Decades ago, small towns across Minnesota found ways to celebrate history while also forging an identity by creating unique town celebrations and parades. Menahga celebrates St. Urho’s victory over grasshoppers; Stillwater celebrates its logging past with Lumberjack Days. While Wabasha celebrates “Grumpy Old Men Days” in a tradition that only goes back to the 1990s, Mapleton celebrates its Scottish roots in a tradition that goes back to the 1800s: Robert Burns Night. With the town celebration also came the need for a visual representation of Mapleton, and thus, the tradition of Miss Bonnie Lass was created. For the past 60 years, the crowning of Miss Bonnie Lass has been an integral part of Mapleton’s celebration, but rather than just providing a boost of attendance, it has become a program of ambassadorship, a rite of passage, and an opportunity for cultural stewardship that has spanned generations.
Local Mapleton historian Tim Solie, whose personal collection of local memorabilia and artifacts is enough to fill a basement, explains Mapleton’s connection to the Scottish poet: “In 1856-1857 there were a lot of Scottish settlers that came from New York. I think there was another group that came from Wisconsin. They arrived about the same time and settled. There's this great story out there with Thomas Blair and his new bride, and this awful trip they had getting back to the Bass Lake area, getting back to this area, and just had a terrible time getting here. They finally get there, and his wife is a good sport about it, and he wants to do something for his wife. And he says, ‘Well, let's celebrate. Let's have a party. Let's celebrate.’ ‘Well, what can we celebrate?’ ‘Well, how about Robert Burns?’ So it happened that his birthday that year fell on a Sunday, which didn't sit very well. So then they said, 'well, let's celebrate it on a Saturday.’ So for many, many years, that's why we had Robert Burns on the closest Saturday to his birthday.”
While the Burns Night tradition thrived for decades at the local level, town celebrations expanded to displaying community pride by taking it on the road to local parades. With the rise in popularity in parades, Solie explains how the folks in Mapleton decided to invent a new tradition. “In 1965-66, there was a lot of apathy with regard to the Burns program. So I think attendance and interest was lagging a little bit and they were looking for something to boost that a little bit, and they came up with the idea of Miss Bonnie Lass, which turned out to be a pretty clever way to get more people interested.”
Jeff Annis, Mapleton’s current mayor, grew up in a house with tartan patterned carpet. His parents, Paul and Audrey, helped start the Bonnie Lass tradition in Mapleton. “My dad was the president of the Burns Club the year they initiated or put together Miss Bonnie Lass so obviously, we're 60 years later, and we're going to crown our 60th is pretty amazing. And then Mom was Secretary of the Burns Club for years.” Annis also notes the importance of Clarence and Olga Vaubel in getting the tradition off the ground. “Clarence was the treasurer for many years. And then Olga–I think if you had to put a name with Miss Bonnie Lass it would be Olga; she sort of ran a strict ship back in the day, and she was actually an elementary teacher, so she was very involved and knew the kids and knew the families. So she was a perfect person to fit that role of being sort of the coordinator.”
Over the course of Miss Bonnie Lass’s 60 year run, Annis saw the tradition pass from his parents, his siblings, and finally to his nieces and his own daughter. “So my sister Jane was Miss Bonnie Lass in ‘69. That was a big deal for our family. I do remember everyone coming over to the house. And again, we even had our plaid carpet in the family room. And, you know, everyone coming over and we're celebrating. Again, it was probably a bigger thing then because girls didn't have those opportunities like they do today. It was probably a major highlight of their junior year when they were in school. Our daughter Heather was first runner up in 2008 and again, other nieces that have been involved with it. And again, not only that part of Miss Bonnie Lass, but again, two of my brothers were in CampMor Kilties. Bruce played the pipes. My brother Pete and I played drums. Jane was a dancer. Heather was a dancer. Nicole and Courtney dance as well so it's all family thing.That's sort of what you have when you have a small town, deep rooted cultural event like this.”
For any tradition to stand the test of time, there needs to be community buy-in and also someone to uphold standards and traditions. Jeannie McCabe, who hails from Scottish ancestry, learned how to manage the Miss Bonnie Lass program from a German. “I first met Olga (Vaubel) when my dad (Jack Will) was on the Burns Committee, Clarence was a treasurer, and Olga was on the committee, and she was the one that came up with the idea of creating a Miss Bonnie Lass. No one wanted to lead it. And if you had known Olga, she said, ‘I can do that!’ because that's who Olga was. She taught kindergarten for many years, and she was used to being in charge, and so she did very well. In fact, a lot of the young girls, and even when I was a candidate, was ‘you're a little timid,’ because Olga would come off and say, ‘Now we're going to do this, aren't we?’ Sometimes you felt like you were the kindergartners. But Olga was very, very dedicated to this, and after I got to know her, and the first year I worked with her, I said to her, ‘How Scottish are you, Olga? She laughed at me, and she said, ‘I'm not Scottish at all. I'm German. Where do you think Olga comes from?’ Here was this German lady just gung ho about all this Scottish heritage. My admiration for her grew because here she was in a community, and she just adapted to it. A lot of times people would ask, ‘What do you do Olga?’ And she would say, ‘Not much.’ And that was just the way she was, but if she was in charge: you knew she was in charge.”
In the early days of Miss Bonnie Lass, the junior girls at Mapleton High School made the competition fierce and the honor prized. In the decades that followed, the tradition established by Olga Vaubel continued, and Deb Ireland had one of the more unique experiences as Miss Bonnie Lass. “I was Miss Bonnie Lass in 1971. As far as my early memories of Burns Night, I honestly can say I don't think I knew anything about it until I was probably a middle schooler. Then some of our friends were being out for Miss Bonnie Lass and knew what was going on. I think my first Burns program was probably as a freshman when I went to see what was going on and prepare for our junior year, because at that time, all the girls went out for Bonnie Lass when they were juniors–it was just kind of a given.”
When the Mapleton Scots consolidated with Amboy, Good Thunder, and Minnesota Lake, it was no longer an expectation for all junior girls to participate, and with this in mind, Ireland allowed her two daughters Shannon and Jill to decide for themselves if they wanted to continue the tradition. “So as a mother of two daughters, when they got close to their junior year, Shannon was all in. It wasn't even an afterthought that she would or would not go out for Miss Bonnie Lass. After she was crowned, the year that Jill should go out, she decided it was too much pressure, and so she didn't want to get involved.” Along with Deb and Shannon Ireland, Ellen Larson and her daughter Emily also became mother-daughter queens, something that Ireland now cherishes, “And I think to me, it's actually probably special in ways that maybe it's not to other queens, just the fact that our daughter, Shannon was also crowned Miss Bonnie Lass. And I think it's just a good way to share the Scottish heritage, pass it on and go from generation to generation, so they know what it's about.”
The pressures of family heritage is certainly something that Isabela, Elizabeth, and Alexandra Nelson understand well. With roots that go back to Thomas Blair and the first Burns Night celebration, Isabela had been immersed in her heritage since she was a child. “Our parents started taking us before we can even remember to the Burns Night shows. And then, at least for me, ever since I was young, I remember just the sound of the bagpipes–it just kind of fills you up. It was always exciting to see the different color dresses and try to guess who's gonna win.” After being crowned in January of 2020, Isabella saw the tradition of Miss Bonnie Lass survive almost two years of Covid. When her youngest sister Alexandra watched Isabela get crowned in the old high school, she had no idea of the changes (and pressures) she’d soon face. “I remember when Isabella was crowned. I was honestly kind of shocked, but I was super happy for her. She looked beautiful. And the next year, Covid had hit, and it was Elizabeth's turn, and everything was online. There wasn't even a crowd except for me and my family and the other contestants and their families, and she also won, which was super exciting, but immediately, once she won, I got nervous. Even though it was a year coming before I was supposed to compete, I was extremely nervous because I had a lot of pressure on me at that point. But yeah, I'm really proud of my sisters when they won, I was surprised.”
From school consolidation to Covid, the Miss Bonnie Lass program has managed to continue the tradition through thick and thin. To bring the tradition to Gen-Z candidates, two Millennials–Veronica Bruckhoff and Megan Birr–have taken roles to ensure the future. For Bruckhoff, it’s serving on the Queen’s committee. “It's always an exciting time to see who goes out and the different personalities and different candidates and getting judges. Part of the role I had for many years was finding judges out of town. And we had some really fun judges that came in and had no idea about Mapleton, Burns, curling, I mean, any of it. So I would bring them in. We'd go out to eat before or after. If they came in the night before, we’d take them to the curling club and let them walk out on the ice during the bonspiel, if we wanted to, and then go out afterwards, they'd come to the program. So that was a lot of fun working with those folks. In the Queen's committee, we do everything from trying to send out the advertisements of registration, due dates, guidelines, trying to continue to increase the scholarships, to get people interested in coming.” For Birr, her role is to preserve the history of the program. “I have taken upon myself to scan the histories that are located at the Heritage Museum. We had several Queen’s committee members that had scrapbooks over the years and written notes and things like that. Starting with Olga and like passing on to Deb Ireland, they did a really good job of documenting for several years as well. And so those scrapbooks came to me. I thought there was no place better to hold them than at the Mapleton Heritage Museum. I did take time to scan all those documents so we have those digital format. I found all the photos and was able to make those digitalized and upload those to our Facebook page. I have all the programs for Miss Bonnie for the past 59 years.”
Regardless of the cultural significance and the organizational efforts, for a tradition to bridge the generations, there has to be buy-in and enthusiasm for it. For the 1989 Court of Rebecca Klein-Otten, Tracy Walters-Hurley, and Pam Brockers-Steffel, the memories made during their year of service has been overshadowed by a bond that has lasted for decades. Realizing that their court never created a scrapbook to share at the Queen teas, the trio got together to reflect on their year and became Bonnie Lass ambassadors far beyond their reign. “I think I suggested we get together and make a scrapbook so I didn’t have to show up empty handed to these teas,” Otten reflected. “Everybody brought their stuff, and we had scrapbooking parties, and we made a pretty sweet scrapbook, but then it was just so fun to reconnect. We had stayed in touch, but I don't know not, it was just a lot of fun. And so then it just went from there to getting our husbands involved and going to Burns, or in the summer, we'd get together and the guys would golf, and we would go shopping or whatever. It's just grown from there to traveling together. We've gone to the Olympic curling trials in Omaha, Nebraska, two different times together, and we're going to Florida together in April. I think all the things we've said about the experience itself were, of course, great, but I have to say, what's been for me, it's, it's what's come afterwards since 2003. These are really important friendships, and I'm really grateful that we have reconnected and we share this, and it's really special.”
Another important ambassador to come out of the Gen-X generation is Brenda Walker-Stoltzman, who like Olga Vaubel decades earlier, now works in the elementary. “I continued to teach Scottish dance through college. So I was in college in Storm Lake, Iowa, at Buena Vista, and I would drive home on Saturdays to teach dance, because there were just limited people to do it. So you just made that happen. And I actually ended up teaching Scottish Dance in Storm Lake as well. Somebody in the town found out that I could do this and contacted me and said, Would you teach a community ed class at the public library? Sure! so there's some random kids in Storm Lake Iowa that know how to do the Highland Fling, but that was fun. The last few years, my family and I have done the clan gathering, been in charge of the clan gathering, and I think, if I remember correctly, there's only been two Burns nights that I've missed when I was in Europe on a trip for college, and then one year it was when it was rescheduled because of weather, and we had a family trip somewhere else, and Merritt was dancing at that time too, so we had her dance on the balcony at the hotel so she could perform for the people in San Diego, since she wasn't going do it in Mapleton.”
For the local historian Tim Solie, the significance of continuing and preserving a tradition such as Miss Bonnie Lass has a significant purpose. “A few years ago I read an essay from a student and it says this: We die twice. We die once when our heart stops beating, and we die when they quit saying our name. That’s what’s so great about Mapleton: the Mapleton Burns Club and the Heather Curling club are going to keep saying the names. One name that we keep saying is Robert Burns, but the other ones are Howiesons, Dobies, Ellisons, McGregors, Wills, and Vaubels and on and on and on. That goes for the curling club too. We don’t forget the people that came before us. I think it’s just great that we have this tradition where we honor our ancestors and honor Robert Burns as well."
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