Clark County Press, Neillsville, WI

January 16, 2002, Page 20

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Index of "Oldies" Articles 

The Good Old Days 

Compiled by Dee Zimmerman

 

Clark County News

 

January 1902

 

Now is the time to make up your order for planting spring nursery stock.  W. D. Edgbert, who lives opposite the court house, is the resident agent of the old reliable Jewell Nursery Co. of Lake City, Minn.  Edgbert will give your plant orders careful attention.

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The new flooring for the courthouse has arrived and will be put down immediately.  The lumber is a fine grade of birch, 7/8s of an inch thick and will make a good floor.

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James Campbell is doing some logging again inside of the Neillsville city limits.  He has cut one white oak tree that will scale out at 1,500 feet.  Also, he will have a considerable amount of basswood to put into logs.

 

Campbell has sold out all of his rights, title and interest in his paint shop at Wolff & Korman’s.  Ira Houghton is the purchaser of Campbell’s interests.  Campbell has followed paining for over 35 years and is probably one of the oldest painters in the state.  Houghton is an expert in the business also and will make a competent successor to Campbell’s business.

••••••••••

Fred Wendt who recently sold his farm in southern Pine Valley, this week purchased the old Chandler farm from Mrs. B. F. French.  The farm consists of nearly 200 acres that lies two miles north of Neillsville.  The consideration for the property was $4,000.

••••••••••

During the past season, John Wolff has built a fine barn on his farm near the north limits of the city of Neillsville.  He has cleared up the land around the farm and greatly improved the premises in general.  The next item to receive his attention will probably be the house.

••••••••••

John H. White of Marshfield was in our city on Wednesday, looking over the insurance field.  He has lately sold his interest in the Marshfield Times and has gone out of the newspaper business.  It is to be regretted that he has decided to lay down the quill. White is an able writer and one of the best all-around printers in the state.  May his lines be cast in pleasant places in whatever work he chooses.

 

January 1942

 

Clark County is at a high mark of dairy products manufacturing.  We are witnessing a flow of money such as has not been known since 1918; perhaps even greater than then.

 

For months past the dairy plants of Clark County have been working with increased momentum, to keep pace with the growing volume of milk and the increasing demand for concentrated food for war defense.  Some 90 cheese factories with-in the county have been stepping up their pace to produce a record value of cheese.  The production of 1941 was about 26 million pounds, compared with 22,500,000 in 1940.

 

The Neillsville Condensery of the American Stores Dairy Company has been working wholly on defense production during November and December, 1941.

 

This is believed to be the first definite statement of the extent to which local milk has been flowing into national defense under the Lend-Lease Act.

 

The local Condensery was in a fortunate position when the demand came from the government.  The plant had been modernized. The building had been enlarged; old equipment had been thrown out; new equipment had been installed.  Thus the American Stores Dairy was in the best position of its history to render the desired service.

 

The butter industry has maintained its production to be the same as the previous year. 

••••••••••

A Tire Rationing Board has been set up for Clark county.

 

A board of three members was appointed to administer tire and tube rationing in the county at a meeting of the county civilian defense committee in Owen last week.  The new board was in operation on January 5, when the freezing order concerning the sale of new tires and tubes terminated.

 

Members of the local tire rationing board are: Leo W. Foster of Neillsville, chairman, J. W. Mahoney of Owen and Gordon Vorland of Colby.

 

The appointment of 16 inspectors, located in each community of the county with a post office, was proceeding Friday.  Inspectors will certify applications for new tires and tubes under the rationing regulations.

 

The local rationing board started functioning this week with but a few new tires and tubes to be allotted to Clark County motorists.

 

During the first month the board will have to allot just: Seventeen tires (or casings) for passenger cars, motorcycles and light trucks; Sixty-five trucks and buses; Fifty-four tubes for heavy trucks and buses.

 

Thus, the first rationing of the present wartime comes to Clark County.  Naturally, with a quota so small in comparison to the usual tire purchases made in Clark County, the rationing will have to be severe and it will be necessary for the board to be most critical of needs.

 

As a consequence, Leo W. Foster of Neillsville, head of the board and chairman of the county’s defense organization, cautions that each tire owner should take down the serial number of each tire on his car as a precaution against theft.

 

Application forms for tires are being distributed to agencies as rapidly as possible.  Until the distribution is completed, the following inspectors were appointed in every community:

 

Abbotsford, Art Kriplean; Curtiss, William Klessig; Dorchester, Joseph Sebold; Granton , Herman W. Scheel; Greenwood, H. L. Corey; Humbird, Earl Bemis; Loyal, Otto Stock; Neillsville, H. J. Naedler; Owen, Jack Olds; Thorp, Chris Larson; Unity, A. C. Kaiser; Willard, Leonard Rauen and Withee, Al Altenburg.

 

The application form must be filled out and then taken to the inspector at the nearest post office. He will inspect the present tires, or tubes, on the applicant’s vehicle, checking the eligibility of the applicant for new tires or tubes and determine the need for them.

 

The inspector will show the findings of his inspection and make his recommendation on the blank, which then will be referred to the local tire rationing board.

 

The local board will meet near the end of each week, study the applications and allow ration cards to those most urgently needed, staying within the quota for the week.  Ration cards will then be issued to those chosen and sent by mail.

••••••••••

The Clark County Highway offices were moved on Saturday afternoon from the courthouse into the office space in the highway commission’s new $30,000 storage garage at the corner of Ninth and Clay Streets.

 

The commission’s courthouse office, located on the east side of the first floor, is being occupied, at least temporarily, by the tire rationing board.  It is expected that this office space will become the headquarters for direction of the civilian volunteer defense organization in Clark County.

••••••••••

By the calendar, Monday was January 19 – the “dead” of winter.

 

But the weather was more like springtime.

 

Many men were out in their shirt sleeves and others had shed their heavy winter coats in the warming sunlight.

 

So it wasn’t too surprising that Otto May, who lives just off North Grand Avenue in the Town of Pine Valley, found a live grass snake out sunning himself.  He, too, probably believed spring was here.

 

May was walking across Mrs. Herman Gress’ pasture on the way to cut wood when he came upon the snake wriggling across the grass.

 

Three days later, Nicolas Letsch, a Town of Pine Valley farmer, found a grasshopper in the woods strutting around and spitting “tobacco” juice for all he was worth.

 

These two incidences, the grass snake and now the grasshopper, being out and moving around, gives the impression that Darne Nature may not care a hang about what the calendar says.

 

Now all we need for a clincher area few of the age-old “signs of spring” – pussy willows in bloom, robins on the lawns and such signs.

 

There was no leather-lunged call of, “Timmmmberrr,” as once rang out over the wooded lands of this section of the state years ago.

 

Lisle Armitage just listened as he and Everest Schaefer slid the six-foot saw through t he tree’s 48-inch base.

 

There was a snapping “crack!” “She’s talking,” Lisle commented.

 

The big elm they were cutting on the 40-acre woodlot on the Mrs. Elsie Seager place in the Town of York did a lot of “talking” before the trunk was shorn from its stump.

 

Before the woodlot is completely thinned out, there will have been upwards of 100,000 feet of lumber logged off.

 

That one big elm is not the largest taken down on the 40-acre woodlot.  Another elm, cut down, measured five feet, three inches across.  Woodsmen expressed belief that the big elm would scale out to more than the other tree. 

 

Henry Markwardt, who is hauling the logs out to a factory producing defense material, said the bigger tree scaled out at 1,330 feet in its first 16-foot length of log.

 

The Way it was Back Then-

 

Clark county residents, Leander and Julia Schuld, with their family, lived and farmed near Loyal in the ‘30s.

 

Schuld’s youngest daughter, Marilyn, was born at their home in May 1939.  At that time many babies were delivered by the local doctor in attendance, which would come to the home.

 

When Marilyn was only a few days old, her mother decided the baby needed a pacifier.

 

In the evening, after supper and chores were done, Leander, with his two sons, Romaine, age 8 and Gerald, age 6, drove to Loyal in his 1929 Plymouth to purchase a pacifier.

 

As the father and two sons were returning to the farm, driving south, one mile past the Pelsdorf Cheese Factory, they collided with another car, driving east, at the intersection.  Visibility was poor on the corners and there were no traffic signs. 

 

Romaine was thrown from the car on impact, unconscious from a head injury.  Gerald, the younger son, innocently said, “Pa, we had an accident.”

 

Joe Giese, son of the cheese factory’s owner, drove the Schuld’s to Loyal in search of the doctor whom they discovered was gone.  They drove to Dr. Olson’s office in Greenwood.  By the time they reached Greenwood, Romaine had regained consciousness.  Dr. Olson put stitches over the lad’s head wound and applied bandages.

 

Returning to the scene of the accident, Schuld and the driver of the other car couldn’t determine who was at fault in the accident, due to poor visibility at the intersection.  They each decided to be responsible for fixing their own car.

 

Schuld took his car to Tony Klimmer’s farm, ½ mile east from the corner, to be repaired.  Klimmer was a lifelong friend and had the necessary tools and knowledge for repairing cars.  Klimmer located a used ’29 Plymouth body, replacing the damaged car body and the Schuld vehicle was ready to be driven again.

 

Our thanks to Margaret Schuld Schlegelmilch for sharing this family story

••••••••••

The first stop sign was put up in Detroit in 1814.

••••••••••

 

A wintry day with children enjoying, the snow-covered playground of the Neillsville Graded School yard along the State and Fourth Streets corner in the 1870’s.  The young people could have been playing games such as “Fox, Fox, Goose,” a fun game played by making paths in the snow.

 

 


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