The following appeared in the Rock County Herald on December 19, 1924:
C.E. OLDER, PIONEER, PAYS TRIBUTE TO C.O. HAWES
Recalls That He Was the Last of Several Young Men Who Went to His School in 1871-72.
“It is with profound regret and sorrow that I hear of the death of C. O. Hawes, who had been a personal friend for more than half a century.” C. E Older, formerly of Luverne and a pioneer resident of Rock county, writes from Los Angeles, Calif.: “Charley Hawes was the youngest student of a class I taught in the winter of 1871-72 in Luverne, the first school in Rock County.
“He is the last one, the others have all ‘passed on’ before. Ed. McKenzie, Pat Kelley and Lew Daniels, they had all been in the army, government employ (mail carrier), or logging on the Wisconsin river, and wanted to ‘pick up a little,’ as they had been out of school so long. Our school was kept in a room 10x10 ft., in the northeast corner of the Hawes house on the hill, near which E. A. Brown’s office now stands.
“Mr. Hawes had built a new house, and rented this one to Mr. Daniels, who kept what travelers came along. All the boys boarded there except Charley, and we slept in the chamber on the floor with buffalo robes above and below us.
“When a blizzard come up, which was quite often that winter, we moved down to the school room for three days and as the storm was over, we shoveled the snow through the chamber window for it was filled to the peak of the roof. These were days to try men’s souls. Mr. Abbott was nearly frozen to death that winter, and a Norwegian residing above the Mounds lost his life and was found north of Adrian a week later.”
Donations to the Rock County Historical Society can be sent to the Rock County Historical Society, P.O. Box 741, Luverne, MN 56156.
Mann welcomes correspondence sent to mannmade@iw.net.