minor fatalities, we're talking about 1150.
And these are like obvious accidents falling in the machinery or down a shaft or killing a fall of earth
or something like that.
So many that didn't get counted.
And it ought to be taken into consideration a lot more seriously than it is because it wasn't just the immediate death of the minor.
is what his family was gonna have to endure, especially a widow with a Scott, maybe eight kids.
And the old saying that has become almost cliche, $23 and a half.
But then again, I had programs that also looked at miners from the angle of sex as the skull of a Finland, falling down a shaft, going through a platform, hitting the bottom of the shaft, which would fill the water because the sump wasn't working.
And they're coming down there to collect his remains, his fellow countrymen.
He's already climbing back to work.
You know, all these stories that are not really connected other than that mining
with dangerous
and took a lot of lives.
not to mention all of those that for years later even my dad to some degree you know that was still living with the effects of that having worked underground all those years my dad was 38 years hmm you know and he was you know by the time I really appreciated what mining history was all about on the gugibic range his spine was curved again and a lot of that may have been age
But he used to tell me how when the power wasn't when they couldn't get a sufficient generator power underground for the lighting And then the machinery we began to shut down they were drilling from wraps built out of railroad ties Because some wasn't working and the water was pouring into the grips
And I mean, it wasn't gonna draw them or anything, but I mean, when you have two, three feet of water and it's not going down right away, but if you can drill, you'll drill.
My goodness.
The comradeship.
the fellowship, the ties, you know, were something that I don't think we can really understand or appreciate in many cases today.
It wasn't that different from being in the service.
You know, when your life is dependent on the guy next to you, because he's part of your drill crew, you know, and they don't call, you know, the one man drill, we talked about
this.
The two man drill.
The
widowmaker, you know.
You don't want to be alone with that and then end up having you know some slab of Then we hit you when
you're alone Yeah, so so much of the fellowship really had to do with their lives were in each other's hands And they probably knew the score that no one else really cared outside of their families So they had to take care of each other and care for each other because they couldn't expect it from the boss or anybody else
The thing that amazes me even like when in relation to my father is
They have worked all those many years in the mines, but there were so many positive things they said.
My dad used to say, look, they put the storm windows up.
You know, they paint the house, yeah, because they wanted white.
They wanted green and white, because Ogilby Norton over in Boston dictated that.
Like in Montreal, they knew exactly where the manhole covers are gonna go, where your garbage was to be put.
You know, I mean it was a who's all benevolent feudalism.
That's the
best way You know, I like that term that you use the benevolent feudalism because I think they did just model this workers
economy based on patterns from feudalism and other things, you
know?
Look at Pickett Masters' medicine.
I know it's historical society, I'm sure it has copies, there's copies wrong.
A lot of it has nothing to do with mining.
My sister was on the front cover of Pickett Master when she was entering kindergarten going into the Ramsey School.
They took a photograph of her and her friend, you know, and there she was on basically a mining publication.
If somebody was an outstanding hunter or if there were a carpenter that really made furniture and things like that, they covered you.
I mean, you know, they knew the importance of public relations because, but you were asking these guys to do and what they ended up doing even later on, you wouldn't get away with it today.
I don't think so.
Maybe in some instances, but I don't know.
You know, safety first was him.
you know, in place especially after the Papus Mine disaster.
So yeah, there was a phenomenon of developing hard hats and other safety measures, you know, like with the cages and stuff like that when you're bringing people, you know, from below to the surface and vice versa.
It took a long time for all that to happen.
It was dangerous.
A lot of people got killed just getting down to work.
Somebody accidentally gets jolted, their head goes outside the immediate cage, decapitation.
Happened so quick.
Happened
so quick, yes.
And there was a lot of that.
as much as we love talking about some of the darker, more violent elements of things that kind of want to bring it back.
We need to like this.
Well, so this is what we want to talk about is we, the Miners Park is an incredible resource in our town right here.
And there's miles and miles of bike trails and hiking trails, gardeners, there's a butterfly garden there.
And there's some lovely events.
And like you mentioned earlier, I also am in love with
that display that Ivan made you know and this is wild I had a very similar sense going through that memorial that he made that when I visited the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC it just felt very humbling and very sacred to walk around that and so we do all these great things with the park
How can we incorporate and honor more of the history?
How can we get more of the history involved and use that as an attraction point for the part?
Let me give you one example very quickly.
And with fun drives in other words for maintenance of the park and taking care of costs and stuff like that Why don't we do a pasty fun drive as part of the mining history?
You had it underneath their shirt for crying out loud people love pasties
Yeah, so there are fundraisers that we can do you've even mentioned to me living histories Walking history tours
once or twice a week
Either Ivan, maybe me or somebody.
I mean, historical society's got, you know, personality.
Go down there and do the history.
Stand there dressed as a minor.
The Emberlite Festival's a great temporary.
exhibition of art.
I think there are opportunities in the park, and you probably agree with me, opt for permanent memorials that work with the nature of the park, but also acknowledge the heritage and the sacrifice of the ancestors who went down in those mines and did that great work.
I
was, when I looked at some of the displays that were involved with the mine, with the Emberlite Festival, I got concepts of my own, and I've said this to
other people that are history buffs and people that are just you know in town in the park because of the high rate of fatality the unbelievably high rate of fatality in the danger there needs to be a permanent piece of sculpture that honors that or some sort of a monument
I think the park is evolving beautifully.
I mean, I'm down there a lot, okay?
Between
bicycles, the possibility of resurrecting something like maybe even the Renaissance Festival.
I don't mean Renaissance Festival per se, but venues that occupy a lot of attention from a lot of people and that can be done and you don't have to spend a fortune to do
it.
You know,
there's still so much untapped potential in that park.
You even mentioned giving lectures and having storytime around the old Cottonwood tree, which I think is a fantastic idea.
You have somebody dressed up like Gondorf, you know, with a big story telling, bonfires, marshmallows, hot, you know, everybody goes to the tree.
They're drawn to it like a magnet
tree is a living memorial of the of this space going back to the old growth forest, you know, seen it all.
The trail's great.
I mean you can get in but like flower beds.
Yeah.
Community garden.
You know like if they can do it in Nori, why can't we do it in the
park?
And something else that just popped into my head here is they have the walking tour around downtown.
You get to these different spots and they have things you can listen to.
be a wonderful idea for the park as well.
You know, walk to this spot and then here's what happened here.
Here's who owned this mine.
Here's who ran this shaft.
And so with all the people who are hiking in the park, they can also get these lessons in history and feel more connected to the space.
Well, beyond history itself, I should, well, it does have a lot to do with history too.
But the equivalent, like Ohio Water Festival, remember in 1964-65?
Man, there's place what happened.
to have the president's wife come up here to look at our flowers.
People knew how to market.
They were aggressive in getting us on the map.
If we could resurrect that, and I'm not saying it isn't out there, it's just that we need to coordinate it.
We need to put it all in one room and under one roof, and then what are we gonna do now?
Because we got all the stuff that's coming up in summer.
We can complement it.
We can make it that much better by adding the part.
Well, maybe there's some folks out there listening this morning who got some ideas and want to get involved.
I'd be happy to hear them.
Larry would be happy to hear them.
You can find us and talk about them.
We can get some things going to do in addition to all the lovely things that already happened over there.
Let me have some sweet ideas.
Other people going, hey, the renters back.
I feel passionate about it.
I see the possibilities.
I may be wrong.
You know, it may be what I call a well-founded opinion,
but I've done it wrong.
A good idea is a good idea, Larry.
And I think that's a good place to leave it this morning to talk about the... One more thing.
Yes, sir.
Important.
The educational aspects.
I'd like to, if we celebrated the 100th anniversary of Lutheran Right, okay?
As well as the other schools in the district, as well as on the range, there ought to be field trips on
there.
Yeah.
Well, I think we can philosophize about that, but we're out of time.
I think it is a wonderful idea to bring that to the minds of people.
If you do like what I used to do with the memorial buildings, I used to take classes through that building.
all day from morning to the end of the school day you know and you figure out what how are you gonna interest you know somebody that's having a rake or something like that it's amazingly easy all
I
used to hear is Mr. Peter saying Mr. Peter saying Mr. Peter saying but yeah and they wanted to know yeah they were just absorbing it
yeah
imagine if you bring them down there
oh yeah
deer running around inside
Yeah,
I see the possibility.
And this is their history.
You know, these kids growing up here, they are the great grandchildren and grandchildren of the folks that helped build this place.
And so you start talking about it, something is going to ring true in them, right?
I mean, with the superb bike trails we got and
everything else, just keep making it that much more special.
Yeah.
It'll complement everything that's already there.
Anything that's pre-existing is only going to benefit from it.
Yeah.
Anyway, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get off on a tangent,
but... That's me, okay?
Larry, it wouldn't be on you on WJMS if you didn't, you know?
This is what we're here for, so... I'm so happy to have you back this morning, and we'll get you back again, because I got some other things I want to... It
feels nice.
Yeah, it does feel good.
It's good to see you smile, too.
I'm never going all the way back to Harry, Rizzy, and D.G.
Paul, like he... D.G.
used to go, cheesy, cheesy...
The
way she
used to promote pizza or advertise or whatever, I was celebrating on the counter,
you know?
Aw, she was one of a kind.
Next time I get you back in here, we'll talk about the history of this radio station.
Yeah, and Harry Rizzy.
I like to see him, Harry Rizzy.
Yes, sir.
He was something else.
I think people would really love to hear that.
Larry, it's good to see you smile.
Thanks for coming back this morning.
Thank you.
Yeah, you have a great day.
You too.
My guest this morning is local artist and historian and WJMS veteran and longtime favorite of our listeners, Mr. Larry Peterson.
Super grateful to have him back today and have him smiling in front of me.
Thank you for listening to In Our Range.
We'll see you next week.