Clark County Press, Neillsville, Wisconsin

December 23, 2009, Page 15

Contributed by "The Clark Co. Press"

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Index of "Oldies" Articles 

 

Compiled by Dee Zimmerman

 

Clark County News

December 1879

 

Freighters and others driving to and from Hatfield will soon be able to cross the Dells Dam Bridge and over the Black River.

•••••••••

Cole and Pachelles give notice that they wish to contract for 500,000 staves; also, wanting to purchase white oak stumpage, any amount for cash.

•••••••••

Mr. J. E. Totman was seen upon our Neillsville streets Tuesday and will be found hereafter in camp, about four miles from Carter’s Mill west of town.

•••••••••

A hogshead of crockery arrived at Pond’s store last night, and there’s another one for him at Hatfield.  Now is the time to buy and Pond’s is the place.  A fine lot of holiday goods.

 

(A hogshead is a large cask or barrel, containing from 63 to 140 gallons.  Wooden casks or barrels were commonly used for shipping goods overland, on rough roads, to customers.  D.Z.)

•••••••••

Nevins is the name of the new post office in Clark County, established in the Sherwood Forest, with T. J. LaFlesh as its postmaster.

 

There will be regular mail service between Maple Works and the new post office at Nevins.

•••••••••

Mrs. Tibbits has just received a new lot of oysters and has placed the prices as follows: Select oysters, 45¢; standards, 35¢; plain 25¢.  These oysters were ordered special for Christmas and are priced so low anyone can afford to buy them.  You can’t do better any place other than at Mrs. Tibbits.

 

(Oyster stew for Christmas dining was a tradition of the English, Irish and other northern European inhabitants, who brought the tradition with them when immigrating to live in this area. D.Z.)

•••••••••

Men began hauling logs at Hewett’s camp on Popple River, Saturday, with a total of 1,400 feet.  Loads of 1,000 feet were hauled at Hartford’s camp in Loyal, on Rock Creek.

•••••••••

Feed for teams of horses, provisions for men and all kinds of camp supplies have been leaving town during the week.  The recent 8-inch fall of snow has made everyone happy.

•••••••••

News of Christie:

 

A Good Templars’ Lodge was organized here with 42 charter members.

 

Our neighborhood is getting thin on account of the loggers leaving for the woods.

 

Several deer have been killed in this community, but still the men go north to hunt.

 

Women have all the rights of men, even to chewing tobacco, here, as was decided by debate at the Lyceum last Saturday. So, women, here is the place to be.

•••••••••

Woodward’s candy factory is doing a good business.  Mr. Woodward makes all kinds of hard and soft candies.  Stop in and watch him at work.

•••••••••

Last week T. L. Sloan arrived here from Lyons, Iowa, with a drove of 21 horses for sale.  The horses were all fine large ones, one team alone weighing 3,590 pounds.  Up to Monday Mr. Sloan had sold twelve horses and he informs us that more could be sold here if the buyers could get the right size harnesses for them.  The next prospective point of his trip will be Eau Claire.

•••••••••

Taken up: Came unto the premises of the subscriber on section 3, town of 26, range 2 west, about the 15th day of November 1879, one large brown mule.  The owner is requested to prove property, pay charges and take it away.

•••••••••

The county tax in Clark County for the year 1878 was expended as follows:

 

For the support of the poor, $87.30; county buildings, $100; roads and bridges, $3,000; salaries of county officers, $4,960.83; court expenses, $2,616.42; sheriff’s accounts, $829.90; jail expenses, $77.50 all other county expenses, $18,282.  Total is $30,953.05.  In the State there are but ten counties whose totals are heavier than ours, namely: Brown, Chippewa, Dane, Dodge, Fond du Lac, Manitowoc, Milwaukee, Oconto, Rock and Sheboygan; and 49 with lighter taxes than ours.  

•••••••••

On the 19th, the steamship Mobile arrived at the wharf at Mobile, Ala., welcomed by the booming of cannon, blowing of whistles and cheering of the multitude assembled.  This is the pioneer steamship of the direct line between Mobile and Liverpool.  She made the trip from Queenstown to Mobile in 28 days and 18 hours, losing 18 hours in a severe gale.

 

December 1944

 

The Methodists of Neillsville, Granton, Pleasant Ridge and Lindsey are being called by Rev. Floyd A. Fahlgren to take part in raising $25,000,000 for world relief and reconstruction, the first phase of the denomination’s nationwide Crusade for Christ program of postwar service.  The appeal, for which the goal is $1,300.00, began December 1, 1944 Mr. Fahlgren announces.  The Methodist congregation here is part of nearly 8,000,000 members of 41,000 churches in the United States who are participating in the four-year, five-fold crusade.

 

Expenditures of the Crusade fund by the regular, general agencies of the church will provide for “feeding the hungry, clothing the destitute, and freeing the minds and spirits of the underprivileged, the driven and the dispossessed,” Mr. Fahlgren said.  Three-fifths of the fund has been allocated for the “rebuilding and rehabilitation of human life” in foreign countries, nine-tenths in war devastated areas and the rest in other mission fields.  The balance will be used for emergency, war-caused needs in this country.

 

Other phases of the Crusade for Christ program call for continued education in and expression of opinion for “co-operation among nations in the postwar world,” renewed evangelism efforts with special emphasis in 1946, education for Christian stewardship of ability, time and money, and improvement of Sunday school enrollment and attendance.  The campaign ends Dec. 24.  

•••••••••

One hundred and twenty-two little spruce trees have come to Neillsville to make Christmas merry.  They were escorted into the city by the Rotarians, and were placed by them throughout the business section.  They made the Old Home Town look as much like Christmas as it could in the war-forced absence of electric lights.

 

The little Christmas trees were harvested last Sunday by members of the Rotary Club, who went for them to Wildcat Swamp, not far from Wildcat Mound.  There they cut the trees under the direction of Al Covell, the county forester.

 

The Rotarians left Neillsville at about 9 o’clock and were back at noon.  They gathered again right after dinner and did the decorating.  In the afternoon they had the help of the Brownie Scouts, who offered their services through Mrs. Oluf Botnen and Mrs. Don Schwantes.  There were a lot of Brownies on the job, and they busied themselves in cleaning up the trimmings, as the Rotarians progressed with their work.

 

For the Brownies one more opportunity loomed as it became evident that the shields holding the greens upon the lamp-posts were not as white as snow.  Those shields intended to be white, had evidently been stored for a year and they needed their faces washed.

 

Except for this Satruday night job of giving the shields a bath, the job of decorating for Christmas has been done up brown, as brown as Brownies and Rotarians could do it.

•••••••••

News from area Service men:

 

A letter has been received from Corp. Clarence DeCremer:

 

“Today two long, lanky soldiers from Neillsville met in a large Luxembourg castle to renew old friendship and talk about the folks back home.  One was a mud-splattered first Lieutenant that has been plenty of action; the other was a corporal that’s been living in a castle and taking life a little easier in this war.

 

“Lt. Wagner, after receiving my address from his folks, jumped in his jeep and started looking for me.  He had quite a job in front of him but he made it.  When he did arrive where I am stationed, one of the guards walked up to him and said, ‘Hey, Mac, you can’t go in there with your jeep, you’ll have to walk!’”

 

“Good thing ‘Stir’ isn’t the type to ‘chew’ or that guard probably would have been dressed down good and proper.  Course the guard didn’t know he was talking to an officer; too much mud and heavy clothing covered the bars the lieutenant was wearing.

 

“After getting inside the castle he wandered around until he thought he would never again see daylight before someone found him and sent him to our orderly room to wait until I was called.  When they told me I was wanted in the orderly room all of my recent sins passed through my mind.  I couldn’t figure what in heck I’d done wrong lately.  When I opened the door and saw Bob sitting there, believe me I was so blamed tickled to see someone from home I forgot all the military courtesy and discipline we were ever taught.  Neillsville certainly got a going over during the next hour and a half.

 

“Bob is looking very good.  He is getting to look more like his dad than at any time I can remember.  If he had been chewing on a cigar when we first met, I’d probably have said, ‘Hi Art, how in heck did you get over here?’  And just in case you are wondering, he is the same jolly Bob we all remember so well.  As he left me he remarked, ‘Gosh, I wish I had Chet in my outfit, I’d sure get even with him for the way he used to run me around the restaurant when I was home.’

 

“We both expressed hopes of meeting again soon.  Maybe we will if the situation over here doesn’t change too rapidly.

 

“I’m still feeling ‘tops.’  The Thanksgiving dinner was a dream; all the turkey we could eat plus mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy, peas, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, apple pie, bread, butter, coffee and cream.  Did you folks at home do as well?”

 

In a letter to his mother in the Gorman-Willard area, Harold Walker, son of Mr. and Mrs. D. M. Walker, tells his folks how he and his cousin, Willard Fredenburg, son of Mr. and Mrs. George Fredenburg, happened to meet on the Italian front, where the boys are fighting.

 

Both boys have been there for quite some time, but only recently have had the chance to locate each other.  They visited for three hours.  Both of the boys were feeling fine.

 

Mrs. John Martens has shared some excerpts from a letter written by her son Donald Martens, now on a LCI boat in the Pacific, as follows:

 

“We are allowed to write a lot more now, so that should make writing a lot easier.

 

“I spent quite a few liberties in Honolulu, and had some good timers there. I had never expected to see Honolulu the way it really is; it is an old city, and nothing modern about it.

 

“I was at a lot of the Marshall Islands.  I believe they’re the best islands I have seen so far.  I was at Saipan, Tinian, the Admiralty Islands, New Guinea, and a lot of other small islands.  I was in the invasion of the Philippines.  There were air raids at almost all hours, day and night.  I never lost so much sleep in all my life as I did there.  Japanese bombers flew over us so low that a person could hit them with a baseball.  You have probably seen in the newsreels where tracers fill the sky so thick that you’d think that nothing could ever get through.  We met up with Japanese shore guns, snipers, mortars, PT boats, and a lot more stuff.

 

“Some time ago we crossed the deepest depth of ocean known in the world; 35,400 feet.  That ought to float almost anything, don’t you think?

 

“At one place where I was on shore leave, some soldiers had tame parrots that they had caught.  After keeping them tied up for a week, then the guys let the parrots loose again and they stay close around so the boys can catch them anytime.  They are very beautiful, mostly scarlet and a few other bright colors.

 

“The natives brought out a boatload of ripe bananas the other day.  They were sure good!”

•••••••••

The annual Christmas program is being given at the Loyal High School Wednesday afternoon of this week, with Christmas melodies by the band, “Santa’s Cure” by the graders and a Christmas Story, “Petit Noel,” by the dramatic club.  The cast of “Santa’s Cure” consists of Roger Matthews, Joan Vogel, Mary Poulton, Myron Smith, Dicky Ohlrogge and Jack Neuman.

 

A “C” rating was won by Loyal High School actors in the state finals at Madison.  Members of cast were Elroy Gotter, Leonard Hecker, Frank Stange, Gordon Goehring, Clem Esselman and Gladys Fenner.

•••••••••

The Armory was well filled last Friday night by parents and friends of the pupils of the public schools.  The occasion was the annual Christmas concert.

 

It was a real occasion, with contributions from the great poets and from illustrious composers like Handel and Mendelssohn.  These had made their contribution to the Christmas story, but their part was not more interesting to the people of Neillsville than the interpretation by the young local musicians.  The intelligent and artistic effort of the latter spoke for the great advance, which has been made in recent years in the standard of public school music.

 

There were numbers by the girls’ glee club, by the high school band and by the grade chorus.  There was a very delightful flute trip by James Haas, Eileen Dahnert and Carol Wang, and solo parts by Marian Beyer, Gallus Schmidt, Robert Subke and Alice Lukas.

 

The directors were Miss Linda Goeres and Walter Keohane.           

•••••••••

Parrish Store’s Santa Specials:

 

An endless variety of games, 10¢ to $2.98; Neckties for Men and Boys, 15¢, 39¢, 59¢, 69¢, 98¢ & $1.39¢; A Cookie Jar for Mom and she will know what to put into it -- 60¢ to $2.98; Salad Sets: Bowls, Forks & Spoons, Ovenware - 69¢ to $2.98; Billfolds and Purses, genuine leather, 25¢ & up.

 

 

The 1892 Neillsville Armory building served as a community center for school activities, theatre performances, dances and other events from the late 1800s through the early 1950s. 

(Photo courtesy of Bill Roberts)

 

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