About the time Laura Ingalls was wondering what Almanzo was up to, and he would surprise her with an early return at Christmas-time, Mary Power won a skating race in De Smet with “D. LeSuer” as her partner. When Gina sent me the info about Mary Power’s skating prowess, my first thought was: “I bet I can find out who D. LeSuer was.” Easier said than done.
First of all, I had that it was spelled LeSueur so right there you’ve got two names to look for. And because it’s not a common name, chances are, records aren’t going to always get it right. I’ve got one of those surnames myself… I looked through all my school stuff (apparently he never taught school in Kingsbury County), the entire tract book (that took over an hour, but no LeS-anybody filed a claim), SD birth records, census records, and the few Kingsbury County books that I have with name indexes. So, Mr. LeSuer, be it Delbert or Dwight or Dugold or whatever, I salute you. And congratulations on winning the race.
Times like these, I wish three things. One: that the 1890 census hadn’t been destroyed. Two: that men didn’t go by their initials all the time and it wasn’t almost impossible to research women because of maiden names changing to married names. And, three: that I lived somewhere close enough to Little House sites that I didn’t have to make impossibly long lists of things to research and then try to do it all on my too-few-and-far-between research trips.
I’m sure there are John Bozeman or Lewis and Clark researchers sitting at home somewhere, wishing to be in my little corner of the world, and I don’t give a hoot about Montana history except where it involved LH characters who lived here. John actually dared to suggest once (only once…) that I find an obsession that is closer to home. Just like a man…. The logical solution is to simply move to where my obsession is…
