Couple's wedding day in 1936 rocked by blast

It was after 9 p.m., and Ida Mae Hansen and Loyal Kolbrek had been married for about three hours.

The wedding took place in her parents? home at 14th Street and Duluth Avenue. Guests ? mostly their brothers and sisters and in-laws ? had finished the wedding feast and were chatting. The bride?s father already had gone to bed.

Five miles to the east, a stranger?s life was coming to an end, and his girlfriend was being beaten cruelly with a hammer. Then several bullets were fired into her body.

Finally, a match was held to the end of a 10-foot fuse attached to a stick of dynamite. The three assailants then hurriedly left the building, a powder house for a hardware store.

A minute ticked away, then another.

But when the explosion came, it shook the area for miles and brought an abrupt end to the newlyweds? simple wedding reception.

Almost 75 years later, Loyal and Ida Mae Kolbrek still recall the power of the explosion.

?At first, I thought it was shivareeing,? Ida Mae says, referring to the noisy mock serenade that once saluted newly married couples.

?We didn?t have any children at our reception. People had left the babies at home. They all just rushed home to make sure the babies were all right.?

The newlyweds also left the Hansen house at 520 S. Duluth Ave., wondering what had caused the house to shake and plaster to fall on a sleeping family member.

It wasn?t until the next day they learned about what came to be known as the Powder House Blast.

They also learned there had been a survivor.

According to a history by the Minnehaha County Historical Society, the blast occurred at 9:35 p.m. The powder house held 310 25-pound kegs of gunpowder, more than 3,000 pounds of dynamite and a man who was unconscious, if not already dead.

The crater left behind measured 50 feet in diameter and was 25 feet deep. Hundreds of windows were broken within a 40-mile area, residents more than 60 miles away heard the blast, and it registered on seismographs in California.

The powder house was on property owned by Fred and Freda Dawley, where the Dawley Farm Village sits today. The historical marker erected in 2002 was removed when roadwork took place, and the state does not want it replaced, says Bruce Blake of the county historical society.

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Floyd H. Parker died in the blast. He was a paroled California convict who met Helen Sieler, 25, who was living in Sioux City, Iowa.

He also met gang members Lee Bradley and Harry ?Slim? Reeves, also ex-convicts, and barkeeper William Nesbit.

The four men conspired with a Sioux City jewelry wholesaler to stage a burglary of his business. The wholesaler would keep the jewels and split the insurance proceeds.

The sham burglary was botched, however, and the gang split up. When Parker demanded money, the other three men drove him and Sieler to Sioux Falls. When they reached the powder house, Bradley attacked Parker, then they assaulted Sieler.

The three men fled, but a slow-burning fuse allowed Sieler time to escape from the building and crawl more than 100 yards to a ditch, allowing her to survive the explosion. Neighboring farmers found her and took her to Moe Hospital, where it was found she had eight bullet wounds.

A thumb from Parker?s body was found in February and identified through a fingerprint. Bradley, Reeves and Nesbit were sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

All this Ida Mae and Loyal Kolbrek would learn later. But the timing of their wedding and the Powder House Blast has been a constant in their anniversary celebrations for almost 75 years.

They officially celebrated this diamond jubilee with a family gathering earlier this month.

?We thought it was great,? Ida Mae says, then adds, ?I said it was a real blast.?

Loyal and Ida Mae were born in Gregory County. He was the son of a homesteader who lived near Fairfax; she lived in Fairfax until a poor economy put her father, an implement dealer, out of business.

The family moved to Sioux Falls when she was 12. Loyal?s father, a farmer, also moved his family to Sioux Falls. Their fathers knew each other, and the families ended up living across the street. Loyal and one of Ida Mae?s brothers became friends.

And Loyal remained just one of her brother?s friend for several years. They both attended Hawthorne School. Loyal quit in eighth grade and began working at John Morrell & Co. for 20 cents an hour. Ida Mae went on to Washington High School.

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Both of them dated other people, including, for Ida Mae, a boy she knew in Fairfax.

About the time she graduated from college, however, something changed, although neither one recalls an official first date.

?He was good looking,? Ida Mae says of her future husband. ?He had a lot of curly hair, tall and slender. It?s the way you do. You just like them better than someone else.?

The couple estimates they were engaged for three months before their wedding day. He bought her a diamond; she had a white dress for the wedding. Someone hung a honeycombed tissue paper bell for them to sit under for a photograph.

It was a quiet, low-key wedding for a couple whose first home was a room in her parents? boarding house. They went on to raise four children, Dennis of Cross Lake, Minn.; Jan of Nashville, Tenn., and Pat Pickard and Jim, both of Sioux Falls. They have 12 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren.

Loyal estimates they moved 39 times in their married life. Today, they live at Trail Ridge.

They may go out to eat on their anniversary, but unless by some fluke, the outing won?t include a trip downtown to marvel at all the broken windows and wonder what caused it.

?That was quite a thing to happen in a little town,? Ida Mae says.

Source: http://www.argusleader.com/article/20111228/VOICES/312280050/-1/rss11

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