The Famous Photo

I saw something today that I have been wanting to see for quite awhile. I had occasion to be at the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN, and was excited to find the Lake Wobegon Store. As many of you know, Lake Wobegon is Garrison Keillor's fictional Minnesota locale "where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all of the children are above average." I went to the Lake Wobegon Store to view the photo of Tenney's pint-sized population as it existed in May, 1989.

I wrote about Tenney's "Moment of Fame" earlier this year in this blog. In short, residents of Tenney, because they lived in Minnesota's smallest town, were honored in 1989 by KSTP-TV in Minneapolis. The residents, who easily fit into a limousine, were delivered to the Twin Cities, where they were wined and dined, then appeared on the “Good Company” television show which aired from the Valley Fair Amusement Park in Shakopee. First, the group ate in their own private dining room at the Radisson St. Paul Hotel. They were then given a tour of the Summit Avenue mansions in St. Paul, they stood on the steps of the state capitol, they wandered through the sculpture garden at the Walker Art Center, and then had a ride on the “Josiah Snelling” river boat on the Mississippi River, traveling from Harriet Island to Fort Snelling and back. The Tenney folks saw the Metrodome and toured the Minneapolis lakes area in their limousine.

Governor Perpich declared that day “Tenney Day” in Minnesota, and the group was presented with a plaque to commemorate this declaration. Al and Lou Manthie, Opal Hardie, Al Hungerford, Lorraine Church, Willie Rossow, Marian Harrington and Leo Berg were given quite a bit of air time on the TV show.

This group is memorialized in a photo of the group taken on the steps of the Tenney Church, which now hangs in the Lake Wobegon Store in the Mall of America. I have to admit that I had a bit of a lump in my throat when I saw the photo hanging there on that wall today, pondering, as I have so many times over the last year, the reach of this little town of Tenney where--of course--the women were strong, the men good looking, and the children above average.