By Joseph Back

Want to read grandma or grandpa’s diary one day?

It’s probably in cursive, which could pose an issue, pending the uncertainties of future educational standards. In stating this we mean no disrespect to readers who have surely already mastered this elegant writing system, but with time and priorities ever in flux, the future is far from assured, as to reading of past records in years to come. With much of book history written in narrative form, the source material itself, risks losing voice.

Passing over the present to inquire of the past, we return to our main subject: Cedarhurst Mansion and its residents. What might be known about them?

We found the following on Mr. Severance, in rough chronological order:

• Born June 30, 1862 at Mantorville, MN in Dodge County, later requiring a witness for passport application as no written record of his birth existed.

• “At school” per the 1870 U.S. federal census of Mantorville. Son of a lumber dealer named Erasmus, who made a census listing of real estate worth $6,000 (in 1870) and a personal estate of $1,000 (also in 1870). Mother listed as “keeping house.” Cordenio could read, write, and understand English.

• He was a student at Carleton College

• Owner of Cedarhurst, from the mid-1880s

• Partner in law firm of Davis, Kellog, and Severance, founded in 1887 and located per 1902 city directory at 589

See CEDARHURST Page 2

Frank B. Kellog, law partner of Cordenio Severance and later U.S. Secretary of State under Calvin Coolidge. Photo from history.state.gov.

Cushman Kellog Davis, law partner of Cordenio Severance and seventh Minnesota governor. Image via mnhs. org. CEDARHURST

FROM PAGE 1 Summit Avenue, in Saint Paul.

• Husband to Mary Severance, whom he married on June 26, 1889, at Cottage Grove.

• Renter in St. Paul, alongside owning Cedarhurst Mansion. Able to afford servants as well.

• The 44th president of the American Bar Association and railroad attorney.

• Traveled abroad to Europe with Mrs. Severance and one “Florence Michaud,” having worked with the Red Cross there during World War I.

• Sailed from Liverpool England, arriving at New York in November 1917.

• Argued for the side of the government in the case United States v. Union Pacific Railway Company, alongside Frank B. Kellog.

• Retained by U.S. Steel in the anti-trust case United States v. U.S. Steel Corp, decided March 1, 1920|

• Died at Pasadena California in Los Angeles on May 6, 1925.

• Buried at Cottage Grove Cemetery with Find A Grave Memorial ID 34961879. Other family (including parents) buried at Mantorville.

Many more items could be notated, but these are just a few. Such are the records history is written from. So what might they tell us?

That can depend on who tells the story, and what records they include, as well as their interpretation of said records. For now, we note the following:

• Birth outside of hospitals was not uncommon in the day Cordenio was born and lived.

• “Keeping House” was a not uncommon occupation for women in 1870, meaning that Cordenio’s mother was not unusual.

• Erasmus as one engaged in the lumber business was well within the mainstream of Minnesota history at the time. The census indication that the family had at least one servant, was not.

Narrative history is written from facts, but known facts are themselves extracted from incomplete records.

As it so happens, Mr. Severance’s childhood home had an active newspaper, the Mantorville and Kasson Express. The week following Cordenio’s birth, his father’s name even appears—as “Co. Auditor,” an apparent public official.

“I have received for distribution the Session laws for 1862,” E. C. Severance notifies the public in print form July 4, 1862, then listing public officials entitled to said session law copies “free of charge.” Print at least, is one thing that spans the decades—giving insight into a different world, since past—at least in its strict details.

Going forward, we dive into the world Cordenio would have been born in and grew up with, if only to better answer our state inquiry: who was Cordenio Severance?

The very warm attic at Cedarhurst, holding odds and ends from a different time. Photo by Joseph Back taken last September.