July 21, 2021, Page 9

Contributed by "The Clark Co. Press"

 

Extracted by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

 

Index of "Oldies" Articles 

   

Clark County News

 

July 20, 1950

 

Work starts on reconstructing 95

 

Contractor moves heavy equipment to job – is pulling out trees

 

Work began this week on the reconstruction of Route 95 south and west of Neillsville. The contractor, L.G. Arnold & Co. of Eau Claire, began bringing in heavy equipment. First work will be removal of trees from the right of way.

 

At first the road will be left open for general travel, as the tree pulling will not obstruct the roadway. At a time set by the contractor the route will be shut off for general travel, and traffic will be routed via US-10.

 

This marks the start of a major road operation, including more than 13 miles from the end of the present concrete, about 2 1/2 miles south of Neillsville, to the Jackson County line.

 

The contract of L.G. Arnold & Co. is for the grading and the case course. The roadway will be allowed to settle after this work is done and before blacktop is applied. Simultaneously construction will proceed on the new bridge over the Black River at the Dells dam location. The bridge will consist of concrete abutments and steel superstructure. For the bridge the contractor is the Walter W. Magee Co. of St. Paul.

 

The Arnold contract amounts to $193,049.02, to cover grading and base course. The Magee contract calls for $87,687.20, to cover the entire bridge construction. For the surfacing with blacktop the contract will be let later.

 

The total allotment for the job is $644,000, an amount considerably in excess of the prospective cost.

*****

Hatfield road may get a hard surface

 

County moves to use some of the surface taken from Route 95

 

Country Trunk J, known as the Hatfield Road, will be blacktopped, if the highway committee of Clark County has its way. Steps are now being taken to secure the necessary cooperation. If this is given, as anticipated, the work will proceed this summer.

 

This project has developed in connection with the reconstruction of Route 95. The plan is to scarify a considerable portion of the surface of 95 and to take the blacktop thus broken up and place it on CT-J, together with sufficient other material to produce a good blacktop surface. This is regarded as a feasible operation, which can be carried through at about half the cost of a complete and original blacktop job.

 

The cost of blacktopping CT-J in this manner has been estimated at about $1,800 per mile, a total of about $9,000 for the entire five miles. If new material were to be used for the job the cost would run between $15,000 and $20,000, according to Elmer Anderson, the county highway commissioner.

 

The blacktop would begin at the present north junction of CT-J with 95 and would proceed five miles southward. This road is much traveled by Clark County people who make use of the resort and water facilities at Hatfield.

 

*****

Two cars at the same place at the same time

 

About to enjoy hospitality of Clark County on US-10, John J. Ledina, of Bay Port, Minn., was whizzing east on US-12 on Monday. At the intersection he made a left turn toward US-10. But Russell C. McDonnell of Jasonville, Indiana, was also doing some whizzing, bound north and west on 12. The two cars went together, with considerable damage to both.

 

Traffic Officer Frantz was called and decided that the two could settle with their respective insurance companies and set them on their way. The aggregate damage was about $250.

 

*****

Stucki family in a 4-day reunion

 

Children of Jacob Stucki revisit scenes of pioneer’s labors

 

A family reunion of the Stucki family, brothers and sisters of the Rev. Ben Stucki, was held last week from Monday through Thursday at the Stucki home at the Indian Mission here. Highlight of the event was a visit by the group at the John Stacey home near Greenwood. John was the first converted Indian in the county.

 

 

Other events were a picnic at Hatfield on Thursday and a visit of Black River Falls with old acquaintances there, a housewarming on Tuesday evening for Jacob Grether, new assistance superintendent at the school, and a birthday party on Thursday evening, a surprise for Mrs. David Grether, a house mother at the school.

 

Members of the Stucki family attending the reunion were: Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Stucki and son, John, of Denver, Colo.; Rev. and Mrs. Frank Stucki of Alleman, Ia.; Mrs. Carl Bopp and Mrs. Ed Spire of Youngstown, OH.; Mr. and Mrs. Henry Stucki and children, Erma and John, all of Neillsville; Jacob Stucki of Loretta, Mrs. Marie Grether and the Rev. and Mrs. Jacob Grether of Neillsville and Frank Grether of Badger; the Rev. and Mrs. Ben Stucki and children, David, Betty and William, and Mr. and Mrs. Bud Bremer and daughter, Kathy, all of Neillsville; Benjamin Stucki of Jacksonville, Fla., and Jacob Stucki of Madison.

 

A Useful Family

 

All the brothers and sisters present are the children of Jacob Stucki, founder of the Indian Mission in Neillsville. Of the eight children only two follow in the footsteps of the father and interest themselves in the welfare of the Indians. They are the Rev. Ben Stucki and his sister, Mrs. Marie Grether, who is a house mother at the Indian School here.

 

Dr. J.C. Stucki, the oldest of the children, was a missionary in China and is now a physician and surgeon at a hospital in Denver, Colo.

 

Frank Stucki is a minister in a church Alleman, Ia. Lydia Bopp is a home-manager, and her husband is engaged in work in the electrical field. Jacob is a woodsman. Henry, who lives here in Neillsville is a carpenter. Johanna Spire, the youngest, is a registered nurse in charge of the operating room in Youngstown, OH.

 

Rev. Stucki now has as his aid, his nephew, Rev. Jacob Grether, who is just leaning about welfare work with the Indians.

 

This reunion is the first in 10 years. The children gathered here a decade ago.

 

*****

 

This little duck has four little feet and legs

 

The Frank St. Johns of Granton, R3, have a new kind of duck. It is blessed with an extra pair of legs. The catch is that the extra pair of perfectly formed legs and feet are useless to him because they are not attached to the backbone; they are situated far back on the bird’s body and are attached to the body by a cord. However, hatched about 10 days ago, on July 10, he is a very lively little duck and gets around with the greatest of ease on the two feet that all normal little ducks have.

 

*****

Horse drops down to visit Ted Acker

 

A horse came through a barn floor to keep Ted Acker company last Saturday. Mr. Acker was whitewashing the basement of the Lynn Hodnett barn in the town of Longwood, utterly unconscious of the need of company of any sort. Then suddenly there was the crash of breaking boards, stanchions and pipes, and right on the floor near Mr. Acker was a horse. It was hard to tell which was the more surprised, Mr. Acker or the horse, but it was the horse that was overcome - so completely that it took four men with a rope to pull the animal out and put it on its way again.

 

The fall of the horse was broken in part by the harness pole and the neck yoke. It was broken also by the resistance of the floorboards and by the stanchions, water pipes and milling machine pipes that were in the way. All of these obstacles in the path of the horse finally gave way, but they furnished sufficient resistance to break the fall and to save the life of the horse. All that the horse got, aside from the surprise, was a pair of bruised legs.

 

Mr. Acker is counting himself fortunate that it was a horse which came through the floor rather than a tractor. A tractor was working over the same floor, bringing in baled hay.

 

The Hodnett’s were willing that Mr. Acker should have a horse for company, but they prefer to make deliveries otherwise than through the floor. So, they put in some new plank and went on about their haying.

 

*****

Gergen - Pamperin

 

Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Milwaukee was the scene of the wedding on July 8 of Miss Thane Gergen, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Vern Gergen of Neillsville, and Donald Pamperin of Milwaukee. The Rev. Mr. Gilbertson officiated at the service at 2 p.m.

 

The bride was gowned in white marquisette and lace with fingertip sleeves and a fingertip veil crowned with orange blossoms. The bride’s bouquet consisted of white roses and baby mums.

 

Miss Joyce Cooper of Milwaukee, as maid of honor, was attired in Nile green, and Miss Rosana Wu as bridesmaid, wore a gown of yellow marquisette. Their bouquets consisted of roses, carnations and mums.

 

The bride was given in marriage by her brother, Merton, of Chicago.

 

Attending the groom were Clarence Pamperin, a brother of the groom, and Theron Gergen, a brother of the bride.

 

The ushers were Duane Pamperin and Albert Brockman.

 

The newlyweds spent their honeymoon at the Red Oaks Resort in Eagle River and with the bride’s parents in Neillsville.

 

The couple will make their home in Milwaukee, where the bride will resume her work as a business machine operator and the groom will resume his position as a draftsman for the Wisconsin Motor Corporation.

 

*****

Harold Dean, cartoonist visits the old hometown

 

Harold Dean, who has drawn several cartoons for The Press, was a weekend guest in Neillsville. Harold now does freelance work, that he sells his work to whoever will buy it. In addition, he does drawings for postcards. He got his start in drawing in high school and was the artist for the annual for the class of 1925 of which he was a member. After he completed his schooling here, he went to Chicago, but did not make any progress in capitalizing on his artistic ability until after World War II.

 

For his local drawings he relies on memories of his former association with his old friends here and he follows in The Press the doings of the folks back home.

 

*****

The Lathrop’s in storm

 

Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Lathrop of Neillsville saw some of the storm which lashed southwestern Wisconsin last Saturday and Sunday, leaving behind it a trail of wreckage and floods.

 

They drove Saturday evening to Boscobel, where they visited Mr. Lathrop’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. L. P. Lathrop, and picked up their two sons who had visited there for a week. When they reached a point 20 miles from Boscobel, Mr. Lathrop reported, rain was so heavy that they were forced to stop on the roadside for a time.

 

Three barns were downed in the area immediately adjacent to Boscobel, and all had cattle in them. An estimated 150 homes in the city were flooded, several bridges were washed out in the area, and highways were blocked.

 

Mr. and Mrs. L.M. MacDonald of Lanesboro, Minn., were guests at the Stuart Lathrop home Tuesday night.

 

*****

Touch a match to powder - what then?

 

If any reader of The Press would like to know what happens when you touch a match to a little powder in the bottom of the box, it will not be necessary to try it. Just ask Maynard Prock, 12, who is now spending much of his time with his father at the North Side store.

 

Maynard was out at the Prock place at Globe Monday, rummaging around the machine shed with Joe Bodwin, 11. The two boys found a little covered box, with powder in the bottom. This powder was a challenge. Just what would it do if a match touched to it?

 

The boys took the box outside, pried off the cover and touched the match. The powder did the rest. Maynard ran to the store, where Grandfather Linus Prock was. The grandfather took a good look at the boy’s face, put out the fire still burning the top of his shirt and rushed to the phone to arrange for the doctor.

 

The phone call was to Harold Prock, the boy’s father, who asked for the doctor to stay at his office into the noon hour. The grandfather brought the boy to the father and the father hurried him to the doctor. The doctor put the bandages pretty much everywhere on the face and neck where the powder burned. That leaves only a very little of Maynard’s face showing through. The lips and nostrils and the eyes are still out to the world, but that is about all. The eyes are minus the lashes, and the right eye is bloodshot.

 

The Bodwin boy was slightly burned on the arm. At home nobody noticed it, and Joe kept still with all the words he knew. But the women talk, and his mother found out – and after that, nobody knows.

 

*****

 

 

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