Sunday, July 27, 2008

Northern Hills Band Activities by Bob Heller

Select on photos to enlarge, then press "back arrow" to return to site.

For posting questions, contact Bob Heller skater@rushmore.com




Site Contributor, Bob Heller is very interested in Deadwood High School and bands in general. He was close friend of DHS Band Director Lavern Clark. See http://dhsclassmates.blogspot.com/2007/07/prince-of-music-laverne-vern-clark.html select back arrow to return to this post.

Bob Heller writes:

IT WAS A PARTY FOR THE NORTHERN HILLS BAND THE 23 OF JULY AT RANDY KARNS' PLACE IN CENTRAL CITY S. D. AND WAS ALSO 30TH ANVERSERY FOR THE DITTMANS.

THERE ARE PICTURES OF THE BELLE COWBOY BAND AND THE 7TH CAVALRY BAND ALONG WITH THOSE ATTENDING THE PARTY. DITTMAN PUT HIS BAND TOGETHER FOR IT AND WAS A GREAT TIME HAD, BY ALL. DANCING AND FOOD AND GOOD FELLOWSHIP. WHAT A PARTY.

AND FORGOT, HELLER'S VAN WITH "FENDER SKIRTS" HAHAHA"


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

DHS58 50 Year Reunion ~ July 18-20 2008 ~ by Karen Balderson


DHS58 50th Reunion Attendees Group (select image for larger view, back arrow to return to site)

Photo credit thanks to Bill Beshara

Marge and Connie did not attend


Sunday Brunch Slide Show

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

During the registration and social hour on Friday at the VFW, everyone enjoyed exchanging memories of the years at Deadwood and catching up on all the changes in our lives in the years since graduation. It was so good to see and visit with classmates we hadn't seen for a lot of years. There were newspaper articles, yearbooks, and all kinds of memorabilia displayed to browse through; Gloria provided an astonishing amount of it!


Vince had quite a time getting everyone to stop talking long enough to go through the buffet line and have something to eat! Our thanks to Roz for making the arrangements for the evening . We had invited those in the area to join us after dinner and several from the area came and spent time with us. Our school mascot "Peppy" was also on hand!

We came together again on Saturday evening for a social hour and dinner at the Deadwood Social Club where Muriel had arranged for us to have a private room for the occasion. We each chose from a list of four entrees. Again, there was lots of conversation as we continued to catch up on all the changes that had transpired in our lives in the last 50 years!

Vince and Glenrose graciously hosted a brunch at their beautiful home in Lead on Sunday morning.

The weather was great and we were able to enjoy the good food and time together on their deck. Again, we were joined by others in the area, and nearly all of those who were able to be here for the reunion were at the brunch. Our thanks to Vince and Glenrose for their generosity and hospitality.

Sadly, there are a number of the 1958 graduating class who did not respond, some we were not able to locate, and nine from our original class who have died.

When will we have another reunion? That hasn't been decided yet! Let us know what you think!

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

The Old Deadwood Business Community

Many Jewish people blended into the Deadwood community. They became respected leaders in business, social and civic affairs. At some point in Deadwood’s history, fully two-thirds of all business establishments on Deadwood’s Main Street were either owned, operated, or occupied by Jewish merchants. With the help of talented Jews assuming positions of leadership and influence, Deadwood became the original commercial and social hub of the Black Hills.

But it all began as A Destination in the Wilderness

A Destination in the Wilderness by Ann Haber Stanton

Ann Haber Stanton
South Dakota Jewish Historian
Photo courtesy Ann Stanton


The Synagogue of the Hills, heir to a rich history, today represents the only Jewish community in Western South Dakota. The Synagogue traces its roots to the Gold Stampede days of 1876, when news of gold in the streams of Dakota’s Black Hills spread like wildfire. Throngs of prospectors, restless adventurers, gamblers and entrepreneurs ventured into the wilderness in search of what only the lucky few among them would find- great wealth in the gold and all that came with it. Ore bearing streams ran through the thick, dead brush in the gulch from which Deadwood derives its name.

By horseback and mule, the first Jews to arrive were enterprising pioneer merchants and businessmen, willing to stake their lives and fortunes on the promise of great success in Dakota Territory. It was a difficult and dangerous undertaking. They found a lawless frontier, needing their talent and courage to help establish a stable community.

The Deadwood of 1876 was only a string of mining claims, tents and crude wooden structures, but the gold strike called for businesses to be started, and an explosion of growth ensued. However, the landscape and thick vegetation set the scene for a succession of fires and floods which regularly rampaged through Deadwood Gulch, forcing residents from homes and businesses, challenging them to either rebuild or retreat. Each rebuilding, each resolute stand against the destruction, produced a triumphant new structure, more fireproof and sturdy than its predecessor.

One of the first business establishments, the Big Horn Grocery, started in 1876 by P.A. Gushurst, was initially housed in a tent. Gushurst soon sold out and moved to Lead. The little business was bought by Jacob Goldberg who later renamed it Goldberg’s Grocers. The grocery operated continuously through the 1990s. Goldberg's is now Goldberg's Casino, in the same location, but having been rebuilt many times over. The last remnant of the old Goldberg’s Grocers is its delivery entrance door on Broadway, the narrow alley behind the building.

Jake Goldberg
Photo courtesy Adams Museum & House

Solomon Star, partner of Deadwood’s first Sheriff, Seth Bullock, was a respected Jewish businessman and prominent civic leader. The partners built a flourishing hardware store on the site of today’s Bullock Hotel. That same sandstone building, Star and Bullock’s Hardware Store, now renovated and refurbished as the Bullock Hotel, appears in early pictures of territorial Deadwood’s Main Street. The S&B Ranch raised high-grade crops and thoroughbred horses, and is the site of the city of Belle Fourche. Sol Star helped organize the first fire department and was an early postmaster. He was active in the political and civic life of Deadwood from its earliest days. Republican representative to the territorial legislature, Deadwood’s mayor for at least 6 terms, Star served his community long and well.


Sol Star
Photo courtesy of Deadwood Library

Harris Franklin, ne Finkelstein, an early immigrant from Eastern Europe, came to America as a youngster. Starting as a pack peddlar, a common occupation for young Jewish men in those times, he went on to build a great fortune as a banker, cattleman, owner of the Golden Reward gold mine, and main partner in the Deadwood Business Club, the venture which built Deadwood's Historic Franklin Hotel. The Adams house was originally the Franklin family home, now a National Historic Landmark that was built for Harris Franklin in 1890 by Simeon Eisendrath, a renowned Chicago and New York synagogue architect.

Harris’s son, Nathan, served as mayor of Deadwood, the second Jewish man to hold that office.

Nathan Franklin
Photo courtesy Adams Museum & House

The first telephone exchange in Deadwood was established and managed by Paul Rewman, an English Jew. His wife, Mabel, a non-Jew, earned a reputation as an early campaigner for women’s rights. Both Rewmans have been recognized in "Who's Who in South Dakota."


Paul Rewman
Photo Courtesy Adams Museum & House


There was Jewish worship and holiday observance from the earliest days of settlement. Although they never had a formal synagogue building, they gathered for worship, usually at the Masonic Temple, but sometimes at Elks Hall and at other times at a private home, such as the home of the Sam Margolins at 4 Lincoln Avenue.

Their Torah, the Old Testament scroll, now known as the "Deadwood Torah", came from Koenigsburg, Germany, in 1886, with Freda Lowenberg, young bride of Benjamin Blumenthal. The Torah traveled overland across Europe, over the Atlantic, across the United States by train, and finally by stagecoach into the Hills.

The first lay leader and acting rabbi of the Jewish community was Nathan Colman, father of Blanche, Theresa and Anne Colman. Judge Colman, so called due to his position as Justice of the Peace, arrived in Deadwood in 1876, where he and his wife, Amalia, had a large family. The Colmans’ youngest daughter, Blanche, made her mark as one of the first woman lawyers in the State of South Dakota, working for the Homestake Gold Mine as legal counsel for most of her life.


In 1896 the Hebrew Cemetery Association purchased cemetery land on Deadwood's Mt. Moriah, high on a hill overlooking Deadwood. The section came to be known as "Hebrew Hill." Some of western South Dakota's pioneering Jewish citizens are buried here, including Harris Franklin and his wife Anna; the Colman family, including six of their seven children, four of whom died in early childhood; two separate Jacobs families; the Blumenthals; the Finks; the Zoellners; the Wertheimers; the Margolins; the Schwarzwalds; the Krainsons; and the Levinsons, among others. A walk through the Jewish section reveals an occasional grave marker bearing a small stone, evidence of a visitor who paid their quiet respects. The small number of gravestones is no indicator of the true numbers of Jewish people who lived and left an impression in the Black Hills, said by Blanche Colman to have been “in the hundreds.” Most, like the Goldbergs and Sol Star, are buried elsewhere. Some of the beautiful Hebrew inscriptions are easily legible, but though some are too eroded to read, each is capable of telling a story of a Jewish person who left their footprint in a remote wilderness. Mt. Moriah has been dedicated as a National Historic Cemetery.

Many Jewish people blended into the Deadwood community. They became respected leaders in business, social and civic affairs. At some point in Deadwood’s history, fully two-thirds of all business establishments on Deadwood’s Main Street were either owned, operated, or occupied by Jewish merchants. With the help of talented Jews assuming positions of leadership and influence, Deadwood became the original commercial and social hub of the Black Hills.

As the gold rush waned and Deadwood's Jewish population dwindled, the younger generation, seeking higher education and Jewish mates, gradually drifted away. Due to Rapid City's favorable location and Ellsworth Air Force Base having been built, in the 1950s the Deadwood Torah, center of Jewish worship, finally was brought to Rapid City. Now it is read from on Sabbaths, certain holy days, and at the Bar or Bat Mitzvah, coming of age, of the young people who carry the traditions of their predecessors on into the future.

See Deadwood's Jewish historical markers, erected in honor of Deadwood's Jewish Pioneers by the Jewish American Society for Historical Preservation, Jerry Klinger, Founder and CEO, in cooperation with Mary Kopco, Director of the Adams Museum and House, and Ann H. Stanton~~

~~http://www.jewish-american-society-for-historic-preservation.org/completedprgms2/deadwoodsouthdakota.html

~~
http://www.adamsmuseumandhouse.org/

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Special Little Ole Deadwood Ladies

Pictures by Bill Beshara

"Nanny" Gravelle just celebrated her 94th Birthday with a Party! Shown here with her daughter Sandy Gravelle Beshara and son Vince Gravelle. Nanny run the front counter at the Colonial House Restaurant for many years. Many of us bought candy from her years ago when the Gravelle's owned and run Merritt Grocery at 93 Sherman Street in Deadwood. Happy Birthday Nanny!!

Vince has recently retired from a successful executive career in steel mill engineering. Sandy remains the best looking fixture at the Colonial House!


Mrs. Hazel Morthland happen by for the Birthday doings. She lit up when she heard it was a Deadwood Bunch. Just think, she is working on her second 100 years. We love you Mrs. Morthland!!