‘Le Sueur Lyre’ to be presented at historical society’s annual meeting

    Montgomery Historical Society (MHS) will be hosting their annual meeting on Wednesday, April 29, at the Rustic Farmer on Main, 201 1st Street South.
    The evening will start with a social hour at 6:30 p.m., a brief business meeting at 7 p.m., and will finish with a presentation by author and historian Jeffrey M. Sauve on “The Le Sueur Lyre.”
    Sauve is a former archivist at St. Olaf College in Northfield, and winner of a bronze IPPY Award for Midwest nonfiction and a gold Northeast Minnesota Book Award. He will give an approximately 45-minute presentation on the life and literary legacy of Ora J. Parker (1856-1934), a longtime Le Sueur attorney who was better known for his pen name, The Le Sueur Lyre.
    Parker practiced law in Le Sueur for six decades. The press release stated, “For years, his outlandish yarns appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the New York Telegram and were widely reprinted across the country. He received letters from readers around the world — many of whom were convinced the stories were true — much to his quiet amusement.”
    Numerous stories were uncovered by Sauve that were published between 1903 and 1922. Some of the titles he found included “Mummy is Found in Hollow Tree,” “Hearse Horses Run and Corpse Drives Them Home,” and “Aged Woman Grows Set of New Teeth.” The presentation will share selections from some of those works, highlighting Parker’s character.
    “His vivid imagination and skillful writing set him apart,” Sauve notes. “Yet, he remains largely forgotten in the annals of Minnesota’s humorists.”
    The public is invited to attend this program and bring friends. Copies of Sauve’s book will be available for purchase.

History of Prchal’s Sport Shop
    Montgomery Historical Society’s Jan. 28 show and tell at Montgomery City Hall focused on a presentation by Steve Soukup of the former Soukup’s Sport Shop, which was located where the current Todd’s NAPA Auto Parts store is at 415 4th Street Southwest.
    According to Soukup, Stan Prchal built “Stans Phillips 66” in the late 1940’s...

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