One from Money Creek performed as far away as Panama and Puerto Rico. Another from Spring Grove performed in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Another did not take his act on the road, but the act was so amazing that a Twin Cities newspaper reporter came to Brownsville to see if it was really true. An exceptional three, in order of their births:
Tony Steinbauer
Decades ago, readers of the St. Paul Pioneer Press were treated to an extraordinary tale from Houston County. The future editor of that newspaper, Roy D. Dunlap, traveled to Brownsville in 1948 to interview and photograph 70-year-old Tony Steinbauer lifting a five-gallon pail of water with his left ear. Providing evidence that he was not a one-sided sensation, he also posed while hoisting a heavy kitchen chair with his right ear.
Dunlap described, “Like all doers of great deeds, he’s modest when it comes to public exhibition of his singular prowess. But just dare him once, intimate it can’t be done, and he’ll go into his weight-lifting act.”
Steinbauer, at the time, resided alone in a shack along the Mississippi River in Brownsville, where his ears are considered “one of the wonders of Minnesota.” Tony’s auditory appendages, misshapen and hardened, were once like everyone else’s, back 20 years when he was still making a living as a stone cutter in Winona and Dwight, Ill. The change was gradual, he explained, crediting it on years of toiling in the sunshine. “Like a piece of soft clay, they became harder and harder until it was impossible to bend them.”
His notoriety began casually one day when “gossiping” with friends in a Brownsville grocery store. After the conversation turned to his ears, Steinbauer experimented by hooking a gallon pail of syrup to his left ear and then lifted. To the amazement of all, the pail came off the counter.
From then on, he practiced every day lifting heavier objects. He ability progressed from one-gallon pails to five-gallon buckets and the from stools to oak kitchen chairs. in 1948, at age 70, Steinbauer claimed to be in his “ear-lifting prime. The sky’s the limit,” Tony expressed.
Willing to take on any challenger in an “ear-hoisting” contest, he would arrange a time and place. “Bring your friends. Refreshments will be served.”
I’m thinking of donating my ears, after death to some museum or medical school,” imparted Tony. “It ain’t very often you come across a pair like these.”
Henry Christianson
Many a man and boy in Houston County have played a lot of baseball. But how many played against several who are still regarded among the greatest of all time – Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson. Henry Christianson (1896-1982) of Money Creek, Houston County, competed against all four of those legends.
Christianson played baseball for a quarter century, 1910-1935, mostly for the Navy team as well as with numerous teams around Houston. While stationed in Bremerton, Wash., Henry played semi-pro ball in such widely-flung locations as Puerto Rico, Cuba and Panama. In 1979-’80, at age 83, he recalled trips from Bremerton to Panama. He told reporter Jim Owen, “We took a boat down the coast to Panama and passed such towns as San Francisco and Los Angeles until finally landing in Panama around 3 a.m. I could always see good because I sat up in the crow’s nest.”
Stepping up to bat with Johnson pitching was surely daunting, since Johnson was known to fire a fastball at 100 miles per hour. Christianson informed that most pitchers threw “at” the batter, but really good pitchers like Johnson and Mathewson had good control and just put the pitch across the plate. Christianson, when asked if he was a “singles” batter or a “power hitter,” answered with pride, “both.”
Henry played every position but pitched most of the time. His pitching package included a fastball, a curve and even an illegal spitball. “My fastball had ‘em all scared,” he joked. “I also threw a spitball, but I never was caught.”
Of course, no one could pitch every day, but he was also an excellent fielder. When he played centerfield and a ball was hit toward him with two outs, he said his teammates would “take off their gloves and start jogging toward the dugout.”
Bill Sherburne
When the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, D.C. celebrated the bi-centennial in 1976, Spring Grove’s 73-year-old William “Bill” Sherburne was a featured performer for about 150,000 listeners on the mall between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, impressive enough to warrant a supper invitation from the Norwegian ambassador. Two years before, he had entertained at another Smithsonian event. He had impressed the director of the Smithsonian while performing in a 1974 festival in Minneapolis. At age 86, Sherburne played at the North Dakota Centennial celebration.
At age 7, Sherburne (1903-1991) began secretly borrowing his grandmother’s violin and taught himself to play. His first public appearance was at a school Christmas program. Sherburne was first paid to play at age 12 at a wedding reception. A half-century later, he attended their golden anniversary celebration.
Sherburne once placed first among 100 fiddlers at the Old Fiddlers Invitational at Yankton, S. Dak., and won the Country Fiddlers Invitational at Butterfield, Minn., in both 1977 and 1978. He once played at the Peace Garden in Canada and for decades, was an annual attraction at Nordic Fest in Decorah, Iowa.
Whether or not they were aware of his national and regional reputation, every dancer and audience in southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa prized their personal enjoyment as Sherburne played at countless senior citizen centers, supper clubs and nursing homes as well as opera houses and dance venues, including barn dances. He told a reporter about playing in a farm machine shed with a dirt dance floor during the season’s first snowstorm. Sherburne did not get home until sometime the following day and then only by walking four miles across fields and through the woods.
Sources, newspaper clippings: “Bend An Ear To This One! Or Won’t It Hold a Chair?” St. Paul Pioneer Press, 1948; “Semi-Pro Baseball Player Reflects on Past,” Houston Gazette and Country Journal, about 1979; “Old-time musician still fiddling around at 83,” La Crosse Tribune, July 27, 1986
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