This week was an Allard girl reunion in Pine Island, Minnesota. The five remaining daughters of Haven and Isabella Allard were able to get together for a long weekend and catch up. This sounds like a simple feat but each of these girls has flown like a seed on the wind since their youth in Schroeder.
Luckily for me the only one that stayed planted was my mom, Lavonne. She now lives less than a mile from the Allard Homestead on the Cramer Road. My Aunt Bonnie lives in Las Vegas; my Aunt Carol Ann lives in Rochester; my Aunt Marcia lives in Cabo San Lucas; and my Aunt Donna lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. I secretly wished I could record their conversations. They chatter, excitedly talk over each other and throw in seemingly random thoughts here and there.
Of course it’s not just the five of them alone at this four-day reunion get together; friends, several grown children (myself in this mix), cousins and grandchildren fill up the house with more than 20 guests. It is chaos…but in a good way.
One of the highlights for me at this reunion was when my Aunt Bonnie brought out some fun memorabilia she had from my grandparents. Where all this has been stashed all these years is anybody’s guess but history was spread all over the counter. My grandparent’s birth certificates, their wedding certificate, an auction bill from my grandpa’s family farm in Byron, Minnesota and a funny little folded menu from a place called the “One Minute Lunch Room” in St. Paul on Snelling Avenue.
You guessed it; there was a restaurant in my history! My great-great-grandparents, the Pecks owned it back in 1911. No one remembered Grandma Peck’s first name… she was just Grandma Peck. I am wondering how I will be remembered in 103 years, but that my dear is another column, isn’t it?
This menu is amazing and even better because my Aunt Bonnie gave it to me! I can’t wait to frame it.
It has some special little features here and there that we would scratch our heads at today. The cover boasts “Open Day or Night” and “Tables for Ladies.” I am assuming that ladies could sit at a special table and not be bothered by the men.
The food and prices are wonderful. Five cents for a ham or egg or cheese sandwich all the way up to 10 cents for sardines on white or rye. Hamburgers were a dime!
The soups included Ox Tail and Mock Turtle for 15 cents and you could order Raw Hamburger with an egg if you liked for only 20 cents.
Most items were a nickel or a dime. For the really big spenders you could have eaten a dozen oysters in a cream stew for 50 cents! (This was the most expensive item on the menu.)
There was also a $3.25 meal ticket you could buy at a discount of $3.00. By the look of these prices a person could have eaten for two weeks on $3.25! Desserts of homemade cakes topped out at 5 cents for a slice. Yum! That’s a piece of cake a day for 65 days…. but who’s counting!
If you are pleased, tell
others; if not, tell us.
A.F. Peck, Proprietor of the One Minute Lunch Room (my great-great-grandpa)
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