Marion Biehn

Peggy Derrick

Catalog Number: 2017.030.03

Few local painters are as widely recognized and appreciated as Marion Biehn, prolific recorder of life in the La Crosse region. She recreated scenes and buildings that local residents remembered from their childhood, recording the “way things used to be.”

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

Her paintings have a strong pull of nostalgia, tempered by careful observation and faithful rendering. She painted Grandad Bluff, the Mississippi from Riverside Park, the old public library and many other local landmarks. Biehn had a special fondness for old buildings, and her renderings of them are reminiscent of portraits in the way they capture the character of each building.

Biehn started out as a portrait painter, using oils, and she was quoted as saying that it was fellow La Crosse painter Art Hebberd who first encouraged her to try her hand at watercolors. At first, she was afraid of the unforgiving medium but discovered that once she began to master it, she thoroughly enjoyed its immediacy.

This watercolor is of the old La Crosse County Courthouse, that stood on Vine Street from 1904 to 1965. Biehn painted it in 1964, and it marked the beginning of her career recording historic buildings. Tom Holstein, then president of the La Crosse Title Co., commissioned Biehn to paint many of the city’s historic buildings that were subsequently torn down.

The popularity of her subject matter meant that there was a market for prints of Biehn’s paintings, and some were produced in enormous numbers. The Bank of Galena, for more than 26 years, commissioned annual paintings that were reproduced and distributed as gifts on its annual calendar. State Bank of La Crosse also used prints of Biehn’s work as premiums for customers. Many of these still are mounted and exhibited in homes and other buildings in the region.

The La Crosse County Historical Society has set a goal to increase its small collection of artwork done by local artists or of local scenes. No other public trust has this as its mission, and local artists are a part of our heritage.

Biehn’s work fits these criteria perfectly, and we were grateful for this recent donation from the estate of Nancy Higbee Pollock. Although we have a collection of Biehn prints, this is our first original work by this artist, and we were excited to receive it.

Marion Biehn was born in 1911 in Racine, Wis. She moved to La Crosse with her husband in 1955, raising their children here, and living in La Crosse until their deaths. She was one of seven children, and was a dedicated visual artist from a very young age. She died in 1992 at the age of 81.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on September 16, 2017.

This object can be viewed in our online collections database by clicking here.

Lillian Davenport

Ivy King

Catalog Number: 2011.009.03       

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

While traveling from city to city, vaudeville shows often commissioned posters to advertise their acts. This red vaudeville poster, from 1907, was printed in La Crosse. The poster gives the names of the performers, and, in small print, lists the printer, “Life’ogravure, La Crosse Wisconsin.”

Vaudeville shows were a popular form of entertainment from the late 1800s until the mid-1900s. The shows — which featured comedy, music and sometimes even animals — represented a variety of racial and ethnic groups.

La Crosse had a number of vaudeville performers, and one of the most widely known was Lillian Davenport. While she does not appear on this poster, it represents her career, and she would have appeared on her own posters after she joined the vaudeville circuit in the 1920s.

Lillian was born Dec. 8, 1894, in La Crosse. Her grandmother, Clara Virginia Johnson, was born a slave in 1842 in Georgia. Clara was freed in 1865 at the end of the Civil War. After being freed, Lillian’s grandparents moved to the La Crosse area, where she became a renowned chef.

Continuing in Clara’s tradition, Lillian’s mother had a successful catering business, which she ran out of her Vine Street house. In August 1887, both Lillian’s mother and grandmother helped plan La Crosse’s Emancipation Day celebrations.

Lillian grew up in La Crosse with her mother, and she graduated from La Crosse High School in 1913.

Lillian began her vaudeville career in the 1920s. She was the musical director of “Bowman’s Cotton Blossoms,” and it was said she played nearly every instrument in the orchestra. Later, she began performing comedy routines, and she had a many friends at a newspaper, The Chicago Defender, who helped give her career a boost.

Not only was she a performer, she also was an activist. While visiting her mother in 1941, she noticed a large number of La Crosse businesses — including bars and restaurants — had Jim Crow signs posted. She notified Wisconsin’s NAACP, which led to the removal of the signs.

Later in her life, Lillian taught music at a public school in Chicago. She died in Chicago on Sept. 28 1964, and she was buried in La Crosse alongside her family.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on September 9, 2017.

This object can be viewed in our online collections database by clicking here.

Normanna Sangerkor Badge

Peggy Derrick

Catalog Number: 2013.fic.103

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

This badge was worn by a member of the La Crosse Normanna Sangerkor, or Norwegian Men’s Singing Corps. Singing societies were popular among Scandinavian and German immigrants, and La Crosse also supported the German Frohsinn Singing Society, and another Norwegian group that was ultimately absorbed by the Normanna Sangerkor.

The Sangerkor was founded in 1869, by Carl Jackwitz, with 21 original members. It’s considered the first Norwegian singing society in the U.S., and it continued until 1955. Its members sang for their own amusement, and they sang at large sangerfests, or singing festivals, across the upper Midwest.

One of the largest was held in La Crosse in 1906, when the Northwestern Scandinavian Singers held a festival here. A special, temporary, auditorium was built downtown to seat 3,000 people, and other singing groups from around the region came to participate.

Another important milestone was the time, in 1870, when they were invited to perform with the world-famous Norwegian violinist Ole Bull.

Emil Berg was their first director, a musician and tenor of some renown who had immigrated to Chicago, where he was making his living at an upholstery shop. The La Crosse Sangerkor invited him to move to La Crosse, even paying for his move. Berg spent the rest of his life here and directed the Sangerkor until his death.

In 1911 Rolf S. Rynning thought they needed something more elegant and permanent than the printed ribbons they wore for performances and competitions. Sketches by the artist E.O. Forseth were sent to Whitehead Hoag and Co. in Newark, N.J. The company based its design on those drawings, and this badge is the result.

Rolf was the son of Erik Rynning, one of the 1869 founders, and a longtime member himself. E.O. Forseth was a longtime director of the Sangerkor.

These badges were officially worn for the first time in July, 1912, at a Sangerfest in Fargo, N.D.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on September 2, 2017.

This object can be viewed in our online collections database by clicking here.