Marshfield News-Herald, Marshfield (Wood Co) WI
Saturday, July 25, 1992, Page 2 C
Contributed by the Loyal Public Library.
Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.
‘Town of York Native’
Book preserves old lifestyle
By Kelli Karpinski
Of the News-Herald
Town of York – A burg between Granton and Loyal on County Trunk K, once called York, was home to a general store, town hall, postal and telephone office, Woodman Hall, York Center Methodist Church and many citizens, including Gale VandeBerg.
Now only the town hall, the church and the cemetery remain. Woodman Hall was turned into a town garage and later burned, while the general store was torn down, and a filling station took its place, which also was demolished.
But, the memories live on in a book VandeBerg has written about the former community and his life beyond Clark County.
“The book is not a biography, basically. I wrote it partly to preserve … a lifestyle that is so very different, a lifestyle we’ll probably never see again.” – Gale VandeBerg
The book, “Beyond the Horizon,” centers around the beginning of the town of York. VandeBerg, a 1930s graduate of Neillsville High School, said the idea to write a book started when he wanted to preserve history for his grandchildren.
“The book is not a biography, basically,” he said. “I wrote it partly to preserve … a lifestyle that is so very different, a lifestyle we’ll probably never see again.”
VandeBerg, born in 1920, said his is the last generation that experienced the great changes in society, such as the advent of electricity, movies and factory farms. When he was growing up, horses did the farm work, and cows were milked by hand.
Families today do not sit down together to eat three meals a day as his generation did, and neighbors do not help each other as was once the case. Early communities were settled by relatives, and couples met to marry through school and church, VandeBerg said. The one-room school and churches were the center of social life, he said.
He remembers basket socials in which women and girls would bring (missing words) boys would bid. The bidder and the basket maker would then eat together. He also is reminded of corn husking and threshing when neighbors would come together to harvest grain and the women would prepare a feast.
“It’s that era that’s gone,” he said.
Now, even those who live in the country do not know their neighbors, which is much like living in the city, VandeBerg said. It’s the neighborly lifestyle he said he is trying to recall in the book.
The book includes family anecdotes that other authors may not include in their works, VandeBerg said.
“The book is personal,” he said, “It’s very personal.”
In the part of the book that discusses education, he said he praised the one-room school.
“Everybody learned to read and write,” he said.
Another school memory, are the Christmas programs in which children performed. Fathers would build a stage for the event that would be constructed a week in advance for practices, he said.
Toward the end of the book VandeBerg included his professional life experiences. He was an agricultural teacher at Dorchester (line is missing) was 4-H and agriculture agent at Appleton for Outagamie County, before joining the University of Wisconsin staff in Madison in 1954.
In adding excerpts from his professional life, he also talked about family experiences so that the book’s section would not be dull.
In joining a 4-H club in 1929 and the Extension in 1945, VandeBerg said he has seen many changes in the Extension service, especially during and after World War II. During that time, youth programs increased and 4-H got a boost with adult leaders and agents, he said.
Extension also moved into communities, working with small business people, VandeBerg said. It was in the 1950s and 1960s that the service went beyond agriculture, he said.
In the mid-1960s, Extension operations merged, which took more funding than was available. Therefore, there never was complete merging from all university campuses, he said.
The last chapter of the book deals with retirement because VandeBerg said he wants people to know there’s a life beyond being a professional. His advice is to prepare for retirement by being involved during younger years because then retirement, I’ve never been bored, he said.
VandeBerg said he started writing the book in 1983 after retiring he worked on it during the winter. It was finished in 1991.
Information sources were his own memory, which goes back to 19__ and talking with his older brothers.
“I got more information from my mother than any other source,” he said. “My mother used to talk to me about the past. Those kind of hung with me.
“My mother left lots of writ (lines are missing here)”
Follow-on Article
An author returns home
Gale VandeBerg, who now lives in Madison, autographs a book he recently finished titled “Beyond the Horizon” during a pie and ice cream social held last weekend at the York Center Methodist Church. The book centers around York, a community where VandeBerg grew up between Granton and Loyal on County Trunk K in Clark County. The only buildings left in York are the town hall and the church, where a cemetery also is located. (News-Herald Photo)
He also got information from his wife’s mother, Elsie Jahr Raine, whose maiden and married names are prominent in the Neillsville area. Mrs. Raine was born and raised in the town of York and lived to be 98.
VandeBerg said he would sit with his mother-in-law to hear her stories, some of which were about the railroad that was built next to her house when she was young. Other stories came from the York Center’s Methodist Church’s centennial book written 20 years ago and the State Historical Society in Madison.
Through the book, VandeBerg said he tried to convey his personal and family values. Those values include developing a plan for life and the future.
People are not bound by their environment, is what VandeBerg’s mother taught him, while his father taught him that nothing comes to a person without working for it.
“Any person who wants to can control his own destiny,” he said.
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