December 1896

The men, who are excavating the basement under the O’Neill building, were compelled to blast the dirt on account of its having frozen so hard during the previous cold spell.  Many people, hearing the explosions, have watched anxiously, expecting at each explosion to see the building tumble.

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C. S. Stockwell has in his library, in the mechanical and surveying department, a book published in 1731, on surveying.  It is claimed to have belonged to the library of George Washington, and in fact, bears Washington’s name in the fly-leaf.

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M. C. Ring visited Chicago, Milwaukee and other cities last week, taking in the football game at Madison, Saturday, between the Wisconsin and Minnesota University teams.  He had an opportunity to rah, rah for Wisconsin.

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Young ladies are made strong, bright eyed, and rosy-cheeked by using Rocky Mountain Tea.  This wonderful medicine is sold by C. C. Sniteman Co.

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Fred Theiler, of New Glarus, Wis., is a cheese broker, who has been operating the cheese factory at Day’s Corner.  He will be in Neillsville from December 1^st to 4^th, and wishes to see the farmers in regard to purchasing milk for the season of 1897.

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Wallace Lacey, night telegraph operator at Merrillan, is confined with typhoid fever at the home of Mrs. Henry Myers, in this city.

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R. B. French has made a large lumber deal with a firm in Chicago and is now shipping lumber by the carload, to that city.  He is well satisfied with the lumber deal.

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Frank D. Eyerly, of this city, graduated in the law class of the Wisconsin University, on the 21^st of December.  He now has a diploma to practice in the supreme and federal courts.  His many friends here will be pleased with his success.  Neillsville is patriotic with her young men.  We all glory in the progress of the students we have sent to the University and welcome them back heartily.  Frank still has a position in the office of the Superintendent of Public Property and may remain here for some time.

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If a man can pay his taxes, buy Christmas presents, furnish his family with wood to keep them warm during the cold winter, plus procure the other necessities of life, and wear a smile, he is a good man!  But all of these things must be done, before he can wear a smile.

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Ole Samuelson, chairman of the Town of Worden; H. S. Mulvey, supervisor of the village of Loyal; J. J. Shafer, supervisor of the village of Colby and chairman of the Clark County Board; and Wm. Irvine, chairman of the Town of Beaver, were in this city last week, as members of the county jail committee.  The committee has decided that a new county jail will be built.

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Charlie Lee is no longer on Hewett Street, selling peanuts by the peck.  He has gone out of the peanut and candy business, and has sold out or packed up what remained.  Just what he intends to do in the future, we are not permitted to know.

December 1941

Mr. Roy Durst, who lives in the Town of Foster, sent in the following news item:

Because of the old-fashioned spirit of neighborliness, W. H. Wiegert had a new barn Saturday night, not more than 14 hours after his three-year-old barn had been razed to the ground by fire.

Hearing of the loss at the Wiegert farm, early Saturday morning, about 12 neighbors quickly organized a barn-raising bee.  They dropped the work they had planned for themselves and hustled over to the Wiegert place. They worked through the day like beavers.

When night fell, the outside of the barn had been finished, and the roof was on.  Of course, the inside was not completed; no stanchions, or the like. But the cattle had a place out of the night weather.  The new barn is 14 by 44 feet, made of hemlock.

The fire which destroyed the old barn was discovered about 3:15 a.m. by a truck driver, Andrew Sydel, and an unidentified motorist, who was driving behind Mr. Sydel’s truck.  Together, they drove into the Wiegert place to raise the alarm.  One of them ran to the blazing barn and turned the nine head of cattle and two horses out, while the other man awakened the Wiegerts.

The extent of the loss was not estimated early this week.  Mr. Wiegert said that the barn was partially insured.  Among his losses, he said, were some tools, seven or eight tons of hay, about 90 shocks of corn, which had not been husked, and some new lumber.  The old barn was built in an “L” shape.  One wing was 14 x 28 feet and the other was 18 by 28 feet.

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A decision to sell the county poor farm, in the Town of York, and to move the personal property onto the Clark County Asylum farm, was reached by the public property committee in joint session Tuesday morning, with members of the pauper claims committee.

Three reasons for exposing the 160-acre farm for sale were listed by the committee.  Because of present world conditions, the committee deemed this the “best time to offer the property for sale.”  Other reasons entering into the decision were the fact that William Plummer, manager of the poor farm for several years, “does not care to rent the farm,” and that a new heating system is needed.

The real estate will be sold under sealed bids, which will be opened at 9:30 a.m. February 8, as the committee determined.

In the meantime, the management and expense of the poor farm will be taken over by the management of the county asylum effective January 1, and the asylum is to take charge of all poor persons referred to them by the county welfare department, the committee said.

Otto J. Warren and Art J. Karich, chairmen of the towns of York and Hendren, respectively, were authorized by the committee to take an inventory of poor farm property in conjunction with Myron Duncan, superintendent of the county asylum.  Records of receipts and expenses for personal property used by the asylum are to be kept separate from the asylum records, the committee declared.

The intention of the committee is that the poor farm will not be abandoned.  But the approximately 45 head of beef cattle, belonging to the asylum farm, will be moved onto the poor farm when the poor farm’s personal property is moved to the asylum farm, near Owen.

The public property committee, with the pauper claims committee sitting in on its deliberations, was given authority by the county board of supervisors, at its meeting last month, to dispose of the poor farm in the manner in which it deemed to be in the best interests of Clark County.

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The marriage of Miss Gladys Seif, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David Seif of Neillsville and John Rychnovsky, Marshfield, took place at the West Side Reformed Church, Greenwood, at 2 p.m. Nov. 21.  Rev. P. H. Franzmeier conducted the double ring ceremony.  They were attended by Miss Ruth De Cremer and Stanley Rychnovsky.

The bride was dressed in a gown of white satin, princess style, and a finger-tip veil.  Her bouquet was a combination of pink carnations and pom-poms.  The bridesmaid wore pink net and a shoulder corsage.

After the ceremony, the wedding party and the immediate relatives gathered at the home of the bride’s parents for a reception.  The home was decorated in pink and white.

Mrs. Rychnovsky graduated from the Neillsville High School in 1937.  For the past year and a-half she had been employed as a clerk in the Neillsville Bakery.  The groom, son of Mrs. C. Rychnovsky of Marshfield, is a machinist.  He is employed at Rockford, Ill., where the couple will be home at 2011 18^th Avenue.

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The authority to purchase nine Venetian blinds for downstairs offices of the courthouse was given to Clark County Clerk Calvin Mills, by the public property committee, Tuesday morning.  The blinds are intended for the offices of the county clerk, county treasurer, highway commissioner, and clerk of circuit court.

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Roy Turner, 54, native of York Center in Clark County, who has been residing until recently in Chippewa Falls, is now one of the many American workmen speeding construction of defenses for the Panama Canal.

Mr. Turner left New York harbor, November 13 and arrived on the island of Trinidad, off the coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea.  Since that time, he has been employed on defense construction there.

Arrangements for his transferal started some time ago, and in October he visited Neillsville to get a record of his birth in order to make arrangements for passport and visa.

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Caught in the throes of war, the Rev. and Mrs. Hollis Abbott have been detained in Honolulu, H.I., awaiting developments in the war situation in the Pacific area.  The Abbotts were on their way to India as missionaries when the war caught them in the middle of the Pacific.  The Rev. Abbott is the son of the Rev. and Mrs. Alex Abbott of Green-wood.  They visited in Greenwood during the latter part of November, before leaving from San Francisco.  A telegram, announcing the Abbotts detention, was received by his parents, Saturday.

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Clark County youths with United States armed forces apparently escaped unharmed in the early days of the “Battle of the Pacific,” according to reports reaching here.  Relatives of several others in the Pacific outpost also heard good news during the week, while a few still are anxiously awaiting word.

A letter from Charles Perushek set his parents and friends at ease.  In the letter to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig Perushek of Willard, he revealed his ship; first believed to be in Pearl Harbor at the time of the surprise Japanese attack, was in a West coast port at least two days before the attack.

Navy communiqués, indicated that the defenders of Guam, where sailors and marines were, allayed fears for the safety of Keith Colby of Loyal, a soldier who was believed to have been stationed there.

Leo Foster, of Neillsville, still was awaiting some word from his nephew, Pvt. Phillip W. Haag, who was stationed at Pearl Harbor; but Richard A. Becker of Neillsville said that a telegram from his brother, Lt. B. B. Becker, in the Philippines, had been received.

Names of a few more boys from this area who are believed to be in the armed forces in the Pacific theater were given to the Press this week.  They included Edward Bogdonovich, son of Eli Bogdonovich of Willard, who is in the Marine Corps; and Philip Lamoric of Willard, in the navy and believed stationed in the Philippines.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation, delivered on December 8, 1941:

“Yesterday, December 7^th, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conservation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message.  And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack, yesterday, on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces.  I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost.  In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Wake Island.

And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan, has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves.  The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.  But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this pre-mediated invasion, the American people in their righteous might well win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist.  There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our Armed Forces, with the un-bounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.”

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The early 1900s did have lots of snow, as the above photo indicates.  The intersection of Hewett and 5^th Street had large snow banks during the winter.  In that era, the snow banks remained for some time, getting larger after each snowfall.  (Photo courtesy of Bill Roberts’ Collection) 

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