Did people really trust themselves to come back here again?

DL: What were your thoughts on Fort Snelling?

LB: I loved the re-enactors. I liked that whole part of it.

DL: You know that was the site of the internment camp.

LB: That I didn’t realize until a couple of years ago when I was reading a book about it. That definitely makes you think about that winter that they suffered through.

DL: You do know some of the aftermath which includes that chapter.

LB: Right, yes. Another thing that we were talking about at our Brown County Historical meeting also is what happened to a lot of these families after they left. Did a lot of them return back to New Ulm, the white families? We’ve got the rosters of what… And I’ve even got Mrs. Haag’s, what she received as far as government payment etcetera. If you had cattle killed, what you received etcetera. But did people really trust themselves to come back here again? Did they feel it was safe enough to come back? So we’re trying to find out a lot of the families, what happened to them afterwards. Where did they end up? Did they go to St. Paul and stay there or did they go to Ohio like Mrs. Haag. I would think a lot of the widows, unless they had a lot of family support here, would have gone back East.

DL: Or even to Germany.

LB: Right, right. I was just going to see what year did Mr. and Mrs. Haag -- they bought this land in 1860. So only two years later, she’s a widow so you can definitely see… I would go back. [Laughter] You know, if I was a single mom with four kids, and probably younger kids…