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10/22/2007: For nearly 100 years, the Benedictine women of the Sacred Heart Monastery have found a spiritual oasis on the North Dakota prairie, becoming an independent monastery on this date in 1916.

10/29/2007: Like most states, North Dakota was built on dreams. On this date in 1970, one of those dreams came to an end.

11/4/2007: The son of Dutch aristocracy, Frank Kiebert, a North Dakota rancher, was christened Franciscus J. Vlamingh-Kiebert and grew up in North Holland. His father was a gentlemen farmer who ruled over a country estate called Myn Lust, or “My Desire” in English. After poor investments drained their fortune, the Kieberts sailed to America in 1882, hoping to leave behind bad memories and ruined reputation.

11/5/2007: Frank Zastoupil’s grandfather journeyed from Bohemia in Austria-Hungary to Russia when the Czarina Catherine the Great offered Russian land and religious freedom to new settlers. The Zastoupil family dwelled in a village surrounded by fellow Bohemians. They farmed side by side in their new country, danced polkas and waltzes, sang with great passion, and shared joyful social lives.

11/7/2007: “I like this free liberty of the United States,” exclaimed German-Russian Henry Moldenhauer in a 1940 interview, “I like to vote for the President of my country.” His new country put new meaning behind his voice. Henry sang, he spoke, he prophesied, and he voiced his opinion about the government, something he could not have done in the Old Country.

11/8/2007: George Francis Will, of Bismarck and a well-known anthropologist, was born on this date in 1884, the son of Oscar H. Will, pioneer nurseryman and seed man of Bismarck, and Elvira (Bird) Will.

11/14/2007: The winter of 1949 is one that many people around the Minot area would not soon forget. Record snow fall and cold temperatures were the norm that winter. Of course the high winds only added misery to the ten-to-twenty-five below zero temperatures. Local and area bulldozers, along with the North Dakota National Guard tried in vein to unplug the eight foot drifts covering Highway 83.

11/17/2007: Emil Krauth isn’t a name most of us would readily recognize. Unless of course, you are a butterfly collector.

11/22/2007: The uncertainties of war make holidays difficult to celebrate and in the war years of 1942 to 1944, Thanksgiving on the home-front harbored mixed feelings. In a world torn by conflict, North Dakotans enjoyed relative peace, secure in the comfort of their homes, far from the horrors of the battlefields of Europe and the jungles of the Pacific. Unlike millions around the world, they enjoyed the blessings of freedom but the spirit of the holidays was damped by the empty chairs around the table knowing that loved ones were risking their lives to preserve and extend this freedom for all of mankind.

11/24/2007: "LEE SURRENDERS TO GRANT AT APPOMATOX COURT HOUSE IN VIRGINIA." These words, stamped across newspaper headlines around the nation in 1865, sealed the legacy of Union General Ulysses S. Grant.