EDEN VALLEY: A RETURN TO PARADISE?

In late July 2004, I negotiated with my bride of only four years to undertake a genealogical expedition with me to re-trace some of the steps taken by the Grein/Guelff party in their move westward, eventually to homesteads in Dawson County, Montana.  In exchange for being a game companion in my roots quest across some of the flattest and hottest landscape in North America, I agreed to take up residence in what turned out to be a Swiss Chalet in the Black Hills of North Dakota at one end of the journey and celebrate, on the return journey, by seeing one of the last Twins games to be played in the old Metro Dome.  The Mall of the Americas might have been part of the deal as well, but for some reason that never materialized.

It has been said as a sort of axiomatic principle of genealogy that immigrants tend to settle in places that remind them of home in the old country.  Hence, Scots from the highlands end up in the Appalachians, Swiss and German farmers populated the Piedmont, and the Luxembourgers, being from a self-described sub-aquatic environment, chose the marshlands of Minnesota.  They almost did not survive them, but thank God they did and then moved on.

Those ten thousand lakes are populated by ten billion very large and hungry mosquitoes. Hence the pressing question:  Is Minnesota's State Bird still the Mosquito?

Fortunately, we spent the first day of our visit to Stern County in the excellent Historical Museum in St. Cloud to look through some records in the secure (no mosquitoes allowed) air conditioned library.  Not until the second day did we, map in hand, venture south to Eden Valley.  

 If you zoom in on the map and look at the lower left corner at Section 31, you will see the original homestead of Michael Guelff immediately to the north of the tracks for the St. Paul, Joseph and Sault St. Marie Railway.  Also on this map in the southwest corner of Section 21 you will find a small triangular piece marked P. Grein, Michael's father-in-law Pierre Grein.  A little bit further up the road to the northwest you will find St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Section 15, the cemetery next to it being the permanent residence of Pierre Grein and his wife Elisabeth Schwinden.

Immediately to the west of the prior map, you will see another parcel helpfully highlighted in yellow, identifying a second parcel belonging to Michael Guelff, also strategically placed alongside the railway tracks.  This second parcel hosted the Guelff Saloon, a likely haven from the Minnesota state bird and conveniently located next to the railway station.  Please note for future reference the sequence of small lakes, especially Eden Lake, due north of the saloon, like a necklace of helipads for the ever present mosquitoes.

We now look at the map of a township north of Eden Valley, Maine Prairie.  Again, the properties of John Grein in Section 1, Mary Grein in Section 3 and Scheeler & Grein in Section 17 complete the picture of the family homesteading in close proximity to one another.

Many sad things happened to the Guelff family during their stay in Eden Valley until Michael Guelff's drowning death in 1905.  Several of the approximately 14 children died before him, including the eldest son almost exactly a year before his own death.  They are buried head-to-toe with a single marker memorializing the dates on opposite sides of the slab.   The other childhood deaths are recorded in parish and cemetery records across the tracks in another county.  


The family lost little time selling the Guelff Saloon near the railroad station and the other homestead properties.  Two of the children, Michael and Elizabeth, accelerated their confirmations.  Along with their close friends and neighbors, the Russ family, they packed up and moved to a much drier and barren place on the border of eastern Montana and the western Dakotas.  Another saloon and dry goods shop was established in Beach, once again near a railroad station.  More acreage was homesteaded.  The widow re-married, and life went on.