BioA: Schoen, Mr. and Mrs. Henry (60th - 1960)

 

Contact: Dolores Mohr Kenyon

E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

 

Surnames: Schoen, Koran, Gutman, Hainz, Neville

 

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI.) December 29, 1960

 

Schoen, Mr. and Mrs. Henry (60th - 26 December 1960)

 

Mr. and Mrs. Henry B. Schoen of he Town of Pine Valley observed their 60th wedding anniversary at their home Monday evening.

 

Eight of their nine children brought food and their families and entered into the family celebration.

 

The Schoens lived for 43 years on a farm in the Town of Levis, near the East Fork Bridge, where they grubbed out a living for themselves and their children. 

 

"It was hard going, and we had to work to make it," recalled Mrs. Schoen Monday afternoon. She is 78, and Mr. Schoen is 94, although his health is good and he reads newspapers and watches television without the aid of glasses.

 

The Schoens were married December 26, 1900, in Owatonna, Minn., where they lived for five years after their marriage, and where the first two of their children were born. During that time Mr. Schoen was a blacksmith and wagon-maker.  He operated a large shop in Owatonna, which extended a block in length.

 

But the building burned to the ground in 1905, and that was the eventful thing that brought them to Clark County. Mr. Schoen had a desire to go onto a farm, and with automobiles coming in, he foresaw a decline in the use of horses and wagons - and in blacksmithing.

 

So he came to Neillsville, put his money down on a farm in southern Levis, and brought his family here.  Both of  them agree now that the land was poor, and that it was far from the best farm available; but, as Mrs. Schoen put it: "By the time we had bought the farm and cattle, we were too strapped to do anything about it."

 

They worked hard and made the farm return a fair living.  During that time they raised their nine children, and are proud of the fact that one of them had an opportunity to attend college in La Crosse for two years.

 

Today, Mr. Schoen is more active than many men several years his junior.  In the fall he insisted on splitting firewood, much against the wishes of his children, who thought the activity too much for a man of 94.

 

"But I need to do it,": he observed.  "That is what has kept me going."

 

The children say that Mr. Schoen’s doctor has told him his prospects are good for living beyond the century mark.

 

Mrs. Schoen, 16 years her husband’s junior, is in robust health, also, except for a severe arthritic condition which makes it difficult for her to get around.

 

With the exception of their oldest, Charles, who was killed (1927) in a construction accident in Chicago, all the children are living.  All were present, and brought along most of the couple’s 30 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren.

 

The children are: Mrs. Louis (Kathryn) Koran of Marshfield; Henry A., Rt. 3, Neillsville; John, Rt. 3 Neillsville; Mrs. Frank (Betty) Gutman, Rt. 3 Neillsville; Mrs. Otto (Lou) Hainz, Rt. 3, Neillsville; Franklin, Rt. 1 Neillsville; Mrs. William E.(Eleanore) Neville, Rt. 3 Neillsville; and Edward, Rt. 2 Neillsville.

 

 


© Every submission is protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

 

Show your appreciation of this freely provided information by not copying it to any other site without our permission.

 

Become a Clark County History Buff

 

Report Broken Links

A site created and maintained by the Clark County History Buffs
and supported by your generous donations.

 

Webmasters: Leon Konieczny, Tanya Paschke,

Janet & Stan Schwarze, James W. Sternitzky,

Crystal Wendt & Al Wessel

 

CLARK CO. WI HISTORY HOME PAGE