Carleton, along with the Northfield Community Contra Dance Association, will present the second annual Winter Stomp! on Friday, February 22 at the Northfield Armory.

Featuring the music of Contratopia, the evening begins with a half-hour lesson at 7 p.m. followed by three hours of folk dancing from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Students and members of the community are invited to participate. No dance partner is needed, however event organizers recommend bringing comfortable shoes and festive, swing-ready attire.

Contra dance is a form of English folk dance that involves dance callers and the music of fiddles, banjos, pianos and guitars. Contra has been popular in Northfield and on the Carleton campus since the late 1970s. The Dacie Moses House Waltz (a commission to honor Carleton’s legendary “cookie house”) is a testament to Carleton’s love for contra dance. Northfield contra dancers continue to dance to this waltz today.

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Recently I was invited to the celebration brunch of the 124th birthday anniversary of Dacie Moses, held in the house she occupied for many years at 110 Union St. Dacie, whom I am old enough to remember well, would really have liked the celebration.

There was lots of music. The house was stuffed with young people and long-time friends. There was plenty to eat.

Dacie, whose real first name was Candace, worked for Carleton College many years and lived less than a block from the campus. If you don’t know the house, it has a wagon wheel adjacent to its front sidewalk.

Knightingales, the second oldest a cappella group at Carleton, celebrated its 25th anniversary January 26 to 28. The highlight was a joint concert of former and current Knightingales.

Call For Nominations For Dacie Moses Award

For students spending their summer at Carleton, Dacie Moses House is often a home away from home.

Dacie Moses House is one of several communal dining spots in Northfield listed in the book "Cows In The Kitchen, An Anecdotal History of Food and Eating in Northfield, Minnesota," published as part of Northfield's sesquicentennial celebration. Other communal dining centers in Northfield include Carleton and St. Olaf college dining halls, the Laura Baker School, the Senior Congregate Dining program at the Northfield Community Resource Center, and dinners held at the ABC (A Better Chance) House for academically talented minority high school students between the years 1968 and 1988.

On January 30th, dozens of students, faculty, staff, alumni and Northfield
community members pack the former home of Dacie Moses for a birthday
celebration of her dedication to the Carleton.

Dacie Moses is one of six Northfielders whose graves are listed in the book "Six Feet Under: A Graveyard Guide To Minnesota" by Stew Thornley and published by the Minnesota Historical Society. The book is "a haunting tour of the final resting places of famous and infamous Minnesotans in their home state." The Northfielders listed in addition to Dacie are Joseph Lee Heywood and Nicolaus Gustafson, both of whom were killed in the Jesse James bank robbery, governors Karl Rolvaag and Edward Thye, and author Ole Rolvaag.

The Carleton Alumni Association is now seeking nominations of senior students for the Dacie Moses Award. Information about this award follows.

The Dacie Moses House was featured in the June 9 issue of People magazine as part of a larger story about interesting and unusual bequests. Dacie Moses left her house to the College for use as a community space and as a place for baking chocolate chip cookies.

A story about Carleton's Dacie Moses House appeared on the front page of the November 10 Star Tribune. Moses, a Carleton librarian, always opened her house to students who wanted to make cookies and hosted weekend brunches for 50 students. When she died at the age of 97 in 1983, she left her house to the College to be used for cookie baking and brunch and hanging out. Leah Geyer '03 and Adrienne Hacker '02 are caretakers of the house this year. "We like it," said Geyer. "It gets a little crazy sometimes, but on the whole, it's a lot of fun." Geyer is majoring in Latin American studies and Hacker is a geology major.