At the Houston County Fair, he educated visitors inside the 1880 pioneer log cabin. His wife demonstrated how pioneer women spun wool on an antique spinning wheel in that same log home in the Houston County Historical Society complex, adjacent to the fairgrounds at the Main Street entrance. Harold and Ragnhild (Peterson) St. Mary donated countless volunteer hours at the museum. During the school year, Ragnhild guided classes through the museum.
Museum visitors can still view Harold’s handmade miniatures, which in addition to the pioneer cabin features a country store, blacksmith shop, windmill, outhouse, sawmill and replica of the 1876 Schech’s Mill. Details abound, including can and box goods in the store. One poster at the Blacksmith shop advertises a circus while another poster offers a reward for the capture of outlaw Jesse James, “Dead or Alive.” Pioneer dolls wear period clothing of tradesmen and lady shoppers.
Ragnhild claimed little credit, despite making clothing for the dolls and saving old magazines through which Harold searched for advertisements and posters for his miniature buildings. A granddaughter contributed an old-fashioned poster she obtained as a prize from a gumball machine.
Back in that life-sized, 1880 log cabin, Harold would point out the 1820 Guberud family trunk, the 1837 pail along with the 1881 bed. Another immigrant trunk was used to transport food for an immigrant family crossing the Atlantic Ocean about 1849. The dipper was probably carved from the knot on a tree. The windows came from an old house near Brownsville.
Ragnhild, herself born in a log cabin along Bear Creek in Iowa between Quandahl and Highlandville, demonstrated spinning wool in the museum log cabin since the mid-1960s for more than three decades. She had learned to sew on a treadle sewing machine when she was about eight years old, three years after she embroidered her first doily. At times during this summer’s 2025 Houston County Fair (August 14-17), Ragnhild’s granddaughter, Kirsten Almo, will be demonstrating frontier sewing.
During the fair, Harold spent much time in both the cabin and the museum. When one museum visitor admired an old sleigh and commented that it looked like it had never left the barn, Harold recalled the many hours of cleaning and polishing it had required. Ragnhild had redone the upholstery.
Harold owned St. Mary’s Auto Body Shop and later Caledonia Wheel Alignment. When asked about his interest in history, he thought it began when he bought an old Model T Ford. People asked him why he invested so much as a nickel into an old car and what he was going to do with it. But after he had restored it, folks were interested in how they could obtain one.
He would go on to restore other vintage cars. Harold and Ragnhild were often seen riding in old autos, many times in parades while dressed in appropriate time-period clothing. They also enjoyed giving rides to campers at Camp Winnebago.
Harold, museum curator for 20 years, realizing the value of preserving and sharing items of the past, became an ardent proponent of donating or loaning them to the museum. From old doors, he made display boards for old photographs. Some of the planks in the pioneer home came from the old bandstand in the Caledonia City Park. The display case for the old bottles and Civil War artifacts came from Abbotts Drug Store.
Ragnhild, growing up on a farm near Quandahl, attended a country school until the eighth grade before going to work in Spring Grove as a teenager providing homecare for invalids. Ragnhild lived past age 103 (1914-2018). As a girl, she told her father she wanted to become a doctor, but during the Great Depression, there was not enough money for that education.
One early attempt at surgery has been an enduring family remembrance. One of the family cows had mysteriously quit eating and died. Young, curious Ragnhild wanted to cut open the carcass to ascertain why the bovine had stopped eating. Her father saw her heading to the barn with a large knife and interceded to prevent the autopsy.
Growing up, Ragnhild, considered a tomboy, had no qualms about riding her horse bareback. For a youngster of slight stature, the challenge was mounting. She walked Morgan, her retired workhorse, to a stone wall near the house. Standing on the wall, she managed to mount her travel companion.
As an adult, Ragnhild was a mother of seven children and sewed most of their clothing, even winter coats. She purchased local wool for carding, spinning and dying. Her daughter, Audrey Almo, said she was in eighth grade before owning a store-bought blouse and skirt. Her first store-bought coat came as a ninth grader. Ragnhild’s son Duane said his store-bought clothing amounted only to socks and underwear until an unforgettable shopping trip. As a high school freshman, he was taken by his father to La Crosse for his first store-bought Sunday-go-to-meeting coat and hat.
Audrey was amazed how her mother accomplished it all, including canning hundreds of quarts of vegetables and fruit from her garden. Ragnhild was a Caledonia Hospital and hospice volunteer and a Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts leader. She made quilts for Camp Winnebago, made clothes for church missions, crocheted hats and mittens for the Salvation Army, volunteered at Caledonia schools for decades, entertained donors’ children at the bloodmobile, baked cookies and breads for family and friends – all of which while keeping the books for Harold’s business.
At Christmas, Ragnhild baked hundreds and hundreds of cookies, which she would hide from her children so the treats could soon be given away. But Audrey said they would always find some, and pre-holiday gobbling ensued. “Everything was homemade,” noted Audrey. They tasted store-bought cookies only at friends’ houses.
Harold (1913-1991) was honored in 1983 as the Senior Citizen of the Year. Harold and Ragnhild were the Caledonia Founders Day Outstanding Couple of the Year in 1987. Son Duane St. Mary remains a weekly, historical society volunteer, currently serving as director.
Sources: “Harold St. Mary … Sharing the Past,” unidentified newspaper clipping; “Busy days for senior citizen volunteering in community,” Caledonia Argus, January 28, 1997. “99 and quite sublime,” by Emily Bialkowski, Caledonia Argus, October 9, 2013; “Turning 100 years young,” by Marlene Deschler, Spring Grove Herald, October 22, 2014.
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