'The Great Storm' author coming to Glenwood next Wednesday the 18th

Everyone is invited to join a locally-raised historian and author Carolyn Mankell-Sowinski Wednesday, October 18th at 6:30 p.m. at the Pope County Museum for a talk about her recently-published book The Great Storm: Minnesota's Victims in the Blizzard of January 7, 1873.

On January 7-9, 1873, Minnesota residents experienced a violent blizzard when dozens of people died primarily on the flat, tree-less prairies. Kandiyohi County native, Carolyn Mankell Sowinski will take you back 150 years and tell the storiesz of these victims using primary documents and secondary sources. She has identified 84 people from 31 western and southern counties who died in this storm: men and women; children and babies; Civil War veterans and recent immigrants; homesteaders and villagers; residents and visitors. Friends died together; neighbors died together; family members died together. Many died alone--suffering for one, two, or all three days.

Her recent book The Great Storm: Minnesota's Victims in the Blizzard of January 7, 1873 gives the biography of each victim with genealogical information, immigration story, place of residence, journey in the storm, and burial location. Each biography also includes a section titled "Adventures in Research" where Sowinski provides other information about the victim, local history, or her research process in identifying these victims. The reader will also learn about the State's Native American population who were removed from their historic lands, making room for the homesteaders.

Born and raised in Kandiyohi County, Carolyn Mankell Sowinski graduated from the New London-Spicer school district in 1976 and then from and St. Olaf College in Northfield. She received Masters Degrees in Library Science and American History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. An archivist and historian, Sowinski has written several non-fiction books about her ancestors and the farming community where she grew up in Lake Andrew Township.

Note: a video clip from Sowinski's Arctander Township speaking engagement, hosted by the Norway Lake Lutheran Historical Association on August 20, is attached to this web article.