GlenSheen

Saturday, July 12, 205

Every summer for ten years the History Theater has presented Glensheen, a musical about the murders of the richest woman in Minnesota Elisabeth Congdon and her nurse, Velma Pietila. It happened at Glensheen, Congdon’s Duluth home in June 1977. I visited Glensheen in 1982 and there were whispers about the murders, but nothing was officially talked about on the tour. It’s very strange to realize now that it had happened really recently at that time. (That was the trip where I put a peanut in my sister’s nose. It got stuck. It was hilarious.) (We were not small children.)

We are going to Glensheen next weekend and Keith wondered if we should see the play before we went. I commented that the History Theater is pretty expensive and he countered with “They are having a 10-year anniversary party with treats Saturday.” He got tickets.

The interim managing director (where is the previous guy? We liked him. Keith always chatted with him as we went into the theater, because they were both Mr. Thompson) started the afternoon off by asking who had seen the show – hands raised and MOST of the people were repeaters. Wow. She upped the number of times and there were at least 20 people there who had seen it 10 times. Wow. The notes in the program indicated that some of, but not all of the players came back each year. Everyone was very good, particularly Wendy Lehr who looked 90 and moved like 30 and was amazing. All the players but one covered multiple parts – extremely well-choreographed and performed.

Elisabeth’s adopted daughter was known to have issues with money, but she also just plain had issues. Several people around her life mysteriously died. Her husband was convicted, then released, for the two murders. She was jailed for kiting checks and for arson, but never for murder.

When the show was over and we left the auditorium, we were totally surprised by cupcakes everywhere. Short term memory issues, I guess. The frosting was really good, and we hustled down to the far end to get a second cupcake (a lady offered us a second, but of course we said, oh, no, we couldn’t. Why? I have no idea). I had to check out where they were from and was delighted to find that they were from Sam’s club. If I ever need cupcakes (made by someone else) I know where to go. Another winning day.