(woman) "Prairie Mosaic" is funded by-- the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on Nov. 4th, 2008; the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and by the members of Prairie Public.

Welcome to "Prairie Mosaic," a patchwork of stories about the art, culture, and history in our region.

Hi, I'm Barb Gravel.

And I'm Matt Olien.

On this edition of "Prairie Mosaic," we'll watch an artistic tribute come to life, meet two pioneering women of medicine, and meet an up-and-coming country musician.

Warriors in the North features an event where veterans with trauma histories design masks that reflect their experiences and their journey toward recovery.

The community project is a joint effort between the Fargo Veterans Affairs Health Care System and the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County in Moorhead.

[piano plays softly] (Dr. Margo Norton) With PTSD we have a trauma or traumas that have been avoided for months, maybe years because it's an experience that was so upsetting that it was difficult to process it emotionally.

PTSD by definition is an illness of avoidance.

People will have a hard time wanting to talk about an experience or they avoid things that will remind them of that experience, Today we're at the Fargo VA getting ready for an event that we've been doing here for several years, but the first time now in about a year and a half.

Because of COVID we've had to put this on pause.

We are preparing for a maskmaking event.

We've invited veterans who have trauma history to come and design a mask in the image of something that reflects their trauma experience or their recovery from that experience.

(Art Williams) I'm here, not because of one thing, but because of a whole lot of things.

My mask is a reflection in layers of my nice calm life as a kid growing up in the military, through the initial experiences in the Army.

And when I came back from my third tour in Vietnam, I went through a deep depression, suicidal at times.

That's another cover; that's the black line that goes right through there.

It wasn't till I wound up here in Fargo at the VA in 2010, that I really got into some decent programs here.

It helped me to understand why I was the way I was.

And so in the tail end of it, it's a happier set of colors.

And as I'm now approaching 80 years old, I'm ah, I'm at peace.

So the talk therapies that we do are typically reaching the parts of the brain where the trauma is stored verbally, where they can actually put words to the experience.

Trauma is also stored in parts of our brain where you don't have access verbally, and through artistic, creative forms of therapy, in a sense, we can get access to those regions of our brain and process in a different way that can help dealing with addressing and healing from a traumatic experience.

Most of them will be new to this whole experience.

They will all have had some exposure to a trauma-focused treatment.

They've been referred by their treatment provider here generally.

There will be a few that have been here before and have found this experience very therapeutic and want to come back and do another mask.

Anywhere from Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to Vietnam era veterans, so a large age range, all veterans, all with trauma history and trauma treatment history.

Some of them will have ideas already in their mind, what they want to put on the mask, others will have no idea and will just kind of inspired by the time that we give them to do this.

Whatever they need, whatever could be helpful to them, will be a staff walking around assisting if anybody wants some assistance or has some questions.

We'll basically give them 3 hours to do that.

This one here, it symbolizes the hurt from within, and trying to get out.

The chain around it is keeping it in.

It's like I'm being held within myself.

There's so much that has yet got to be said, but it's hard to say it.

Because we just can't open up, 'cause it's just embedded so deep with so much pain, and it's always there, always there.

Talking about it like this, it's very hard for me to find the words.

And like these ladies here that come and help me all the time, and without them I would be lost, totally lost.

Because when I came here 20- 30-some years ago, I was an angry individual and very, very lost.

And they helped me.

And they're continuing helping me.

As an option, we ask them if they are comfortable or if they feel compelled to actually write the story behind their mask.

So that gives the observer a little bit more information and background about the meaning behind their mask if they fully understand it at that point.

(Nathan Griffin) I've been wanting to do this for about a year now, so I've had a lot of time to think about how to represent my feelings.

So I've got white and black on the mask.

The black is all the cracks, and it's hard to see because it's covered up with all the white.

The white represents how other people look at me.

They may not see the scars or all the cracks that I have on the inside, so that's why I kind of covered them up.

Once people get to know you a little bit better, those things start showing through.

So on the backside, it's all clear.

You can see all the cracks and everything, because that's what a lot of people don't see.

Maybe one day my mask won't be so hidden.

I believe I'm on the right path now, but it's a long road.

(Dr. Margo Norton) I recently heard a veteran who did a mask a couple years ago, he finds it a great conversation starter for people to be able to share his story.

A friend actually noticed something in the mask that he hadn't noticed before, and he kind of had a realization of why he made the face, why he he made the mouth the way he did after she asked him some questions.

So it can actually be, you can gain insight actually years after creating the mask through conversation.

It's very rewarding.

[with much emotion] It brings tears to my eyes to think about actually.

It's a powerful experience.

In this Artifact Spotlight, Emily Buermann of the Becker County History Museum in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota tells us the story of two pioneering women of medicine-- Dr. Emma Ogden and Emma Combacker.

My name is Emily Buermann from the Becker County Museum in Detriot Lakes, Minnesota, and this is our Artifact Spotlight.

Today I'm going to talk about Emma and Emma.

So first, Emma Ogden is a doctor in Detroit Minnesota.

So Emma Ogden is born in 1840. in Pennsylvania.

And as she grows up and becomes a teenager, she becomes a nurse in the Civil War.

People are dying of infection and disease and like, 75% of all surgeries are amputations, and it's really brutal and really ugly.

to be in the medical profession in the Civil War.

After the Civil War Emma Ogden wanted to continue to be a nurse, but she also wanted to be a doctor.

She goes to Women's College in Philadelphia, and she graduates and becomes a doctor.

So she starts to look around, she's going to open up her practice, she's going to practice medicine as a doctor on the east coast.

And it's not going great because she's a woman, and she's unmarried.

So she heads out West to the Wild West of Detroit, Minnesota.

And a lot of what the 1880s doctors are doing is, they are going and making house calls.

She is going out here day and night, making these runs, doing these housecalls.

But Emma Ogden is doing okay because she was a nurse in the Civil War, and she has seen it all.

So Dr. Emma also is a proponent for using chemical medicine.

So she is bringing in these medicines that the local folks haven't really caught onto yet and aren't really keen to use.

But she is a good doctor, and she is helping people, and so little by little people are starting to trust her to take these chemical medicines that she is bringing in.

So since she has to bring them in herself, because there isn't already a druggist or a pharmacist in town, Dr. Emma opens her own pharmacy in her practice.

Meanwhile, Emma Combacker, she was born in 1858 in Wisconsin.

She's a smart gal, she grows up, her family encourages her to go ahead and get an education.

And she is interested in medicine.

So she grows up, goes to the University of Michigan, and she graduates with a pharmacy degree.

Then she makes her way to Detroit, and joins the practice with Dr. Emma.

So Dr. Emma is upstairs in the building and pharmacist Emma is downstairs running the pharmacy.

So they become kind of a one-stop shop.

You can come, you see the doctor, on your way out and grab your medicines, and away you go.

Everything is going fairly well for the two though there are some whispers about Dr. Emma.

She is still unmarried, she is still a woman, and she refuses to wear dresses.

She is going around in shirts, coats, and pants.

Now keep in mind, she sometimes has to hop on the horse or hop on the wagon and run off, and who's going to do that in a skirt and cute boots.

Not Dr. Emma.

And pharmacist Emma is wearing dresses, she's wearing hats to work every day.

She's in the library circles, she's in the choir circles.

She's going around town doing all of the lovely lady things that are expected of the ladies, and then Emma Combacker finds a husband here in Detroit.

She marries William Fagerberg, they adopt a child, and things are going wonderful for the two, Dr. Emma and pharmacist Emma.

They are doing well with their pharmacy, they're helping people out, everything is going great.

The community has accepted Dr. Emma Ogden.

They even just call her "The Doctor," which is kind of fun.

Emma and Emma are two pioneering medical ladies blazing trails through the 1880s and 1890s and 1900s, and they are coming to Detroit, and they are helping, and they are healing, and they are changing minds along the way.

"Spirit of the Sandbagger" honors the efforts of people who worked together to protect homes and businesses from the raging floods of the Red River over the years.

The structure is a collaboration among city leaders, organizations, and artists.

It represents the power a community has when it comes together for a common goal.

(woman) The flood projection has been raised to 41 feet.

(man) Guard troops started nonstop levy patrol preparing for the highest crest in history.

Emergency response teams rushed to dike breaks in South Moorhead.

(woman) Crews tried to fill the gap with sandbags around 2:00 this morning but couldn't stop the water.

City officials have issued an emergency evacuation.

(man) A slow drop in the south lets a first look at the devastation left behind.

This is now the worst flood in the history for Fargo-Moorhead.

[acoustic guitar plays softly] (Mike Benson) During times of flooding all throughout Fargo's history, people along the river, their homes or their businesses were in peril.

And where it was decided that they could sandbag, people heard about that and came to help.

(man) The key to this sandbagging and diking effort is the volunteers.

(Karen Bakke) In '97 that was our biggest threat.

We saw all the camaraderie between all the people and the neighbors-- everybody was there.

(man) A half-million more bags.

That's the number that these hundreds of volunteers are targeting tonight here at the Fargo Dome.

I was told that there were 5,000 people coming up from Minneapolis to fill sandbags, and there were other situations like that all over the city.

We had help everywhere-- college kids, the high school kids, all of those people helped out.

It was a lot of work, but in the end we survived.

(Mike Benson) We had talked about having a memorial made to the sandbaggers.

The name of the project is "Spirit of the Sandbagger."

The Fargo Lions had a committee.

They issued a request for a proposal for a public art project.

I talked to Karen Bakke, she thought about it a while, she came back and said, "I'll do that."

On the metalworking, I stopped and saw Brock Davis.

Mike Benson came to my shop and started the conversation about wanting to build a memorial sculpture for the sandbaggers.

He had some paintings that he had done.

We actually went down to the site and hand-painted and drew what his vision was.

I said you tell me what you want, and I'll build it.

Brock and I think alike artistically, and Mike was analytical.

We needed that balance, and I thought we were the dream team!

[Karen laughs] [camera shutter clicks] Most of these people had a heart in it, so they were more than willing to do the modeling.

I'd bring them in, and we had sandbags, and I'd have them throwing sandbags back and forth trying to get the right pose and trying to get them to be real natural and forget about what I was doing as far as photographing.

After the photos were taken, then I put them in a lineup compositionally for the whole thing as if they are filling the bags, passing them, and then stacking them, and with the firemen supervising to make sure that the wall is going to be a nice strong wall.

I did the sketches, and then I worked with the computer, gave my thumb drive to Brock, and Brock did his thing.

(Brock) You just started with the bridge structure, the skeleton of it.

I had the rolled 2-by-6 aluminum rectangular tubing, then built what I call a ladder structure with the arch in it, then wrapped it with quarter-inch aluminum.

I cut out all the silhouettes on the scene on the plasma table, then Karen and Mike came over and we set them where Karen had her vision and Mike's vision all come together.

I can't say enough good things about both of those artists, because we wouldn't have this piece of art if it wasn't for Brock Davis and Karen Bakke.

(Brock Davis) Installation days, I always call them time to take the test day because that's when you take the test-- see if you did what you were supposed to.

I brought the bridge structure down.

I Industrial builders used the Telehandler to lift it off.

I left right away to go pick up the silhouettes and was kind of sweating the whole time they were going to set it while I was gone.

Once I got back, I saw the bridge structure up on the pillars and the Telehandler with the forks on the ground, and it was a good feeling, because after that it was going to stay hung.

(Karen Bakke) Working with Brock was a joy.

There was a lot of footwork, and I was a little concerned about that when we started to get more people involved.

I would say I'm dreaming with my eyes open, it's fun just building, creating.

Never would've guessed that we'd have a structure like that downtown 5, 6 years ago when I started this.

If we ever have another big flood, the only people doing sandbagging downtown are those 21 sandbaggers.

And you will be able to see them over the floodwall.

Thanks again to the citizens of Fargo and all the people that pitched in.

(Mike Benson) The damage that water can do is something that a lot of people underestimate.

But what people can do working together is also something that people underestimate.

I hope that the community goes down, sees it, remembers what their role was and how they helped be a part of that.

If a disaster like this comes along, it's a reminder we work together for the good of everyone.

Hailey James is a musical star on the rise.

As a singer/songwriter, she's been performing since the age of 14, and her dream is to share her music on a national level.

Hey, I'm Hailey James, I'm from Cottage Grove Minnesota.

I'm a country singer/songwriter.

♪ You and I were good friends ♪ ♪ Built on a hurt then ♪ ♪ You left me with a thought of us in my head ♪ I've loved singing ever since I was little, and country music was always the main thing being played on the radio at home, wherever I was.

So that's where I found my love for country music for sure.

And when I was 14, that's when I got my first gig, doing some open mics, which led me to that.

After I started that first gig, it just led to more opportunities.

Then I started to go into the recording side of music and recorded my debut single which kind of kick-started my career and led me to multiple opportunities with new stations and radio stations; that gave me my start.

[playing in folk-rock rhythm] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ The clock says 2 AM and my phone screen's back again ♪ ♪ 'Cause you ain't callin' ♪ ♪ Anymore ♪ ♪ We used to stay up all night ♪ ♪ 'Cause I never got tired of hearin' you on the other line ♪ ♪ But that was before ♪ ♪ Before I ever thought that you would ever leave me ♪ ♪ And now it hurts so badly ♪ ♪ I can't sleep ♪ ♪ I'm layin' here in these sheets but it ain't the same ♪ ♪ Now it's silent here things have changed ♪ ♪ It hurts to see you and that's what my dreams do ♪ ♪ So now I got to forget your voice forget your face ♪ ♪ Yeah but boy you're a part of me ♪ ♪ And those memories that we made they just won't stay away ♪ ♪ And they're keeping me wide awake ♪ ♪ Wide wide awake ♪ ♪ Wide wide awake ♪ ♪ Wide wide awake ♪ ♪ You knew that roses they were my favorite ♪ ♪ I still remember the dress ♪ ♪ I wore when you gave me them ♪ ♪ And there's a place next to my bed but now it's empty ♪ ♪ It was filled with my favorite thing ♪ ♪ Love I used to be feeling ♪ ♪ I'm layin' here in these sheets but it ain't the same ♪ ♪ Now it's silent here things have changed ♪ ♪ It hurts to see you and that's what my dreams do ♪ ♪ So now I got to forget your voice forget your face ♪ ♪ Yeah but boy you're a part of me ♪ ♪ And those memories that we made they just won't stay away ♪ ♪ And they're keeping me wide awake ♪ ♪ Wide wide awake ♪ ♪ Wide wide awake ♪ ♪ Wide wide awake ♪ ♪ Yeah they're keeping me wide awake ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Oh oh-oh oh-oh-oh ♪ ♪ Ah oh-oh oh-oh-oh oh ♪ ♪ I'm layin' here in these sheets but it ain't the same ♪ ♪ Now it's silent here things have changed ♪ ♪ It hurts to see you and that's what my dreams do ♪ ♪ So now I got to forget your voice and forget your face ♪ ♪ Yeah but boy you're part of me ♪ ♪ And those memories that we made they just won't stay away ♪ ♪ And they're keeping me wide awake ♪ ♪ Wide wide awake ♪ ♪ Wide wide awake ♪ ♪ Wide wide awake ♪ ♪ Yeah they're keeping me wide awake ♪ ♪ Wide wide awake ♪ ♪ Wide wide awake ♪ ♪ Wide wide awake ♪ ♪ Yeah they're keeping me wide awake ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm wide awake ♪ ♪ Oh oh-oh-oh oh ♪ If you know of an artist, topic or organization in our region that you think might make for an interesting segment, please contact us at... (Barb) You can watch this and other episodes of "Prairie Mosaic" on Prairie Public's YouTube channel, and follow Prairie Public on social media as well.

I'm Barb Gravel.

And I'm Matt Olien.

Thank you for joining us for another edition of "Prairie Mosaic."

[guitar, bass, & drums play in bright country rhythm] (woman) "Prairie Mosaic" is funded by-- the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on Nov. 4th, 2008; the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and by the members of Prairie Public.