Transcriber: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org
Surnames: Stabnow, Myhrwold, Meng, Carter
----Source: Greenwood Gleaner (Greenwood, Clark Co., Wis.) 17 Oct 1963
(Written by Arvid Myhrwold)
It took a little "convincing" to get permission for this article. Harold does not think that he is important enough to be written up in the Gleaner. We almost came to blows as I tried to convince him that a person is important in Greenwood, not because he throws a lot of weight around, but just because he is a person, and that is reason enough. So he let me write it.
When Harold looks back from somewhat more than seventy eyars of memories, there are some high sports which stand out in his mind. Probably the highest experience was the nearly fifty years of life with his beloved wife, Esther. He says of her that she was an auburn-haired beauty when he married her. They reared their children together; they tramped the woods together, hunting and fishing. She was along when they picked out the lot at Tioga Corners, where built a cabin back in 1948. She put her footprint in the concrete step there. As you walk around the place with Harold, yo discover that it is alive with memories of his wife. Yet it isn't the same anymore, now that she is gone.
Harold played baseball for twenty-five years. He was a catcher on the high school team, and John Meng recalls that this team was undefeated in 1906, and undefeated until the last game of 1907, when Fairchild beat them 9 – 5. After high school, he played on the city team, and claims to have stolen more bases than anyone else. He even stole second and third bases consecutively. In order to do this, you have to steal when the other team doesn't expect you to. Dad Carter, the old slugger, was their manager. Harold carries with him pictures of the teams, and needs only a suggestion to bring them out and relive the games.
He uilt the Pines Services Station in 1928, and rain it until 1940, His son, Don, studied Mortuary Science in Milwaukee, and came back to Greenwood. Harold went to work with him, but he did not care for it. "When you go out to pick up someone, there is always sorrow in the family, and that is pretty hard to take."
For three years he worked on property records at Badger Ordinance near Baraboo. That was fun – ranging over those 7,000 acres,, and writing down everything. "I don't know if it did much good, but we did it anyway."
He is an import from South Dakota, came here with his parents in 1898. His dad was a broad axe man, who had hewed timber for the mines out at Deadwood, South Dakota. He taught Harold to handle an axe and a saw, and Harold can still do it.
Harold's name will probably never be in "Who's Who," or the Hall of Fame; the world has a different measure for that. But his pocket full of pictures – the song of "Tioga Corners" – his memories of his wife -- his stories of the band and the dame and the baseball team – these make him important, because they help to make up the town. Every man, woman and child in our town is significant in this way.
