The Gideon’s 202nd Birthday Bash. Also some other events taking place to go to.

Gideon’s 202nd Birthday Bash               Sunday, July 1        Drop-in program, 1:30 – 4 pm. 

Enjoy birthday cake and lemonade and sing Happy Birthday to Gideon in both English and Dakota at the historic Pond House.  Make two frontier pocket toys to take home: a Thaumatrope, with its amazing optical illusions, and a Whirligig, which spins and whizzes when you pull on its strings.  Birthday fun for everyone! Suggested donation $2, youth through high school and Pond Dakota Heritage Society members are free.

The historic Pond house is located in Pond Dakota Mission Park, 401 East 104th St., Bloomington, between Portland and Nicollet Aves. For more information call Jay Ludwig at 952-484-0477 or visit www.ci.bloomington.mn.us.

(Upcoming Events (not at the Pond House)

 

Tour of U.S. / Dakota War of 1862 Sites

Saturday July 7, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

This tour will emphasize the missionary and Dakota Christian involvement in the war.  The lead up to the war, the war itself, and the aftermath will all be discussed.  We’ll visit St. Peter, Mankato, Fort Ridgely, Lower Agency, and Upper Agency.  Tour leaders are John Crampton, Lois Glewwe, Corinne Marz and Jeff Williamson.  If you plan to attend Lac Qui Parle Mission Sunday the next day, please arrange for your motel room.  For more information or to register please contact Jeff Williamson at  gideonsam@aol.com  or  651-423-9004. Meet at Pond Dakota Mission Park at 8:00 a.m.  Cost for the tour is $15 per person, $10 for youth 18 and under.

Mission Sunday           July 8 at Lac Qui Parle Mission

10:30 am: worship service in Dakota and English led by the Ascension Church choir. Noon: pot luck picnic lunch. 1:00 pm “The Prince of Indian Preachers: The Life of John B. Renville.” Carrie Zeman will share stories about John and his white wife, Mary Butler Renville, discovered while researching John’s and Mary’s biographies for a new reprint of the Renville’s lost Dakota War story, A Thrilling Narrative of Indian Captivity: Dispatches from the Dakota War. John B. Renville listened while the first verses of the New Testament were translated into Dakota. He grew up to be the first ordained pastor in the Dakota Presbytery, witnessed the completion of the Bible in Dakota, and was pastor to the Sisseton and Wahpeton for 30 years. Copies of Carrie’s book will be available for purchase and signing. Sponsored by the Chippewa County Historical Society and the Pond Dakota Heritage Society.

The Dakota Prisoner of War Letters   Sunday, July 15      2:00 pm

at Oak Grove Presbyterian Church,

2200 West Old Shakopee Road, Bloomington

In the wake of the Dakota War of 1862, Dakota men imprisoned at Davenport, Iowa wrote letters to relatives in their own language. 150 years later, their voices have been recovered in a book of translations made by two of their descendants, Dr. Clifford Canku and Rev. Michael Simon (MHS Press, Nov 2012) Dr. John Peacock, who wrote the Introduction for the book, will discuss the letters. Dr. Peacock is Professor of Native American Studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, and is an enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation.