(Okoboji)– If you’re a fan of local history, there’s an event coming up next week in the Iowa Great Lakes you won’t want to miss. “The Howe Letters-A Local Treasure Grows” will be presented at 7:30 pm Wednesday, July 30th, at the Pearson Lakes Art Center. It’s being made possible through a collaborative effort of the Dickinson County Museum, Friends of the Abbie Gardner Cabin and the Lakes Area Museum Alliance. Mary Dreier of the Lakes Area Museum Alliance says it’s an extension of a presentation a year or so ago of the original Howe letters first discovered in 2023 by Kathy McNeill, a volunteer at the Dickinson County Museum…
“Now we presented these letters a year ago to just rave reviews, the letters of Orlando and Maria Howe. What’s different this year is we found another letter and it is from their daughter Evelyn, otherwise known as Lynnie, and Lynnie came to the lakes area to live in 1857. She was the first child to live in Dickinson county and she remembered fondly living here and in her new letter that we’re presenting she talks about what it was like here when she was the only child.”
Dreier says the letters go into great detail…
“She talks about the Indians coming to their home; she talks about having to live in a fort where the present day St. Mary’s Catholic Church is; she talks about the construction of their first home which had side walls made of willow stems that cows liked to eat and sometimes they even were able to eat her hair through the willow stems. She talks about the topography of the area; she talks about hunting and fishing and other people in the area. It’s just amazing, Steve.”
Dreier says the July 30th performance will be done in a reader’s theater type of format…
“The actors are in period costumes and they actually read the letters back and forth. A year ago when we presented this there were times when the audience was just struck, it was just silence in the room. And Orlando C. Howe was describing the conditions when he came back right after the massacre, to bury the dead, and what he saw, what he found. He was one of the first people here right after the massacre. And in these letters he describes what he saw, what he experienced, and how it affected him the rest of his life.”
The performance is free of charge but a freewill donation will be accepted. She adds that pre-registration also isn’t required, but Dreier says the seating is limited so you’ll want to get there early.
