Photo by Deb Gau Sid Lindmark shared family photos with Romane Dold on Saturday afternoon at the Wheels Across the Prairie Museum in Tracy. Members of Lindmark’s family presented a financial gift to the museum on behalf of the late David Leander Lindmark. The Lindmarks have family connections to the Tracy and Currie areas.

TRACY — A Minnesota family with connections to the Tracy area returned to southwest Minnesota over the weekend.

The main goal of the trip was to present financial gifts to two area museums, but Chanhassen resident Sid Lindmark said it was also a chance to learn some family history.

“This is the first time the kids have really seen this area,” Lindmark said.

Sid’s brother David Leander Lindmark, who died earlier this year, left gifts to the Wheels Across the Prairie Museum in Tracy and the End-O-Line Railroad Museum in Currie in his will, Sid said. The Lindmarks have family connections to the Tracy area.

Family members presented a $5,000 gift to the city of Tracy for the maintenance of the museum, during a short program Saturday afternoon.

Visiting southwest Minnesota were David Lindmark’s brother, his niece Melissa Fogal and nephew Matt Grange, and their children.

Jon Wendorff, the Wheels Across the Prairie Museum’s executive director, said family histories were an important part of the local history the museum works to preserve.

“Family history is huge, and this is huge,” Wendorff said of Lindmark’s gift.

Sid Lindmark gave a short talk about his family’s connections to the Tracy and Currie areas as part of Saturday’s program.

The Lindmarks’ ancestry traces back to a man named Samuel Howard, who traveled from London to Boston in 1635, Sid Lindmark said. Generations later, David and Sid Lindmark’s grandfather Fred Howard came to Minnesota in 1867. The Howard family settled in Shetek Township, later moving to Tracy and then to Currie.

Sid and David’s mother Martha spent part of her life in Currie, Lindmark said.

“She spent most of her childhood in Currie, until about the 1920s,” he said. Two of her brothers stayed in Currie, and are buried in the Slayton cemetery, he said. The Howards also had relatives among several area families who are buried at Calvary Cemetery in Currie.

“David and I last visited Tracy in 2015,” Lindmark said. This weekend, family members also toured different area locations with connections to their past.

“Our grandfather Fred and one of his aunts taught in the Sunrise school,” which is now part of the End-O-Line museum, Sid Lindmark said. “We just took a tour of that this morning, and he is the earliest teacher listed on the list as you walk in the door. And there’s teachers for about 20 or 30 years, and there’s a few other relatives that also taught at that school.”

“It’s been quite a whirlwind,” Matt Grange said of the trip. Grange, a Lakeville resident, and Fogal, a Lino Lakes resident, said they were also sharing stories about their family history with their own children. Fogal said one of the high points of the trip for her was getting to see the schoolhouse where Fred Howard taught.

“It’s nice to see how preserved history is here,” Fogal said.

“It’s fulfilling to be so immersed in it,” Grange said.