school and eligible for county funding in eight hundred fifty three like that in a school district six was organized and lessons began in english by eight hundred fifty eight minnesota became a state and the township of white  families french was missing only in the home of the austrian koehler's even koehler's austrian brother in law burger spoke french because as wife elmira whose burger was french canadian virtually all the the lake vadis area farmers went into survival carving out homesteads and croplands from the forest hunting and trapping supplemented their meagre incomes population continued to grow but hard work poor food and sanitation took their toll many residents died of disease children fell to diptheria scarlet fever and diarrhea the belen family lost three children to here ia eventually the wilderness gave way to the axe and plough and venice area farmers began to prosper new settlers roads a general store blacksmith and a stagecoach stop brought civilization to the once primitive settlement in eight hundred seventy five a new school was built to replace the old log structure a second generation of students were taught by mary lasalle one of the new district's first teachers lessons were in english although french was still the most common language the stagecoach gave way to the railroad line and in eight hundred eighty seven a depot was built north of present day rice street and a wasso boulevard immigration of population growth continued population may have been three hundred fifty in the eighteen eighties after the eighteen eighties the french were joined by a few germans scandinavians and italians like that as a school district six help maintain the separate identity of the community irvine will sell was six b s first teacher her mother mary had taught the area students a generation earlier or mines family shared her vivid memories of the years  vida school she lived at home and her pupils were exclusively french canadians with the exception of four families christianson macs and a family of germans stand out in memory were lily and raymond beland cousins and rivals who finished the grades in four years laura christiansen who was trying to keep polls for her widowed father and her three little brothers irvin max with his brown curls bleached to gold by the summer sun a bunch of marsh lilies in his grimy fest breathless and late for school also jenny the german whose mother put the bread mixture in the bed with them when it was too cold in the house that same journey was beautifully embroidered convent mean clothes were always filthy one morning kind hearted i had a little bar they threw at school with eugene beland and his mother ss little niece annie holding the door from intruders just so jenny could get to play with the macula the starched and the ribbon and bernadette komi air what a happy and beautiful three years you are full of wiggins buggies farm implements dove chickens and guinea him george's yard as a maculata as his wife's apron vincents where the latch string was always out in the heartiest of welcomes from jeanette and leonard elise regard who has since realized her dream of being a teacher to his farmers grew little more crops and their families needed in the very earliest years of the community so in addition to language and their own school district the area remained distinct because their economy had little in common with the resort culture of white bear lake or the large stock farms of gilfillan or hill to the north eventually the lake badness population began to grow the anderson were gullah families pioneer truck farming after eighty ninety truck farming allowed smaller farms to be profitable cars made it possible for vadis men to take jobs in st paul after world war one farms could be even smaller truck farming remains an important part of the local economy vegetables like asparagus and tomatoes brought much needed cash to local families hard work and an entrepreneurial spirit were required in the mid one nine hundred thirty s ethel anderson wrote a journal of her work and life on the farm tuesday may twelfth first  market brought twenty seven dozen bunches asparagus to market sold from thirty five to fifty five cents a bunch but pair of overalls cut some more bustle asparagus painted on house rained a little planted castor beans fix flower bed on west side of house seeded melons cut more asparagus may twentieth planted over top hundred tomato plants made twenty third to market asparagus sold at thirty cents a dozen eggs at twenty two cents home at nine o'clock planted out sixteen hundred proceedings after world war two the communities only large land owner watson davidson turned his twelve hundred acres into the area's first subdivision more than eleven hundred non farm residents filled davidson's in expensive new homes along clover avenue elmwood and stockdale road every wiper township home had its own well and cesspool and the dangers of well contamination grew as subdivisions sprouted on farmland by the one nine hundred fifty six health officials found polluted wells in the densely settled eastern half of the township east township communities began voting to be an x to y peril lake to gain access to it city water and sewer wiper township fear that it would be eaten up neighborhood by neighborhood so they proposed first a township water system admin one nine hundred fifty six and then annexation of the whole township in january one nine hundred fifty seven residents at lake vadis were wildly alarmed at the thought of antics a sion to the city of white bear lake because city taxes were high because they wanted to stay small scaled and semi rural and because they feared loss of identity after other solutions including an accession to little canada failed they decided to follow the lead of north oaks and create their own village leaders from the venice heights booster club formed a government after the first election aug twentieth  seven l janssen was the first mayor their tasks were to bring order to the area getting rid of the junk yards dog kennels the basement homes and the smells that blighted the area they made the area attractive enough that four hundred fifty new homes were added to the village between one nine hundred fifty eight in one thousand nine hundred sixty five with about half the new homes being in the new five star mobile home estate the one nine hundred sixty population was two thousand four hundred fifty nine the success of the village had consequences but no city water or sewer the village began to run into the same pollution that the township based in the one nine hundred fifty s reluctantly the village decided to install started a couple of years later a fire department formed in one nine hundred seventy when the population was three thousand four hundred eleven by the one nine hundred seventy s venice heights sat at the intersection of two freeways with the downtowns of st paul and minneapolis just minutes away land values went up and the commute time fell village farmers facing costly sewer installation them good prices for their land began to sell that incites days as a sleepy village were numbered luckily mayor hank tessier had the vision and the determination to prepare the community for development despite opposition city water insulation began in one thousand nine hundred seventy seven just in time to allow the city's largest housing project green haven to go up the village illegally became a city in one nine hundred seventy five heritage days was born out of the bicentennial celebration helping cement our identity as a community in  eighty the population was five thousand and eighty seven population exploded between one hundred seventy nine and one hundred ninety with the construction of apartments and one thousand one hundred twenty new homes sewer and water  taxes sky high prompting city leaders to search out new companies to settle about a site's the first large corporation h b fuller paid enough property taxes to cover forty percent of the city tax base in the  communities living side by side the old farmers and villagers next to the newest suburbanites i know wal mart built on the site of the one hundred year old anderson truck farm followed in one thousand nine hundred four by a proposed target store ignited new protest from one thousand nine hundred five to two thousand and one city leadership worked at healing the differences between old badness and new between those who wanted more city services and more urban development and those who wanted the city to freez time focus groups visioning workshops broader recreation programs representation on city commissions or the council and time to adjust to the new values downtown all help the city resolve its differences by the new city survey of two thousand and one that is sites emerged again as a community with a strong cohesive identity with population above fourteen thousand in two thousand and six little vacant land remains and the communities focus is shifting called back yet i don't know why or how this got in the country because this was pretty pretty rural pretty country back in those days one of the things that happened there was any parent or little canada felt that they had to cut their response time into the the area you know i invented heights and they would have to put up a second fire station and then holes that and what they told the city council was we're going to have to drop people from venice hoods anyhow so why not start your own department and the council at that time had taken that suggestion and they went out in seeing if there was any was one of the council people at that time and they they worked to get members at basle a man did and they're fully come up with the idea and approach the consulate it was his idea and he had migrated down here from the iron range where they you know they all had volunteered apartments and he could see the problem of the distance little canada had to come to put out fires and the cost of contracting their services and he said why don't we dominate the big oak tree down by the city hall cottonwood tree and we'll have our first meeting to see what we end up with over the bar dozen guys again showed up for the first meeting back in nineteen seventy all right the first meeting agreed to provide us where the new building the guys worked on the plumbing they did the plumbing in the electrical work and everything in the building so the show was put up by a contractor of the build  for the building and then the guys put the building together after that with all the plumbing fixtures and cabinets and all that stuff so it was it was a work effort by those first charter members of the department he joined in one of the us and this man was retired and took the time an effort to contact every property owner in badness sites including all the absentee landowners tanker paul our water because we didn't have city water means we had to haul our water to the fires and deck an army from the station we call it we called our station two for years that was a meeting place we put together and and it was quite interesting because we're really proud of it and even though they were old and they were scratches and danes and dents in them and stuff but they were they were there pieces put together and start out that way then take us to the raw before we got them of the modern you're not as modern as what the firefighters have today but back in the day we're pretty  get what we got our surrounding be part months were notified of a fire by telephone they had such as a red phone in your house and that was the fire phone when a call come through they got notified by phone that we put this department together so fast that when we called northwest ballen says we need thirty five fire forms installed in these homes and they have to be in place by january first of one nine hundred seventy two when we take over fire protection they said this is physically impossible so this forced us to look at radio communication and we put in  receivers in each one of the members homes and we were able to purchase them and have the proper frequencies put into him and it's like we jumped ahead of the rest of the departments but it only happened because there were our back west of the wall we couldn't get the telephone system implemented so we we jumped a step ahead and it cost a little more money up front but we we were we started right out with radio the drip collar on the back and it probably stuck out about that far from the back of the helmet and they had the fire so hot that i remember guys coming out and the drip but had no good on the helmet and it just we said wow you know go hundred seventy one we got the council to agreed to by ass a new fire truck so we put this truck on order and it took i've been to twelve months to get this truck but the moment the capital city mutual aid association found out that we did have a new truck on order they accepted us into the mutual aid association which at that time was about seventeen member fire departments once you are a member this is a binding agreement that if you need help or the fire you call and they will come so you have much mutual aid help at your fingertips it seemed like years because we sat there and waited for this little radio that we had no host to go off and it was quite an exciting moment the first protocol was on mcmenemy and it was a johnson residence and it was a chimney  fire well proceed into the fire hall and it got there and it was just kind of a mass confusion i mean it's we didn't really know what to do exactly we had trained but we never really experienced that  the first year that we were in service little canada responded the same as they would have prior to us forming a fire department so that the homeowners  residents had the same protection that they were used to anyway and we were kind of and i learning  they held i believe monthly meeting to discuss different topics how they could help the fire service their money's worth channel then back to the fire have the money to the guys for the kitchen i think i'll play or call the top whether in the middle night or not it seems like once you get your ears toned to the to the to the pager calls once that goes off way to day riding on a fire vehicle on the rear bumper is the illegal by osha but i'm not all thirty seven g m see when we were responding to a fire there was two firemen riding the rear tail board hanging on with one hand and putting a breathing apparatus on both their other hand and nobody ever fell off thank god but they got some pretty wild right to go into the fire and that way they were ready to enter the house when we got there talking night and we got a call it was very windy very dry summer day we went down i drove the truck down there with the chief she got a little scared because i was going to france and he said slow down slow down one weekend the wind chill was seventy five below on friday night and it was eighty three below on saturday night we had a we had a fire on friday night which was not real serious but we had to get up in the middle of the night and go out and the dangers on the trucks froze and it was just one thing after the other it just was not a good night to be out and i know we came back and we were cold from that knowledge our care was frozen up and we had it hanging in the fire hall trying to dry it out and everything else and the next morning we all got up and we were down to the station and were trying to put things away and and get things going and as far as are gear goes and everything and then we said hope we don't have another one because it's going to be colder tonight well the next night on saturday evening we got another fire call it was like a three ball windshield and i remember going directly to the fire and it came in as a chimney fire so that well maybe it's not too bad we got there  the side of the house was in flames and i remember sitting in the in the my pickup just sitting there looking at it and i'm thinking i'm not even caught out from last night yet and here i am going to go back out tonight again going to be crazy for doing this but i thought well here we go we got out and we fought the fire and we were there for a couple three hours and we got back to the fire hall and and that's when i had learned that one of our his chooks walking to the fire station his car would start and he was there to make it to the fire and i have never forget that weekend as long as i live the dedication of the get up in the middle of the night and go out  cold and freeze again for a second in a role that's that's true dedication i got caught in the backlash one time in a fire and i was on the nozzle benders two other guys in back  me that a major fire over on the man in the road basin fire we had two crews try to get down the basement but the fire up they can get down i was on my third tank of your already and i was on the first floor and we're just putting out spot fires i had work right so i got second and third degree burns around both wrists and i got badly burnt around my neck top my ears got burnt even though i had a smashed gone i still got basically cooked inside my and a half hour period i drank a gallon apple water and that normally do i drink that much water and my suit that i had on was completely saturated you could bring it out that scared me quite a bit it took me a good six months to a year to feel comfortable going back into a house fire i was a little scared to do it i wasn't sure someone to come in out of it again and that's go to hell but after a year then i was just as gutsy as ever again people i don't know who they were the mystery still goes on who did it actually did it i wasn't involved with the idea i suspect that skep anson richard dance and i suspect he's the her painted up it was beautiful then when we come back we were out at deer court listening to the incoming call from the pilot know and when we were going to land so we were hidden in the bushes when he come to his car this kind of wonder we never had any problems with our splay it was all dead serious from the moment that bell rang but it back at the station we knew how to have laughs and good time and that kept the man coming back to their station they enjoyed being involved no use to drag back that when our fire station  after the training sessions and after the girls and after many fire calls and especially the grass fires it was hot and dry and you worked extremely hard and the members would have a little  a cop there and everybody proctor my nan and it it worked very well for years and then some point down the road five or six years i remember we got our a new merit that was a teetotaller nice man john metro and he showed up whether his wife to tour the fire station and richard perle's barry was sick chief at that time and he come in there and he took one look at that refrigerator and he said  that's the first thing that's go some of our christmas parties we had our or probably the most on the road had them all the way from in the in the old station where we'd pull the trucks outside and we had to have a christmas party in the get together with people in the base of the fire station and then there for a while we went out to a restaurant then have that party but we never really enjoyed it as much in the restaurants as we do on our own building it was the one ninety year that we weren't on call we would have late johannah and little canada fire department answering all fire calls so all we could get is growing because we wanted to and we didn't have to worry about somebody's house burning to the ground so we let all hang out that was a one night a year that we weren't a fireman got to go to conventions one senior and it was sort of like a reward for all the hard times and everything you put up with falling year and it was sort of in that was just crazy and in the beginning we camped out going to a hotel hours of work and a getting out actually working at the south and then tearing it down and it lets you spend a lot of time with these people you learn a lot about them and and you get to all the founding members of the fire department in eighty five were going to be retiring in six years so they went to the city council and said look you know we could have twenty guys retire and so we can't take that hit so we have to add  firefighters on so that when the twenty are veterans retire we at least have six year or five year or four year firefighters in their place so they have the city allowed us to expand up to forty and so we've been using that number now we're really made me get involved in safety safety in any way from the firefighters with holes in my boots and after all about four or five months our department was going to bunker pants with shot our full poll on and they come up high and far more protective quality than than the old coots used to be and then you had the long heavy cold side i was on during that period of time too and now we have the lighter jackets that come waist high in the backed like crazy trying to work with that and that the air tanks now are much much lighter so you can you can do a lot of work without really forcing up your back from one day to time but the gear now will protect you otherwise it was one size fits all so either your helmet was really too tight or it was really too loose and it never fit properly so just little things that are really improved a lot the training has changed since i started mainly as a result of the larger facilities that we've got in this new fire station and i can remember when we first got i think we had a force of maybe thirty to thirty two people and we all squeezed into a very small meeting room up at the north station and got pretty hot and crowded there and and we didn't have all of the new trucks that we have right now so we had we had more people taking turns on the pumpers and some of the other equipment and now that we've got a new station and some new fire regs and the training gets to be a lot more hands on for everyone we have more equipment to use the equipment has a lot nicer than it used to be in the trailer courts we had a call it was a work in trailer for and the trailer takes about all of three minutes to be liveable to trust instantly and with a call come in that there were  children inside and three of us had to make a rapid entry and that was true it was really really wrong and it flames out three sides of it i believe t the one that was most memorable and maybe most rewarding in a mass call related to that i think the call came over to see child choking on a cracker and when we arrived at the scene we found a young child probably twelve months in respiratory distress and as things unfolded we determined very early on that it was it was a very severe medical difficulty we decided to do was a situation where the child had to be rushed immediately to the hospital so as soon as the advanced life support ambulance arrived we loaded the infant into the ambulance and the company of the  ambulance to the hospital supporting it very aggressively on the way down when we arrived the child went mediately into a surgical operating room where when x rayed they found that there was  a beam caught actually you know its upper respiratory area and having not had the opportunity to really receive very rapid aggressive treatment the outcome could have been  very very poor but as it turned out the child to divert well and was taken care of very quickly so it was he was very rewarding to have had an opportunity to be involved and i think the most memorable scene that i've been on as a fireman is a car accident that we had a couple winters ago i'm thirty eight and it was a minivan that rolled over and it was hit by another car travelling in the same lane on the took as i recall about forty five minutes to get the vehicle separated and then that means i have taken another fifteen to thirty minutes to get the injured forget left in the patient out of the van and handing him off to the ambulance crew there is a real sense that we were not going to that we were going to lose this person  and we had some people that were extremely affected by this call and we were really happy to find out within a week or so later that he was doing ok in my position i worry worry about the forty people that belong to the department that any decisions that we make and the fire ground is that decision that we make  somebody is life in some way and of course you always put the safe aside you can life is very valuable and knock on wood we've never had any problem or we've years they worked really heard they planted the seed with the city council they lived with them every year to set aside money to get this thing done and they managed to get it through that sure is a nice community relations type area where the community can get involved see the station see the trucks and definitely kids and when i was a kid i like to look at the fire trucks and climb on home and it gives the community a sense of involvement that the fire department one cares about individuals in the community and also with a community just to learn of some good experiences they for example the children in the small cost of what exactly needs to be done you know where situations within their os which they may or may not be getting trained that at their house so it's beneficial for both sides i think there's a lot of benefits to have women on the department expression when we get into the medical end of it when we're running ambulances and we're going to call it involves a female would feel more comfortable that both parties would feel more comfortable with that i think that's one big advantage for any part of it was interesting my daughter was down here and was talking to the former firefighter and came home and think you know i'd really like to do going to do we all did their best bunch of friends i've ever had in my life