(Saturday, August 1, 2026)
It was such a beautiful day today I decided to drive down to Fountain City, Wisconsin, to explore Kinstone, the megalithic garden recommended by Peter. Because I have been planning for many months to visit St. Felix Cemetery in Wabasha, I stopped there first. I had to find it on my Google map, and was amazed to see it was on a road called Rustic Lane. The street sign said “Rustic Ln.” I live on Rustic Lodge. Such wonderful family synchronicity!
I found multiple Sheehan cemetery stones. Two of them were for Thomas Sheehan and Bridget Doyle Sheehan, my Irish-American great-grandparents. Thomas had helped construct the second St. Felix Catholic Church in 1893, after the church built in 1858 burned down. County-seat Wabasha is the oldest town in Minnesota, founded in 1826. A levee there, along the Mississippi River, was known as Cratte’s Landing, named after my local fur-trader ancestor Etienne Oliver Cratte. The town was later named after my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Chief Wapasha (Red Leaf). Another nearby stomping place, now entitled Reads Landing, in the past was called Rocque’s Landing. Augustin Rocque was Wapasha’s nephew.
While researching all of this, I also discovered that Father Louis Hennepin had journeyed by canoe up the Mississippi River as early as 1683, through the Wabasha area. According to St. Felix Catholic Church, the Holy Sacrifice of Mass was probably offered then.
