ANTIQUATED STOVE STOKED WITH HISTORY

The history behind a 120-year-old, three-burner gas stove nestled among other antique items in the Opera Hall above the former Big Store has begun to unfold.
The 1901 model stove built by Insurance National Stove Company of Lorain, Ohio was first owned by Joseph Josephson and his wife Helga Jonsdottir when they moved to Minneota and built a home on the northwest corner of Madison and 4th Streets in 1904. The stove was used in their home for many years until Joseph and Helga died and the estate was passed on to their twin son and daughter, Victor and Elvira.
Over the years, Victor and Elvira rented the home out to several people, including one business - the Bourgeois Funeral Home.
"When the funeral home went in, they moved a lot of things to the attic to make more room," said Olive Evanson, a great-great niece to Helga Jonsdottir. "They put the stove, an old pump organ, trunks, a bunch of Life magazines and a lot of other things in the attic."
Olive's parents, Joseph and Helen Gislason, purchased the home from Victor and Elvira in the early 1970s and the many items in the attic came with the home.
Before selling the home to current owners Alvin and Marilyn Smith, Joe Gislason felt the items in the attic needed to eventually be sold to anyone interested or donated to the Minneota Historical Society for posterity sake. Joe sold the pump organ to a neighbor and got rid of some of the other items.
"I wanted to bring the stove to Brownton where I lived, but my husband said we didn't have any room for it," Olive laughed. "So I talked to Daren (Gislason, who is Olive's cousin) and asked him if he would like to have it and he said yes."
For many years, Daren has been maintaining the Society for the Preservation of Minneota Heritage as the lone remaining member from the original group. He is now a consultant and historian with the newly-formed SPMH.
Olive's late husband, Everett, and two of his friends carried the heavy stove down from the attic, loaded it on a large truck and placed it in the upstairs Opera Hall, which house the historical museum.
Joe Gislason passed away in 1982 and his wife passed 10 years later.
Another item that was donated to the SPMH was somehow inadvertently tossed away.
"My family was one of the first people in Lyon County to have a television set," said Olive. "That was in the early 1940s. We donated the set and it sat up in the Opera Hall for several years."
When a crew cleaned in the Opera Hall several years ago, they tossed the antiquated TV set away, not realizing its historical value.
But the stove and its history remains in the Opera Hall.