Century-old diploma returned to Minneota
John Thomas of Seaside, Oregon was cleaning out his shop recently when suddenly he came across a rolled up sheet of 22”x19” parchment paper. He unrolled it, and much to his surprise, the heading at the top read, “Minneota High School.”
As he scanned down the document he discovered it was actually a graduation diploma issued to “R. Marie Dovre” and it was dated May 29, 1918 ... making it over 100 years old.
After looking up Minneota, of which he’d never heard, Thomas wrote an e-mail to Minneota Principal Jeremy Frie.
“The reason I am writing is that I don’t think something like this should be destroyed,” Thomas told Principal Frie.
The principal concurred to Thomas’s inquiry: “I was wondering if you’d like to have it?” So he put it in a safe tube and sent it to the Minneota principal. He added, “I was excited myself to find it and how it got so far from home.”
Once it arrived, Frie was astonished when he read the signatures on the diploma. It was signed by Principal Elizabeth Nicholson. “I didn’t think Minneota ever had a female principal until (current elementary principal) Jen Mahan-Deitte,” he said.
It was also signed by Lee R. Pemberton, Minneota Superintendent.
Signatures also on the diploma were by Secretary T. P. Culshaw; Treasurer M. or D. Tillemans and Board President L. M. Lerwick (or so it appears).
The Class of 1918 was the 15th graduating class from Minneota and it was comprised of 14 members, including: George Baldwin, Peter Berg, Marie Dovre, Chrystel Edwards, Io Gislason, Sophia Holm, Catherine Hovland, Dayze Johnson, Martha Johnson, Edwin Knutson, Arthur McGinnm, Selma Swanson, William Thordarson and Homer Wimer. R. Marie Dovre, born in 1900, was the daughter of Ole and Inga (Rye) Dovre.
One of her brothers was Knute Dovre, who lived in this area. “He was a cousin of ours and lived west of our place,” said retired Minneota farmer Alan Dovre.
A check of the records of the Minneota Mascot in 1918 found Marie Dovre was a member of that graduating class.
How her diploma came to be in the possession of John Thomas is still unknown, although the assumption is R. Marie Dovre was married and likely lived at one time in Thomas’s home in Seaside, Oregon.