Mystery Photo: Duluth Residence in 1910

Paul Lundgren Dec 28, 2020 10 Comments

Based on the postmark and the last line of the scrawled message on the back, we might presume this image is of a Duluth house in 1910. What is the address? Is it still standing? Let the mystery solving begin.

There might be clues on the back of the card, but some of it is difficult read.

It’s clear the card was sent to Miss Clara Hulebak of Kenyon, Minn. Below is the text of the message, but some parts haven’t been deciphered.

Duluth, December 27, 1910
My dear niece Clara, I received your very pretty present and many thanks for it. Hope you got that box in time for Xmas and hope you all had nice Christmas time down there. We enjoyed a very pleasant time. George and Allice were out and spent the day [???]. Wishing you all a happy new year from your loving Aunt [???]. The picture on this card is [???].

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10 Comments

vicarious

about 3 years ago

Was the entire hillside just clear cut at some point in the late-19th / early-20th Century?

Paul Lundgren

about 3 years ago

Basically, the answer to that is yes. In the center of town, anyway.

Gina Temple-Rhodes

about 3 years ago

I think it says at the very bottom: The picture on this card is Paul's house (it's above), at ?? woodland? 

The words for the location are above the line that says on this card. It could be St. something as well.

Gina Temple-Rhodes

about 3 years ago

Also believe it is Aunt Anne, but spent way too long searching and haven't been able to link any of Clara's relatives as living in Duluth yet.

Mike Creger

about 3 years ago

Clara Hulebak and Anne Kittilsdatter Hulebak. She was 14 when this postcard was written. She had an aunt, Annette Finnesgaard, who may be the card writer. None of the Hulebaks got too far from the Kenyon area in southeast Minnesota. 

Clara had a brother, Paul, who also didn’t live far away from the home place. Perhaps Annette had a picture postcard pre-visit and simply mailed it from Duluth, although it seems she spent a Christmas holiday here, meaning some close tie to someone here. Annette never married, so she was probably that worldly, free spirit aunt everyone wants.

Clara’s father, HP Hulebak, was a big wheel farmer. He served in the Minnesota House for two terms in the early 1880s and ran insurance and bank interests. When he died in 1923, a man came to his funeral from Duluth, Christ Tweed, who was in coal.

None of this leads to that house.

vicarious

about 3 years ago

Did you make this up? It doesn’t matter.

“... who was in coal.”

Paul Lundgren

about 3 years ago

I think we have a solve on this one. It's not a Duluth house, but it is 60 miles away in Nashwauk.

The research comes from a PDD reader named Lucien who emailed me to show his work on the math. It goes a little something like this:

As seen on the address, the recipient is Clara Hulebak (later Gusswitz), the daughter of Hans Hulebak.

When Hans Hulebak passed away in 1923, notable out-of-town attendees included individuals with the last names Lyons and Tweed.

These last names and associated cities almost certainly refer to relatives of George and Alice Tweed (Alice's maiden name was Lyon and she was from Faribault). I'm guessing this is the "George and Allice" referred to on the postcard.

The sender of the postcard ("Aunt Anne") probably refers to Annette Finnesgaard, Hans Hulebak's sister-in-law (Hans was married to Anne K. Finnesgaard). Annette appears to have lived in Kenyon her entire life, so I'm further assuming that she spent the holidays with the Tweed family in 1910.

OK, so here's where I really start to theorize with no proven connections ... there was a Paul Tweed who lived in Nashwauk and opened a hardware store in 1902. I know George Tweed had 10 siblings but I can't find any connection that Paul and George were brothers.

Upon further review of the postcard, I'm wondering if the final sentence actually reads "The picture on this card is Paul's house at Nashwauk" (that final word is seriously difficult to decipher but it looks like it starts with a cursive "n").

Paul Tweed's business, Nashwauk Hardware, was located at 201 Central Ave. in Nashwauk.
Figuring Paul would build a house close to the business and Nashwauk was (is) a very small town, I hopped on Google Maps and started going through the streets near the hardware store. After a few minutes, I "drove" past 219 Second St. and found a home that looks quite similar to the one featured in the postcard. The major differences appear to be an awning/front deck/support that were removed and an addition to the left side of the house.

I can't find anything regarding the Tweeds owning the house or confirmation of when the house was built (a couple of sites said 1920 but most just didn't have a date so I'm calling that inconclusive).

Lucien also notes that Paul Tweed was the first postmaster in Nashwauk, "so it isn't surprising that he created a postcard of his home."

Gina Temple-Rhodes

about 3 years ago

Thanks to the sleuths! I had found the Anne that Mike mentions, Clara's mother, and the sister/aunt Annette (who must have also gone by Anne). Annette lived to be 93 and was the sole remaining sibling out of 10 when she died. She was a church organist, etc., and I just didn't imagine her traveling to far away Duluth, but perhaps she did! 

Clara's mother Anne died just five years later, when Clara was 19. Paul was her uncle on her dad's side. Clara married, didn't have children, and died in 1985; she is buried in Austin, Minn.

George P. Tweed's mother was a Hulback. And he was born in Goodhue County. The connections went way back. 



The above is from Duluth and St. Louis County, Minnesota; Their Story and People, by Walter Van Brunt, published in 1921.

Gina Temple-Rhodes

about 3 years ago

I did just find a 1930 U.S. Census reference to the Paul H. Tweed family (with six children ages 25-7) living on East Second Street (no specific address). The house was worth $10,000 at that point (significantly more than the neighboring houses, which were listed as $4,000). His World War I draft card simply lists him as living in Nashwauk, and as a merchant at the hardware store. There is no city directory on file on Ancestry from Nashwauk to confirm his address. The 1930 census was conducted in April, and he died in July of 1930.

But according the Duluth Herald in 1916, it looks like the 1910 "cottage" was a starter home.

Mike Creger

about 3 years ago

The Tweeds ran that store in Nashwauk until it closed one year ago from the day this mystery was solved.

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