A couple from Virginia this week donated belongings of Lydia Torry to Voyageurs National Park
It isn’t every day someone comes across buried treasure.
And unlike popular folklore, hidden riches aren’t limited to peg-legged pirates and scruffy-faced outlaws. Treasure can come in all different shapes, sizes, and forms, depending on the meaning it has to whomever uncovers it.
For Jim and Karen Hannah Keenan, it was a box of aged letters, black and white photographs, and old-fashioned hats.
The box the Keenans recently came across carried the belongings of their old friend, Lydia Torry. And to ensure that history of his longtime friend lived on, the Keenans Tuesday made the 90-mile drive from their home outside of Virginia to International Falls to share Torry’s possessions with officials with Voyageurs National Park, where the items will be archived.
“We didn’t know what to do with these things, so we started with calling The Journal,” Jim explained. “I didn’t know if anyone even remembered Mrs. Torry. Then, we got in touch with the park here and we’re glad someone can appreciate these things.”
The Keenans sat down with Catherine Crawford, collections manager at VNP, and Mike Williams, VNP boat captain and interpreter, to swap stories and memories of the woman who lived most of her life on an island on Namakan Lake.
“It’s a wealth,” Crawford said as she flipped through photographs the Keenans brought.
Jim told The Journal the couple retrieved Torry’s belongings from her Kubel Island home shortly after Torry’s death in 1987.
“Her homestead was left unguarded and was trashed by the people stopping at the site,” he said. “What a shame.”
Karen Hannah added it was evident people had trampled over Torry’s belongings.
“They were looking for something more valuable than negatives and letters,” she said of the mess left in Torry’s home.
Jim and Karen Hannah salvaged what they could and stored their late friend’s treasures in a box in the attic of their home.
“We picked several things up off the floor and saved what we could,” Karen Hannah said. “Jim found several (film) negatives and had them developed, but we just put the photos in the box.”
Years passed and the box was forgotten until earlier this year when the couple had a new roof put on their farmhouse. It was then that they rediscovered their friend’s belongings.
“There was that box of stuff sitting there,” Karen Hannah said. “It was like finding it all over again.”
Instead of keeping it to themselves as they had for more than 20 years, the couple decided to make sure Torry’s items were shared with others who would appreciate how they represented the unique life Torry lived.
A part of history
Torry was born in Finland on Dec. 5, 1891. As a young adult, she immigrated to the United States for work. Through the course of about a year, she had correspondence with a Finnish bachelor named Emil, who was a commercial fisherman on Namakan Lake.
The couple were married in 1928, and made their home on Kubel Island. The little cabin on the island is where Torry made her home for most of her life. After Emil drowned in October 1954, the widow lived there alone.
During a 1976 interview with The Daily Journal, Torry said the first year after Emil was gone was hard, but she eventually became accustom to living alone.
A friend of Mrs. Torry
Jim said he was introduced to Torry back in the mid-1940s. “Being only 8 or 10 years old, I don’t remember much of it,” he said of their first meeting.
In 1958, Jim said he was working as a guide for the Frontier Resort on the Ash River Trail and “really got to know Mrs. Torry.”
“Whenever I knew I would be going past Kubel Island, I would bring Lydia fresh fruit and milk,” he said.
“On Saturday afternoons, Bud Wallace — another guide on the lake — and I would meet at Mrs. Torry’s for an old-fashioned sauna,” Jim recalls. “These amazing saunas had no smoke pipe. We would take steam and then dive into the lake for a swim. When we were done, Mrs. Torry always came up with a beer for us.”
Jim said one of the features he adored most about Torry was her ability to “win” over everyone she met.
During his days as a guide, he would introduce guests to his friend and “she never failed to win them over with her hospitality and stories,” he said.
Sharing this story made Williams and Crawford agree that she was quite the entertainer.
Williams said Torry always had a dress and tennis shoes on. In the winter, “she just put more layers on,” he said with a laugh.
The group also discussed Torry’s love of crocheting.
“She crocheted everything,” Karen Hannah said. “Bedspreads, curtains, everything.”
“She was quite the lady,” Crawford added.
Williams and Crawford expressed their appreciation of the Keenans’ bringing Torry’s belongings to add to the park’s collection.
“Looking back, I wish I would have asked her more questions about her history,” Jim admitted. “My memories of Lydia Torry will never disappear, but I’m afraid her history might.”
