Sindelar family history book donated to library

Shirley Fors Sindelar of Shakopee, Minn., recently stopped in Ipswich to visit family and her deceased husband, Van's, father's birthplace site southwest of Ipswich on a homestead in Cleveland Township.

While in Ipswich she presented the Ipswich Marcus P Beebe substitute librarian Tami Imberi, with a copy of the "Sindelar Chronicles" that she had compiled of the Sindelar Family History to add to the resource collection of other area family histories.

Van Sindelar was the youngest child of Albert E. Sindelar, whose father, Vincent Sindelar homesteaded property in Cleveland Township in the 1890"s along with his father, Wenseslaus Sindelar and several brothers. On the Vincent Sindelar homestead site lie the remains of their stone house where neighbors and family took refuge in 1890 to wait out the Sitting Bull Indian Scare, which never came to fruition for the settlers.

Perhaps the Indian scare rumors started from the Ghost Dance phenomenon which had been revived in Nevada the year before the settlers scare. The Ghost Dance Movement spread to the Dakota Territory sparking unrest in the settlers and the Dakota Sioux culminating in much loss of life at the Wounded Knee Massacre. Per internet sources, Sitting Bull was shot in December of 1890 on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation by the Indian agency police during an arrest attempt. Apparently, they feared he would join the Ghost Dance Movement.