Staff photo by Clay Schuldt A full crowd attended Brown County Historical Society’s “Do Tell” program on notable women from Brown County history. The event features six re-enactors portraying six notable women from the county’s past. L to R: Vicki Pieser as Raleigh Good, Wendy Tuttle as Ida Ozias, Kathleen Backer as Rosa Schnobrich, Donna Wing as Dr. Mary Ranson Strickler, Sandra Juni as Marit Toftelien and Mary Ellen Domeier as Sister Nola Weiner.

NEW ULM — It was a night of historic women and little gossip at the New Ulm Country Club, Tuesday.

The Brown County Historical Society (BCHS) hosted “Do Tell” a program about notable women of Brown County. Re-enactors took to the podium to give a short history of the women they were playing.

BCHS Executive Director Kathleen Backer was the master of ceremonies, playing Rosa Schnobrich. In between speakers, she would dispense a little town gossip, taking stories pulled from gossip sections of old Brown County newspapers.

Rosa Schnobrich was famous for operating three different meat markets in New Ulm. In 1927, she started the City Meat Markert at Center and Minnesota streets. Her family would carry on the market well after she died. Schnobrich was famous as one of the early businesses women in the county.

Vicki Pieser played Raleigh Good, another famous businesswoman who owned the better woman’s clothing store in New Ulm during the 50s and 60s.

Good was a woman who heavily valued education. She was educated in Spanish and French and was always learning about new things. She wanted to become a teacher but found her options limited after growing up in the Great Depression. She was also from a Jewish family and the anti-Semitism of the time further limited options.

Fortunately, with her husband Randolph, they were able to run a successful business. Their son would become a professor at Harvard University and their daughter a costumer for the Guthrie Theatre.

Wendy Tuttle played Ida Ozias, a leader in WWI charity work. Ozias attended business college in Mankato during the early 1900s. She would help her brothers run the family produce business. During WWI and later in WWII Ozias would raise funds for the Red Cross to help children impacted by the war oversea.

For her efforts, she was honored by both the American and German Red Cross. Through the family business, she would help fund a nursing program at Loretto Hospital.

Sandra Juni played Marit Toftelien, a holistic healer from Hanska. Originally from Norway, she moved to the United States with her father. He taught her everything he knew about tinctures, herbs and potions. This information was passed down to her in a black book that she used to treat people in the Hanska area. Her work included tooth extraction, mid-wifing and medicine mixing.

Mary Ellen Domeier played Sister Nola Weiner, the administrator of the Loretto Hospital during the construction of a new 100-bed hospital. She also created the first hospital auxiliary to cover costs and formed the first hospital board of directors.

She would eventually leave New Ulm in 1963 but would return for the 100th anniversary–by then called New Ulm Medical Center. In 2009, Weiner received the NUMC Legend award. She died a year later at age 98.

Donna Wing played Dr. Mary Ranson Strickler, one of the first women doctors in the region. She served as a doctor in Sleepy Eye during the 1900s. This was a doctor at a time when only 5% of doctors were women.

Her father had been a doctor and had at first dissuaded her from entering the field, but after seeing her dissatisfaction at teaching agree to pay for her to attend medical school. She would later marry a doctor and together they set up practice in Sleepy Eye. He would serve overseas during WWI, leaving Mary to carry on the practice in his absence. When the Spanish Flu epidemic hit at the end of the war, it was she who treated many Sleepy Eye residents.

The event was well attended with 180 people coming to the program. The program was originally scheduled for March 2020, but the pandemic delayed it until now.