Volume 4, Issue 4, November 2023
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 Long-time Chaska Historical Society Booster Pam Raser! |
Long-time Chaska Historical Society Booster Pam Raser!By Jeanette McGillicuddy Pam Raser has been a member of the Chaska Historical Society well before retiring in 2007. She was born in 1952 in Shakopee, the fifth of six children of Cy and Virginia Leivermann, and she grew up in Chaska. Upon high school graduation, she accepted a job in Washington, D.C., where she worked and lived for a year. She planned to transfer back to the Twin Cities area for her job; however, no positions were available. She eventually returned as she felt Chaska was “home.” Upon returning she worked for a local dentist and during that time married her high school sweetheart Gene in 1972. In July 1973 the dentist she worked for moved back to his home community. It was perfect timing as they were expecting a baby in August and were planning on building a home soon in the Jonathan development. Pam was a stay-at-home mom to a son and a daughter until returning to the work force in 1975 with Green Giant, Chaska. She saw a posting for a job with the Carver County Sheriff’s office in late 1978, applied, and was hired in 1979. Though she retired from the Sheriff’s Office in 2007, she works seasonally with Carver County Elections handling Absentee Balloting, a position she loves. Pam’s husband Gene was hired by Fluoroware/Entegris in 1978, working until his retirement in 2005. During this time he was also a 21-year member of the Chaska Fire Department (CFD), was a member of the Chaska Chamber of Commerce and the Chaska Lions, and participated in numerous city functions. He was on the county’s “hazmat” team, taught CPR at the fire station as well as at Fluoroware/Entegris, and was President of the CFD Relief Association. The Leivermann family has long-standing ties in the Chaska community. Pam’s great-grandfather Bernard Leivermann, who had emigrated from Germany, developed one of Chaska’s first breweries in the 1880s. Her father, Cy, owned and operated Cy’s Bar in downtown Chaska until his sudden passing in 1978. Nonetheless, the name lives on.
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 One of Pam’s
favorite times in Chaska is Christmastime, which is when this photo from 1961
of Chaska’s iconic gazebo in City Square Park was taken. |
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Pam has compiled books on her ancestry that are available at the Chaska History Center. The “Cy & Virginia Leivermann” book which covers her parent’s ancestry is in our library. It is that book that she spent many hours researching at the Carver County Historical Society and the Chaska Historical Society. In addition to that book, she has donated other items to the History Center including a Chaska Athletic Club Share and other artifacts from her parents and grandparents. By donating these items, she feels her family will forever be connected to Chaska and the Chaska Historical Society. Pam’s mother was very active in the Chaska American Legion Auxiliary, serving not only as a local President but as the Minnesota State Legion Auxiliary President in 1964-65. Pam’s family moved several times during her childhood but always stayed in Chaska due to her father’s business that he purchased in 1948. In 1957, her parents purchased the big brick house at 516 Pine Street North (the William Scott house), which her mother sold in 1988. It was recently turned into a VRBO and is home to the Largest Moustache. No matter where in Chaska Pam and her family lived, she always looked forward to the Christmas Holidays. She and her siblings eagerly waited for the holiday lights to be turned on Thanksgiving night. Many nights during the times the lights were lit they would put on their snow pants, etc., and go “up town” to make sure the lights on the trees in the city park were all on….sometimes the winds would knock them around and the bulbs would loosen….it was fun tightening them up and seeing them light up. A fun childhood memory, just as swimming at the “clayhole” before she became a lifeguard there when she became old enough. Another story Pam recounted was while she was in high school in 1965-1970. With 5 siblings, one of them would go to the bar every night around 9:30 PM to get the money box. They would walk on a cement path through a neighbor’s yard, typically alone. Patrons would see her dad take money from the till and put it into the money box. In all the years she and her siblings did this, they never once were accosted or followed. It was the small town she loved. Pam always liked the feeling of living and working in the Chaska Community. After growing up and living in Chaska, Pam still loves Chaska and freely promotes the Chaska Historical Center. Pam indicated they are a wealth of information when she calls or stops in needing assistance. They either give you the information pretty quickly or they will assist in the research. Their displays, books, articles, and ornaments are first-rate. If you are new to the area or a longtime resident just looking for anything historically related, she recommends the Chaska Historical Center as the place to go. She highly recommends it to those she meets and can’t say enough about it and its staff. |
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2023 in Review — Another Busy Year for the SocietyBy Lisa Oberski, President |
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 Chaska’s History Center, located in the 1890 Brinkhaus Livery Stable, where Chaska Historical Society members await YOUR visit! |
Wow! What a busy year we’ve had!
If you are in or near Chaska, you’ve probably noticed that the Chaska Historical Society has been in the news regularly—with Audra Grigus’s help for much of the year, we’ve been raising our profile. As usual, we’ve been supplying the Herald and our Facebook followers with the historic quips from years past, celebrated in the “Herald Reports.” We’ve even had our own, miniature “War of the Worlds” moments as Facebook readers don’t always notice the dates preceding the quips and react to the posts! In addition to posting the quips on our Facebook page, volunteers have researched and posted interesting and, perhaps, unusual stories and photos of historic Chaska for your enjoyment.
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 Prepared by society volunteers, the Herald Reports are regular contributions of Chaska history to local print and digital publications. |
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We’ve also been—and are—available for your own research. Whether checking the digital resources available on our website, stopping in during our open hours to look up someone or something in a past high school yearbook, or wondering if we have any genealogical resources for YOUR Chaska family, you’ve only had to ask, and we’ve been available to help you out! Our expansive collection of photographs, artifacts, oral histories, Heralds (from 1862 to the present!), collections of information organized by topic, and more are here for YOUR benefit. The collections are here to record what makes up this community we call Chaska. Come on in and ask a volunteer to check the database for you! |
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 A sample of the 1885 Sanborn Maps found on our website. |
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Maybe you’re part of an association, club, scouting group or other group looking for a speaker or a place to introduce members to something interesting about their community. Please reach out to us! This year we’ve hosted many groups, including homeschoolers, cub scouts, senior living groups, county health nurses, Lodge groups, community education participants, and middle schoolers. From elementary aged groups to Older Adult groups, we’ve got something for everyone. |
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 Middle schoolers complete the exhibit Scavenger Hunt activity as part of their visit. |
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We’ve also featured exhibits and special programs for the public and members alike. Our 2023 display, “Will You Live to be 100? A Retrospective on Health and Wellness in Chaska,” is highly interactive. Come check out the hands-on activities! The spinner (otherwise affectionately known as the “Wheel of Doom”) and spinner walls, Plink-o board (for determining which headache remedy you receive), QR codes, and scavenger hunt with prizes are all meant to make you think about how health and wellness have changed in our community over time. From the repeated use of masks during pandemics to healthcare professionals who worked (and work) to keep Chaskans healthy, the insights into changes (or lack thereof) over time are striking. |
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 County Health Nurses
come to explore the Health and Wellness in Chaska exhibit. |
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Our free Old-time medicine show presentations fit well
with the “Will You Live to Be 100? A Retrospective on Health and Wellness
in Chaska” exhibit. With a “visit” from Violet McNeal, a medicine show
remedy hawker and her shill (via Susan Hynes and Terri Pelkey), audience
members were able to get a glimpse into the world of this early-1900s swindler.
On display were similar remedies that had been advertised in our own
Chaska Herald in Chaska’s earlier days. |
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 Violet
McNeal (a.k.a. Susan Hynes) hawks her medicine for sick infants at one of the
reenactment events. |
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 A highly successful first-time activity for the historical society in 2023—“Hauntings and History” walking tours, which took place in weekends in October. |
Besides the exhibit and reenactments, the society
featured their first-ever “Hauntings and History” walking tours, which
attracted enough people to fill the rosters for the original four nights, plus
two additional nights to try to better meet the demand, with many people still
remaining on the wait list! The Parks and Recreation department
graciously took care of the registration for us, while volunteers created
scripts based on stories home and business owners shared about their odd
experiences. Researching the possible historical connections to these
experiences, volunteers provided tidbits of those connections to tour
participants as well as tantalizing them with Chaska’s rich history. The Historical Society has been working with the City of Chaska on heritage panels for downtown that will highlight various aspects of Chaska history and will encourage people to learn more. Volunteers have been finding appropriate images and stories that highlight the many parts of the first 100 years of Chaska’s long history. Watch for this project to slowly but surely come to life!
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 An overview of the Downtown Heritage Panel project that’s coming to life. |
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The historical society is also planning to partner with several groups in the near future: the library (to celebrate their 101st anniversary), the Chaska Police Department to create a historic display for the new safety campus, and the Parks and Recreation Department for historic displays of both Chaska’s cultural history and recreation history to be featured at the CCC when it is revamped. |
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As if all those things weren’t enough, we have also managed to reach the final steps in writing and publishing the long-awaited and onerous Chaska history book covering 1950-2000. After six years of concentrated work, the new book is now ready for preorders, with hard copies arriving in early 2024! |
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 The Chaska/Chan high school wrestling team were there to help “move the furniture” in preparation for the 2023 exhibit! Many thanks!!! |
2023 was the year of partnerships for us, beginning with several that enabled us to create our fabulous display. The Chaska/Chan high school wrestling team started it out by moving our display cases and other large, heavy objects in preparation for the new display. This was followed by other partnerships—with the U of MN Dental School, Kathy Arnold and, as was more usual, Carver County Historical Society—as we accumulated artifacts to highly our health and wellness display. Another connection, this time with a local quilting group, provided a group of volunteers to help with exhibit construction. We were also able to partner with additional groups to help
with programming and visibility. Thanks to the Chaska High School speech
team, for example, we were able to offer additional “Hauntings and History”
tours, and we look forward to their help during December 2nd’s Hometown Holiday carriage
rides. With their assistance, we will more easily rotate the docents sharing
Chaska history on the carriage rides, so no one freezes!
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 Horses pulling carriages on which we narrate Chaska history
continue to be a major draw during Downtown Chaska’s “Hometown Holiday”
celebration. Plan your ride on December 2nd! |
We’re reaching out to local business and industry through another partnership—this time with the Chamber of Commerce—by sharing sponsorship of the Mayors’ Luncheon event. And our “old town Chaska partnerships,” like the one with the Legion, allowed us to move indoors into the Legion basement with our old time medicine show when the weather was refusing to cooperate! As always, we are grateful to all the “old town Chaska” groups, like the Lions, the VFW, and both the Legion and VFW Auxiliaries for their generous donations that cover much of our operating costs, including insurance, and a significant part of the costs of printing the 1950-2000 book. We couldn’t do it without their support! As you can see, the year was anything but quiet and staid. With more up our sleeves, 2024 should continue this pattern of excitement and activities. Perhaps it’s time for you, too, to become an active volunteer with the society? We’d love to have you join us!
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“Hauntings and History” Laid to
Rest for 2023
By Julie Wiese
In recent months, the Chaska History Center embarked
on a new project, delving into the many ghost stories that seem to arise from
our downtown historical district. Over several months, two volunteers gathered
stories, conducted interviews, dug into research, and wrote scripts, weaving
both spooks and Chaska history. Four nights were set aside in October for
the tours, each with a group of sixteen.
The history center was delighted when all four nights were filled before September 1st, with forty-two people on a waiting list. Not wanting to disappoint, the center added two extra nights to accommodate everyone. Nerves were on edge the first night for the two volunteers. Would their spooky stories give an extra chill to the October evening? Would the group be fascinated or bored? Would they appreciate a little helping of history added to the expected paranormal?
Nerves were on edge the first night for the two
volunteers. Would their spooky stories give an extra chill to the October
evening? Would the group be fascinated or bored? Would they appreciate a little
helping of history added to the expected paranormal? An evening stroll past venerable old buildings, led
only by lanterns and moonlight set the mood. They were captivated by the
stories; an animated group, asking questions, making comments, adding their own
experiences to the tour. It was a successful night…and each night thereafter.
For those who missed out, expect another journey into Chaska's haunted past in October 2024.
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Plan Your Visit Today!2023 Holiday Hours
The Chaska History Center will be open for business on Tuesdays and Fridays 1-4pm as well as:
- Saturday, December 2, 2-5pm Hometown Holiday
- Saturday, December 23, 1-4pm Last-minute Holiday Shopping!
Preorder your 1950-2000 Chaska history book now! Comes with a gifting certificate to wrap for the holidays! We also have T-shirts, pins, books and other items perfect for your holiday gifts!
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