News
A family tradition 125 years strong
Matthew Semisch
06/17/2014
The names of four of the fine arts and crafts ribbon winners at this year’s Bottineau County Fair (BCF) ought to be familiar to those who consider themselves historians of one of the county’s grandest institutions.
For one thing, each of them are talented artists in their own rights. For another, they’re all descendants of one of the BCF’s co-founders.
Marzella Bertsch, 93, is a daughter of David Clark, Sr., an original BCF board member and its second president. Clark, Sr. led the organization from 1985 to 1990 after William Stewart had presided over the board from its inception in 1889.
Last week during the 125th edition of the fair, four of Clark, Sr.’s scions were honored for works they’d submitted to the BCF’s fine arts and crafts exhibit.
PASSION PAYS OFF
Bertsch, a hobbyist painter who now resides in the senior housing unit at the St. Andrew’s Health Center in Bottineau, submitted two of her pieces. Both pieces received first-place blue ribbons.
“On the Clark side, someone from us has always exhibited since the fair started,” said Bertsch, who also enjoys quilting and gardening at St. Andrew’s. “This year, I exhibited a couple of my paintings, and it’s exciting to know they’ve won.”
She began painting 23 years ago as a new hobby she’d picked up. However, she later gave it up after becoming blind in one eye.
“I started painting when I was 70, and I was taking lessons back then for it,” she said. “I started painting then and then I went blind in one of my eyes, so I quit for about 10 years.”
In the end, though, painting was a passion she decided she couldn’t suppress for the rest of her life.
“Two years ago, I decided to just go back to painting on my own just by self-teaching,” Bertsch said, “And I’ve been back to doing it ever since.
“I don’t know if I’d say I rediscovered my love for painting. It never really went away - It was just waiting for me to come back to it.”
YOUNGER GENERATIONS PROSPER
Her granddaughter, 25-year-old Alanna Buelow, both draws and paints. At least, that is, she draws and paints when she isn’t busy running Ali’s Coffee House & Gift Shoppe on Main Street in Bottineau.
Buelow attended North Dakota State University’s art school for two years before transferring to Rasmussen College to earn a business degree. Aside from her coffee and gift shop business, she also takes and creates custom art orders and sells many of her pieces at Ali’s.
Alanna’s mother Zelda Buelow also paints. Bertsch and Zelda both specialize in landscape paintings, though, which Alanna doesn’t do much of.
Alanna submitted several of her own pieces for this year’s edition of the BCF. Most earned blue ribbons, while one painting of a rose and piano won a purple ribbon as the fine arts and craft division’s grand champion piece.
A TRUE FAMILY AFFAIR
Buelow has two children of her own, son Jaxson (5) and daughter Kyra (2). Both received ribbons at this year’s BCF for paintings they’d created at the day care center they attend in Bottineau.
Kyra, who will turn three years old this Thursday, can lay claim to the fact that she first made it clear she wanted to enter the world at the BCF fairgrounds.
Alanna went into labor with Kyra while at the fair in 2011. Kyra was coming into the world seven weeks early, and two days after labor began, Alanna gave birth to her daughter in Minot.
This, however, was all taking place during the famous 2011 Souris River flooding. Minot’s levees were overtopped and around 11,000 residents of the city were evacuated.
Alanna and Kyra, who had been in a neonatal intensive care unit in the Minot hospital in whch she was born, were two of them.
“There was no way to get from Bottineau to Minot while the flood was going on,” Alanna said.
“Actually, Kyra was in the NICU there for about a week and then they evacuated that out, and we ended up being the last car to get out before they closed to highway to go to Grand Forks.
“We couldn’t have gotten between here and there anytime after that, so in the end it was lucky she was early.”
That, however, was a long time ago now. These days, Alanna and her two children are winners at the county fair - North Dakota’s oldest - that one of the ancestors helped start.
Being such a big part in such a big event, too, is something each generation of their family takes pride in.
“It’s always been a big deal in our family,” Alanna said. “It was huge every year even for me when I was in 4-H when I was a kid.
“Although my own kids are too young for 4-H just yet, that’ll be coming shortly for them and especially for Jaxson.
“We’ve been doing this for a long time, and we hope it’s a long, long time more that we keep at it.”