Mom, now you can never sell the cabin. It's a Vern!
My husband, Vern, and I bought our cabin on Big Sandy Lake in McGregor, Minn., in 1989. It was an old log cabin built in the early 1900s. Inside the cabin, we noticed a trap door that led to a crawl space under the kitchen floor. The floor was sagging throughout the cabin, but the tamarack logs looked to be solid. It sat on 3 acres of land with many mature trees and seemed to be just what we wanted. After digging a walkout basement, replacing windows and flooring, and replacing exterior wood siding with half-log siding, we had ourselves a five-bedroom, two-bathroom lake home.
While a teenager growing up in the '50s, Vern mowed grass along the county roads in our hometown of Rushford. The crew had its favorite windmill stops to cool off and have an ice cold drink of water. He developed a love and fascination for windmills and decided we had enough space at our cabin to erect one. The search was on, and he finally found one for sale. It was a full-size Monitor windmill and came delivered on a flatbed semi. Vern had the blades sandblasted and painted, but that is as far as he got. He died in 2004 and never got the windmill erected. The windmill lay on sawhorses for almost 15 years.
Years went by and, while we often thought of erecting the windmill, it seemed to be too huge a project. Then my youngest son, Leif, started to research the Monitor windmill, examined ours, ordered parts, and decided it was time.
In 2010, Leif and my other boys, Kurt and Eric, and I and my good friend Mike Shane started the project. Leif had found a man and wife with a crane to complete the team. First, the frame was lifted upright onto concrete footings and welded and screwed in place. Next, Leif, with a harness on, climbed 50 feet up the steel steps to a platform. The crane then lifted the gear box (mill), blades and vane up, and Leif guided it into place. Leif found an artist to write Vern's name in '50s cursive on the vane; along with his hometown of Rushford and year of his birth, 1937. Eric did a video and put it on a disc with music of the '50s. Kurt and Mike were the go-to guys, and I had the job of worrying all would go well. It did.
Now, every time we go to the cabin, we get the windmill running, and think of Vern and all our wonderful memories. You're right, Leif, I can't sell the cabin. It's a Vern!
Janice B. Carlson, Bloomington
