Star Tribune
New Prague’s pioneering woman pharmacist served as mentor to another
By 1930, Marie Piesinger had been a licensed pharmacist for 29 years, owned drugstores in New Prague and Northfield, and become the first woman to serve as president of the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy.
Never mind all that. Neither vendors nor customers took her seriously.
“Salesmen would demand to see the manager of the store,” she told the Minneapolis Journal. “They never would get used to the idea that it was me they had to see. … A man just had to be connected with a store to make it a success, in their opinion.”
Born in 1884, Piesinger was one of 10 siblings and “spent an especially active and spirited girlhood at New Prague,” according to a 1965 biography written when she was named one of Minnesota’s outstanding senior citizens. Her interest in pharmacology was sparked when her brother Hubert invited her to work at his drugstore in nearby Montgomery, at a time when few women entered the field.
Never married, she considered her drugstore her offspring.
“It’s just like a child to me,” she said. “It’s grown up with me; I’ve petted and fondled it till it almost seems human to me.”
But while she had no children of her own, Piesinger served as a mentor for another young female pharmacist: Rose Holec, who grew up in Le Sueur County not far from New Prague and visited Piesinger’s pharmacy as a kid.
“That’s where she got the idea,” said Virginia Mahowald, 95, Rose’s daughter and a lifelong resident of New Prague. “Who could imagine a women druggist way back then?”
Rose graduated from the University of Minnesota’s College of Pharmacy in the early 1920s and married fellow pharmacy student George Layne. On a visit to his bride’s hometown, George mentioned to Piesinger that if she ever wanted to sell her drugstore, they’d be interested in taking over.
Piesinger did just that, selling her New Prague business to the Laynes and opening a drug and gift shop in Northfield in 1925 with her sister Barbara.
Rose’s 63-year pharmacy career almost didn’t get off the ground, her daughter said. When Rose’s mother died in 1920 at 43, her father called her at the U and said she must return home to New Prague to care for her 6-year-old brother, Henry.
“She hung up the phone and a pharmacy professor asked her why she was crying,” Mahowald said. When Rose told her teacher she had to quit school to tend to her family, the professor shook his head.
“He said she was one of the best students in her class, and he called my grandfather and talked him into letting her stay in school,” Mahowald recalled.
Mahowald was born in 1927, two years after Piesinger sold the New Prague drugstore to her parents.
“I never met Marie, but my mother described her as very organized and capable with great energy,” Mahowald said. “And she was diplomatic enough to get elected to the state pharmacy board.”
Unlike Marie, “Rose was not a people person” and stayed in the back room mixing concoctions, while husband George “interacted with customers at the register,” according to New Prague history buff Dennis Dvorak, who introduced me to their stories.
There are photographs of Rose transplanting seedlings at the U’s medicinal plant lab in 1918, and with George in their pharmacy in 1925, on the Minnesota Digital Library website, courtesy of the New Prague Area Historical Society (tinyurl.com/LaynesPharmacy and tinyurl.com/RoseHodecPhoto).
Mahowald has another photo of her mother posing with four fellow female pharmacy students in the early 1920s. In the picture, the others are sporting large fur hand muffs and fur hats popular in the era, while Rose has a coat with no sweater and a rose pinned to her hat.
“The other four were all from wealthy families in Minneapolis and none of them wound up becoming pharmacists,” she said. “My mother was a poor farm kid from New Prague, only 5 foot, but forceful and capable.”
Rose “was supposed to marry the farmer next door near New Prague, and her father didn’t put a penny toward her schooling,” said Mahowald, a retired dietician who has lived in New Prague for most of her 95 years. Without Piesinger setting an example for her, Mahowald said, Rose never would have pursued pharmacology.
When George Layne died from emphysema at 59 in 1953, Rose sold the pharmacy in New Prague but continued working as a fill-in pharmacist well into her 80s. When she died in 1993 at 95, Rose Layne was buried in New Prague’s St. Wenceslaus Cemetery — just like her pioneering mentor, Marie Piesinger, who had been laid to rest there 27 years earlier.
Curt Brown’s tales about Minnesota’s history appear every other Sunday. Readers can send him ideas and suggestions at mnhistory@startribune.com. His latest book looks at 1918 Minnesota, when flu, war and fires converged: strib.mn/MN1918.
Star Tribune
Mankato mosque says it was targeted by arsonist
Members of a Mankato mosque say they’re asking for the public’s help after what they call a “brazen” attempted arson on Sunday.
A man held a lighter to leaves and brush at the Islamic Center of Mankato as children studied inside, said Abdi Sabrie, a cofounder and board member of the mosque.
“It was very intentional. … He wasn’t in a hurry,” Sabrie said in a call on Tuesday.
The arson attempt was unsuccessful, causing no injuries or significant damage. Attendees inside the mosque awaiting a midday prayer chased the man away, Sabrie said.
He said the man left on an expensive-looking fat-tired bicycle. Surveillance video shared by the Islamic Center of Mankato shows a man wearing a red and black jacket.
Members of the Islamic Center, as well as the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), are asking the public to provide the police with information on the suspected arsonist.
“We are deeply troubled by this incident and call for a thorough investigation to bring the perpetrator to justice,” said Jaylani Hussein, CAIR-Minnesota spokesman in a statement Monday.
Hussein said the incident marks the 40th attack on a mosque in Minnesota over the past three years. Among these incidents is a series of attacks on Muslim houses of worship. In 2023, one attack led to a St. Paul mosque being heavily damaged by fire.
Star Tribune
Windom Park ice rink will remain open for the winter season
Northeast Minneapolis will have an outdoor rink this winter after all.
The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board announced Friday that it will keep the Windom Park outdoor rink open for the 2024-25 winter season. That means northeast Minneapolis will still have three outdoor rinks, located in Windom, Logan and Van Cleve parks.
The decision was made after “hearing from the community” last week, according to a news release.
The Park Board’s original plan was to close four outdoor rinks — including the Windom Park location — due to climate change and increased supplies and materials needed due to inflation as well as fluctuating lake ice and warming house costs. Powderhorn and Webber Park rinks are still planning on being closed this winter, with up to three additional rink closures next year, according to the board.
Joe Dziedzic, a former Golden Gopher who went on to play in the NHL for the Pittsburgh Penguins and Phoenix Coyotes, grew up in northeast Minneapolis and defended the rink last week when hearing about its possible closure.
“For me, Windom is where it all began. It’s where I learned to skate and learned to love the game,” he said. “I spent a lot of hours playing with my buddies down at that rink. Lots of good memories.”
Northeast Minneapolis residents will have the chance to make some more memories at the rink this year, as long as rinks are open for more than one week, as was the case during last year’s record-breaking warm winter.
Star Tribune
Trump expected to name Marco Rubio as secretary of state
Trump has made his choice for a number of other national security roles. He has selected Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., to be his national security adviser, and Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., to be ambassador to the United Nations.
Rubio was first elected to the Senate in 2010 as part of a new generation of conservative Tea Party leaders. But some conservatives considered him wobbly on immigration, an issue that caused him political problems when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 against Trump and others.
During that campaign, Trump belittled him as “Little Marco,” and Rubio responded with acerbic attacks.
But after Trump’s 2016 victory, Rubio went on to patch things up with him, serving as an informal foreign policy adviser and helping to prepare him for his first debate against Biden in 2020.
Under Florida law, Gov. Ron DeSantis can temporarily appoint a replacement to Rubio’s seat who will serve in the Senate until the next regularly scheduled general election is held. After last week’s elections, Republicans are set to hold at least 52 seats in the chamber.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings