Friday, January, 24, 2025
I really enjoyed tonight’s play. The Root Beer Lady is at the History Theater for the next few weeks. It is a one woman show about Dorothy Molter, an independent soul who lived (primarily) alone on a 10-acre island in the very far north of Minnesota in what is now the BWCA (Boundary Waters Canoe Area) for 56 years. She went there on a fishing trip with her dad when she was 23 in 1930, and ended up staying until she died there in 1986.
Oooof. Not my cup of tea, for sure. She had a “resort” for fishermen and canoers, so she made a living. Float planes brought supplies, as well as canoeing 8 lakes and 6 portages to get to civilization. She was a trained nurse and used her skills to help many people throughout her years. She pulled a friend on a toboggan for two days while wearing snowshoes through a blizzard to save his life. In the 1952, float planes were banned. She had to canoe in all of her supplies. She could carry two 40-pound packs (one front, one back) and a tank of propane while portaging her canoe. Wow. But she couldn’t canoe in soda; it was just too heavy. Her guests were thirsty, so she started making homemade (secret recipe) root beer. If people came near her, they stopped for root beer.
Once snowmobiling was invented, she had year-round visitors. She chopped wood for winter and cut ice for summer. Eventually, snowmobiles were banned as the government wanted the land to remain wilderness. She ended up being the only non-indigenous person living there through a special dispensation after it was decided wilderness meant only visited by man (she wished it would have said woman, too).
It was a cool show with bonus learning about Minnesota.
The flower girls and I saw it Thursday night. Such a wonderful story, told by a really believable actress! And Linda brought a bottle of Dorothy’s root beer for me to take home!
I didn’t think of bringing some home! Darn
As my dad would say, “What a woman!”
Yesss
I’m running a couple of days behind… For anyone who’s interested in the “bigger picture” relative to all of the injustice that happened from WAY back right through all of the awful Klan and other activity (such as the Leo Frank case), I highly recommend the book “Simple Justice” by Richard Kluger. It’s essentially a history of the Supreme Court that culminates with the 1954 and Brown vs. Board of Education. It’s all a factual history, but it reads like a dramatic novel. Just in case anyone is interested…
I will definitely take a look for it
Thanks for the recommendation