Creating Fiction for History: 11/24/2021

Danette Jocelynn Holding was born on January 18th, 1899 at the office of Adolf Gundersen in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The hospital which would be known as Lutheran Hospital was not built until about three years later. Danette's parents, Robert and Ida Holding, had recently relocated to the big city across the Mighty Miss'ipp four years earlier, after having heard the reports about this famous European doctor, who had jumped the pond to share his blessings with this fledgling country.

Coming from a small town in Iowa, with a population of little more than 1,600 to a big city of over 20,000 was quite a shock for the Holdings. As Ida's health was failing, they had decided together that the move to a bigger area, with the likelihood of better medical treatment, was in order.

When their only daughter came into this world on that frigid January day, the Holdings were ecstatic, especially considering Ida's weakened state. Dannette almost grew up without a mother, but thanks to the quick thinking and miraculous hands of Dr. Gundersen, she blossomed into the lovely young lady in the photograph shown. This photograph was taken on the occasion of her thirteenth birthday.

Danette would call La Crosse home for her entire life, and for seven years after this photograph was taken, she devoted every waking moment to caring for her ailing mother. Two days before Danette's twenty-first birthday, Ida left this hard life for a better one, and after a short period of mourning, Danette entered the new speakeasy in La Crosse, called The Parrot, and walked out as one of the first female bartenders in that part of the country.

Want to create fiction from history? Stop by the Ledger office and choose a photo from the Jefferson Valley Museum Archives to create a fictional story from.