Clark County Press, Neillsville, WI, December 5, 2018 Page 9

Invitation are out for a Christmas party at Hartford’s Hall, in the village of Loyal. Supper will be served at Raymond’s Hotel.

The village of Merrillan is troubled, like all important railroad centers, with the great many rough characters who travel through. And for the benefit of some of these, a special lockup is being built.

Begley’s Hotel at Greenwood has been leased by Mr. R.N. De Beque, a very genial landlord, who comes very highly recommended as a hotel-keeper. He will endeavor to keep the best hotel on that road.

Free Lindsay and Dave Mason have done the best job of bridge building over Cunningham Creek, near town that has ever been done before.

The new bridge over the creek was fully completed last week, and is in every way an improvement on the old one, at its best day, being reduced, by the building of substantial piers filled with earth and stone, to a single span of less than fifty feet in length, instead of the cobbling structure of three times that length, which it replaces. The workmanship and material from the foundation to the finish, is of the best, and it is today by all odds the best bridge in the county.

The Fire Company has finally decided to give a grand masquerade ball at their hall on New Year’s night. Every pain will be taken to make it one of the pleasantest parties ever given here. Arrangements are being made for a large variety of handsome costumes, which will be ready for distribution in ample time, and announcement made in relation thereto.

Among the Indians encamped near here is a doctress who bids fair to run all the doctors out, as she advertises to give “cheap medicine for 25 cents.”

The Hemlock Dam has proved so successful that the lumbermen have concluded to build another one. At what point we are not advised.

The Rev. Mr. Smith, who decided some time since to establish a mission among the Winnebago Indians of this section, has arrived at Black River Falls with his family, ready to begin operations.

Attention is called to notice of a stray oxen elsewhere. A white oxen has been found in this county and a liberal reward is offered for the return of the other oxen, which is probably in this county also.

The continued fine weather is a continued discouragement to the lumbermen, a part of who have already got their caps in and lack but one thing, snow, to begin operations. Every day is therefore a dead expense to them of no small magnitude.

The Firemen have decided to put on an addition of 20 feet to their hall, which is to be fitted up permanently for a stage, which will be made an ornament to the building and a blessing to theatre people, whose only complaint of anything in town heretofore has been the limited stage room. The improvement will add the space now occupied by the seating capacity of the hall.

The dwelling of Sereno Wren, in the Town of Grant, was totally destroyed by fire last Sunday while the family was away from home. The house was built of logs, but it was a good home and the only one the family had, the loss of which, with all household goods, is severe one, especially at this season of the year.

During this past week, with some snow, the flattering prospects of a good winter have had a tendency to make a lively all along the line, and the rush for the woods has been general.

Our county jail, or what passes for such, now contains four occupants. One of its inmates found those quarters for being too much married, two for gambling, and the other for the coveting to the extent of getting possession of a pair of skates belonging to A.S. Eaton, of Greenwood.

The Presbyterians will have a Christmas tree in church on Tuesday evening next, for the Sabbath School. Parents, teachers and friends will please see all that all articles intended as presents be handed in at the door of the church by two o’clock on Tuesday. All parents and all friends of the good cause are invited to be there, and to give and receive such presents as are appropriate to the place and the occasion.

Christmas was a good day for ministers’ wives in Neillsville. Mrs. Hendren and Mrs. Chynoweth were the recipients, each of a very handsome sewing machine from their respective congregations. The attention of Mr. Ross is called to these very suggestive incidents.

The Marshfield Construction Co. submitted the low bid on general construction work for the addition to the Greenwood High School. All bids for other work were rejected because they were too high. The general contracting bid still needs the approval of the PWA, which is furnished a part of the money.

The Kiwanis Club acted favorably Monday evening to putting back into operation the skating rink near the Masonic Temple. Don Peters, the superintendent of schools, said the younger children were anxious for a place of their own. Their presence on the O’Neill Creek is evidently not acceptable to the older skaters. It was the judgement of the club that the youngsters ought to have a place to skate, where they would not be a trouble to, or troubled by, the older skaters.

(At that time, the lot west of the Masonic Temple, on the southeast corner of West and Fourth streets, was vacant with a sizable area that could be flooded for an ice skating pond suitable for the younger children. Later there would be two or three other skating ponds within the city. That was before television and cell phones, when young and older often ice-skated and you didn’t have to be on an organized hockey team in order to enjoy skating. DZ)

Miss Daisy West of Grant township, daughter of George and Hazel Slocumb West, and Bert Hart of the Town of Hewett, son of George Sweetland Hart, were united in marriage Saturday, November 26 at Sunset Point, Rev. G.W. Longenecker officiating. Miss Reca Jane West and Roy West were the witnesses.

(Sunset Point was located on West Fourth Street, a block west of the Ferguson-Fourth Street intersection. The picturesque setting of Sunset Point was chosen by many couples as the site where they would exchange their wedding vows during the years of the Depression and hard times. Rev. Longenecker also lived nearby on West Fourth Street. DZ)

When Judge James O’Neill came to Neillsville, he was quite young and brought to the then little lumber town, the culture and refinement of life from the older settlement in New York. He also brought with him a love of land and fine horses.

During the period of early development of this section of Clark County, when the settlers were changing from the use of ox teams to horses, Mr. O’Neill brought in several purebred horses. One of these horses was a trotting strain by the name of Banburg and to my childish eyes, the most beautiful animal I had ever seen. No modern streamlined automobile has ever awakened in me the admiration as did this spirited horse when he was hitched to a shiny, “swell” boxed-cutter with this string of bells hung about his body and driven at a lively pace down the main street of Neillsville.

So, when my father came home one wintry day with those bells, they became one of my choice possessions. All through my girlhood days, these were a part of the pleasant memories I have of the winter seasons with the holiday trips to home of relatives, sleigh rides, even the farm work from the time of the first snowfall until spring, those bells were a part of the harness of the family team.

For years later, those bells hung neglected and silent on the walls of the horse barn, until recently.

Hunt up your string of sleigh bells and hang them on your front door and you will be surprised with the memories of Christmas they will bring to you.

Loyal new combination high school auditorium and gymnasium will be formally dedicated at a special exercise Friday night. The program will start with a banquet for the Businessmen’s Association. A talk by P.F. Neerman, secretary of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic association, will be one of the highlights of the public program, which will start at 7:30 p.m. A girls’ basketball game with Loyal-Unity on court encounter, followed by a dance, will be features of the program.

(The Stables Nite Club was sold years later and then became known as The Wildcat Inn. DZ)

(Spanferkel is the German word for a roasted young hog, a feast commonly served at get-togethers year’s ago. Other ethnic sides served with it were usually sauerkraut, potatoes, applesauce, bread and such. DZ)

The Kurth Oil Company, operated for many years by the late Robert Kurth, was sold early last week to W.F. Whaley. Richard Albrecht has been employed as mechanic. The former firm name will be retained.

Today, most of the birds and animals that sportsmen hunt are produced not on public land at public expense, but on private land at the owner’s expense. And wildlife no longer furnishes an essential part of our food.

Jack Stucki, gardener at the Indian School, completed his work here for the season and left last Thursday for Black River Falls, where he will “hibernate” for the winter at the old Stucki homestead where his father carried on the Indian Mission for many years. His hibernation, however, will consist of shack life and he will spend as much time as possible in the open, planning to do some trapping.

Almost a year too late to quiet the worries of his mother, Harold Shaw, missing seven years, was heard from, by his brother, Ted Shaw late last week.

The note, mailed from Los Angeles, was meager in its information concerning Harold’s mysterious disappearance seven years ago following an automobile accident involving a car in which he was riding enroute from Fargo, N.D., to visit his wife in Montana.

For the years that passed, members of the family made constant search for him. And Harold’s mother, the late Mrs. Loren Frank, who died last New Year’s Day, never gave up hope that he might be found. She spoke of him many times daily and carried to her grave the wish that she might see him once more.

The note apparently was written at Harold’s dictation by an employee in a Los Angeles, Calif., hospital, in which, the note stated, he had been lying for two weeks.

Whether he had been in another automobile accident could not be learned from the letter. He apparently was unaware of his mother’s death, and no explanation for his disappearance was given. Members of the family believe that he might have been a victim of amnesia and that the shock of another accident had brought back his memory.

City Aldermen moved to prevent an accident similar to the one in which Laverne Braun, 9, of the Town of Warner, was killed late last week, when they voted to block off three streets in the city of Neillsville for sledding.

The streets, which will have permanent blockades and warning signs placed on them within the next few days, are: State Street from Fifth Street to the railroad tracks, jail hill; Eighteenth from North Hewett to North Grand Avenue and Oak Street from Second Street to Fourth Street.

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