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The Victoria

GAZETTE

The Hat Lady

Text Box: by Sue Orsen She’s been walking up and down Park Drive since she was a little girl, when the road didn’t have gravel much less curb and asphalt, and it didn’t even have a name. She often wears a hat to suit whimsy or weather, and in recent years has taken to using a walking stick. Virginia was born in 1936 to Herbert and Evelyn Hedtke in the very house she lives in today at the crossroads of Park Drive and Highway 5 in Victoria. Recalling her mother’s story, Virginia stated, “The doctor said that’s the last time he’s going to have a home birth. It was Dr. Ormand, not sure how to spell it, and from then on babies were born at Nagel Hospital in Waconia.” Hedtke was a common name in Victoria for many years in the first decades of the city and the century. To that point, Virginia has a keepsake from her father, dated 1902, that lists all the pupils in Public School District No. 16. Frank Kenny was the teacher and the 50 students included 8 with the last name of Hedtke: Lydia, Bertha, Elsie, Ferdinand, George, Alma, Willie, and Herbert. There was also a Ferdinand Hedtke on the school board at that time. Virginia had an older brother and sister, and all three attended and graduated from the Waconia High School. “My brother Bobby was 13 years older and my sister Joyce is 11 years older,” she said. “Bobby and Joyce were born at the original Hedtke farm west of the Krey place, south of Lake Auburn.” “My grandparents Ferdinand and Margaret had settled there,” continued Virginia. “My grandmother was a Fink. They got electricity before others because my Aunt Helena Strong, who was my dad’s sister, had a husband who was an electrician. My dad was the youngest of a clan. I never knew them because I was also the youngest of the next generation.” The orange pumpkin earrings of the hat lady dangled along with the colorful details of her story. “My parents were married in 1921,” she said. “My dad was a farmer and they moved to Cologne for a couple of years, but he was the band director for the Victoria Concert Band and he got tired of driving back and forth. He wanted to get back here so he bought this place at Victoria from Emma Fink. She was Pa’s aunt, a widow of Henry Fink.” This property in Victoria amounted to a swath of 40 contiguous acres along a fence line that came to be State Highway 5 when Highway 5 was realigned in 1950 from its former location at 78th Street. The acreage was cut in half more or less by a primitive road that came to be Park Drive. “They bought the 40 acres in 1935 and I was born in 1936,” said Virginia. “My dad held a lot of jobs to make ends meet,” said the lady who sometimes wore bonnets as a baby. “He farmed and he was also the Laketown Township Assessor. I remember how he used to spread out the sheets of paper all over the living room floor. People didn’t hide from that assessor. People liked him.” “Pa also cut grass along roads for the township or the county,” said Virginia. “He cut grass first with a team of horses -- our horses, Barney and King -- and then with a tractor. He always said he wanted two cuts before the Fourth of July. Sometimes we brought him lunch when he was cutting out by Waconia.” Click here to continue The Hat Lady.

November 2009

Virginia Hedtke Stowe