Hazel Miner's Lame Memorial
Center, North Dakota
This gothic-arch-topped upright granite slab looks like a tombstone, but it isn't. "In memory of Hazel Miner," read the German block letters engraved on it. "To the dead a tribute, to the living a memory, to posterity an inspiration."
Hazel Miner was a 15-year-old from Center who got lost in a blizzard on March 15, 1920, along with her younger brother and sister, on her way home from school. As night fell she lay on top of them, saving their lives while sacrificing her own.
But the monument doesn't tell you any of that. Instead, in big, all caps letters, the inscription continues: "The story of her life and her heroic, tragic death is recorded in the archives of Oliver County on pages 130-131, book H, misc. records. STRANGER, READ IT." One wonders how Hazel would feel if she knew that the tribute to her sacrifice is a cheap tease.