Vergas Remembers Old Timer, Hugo Gruening
From Farmer to Fisher on Minnesota’s Long Lake
Hugo Leopold Gruening (1887–1967), a first-generation German-American owned a small cottage home in Candor Township, Vergas, Otter Tail County, Minnesota. He purchased this property on Long Lake in 1925 as a warm-weather retreat for the Gruening family. [1] The home was close enough to the lake that his handmade wooden skiff boat provided guests with instant access to fishing — a favorite pastime.
His nephew Ralph has said of Hugo whom he visited at the lake house in 1936, “I remember Uncle Hugo as a quiet person.” [2] Hugo’s sister, Martha wrote about him in the 1930s: Hugo never married. Instead, “he chose to live a bachelor life.” [3a] His bachelor status did not mean Hugo was lonely, though. According to family anecdotes, poetic recollections, and other historical records, Hugo was a family caretaker through and through, a solid provider, and always ready to help.
Hugo: The Family Caretaker
When Hugo was only sixteen, his father August, an immigrant farmer, passed away from sunstroke in Jessenland Township (Sibley County). This tragedy left the running of not one, but two farm plots to three brothers: Richard (19), Hugo (16) and Leo (10). Hugo’s mother Augusta was still around to oversee the activities of one plot, and city planning records show that Richard took sole ownership of the neighboring plot himself. When Hugo came of age, though, he took over the family business and census records list Richard as an employee on his farm (an interesting shift of responsibility).
In the 1930s, his sister wrote: “There was but one who stayed with Ma, to take up the place of his Pa.” [3a] Hugo’s older sister Martha married around this time, which reduced some of the financial burden. Then, Martha and Emma were still in primary school and too young to contribute.
References to products grown on the Gruening farm are found in Martha’s poem, “Rhyme of Months”: grain, corn, apples, pumpkins, and nuts. [3b] Photographic evidence also shows they grew corn. Hugo’s “huge” wooden shoes, were once in the collection of the Sibley County Historical Society (according to docent Arlene Busse).
More Duty Calls
When WWI broke out, Hugo’s older brother Richard left Minnesota to aid the fight. When Richard returned home, he took on a new battle… this time with the deadly disease of tuberculosis. By 1920, Hugo was now his brother’s caretaker, too. Fortunately, Martha had married and moved out to St. Paul with her husband and brought both Leo and Emma out with her to find work in the Twin Cities.
Hugo, Richard, and Augusta moved into a new home in Washington Lake Township. [4] Unfortunately, by 1922, Richard passed away from the contagious disease. It is a wonder that neither Hugo nor Augusta caught it while being in such close proximity and constant contact. Sadly, no photos of Richard have surfaced in the family collections.
Hugo’s younger brother Leo would have left for WWI also if it hadn’t been for his wooden leg (a result of his own tuberculosis). The U.S. army didn’t accept his application but Leo made the best of it and went to work for a prosthetics manufacturer in Minneapolis that primarily constructed limbs for veterans.
Hugo, on the other hand, used his mother’s widow status and the burden of being her sole caretaker as a way to avoid the call for soldiers in both WWI and WWII. [5] During WWII, Hugo took on the Americanized nickname “Hugh.” This change aided the perception that he was not “one of them” (the German enemy). Leo followed suit and even changed his last name to “Greening.”
Retiring to Otter Tail County
In 1925, Hugh retired to a second home in northern Minnesota. His sister Martha, a poet, visited this home on Long Lake and wrote about her visits: “In a little country dwelling, in a rugged Northern space, with Jackpines, lakes, and hillocks surrounding the dear place, lives a little gray-haired mother, so wrinkled and so old.” [3c]
Martha found respite and consolation with her mother and Hugh in Vergas after discovering that her husband was unfaithful. [3c] Later, when Emma divorced her husband and left Minneapolis, she also found solace by staying with her mother and brother up north.
Recreational activities the family enjoyed in Vergas are found in Martha’s poem, “Life in Northern Pines,” which was addressed to Emma:
“Say to Fraú Gruening, ‘Let’s go and catch some fish.’ She is so spry and willing. She puts on Hugh’s old coat and off you go, fisherman, into a rough built boat. Row out to the midst of the lake … After a long time waiting, the fish will not come bite.” [3d]
Martha, composing her award-winning stories from the St. Peter State Hospital for the Insane, remembered her visits to this idyllic retreat well. She continued her story about the hungry and disappointed fishers with humor:
“Slowly, you row back to the shore… Just tell them fuhy fishes you’d rather eat some meat! On your way home, meet Hugh with gun. Along comes a rabbit. He shoots it while it’s on the run. … You say, ‘Ma, we’re in luck! … [We’ll] roast up for dinner a white-tail jackrabbit, tonight.’” [3d]
Fishing is still a popular activity in Long Lake and those who are lucky can catch Northern Pike or Bluegill, troll for Bass, or angle for Crappie. It is also stocked with Walleye and Catfish, which can be harder to catch.
Hugo Lends Hands (and Boats) to the Community
When a young boy fell off the dock and into the lake in 1955, Hugh jumped into action. While the child’s friends knew he’d been unable to swim to the surface and had surely drowned, the boy’s parents were desperate to recover the body of their son. Hugh provided two boats to the rescue effort that took four days. The story of how he and three other locals recovered the body from the bottom of the lake made it into the Fergus Falls Daily Journal (June 6, 1955). [6]
Another Drowning
In 1946, Hugh relocated from his Long Lake home into one of the small resort cabins on Loon Lake (about a mile away from Vergas). Then, in 1962, Hugh played a small part in yet another drowning rescue.
This time, three men were out fishing on Loon Lake. They tried to turn their boat around when it flipped and dumped them into the chilly water. Two men (Norman Gustafson and Carl Ackerlund) clung onto the side of the boat and called for help from where they were because “they got entangled in the anchor rope.” [7] Norman’s brother Lester, however, attempted to swim to the shore. “He was 100 to 150 feet from shore when he went down,” with no explanation — no choppy water, no winds, etc. While the fire department recovered Lester’s body from only six feet of water, both survivors (with the boat) were towed to Hugh’s place to be untangled.
Beloved Vergas Man Needs Rescuing, Himself
One day, while he was out on the shore of Loon Lake (probably fishing), seventy-six-year-old Hugh smelled smoke. When he looked back to his small cabin, he noticed it was in flames. A Vergas Daily Journal article from September 1963 announced that “an overheated combination gas and wood stove resulted in a fire that made a total loss of Hugo Gruening’s two-room frame home.” [1]
Giving no heed to age-old warnings about not running into a burning building, Hugh tried to get back into his burning home “to use the telephone to call the fire department.” [1] In the process, Hugh received severe burns to his face. Thankfully, a passerby had made the call earlier, as soon as smoke was visible. The extent of his injuries is not detailed in family records, though updates from the Daily Journal say in January of 1964, Hugh spent a week in Pernham’s Memorial Hospital. [8]
Three years later, Hugh passed away of lung cancer. While descendants can speculate that permanent lung damage could have been caused by the house fire, it should be noted that he was the third child in the Gruening family to die of cancer. [9]
In death, Hugh remains eternally close to his parents and brother Richard at the Brown Cemetery back in Henderson, Sibley County (per family records) … or (per FindaGrave.com records) he may have been laid to rest in an unmarked grave at the Riverview Cemetery in Saint Paul, near where his brother Leo and sister Emma preceded him.[10]
Learn More:
1. Mrs. Roy Bruhn, “Fire Ruins Small Vergas Home,” The Daily Journal, September 23, 1962, 2.
2. Ralph Nasch, A Grandfather Remembers, 1987.
3a.Martha Nasch (Lehman), “The Gruenings,” in Poems from the Asylum, (Phoenix: Molony, 2021), 188–190.
3b. Martha Nasch, “Rhyme of Months,” in Poems, 183.
3c. Martha Nasch, “Forbidden Lust,” in Poems 88. From “Forbidden Lust:” “Her daughter from a city, a place so grand and gay, / Went to this dear, old mother, to that lonely place to stay. / …When the dearest one she had on earth was unfaithful to his wife. / … In that isolated country, they talked of courtship days / … She shared how romance ended and how they were forced to part.”
3d. Martha Nasch, “Life in Northern Pines,” in Poems, 192. Note: The 1940 census says Hugo lives there as a second home with Augusta Gruening (widow) and Emma Ellsworth (housewife).
4. U.S. Census Bureau, Ancestry.com, “1920 United States Federal Census: Washington Lake, Sibley, Minnesota,” Roll: Roll: T625_862; Page: 9A.
5. “World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917”, digital image, The National Archives, 3Fold.com, Accessed 31 January 2022), Draft Registration Card for Hugo L. Gruening, Birth Date: 27 Feb 1887.
6. “Body of Vergas Boy Found at 66-Foot Depth,” Fergus Falls Daily Journal, June 6, 1955. Retrieved from Newspapers.com.
7. “Moorhead Man, 35 Drowns…” The Daily Journal, June 11, 1962, 5.
8. “Vergas,” The Daily Journal, February 1, 1964, 3.
9. Ralph Nasch, “Grandpa Ralph Family History,” to Jodi Nasch Decker, January, 1998. Mary and Emma also died from cancer.
10. “Hugo Gruening,” FindaGrave.com, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/241237859/hugo-gruening. [U-3 Lot 345, Unmarked, Riverview Cemetary, Saint Paul, Minn.]
About the Author
Janelle Molony, M.S.L., is a family historian and co-biographer of her great-grandmother’s story and poetry anthology, Poems from the Asylum (2021, Nonfiction by Martha Nasch). Her writing has been featured in magazines and journals such as Harbinger’s Asylum, The Michigan Historical Review, Minnesota Genealogist, Annals of Wyoming, Women’s History, and more.
See more from the author by following on Medium and on social media. More publications by Molony can be found on her official author webpage.
