My dad was born on a Kitchen Table in Cook Minnesota (as part of a Church House) - photos plus BLM free camping

https://elixirfield.blogspot.com/2019/05/how-to-lose-12-pounds-in-one-week.html

Last memorial day - I posted mention of where my dad was born. Now I will post photos - since I recently described what it was like when I found my dad's dead blue body. He was born in 1933.

 This is the back of the Church - you can see the house to the side. It was raining - so the camera was inside the dirty car window.

This is the mysterious house where my dad was born. I am completely basing this solely on the story my dad used to tell me - that "I was born on a kitchen table in Cook Minnesota." I discovered from my mom that my dad's father's church was Covenant. http://www.cookcovenantchurch.com/our-history/

Rev. E.G. Hjerpe who later became President of the Swedish Evangelical Covenant Church, headquartered in Chicago. Another pastor went on to serve as Superintendent of the Covenant’s Northwest Conference.
In 1932 we changed our name again, this time to “Mission Covenant Church of Cook.”
 In 1914, the name of the church was changed to the “Swedish Evangelical Mission Church of Cook”, known locally as “Cook Covenant Church.”

I had always known my grandfather as a Presbyterian minister but it turns out he converted since Presbyterian actually had a pension plan, unlike the Covenant church. My grandpa did go to seminary in Chicago - so that maybe do to this same Swedish connection to Chicago. My grandpa had Swedish bibles also.

OOPS here it is! - my dad was NOT born in this house. Well I tried...

The original church building, now the Lions’ Club storage building, was over on 1st Street.

 We built our current building in the late 1940s with adjoining parsonage.

So he started out as a Covenant minister - during the Depression. My dad's family then had to rely on the "charity" of the community. Also his dad got work through FDR's Conservation Civilian Corps - as an army minister. So I think maybe this is why my dad favored Private corporate power over the more seemingly obvious "handouts."

 In other words my family had a close connection to that school (my mom on the other hand did not like it and still does not). haha.

So my grandfather, as my mom told me, then had TWO churches - one on each side of Lake Vermilion. So he would drive from one end to the other for each service on the same day, each Sunday. The roads could not have been that good back then, as my mom comments. So one church was in Cook Minnesota - the other was in Tower Minnesota. Since this is the ONLY Convenant church in Cook (as far as I know - it's a very small town with two other denomination churches that I saw, so I very much doubt it would have TWO Covenant churches).

So this is a BIG lake in northern Minnesota - and when I saw the "WAkemup" resort town - I thought it must be blatantly racist. Turns out that "Wakemup" was an actual Ojibwe name or something - and the town is named after a particular person.

We used to drive up the Lake Vermilion to stay at a cabin - in an area that is no longer available I guess. I forgot the name - my mom told me. I asked my mom if my dad had EVER pointed out the house where he was born - as they drove through Cook, Minnesota. But no he had not - and I guess we only drove through Cook at night or something and not too often. Maybe just once.

So for me to discover my dad's birth house - "by accident" - on Memorial Day? That was a wonderful feeling since I had always wondered about this mysterious "birth on a kitchen table in Cook Minnesota." But considering all the factors together - I really don't know what other house it could have been! It MUST have been that house! Of course I didn't want to go bother the current inhabitants (I suppose the current pastor or minister of the church).....

So here we are off Cook, Minnesota - just to prove this truly is "Cabin" country - it's all about fishing on the lake.

All I remember is getting covered in huge leeches and that Lake Vermilion was very cold. But I did just appreciate being out in the wild and realizing just how huge the lake was. It makes you respect Mother Nature a bit more.

Maybe we stayed on Pine Island? My mom said it was some island but I don't remember taking a boat there - which is strange - and she said it is now off limits. I didn't realize just how close it is to the Canoe country of BWCA.

vid of Pine Island

https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/projects/lup/63441/81422/95625/Lake_Vermilion_Island_CRMP.pdf

So here are the FREE federal BLM camp islands on Lake Vermilion.

Global warming? Yep - head North.


So it was NOT Pine Island but rather "Isle of Pines" where we camping. We as a family only went once but my parents went two or three times on their own.

No wonder I don't remember any boat to get to this "island" - we had Maggie up there - our Golden Retriever dog. My mom says - that was the last summer it was open as a resort.

Oh the Western - Cook MN side is where all the "blood suckers" were! My mom explains to me. We had "known of that on the Isle of Pines." - cool. My mom went the summer after they got married. Then the next summer she was pregnant...

trip reports - BWCA - canoeing