Blue Monday

Here is pretty little snapshot of a tall ship  on

Lake Superior.

The water really is that blue.

Gordon Lightfoot wrote a song about the lake  called The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald. The Indians call it Gichigami - meaning Big Water.    It is the largest of the five great lakes.

It's an average of 425 feet deep.   The deepest portion is about 1,300 feet deep.

Now onto something more interesting....

In the city of Duluth, MN on the shores of Lake Superior lies the Glensheen Mansion.

A 39 room Jacobean style home  commissioned by Chester A. Congdon in 1905 taking 3 years to complete.

It had all of the latest features of the day available.  Running hot water and electricity.

 

According to Wikipedia....

It was designed by Minnesota architect Clarence H. Johnston, Sr., with the interiors designed by William French.   The grounds are spectacular.  The 7.6 acres were designed in the  english style by the Charles W. Leavitt firm out of New York.

The interior design exhibits Late Victorian, Arts & Crafts, and Art Nouveau.  The furniture was also designed to coordinate with the style in each room.   The rooms are trimmed or paneled in Circassian walnut, mahogany (they even had a piano crafted to match this room), cypress, fumed oak and American walnut.   The original furniture brought into the house  in 1908 remains in virtually the same place it has been for 100 years.     

The doors throughout the home are made of two kinds of wood, with oak on the hallway side and the variety of wood used in the room on the other side.

The original artwork also still hangs on the walls as it did when the Congdon's lived there.

If you ever get to Duluth, MN you should make a point to visit the place.

Other than being on the National Historic Register it has a notorious reputation.

Chester Congdon passed away in 1916.  His family continued to occupy the home.

In 1968 the estate was given to the University of Minnesota Duluth.  At the time, Elisabeth Congdon, (the youngest daughter of Chester), was given a life estate, allowing her to occupy Glensheen until her death.  

Glesheen is the site of the murders of heiress Elisabeth Congdon and her nurse, Velma Pietila, on June 27, 1977.    Roger Caldwell, the second husband of Congdon's adopted daughter, Marjorie, was charged with the crimes, convicted on two counts of first degree murder and sentenced to two life sentences.  Marjorie was charged with aiding and abetting and conspiracy to commit murder, but she was acquitted on all charges. 

Caldwell's conviction was overturned by the Minnesota Supreme Court in 1982.   He was set to be retried, but pled guilty, submitted a full confession, and was later released from prison, and many years later it was believed to have committed suicide.

However, Marjorie Congdon Caldwell Hagen  led a pretty notorious life all her own.   She was twice convicted of arson, serving 12 years in prison and was once wanted for bigamy in North Dakota.  Most recently she was in the news for befriending an elderly gentleman and trying to cash a check by forging his name upon his death.   You need to read the book

Will to Murder  written by Gail Feichtinger.     The author became familiar with Marjorie when she was a crime reporter for the Duluth News-Tribune.

In the spirit of the season, here is a photo taken by Gary Schmidt and Loretta Brown.

It is a picture of the upper right window of the Glensheen mansion.   It appears to be

an apparition of an elderly lady, possibly, Elisabeth Congdon, peering out of the window  overlooking Lake Superior.   This was believed to be her bedroom and the room in which she was murdered, but also doing one of her favorite passtimes in life, staring out at the magnificant Lake.