In Sheep's Clothing by Rett MacPherson Page A

because everybody’s going to get there, eventually. Probably the same thing that everyone older than me was thinking, too.
    â€œI’m not a very good quilter,” I said.
    â€œWell, you don’t have to quilt,” Roberta said.
    â€œI’m not a very good prayer, either.”
    â€œOh, nonsense.”
    â€œNo, seriously. I always think my prayers sound so stupid. So I don’t say them out loud if I don’t have to.”
    Roberta and Sissy both laughed. I was being serious.
    I stopped and looked at the names on the page. I had found the next entry to the land that was now my aunt Sissy’s. The Olsons had bought it from … the Hujinaks. “Hujinak?”
    â€œYes,” Roberta said. “What about them?”
    â€œWhat kind of name is that?”
    â€œYugoslavian, most likely. There’s a large population of Slavs up on the range. They came in around 1900 to 1915 and worked in the iron-ore mines.”
    â€œOh,” I said. I had no idea what she was talking about. “The range?”
    â€œThe great Mesabi,” she said.
    She said it with such matter-of-factness that I dared not tell her I still didn’t know what she was talking about.
    â€œAnyway, some of them, if they had the money, would move farther south or west, either to be farmers or loggers. Depending on which area they moved to. This area was once a haven for loggers. All that white pine. But that’s all gone now,” Roberta said.
    â€œIn other words, this Hujinak family came down from the range to be loggers or farmers?”
    â€œMost likely,” she said. “You can ask them. Good Lord, I think there were thirteen or fourteen kids in that family. Most of them are still in the area. The mayor is one of them.”
    â€œYeah,” Aunt Sissy said. “Mayor Tom. I never call him Mayor Hujinak. I forgot that was his last name.”
    â€œEverybody calls him Mayor Tom,” Roberta said. “He goes to St. Catherine’s, owns a farm out on J highway. His daughter is a riding champion.”
    â€œRiding champion?”
    â€œHorses.”
    â€œOh,” I said. I looked at Aunt Sissy. “You think I could talk with him sometime this week?”
    â€œI don’t see why not. Friendliest guy I’ve ever met,” Aunt Sissy said.
    â€œIs the Lutheran church the church that you go to, Aunt Sissy?”
    â€œYes,” she said.
    â€œGood,” I said. “Is there a church historian or somebody that I could talk to?”
    â€œMmmm, Lisa. She could probably help you the most. Or even Diane.”
    I flipped a few more pages and put that book away. I would need the land records prior to 1930. “Where’s the courthouse?” I asked.
    â€œOh, over in Cedar Springs,” Roberta said.
    I flipped through the pages of the next book until I found the Hujinak name. I love unusual names, because they are the easiest to trace. I felt like weeping for people who had to trace names like Jones or Johnson. Or Schmidt! Ugh. Or names that have other uses outside of last names. Like Acre, Justice, or Brown. Those are hard, too. Especially on the Internet. Put in the name Acre, and you’ll get all of these hits from people posting land that they want to sell. So a name like Hujinak is a godsend to a genealogist.
    â€œOkay,” I said and got out my paper. “Hujinaks bought the land in 1928 from … Wendell Reed.”
    â€œDon’t recognize that name,” Roberta said.
    â€œI wonder why the land stayed vacant so long,” I said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Roberta asked.
    â€œAunt Sissy said that before the Olsons bought the land it had stood vacant for a long time. The Hujinaks owned it the whole time. So why didn’t anybody live in it?”
    â€œI think Mr. Hujinak died in the late fifties, and his wife went to live with one of the kids and died in the early sixties. I never met her, but I remember my mother