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Touch History
July, 2012
Sculptor's Corner

Next in the Park:
Aunt Mary Ann
LaBuche

I first heard of Aunt
Mary Ann LaBuche from a
friend who suggested that she
was significant in the history
of Prairie du Chien and this
region. Her story is unique
and different. As the first
physician, before medical
doctors arrived in the
community, she contributed
to many people's lives with
her herbal and folk remedy
healing. The most dramatic
was the rescue and healing of
her granddaughter who, as a
baby, was scalped and left
for dead during what eastern
newspapers called the Red
Bird Massacre.
In 1827, the Gagnier
family was attacked by the
native Red Bird and his
cohorts who were seeking
revenge for tribal deaths.
This happened just south of
Prairie du Chien, where Walmart now has a parking lot. Mrs. Gagnier and her son escaped after
her husband and a friend were killed, and her baby, Mary Louisa Gagnier, was scalped and left
for dead. Aunt Mary Ann took the baby, who was still alive, and applied a silver plate to the
wound (silver is an antibiotic) and nursed her tenderly with herbs and loving care. The baby lived
to be 67 years old and always wore a ribbon in her hair to cover her scar.
Aunt Mary Ann LaBuche, like many settlers in this area, was of mixed heritage, part French,
part Sioux, and part African American. While I was modeling the first image of her, which is
shown on our website, I emphasized her African heritage by the features on her face. Recently, I
met some of her descendants who have researched her life and showed me a photograph of Mary
Louisa Charrier (the baby in the story), taken when she was an adult. I have remodeled the
features of the Aunt Mary Ann LaBuche to reflect a more accurate family portrait. It makes me
feel like I am participating in this amazing family history.

Florence Bird

New Exhibit Explains Old Use of MRSP Land

In August, 1825, this is how the area near the Mississippi River Sculpture Park appeared
to the artist the United States government sent to Prairie du Chien.
What James Otto Lewis sketched was soldiers, commissioners, and thousands of Indians,
some of whom had traveled to the area in order to sign a treaty. The trees that grow in the
Sculpture Park today were not growing then. Neither were the trees you see in the drawing.
Those were uprooted elsewhere and brought to the treaty grounds to shade as many as possible
from the hot August sun.
The treaty was intended "to promote peace among these tribes, and to establish
boundaries among them and the other tribes who live in their vicinity, and thereby to remove all
causes of future difficulty . . . . "
About half a mile east of the Sculpture Park, across the slough from St. Feriole Island, a
new exhibit about the 1825 Treaty of Prairie du Chien has opened at the Crawford County
Administration Building. The exhibit will tell you a lot more about the treaty and its participants.
You'll also see reproductions of traditional crafts of the tribes that signed the treaty - a basket, a
puzzle pipe, moccasins and more.



Work in a Different Medium


A corridor in the Crawford County Administration Building houses The Artists' Gallery,
home to the work of a county artist for three months at a time. Beginning on in the middle of this
month, Florence Bird will be the featured artist.
Unlike her statues in the Sculpture Park and elsewhere in Prairie du Chien, "Scene in a
Different Light" is an exhibit of oil paintings. Ten of these are a series of views from Pikes Peak
State Park painted at different times of day and different seasons of the year. In them, she
illustrates how shifting light alters the view, "how we see the same thing at different times of the
year, how the same thing can evoke different kinds of mood."
In "Moonrise, May," a small haloed moon soars in a deep blue sky over the Wyalusing
bluffs south of Prairie du Chien. North of the spot where the Wisconsin River meets the
Mississippi, five tiny pinpoints of light mark the south end of the city.
The bluffs in "Winter Sky, December" occupy a smaller part of the picture, showing how
nature seems closed down and passive at that time of year, Florence says.
"Scene in a Different Light" opens on Thursday, July 12, with a reception from 4 p.m. to 6
p.m. in the Crawford County Administration Building, 225 N. Beaumont Rd. Prairie du Chien.
Florence's work will be on display through October 5.


Hidden Treasures
Pikes Peak State Park
"I don't try to interpret a work for others," says Florence Bird. So after you see
Florence's show, you might want to cross the Mississippi to Iowa to check out the original view
from Pike's Peak State Park and compare it with the ten-painting series in the Artists' Gallery.
To get to the park, head south from the Administration Building or St. Feriole island, then
head west across the river. After you cross the bridge, take a left onto Highway 76 South. At
the stop sign near the Lady Luck Casino, turn right on Highway 76, driving along the river. Bear
right onto Main St. through McGregor, to the T-intersection in front of the Catholic Church. Take
a left , then an immediate right at the brown State Park sign, following highway X56 to the top of
the hill. Shortly after you reach the top of the hill, turn left at the brown Pike's Peak State Park
sign, then park and walk to the overlook.
If the name of the park sounds familiar, that's because it's named for the same Lt.
Zebulon Pike as the mountain in Colorado. Pike was traveling on the Mississippi River, searching
for better places for army forts. He suggested the land at the top of the cliff overlooking the
confluence of the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers, but the army stuck with the traditional meeting
place, the often-flooded site in Prairie du Chien where the Villa Louis, the Sculpture Park, and
other interesting spots are currently located.
Iowa tourist information calls the view from the Pikes Peak overlook the best in the state.
See what you think.

Editor's Corner


Geocaching is a hobby for anyone with a GPS. Tom Nelson, the husband of MRSP
board member Cathie Nelson, set up a site in the Sculpture Park. When somebody finds any site,
he posts a notice on the Geocaching website to prove he's located something.
In mid-June, TeamDaugherty found the Mississippi River Sculpture Park, " First
Wisconsin cache for us! We were out with Bunny Hop and wanted to pick
up a cache in WI and take the kids to see the Mighty Mississippi. Loved this little statue park
area, great place for the kids to look for a cache and get Grandma in the action. She found this
one."
I'm always glad to see folks making use of the Sculpture Park -- walking among the
statues, reading the signs explaining who they represent, taking pictures beside one of the figures.
But reading this geocaching post, the phrase that struck me was "little statue park." Because the
26 statues that are planned would make it a big statue park, with more figures to see and more
history to learn about.
As the Sculptor's Corner announces, Aunt Mary Anne LaBuche is the next statue we
want to add to the park. However, thinking about the cost of a life size bronze statue makes me
feel as if I'm at the very bottom of a very high mountain.
High mountains don't get climbed quickly, but with help they can be scaled.
If you'd like to help the MRSP board add Aunt Mary Anne LaBuche to the Sculpture
Park, go to our website, mississippiriversculpturepark.com, to see how it's done.

--Marilyn Leys


MSRP
Mississippi River Sculpture Park
608-326-0862
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