In Clearbrook, the town’s history isn’t in the archives, but in the walls, fields, and floorboards that hold generations of memories. Local writer Juleigh Prosser is helping Clearbrook compile the stories of their town into a book.
Transcript
This is Minnesota's Legacy, a look at the organizations and the people who have benefited from Minnesota's Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.
Juliegh Prosser: The web and how we are connected in ways that are not even visible, is absolutely amazing.
Xan Holston: In Clearbrook, Minnesota, population 464, that web runs through generations. And for Juleigh Prosser, those strands also run through Clearbrook’s houses, a smoke-stained mantel, a floor board that squeaked for 80 years. Each holds its own stories.
Juleigh Prosser: There's so many different things that happen that are layered upon the places that we live that you don't even realize that you are touched by that.
Xan Holston: With support from Minnesota's Legacy Amendment, Prosser is gathering the stories of past and current residents to compile in a book about the life of Clearbrook is told through the homes on Oak Street.
Juleigh Prosser: Maybe there is a field where somebody had their first kiss. That's the window where the breeze came in that smelled like peonies or roses. It isn't meant to be comprehensive. It's meant to touch your heart. I really want it to be something that connects you to this place, whether you live here or not.
Xan Holston: Prosser says the book isn't meant to chronicle every detail, but to reconnect people with the place that shaped them, and to give anyone who reads it a sense of Clearbrook’s spirit.
Minnesota's Legacy is produced by AMPERS With support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Online at AMPERS dot ORG.