Alesha Ouren is a graduating senior at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She works at Glensheen Mansion and has a passion for history and its importance. She hopes to continue working in museums as she moves into her career.
Glensheen Mansion still has not denied the story of their denial, which if you think about it, confirms its veracity. Meanwhile the occult community has found the story — perhaps through a crystal ball! — and for the most part, they ain’t havin’ it. Four examples:
Last year the Minnesota historian Peter S. Svenson wrote an unpublished monograph, “The Forgotten Duluth Painter, Edward Alexander Congdon.” Svenson gave me the following information in an interview conducted on Halloween as luck would have it.
Edward Alexander (a nephew of Chester Congdon) lived at Glensheen, the historic Congdon estate. He hid slightly pointy ears with clever hair styling. But, enlisting in the armed forces to fight World War I, he suffered a military haircut. At Belleau Wood a German flame-thrower splashed liquid fire into his trench, and he escaped with his life unlike some of his fellows. But much of the skin had been burned off the top of his head, including his right ear and his eyebrows. Once healed, hair grew toward the back of his head, and the scar tissue of the high forehead became less noticeable with time. However, his eyebrows remained white scars, and the right ear had burned off down to the hole. Aleister Crowley said, “The effect of that, with his one remaining devil’s-ear, was striking.”
Edward Alexander remained overseas for a time after the war. He wandered the world using his unsettling appearance as currency in mediumistic parlors and spiritualist circles. He joined the Ordo Templi Orientis in England, and enjoyed esotericists he met in France. Then he joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, mingling with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and W.B. Yeats. He painted, climbed the Eiger, and had lucid dreams of the dead. Returning stateside in 1923, he lived in the Glensheen attic, “like a bat,” Mrs. Congdon used to say.
The University of Minnesota Duluth is seeking a new leader to provide strategic leadership in the professional administration and management of Glensheen. The director of Glensheen shall develop and implement long range and annual work plans; provide fiscal, business and facility operations management; direct the hiring, training, supervision, and motivation of staff, and student workers; demonstrate entrepreneurial initiatives in programming and business management; support fundraising efforts; oversee the site’s public relations, marketing, and outreach community development efforts.
Jay Christensen, the talented drone pilot and former Duluthian who captured the amazing Bryant-Lake Bowl fly through a couple of months ago, sent his camera spinning through the halls, rooms and grounds at Glensheen Mansion.
Use the link below for a printable PDF for your drawing and coloring pleasure.
Duluth You & Me: Glensheen Mansion
Follow the Duluth You & Me subject tag to see additional pages. For background on the book see the original post on the topic.
Glensheen Mansion has 16 gowns on display at the historic estate this month. The collection includes dresses ranging from the late 1800s to the 1920s.
In its series The Slice, WDSE-TV presents short “slices of life” that capture the events and experiences that bring people together and speak to what it means to live up north.
I spent part of Wednesday in front of a bonfire setting marshmallows on fire. There is really no point to slowly toasting them when you can set them on fire, after all. It was a meeting of the Lake Superior Shark Watching Society.
Duluth’s Emma Deaner is featured in The Growler‘s list of “25 Trailblazers of 2017.” Deaner is associate events manager at Glensheen Mansion and drummer for the band Superior Siren.
Trailblazers 2017: Emma Deaner of Superior Siren
“It’s going to be a busy year for Deaner,” the article notes. “She’s involved with a TBA project at the soon-to-reopen NorShor Theatre, and Superior Siren are launching their new album with a series of shows in January. What’s more, Deaner’s joining the Minnesota Music Coalition board of directors with the hope to ‘help bridge the gap between the metro and the North Shore.'”
The Growler is a monthly craft-culture magazine published out of St. Paul.
Oh, that Congdon opulence. Glensheen Mansion and Museum, “the Historic Congdon Estate,” has been open for tours since 1979. In this post we look at some early postcards from the historic house museum, which of course looks very much the same today. Above is the north entrance of the Jacobean manor house.
For those of you stuck inside working (like me), I invite you to gaze at today’s nearly 16 hours of glinting sunshine with Glensheen’s Lake Cam. Bump it into full screen and imagine the drink into your hand. I called your bosses, and they don’t mind.
The Lifetime movie Girl Missing features scenes shot in Duluth by drone operator Josh Kunze, including aerial footage of Glensheen Mansion and a limo driving along Lake Superior’s North Shore.
From the Glensheen Facebook page:
This Saturday we will reach over 100,000 visitors for the first time since the 1980s.
To put this in perspective, we had only 56,000 visitors in recent history. Many thought this resurgence would not be possible. We are very thankful to all who have helped us turn the curve, especially you our guests.
Glensheen, a musical based on the book by Jeffrey Hatcher and music and lyrics by Chan Poling, opens at the History Theatre in St. Paul on Oct. 3 and runs through Oct. 25.
Good lord.
