Clark County Press, Neillsville,

July 5, 2006, Page 14

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Index of "Oldies" Articles 

 

 

Compiled by Dee Zimmerman

 

 

Clark County News

July 1906

 

On and after July 1, patrons of the rural delivery service will be required to display signals on their boxes when they leave mail in for the carriers.  Upon serving their routes, carriers will not be required to open and examine any mail boxes except those to which they have mail to deliver and those on which signals are displayed to indicate there is mail for the carries to collect.

 

Those patrons whose boxes are not provided with signals must attach thereto some device, which, when displayed, will plainly show passing carriers there is mail to be collected. Carriers must lower the signals on the boxes after making collections, and must display the signals when they deposit mail for patrons, unless patrons have made a request to the contrary.

••••••••••

Tragsdorf, Zimmerman & Co. will sell you grass scythes from 40c to $1.00, and in fact all farm tools are at the same low price.  They can also show you the only, absolutely safe gasoline stoves and ranges; give them a call.

••••••••••

The O’Neill House is now under the management of James Paulus, who took hold the first day of the week.

 

Legare Potter, who has been the proprietor for the past year, decided to retire and has moved into his residence property on West Fifth Street.  While in the O’Neill House, he made many friends among the traveling public who hope that he may decide to re-engage in the business when he finds a suitable location.

 

Mr. Paulus comes of “old hotel stock” and will meet with ready success.  It was during his father’s time, the late John Paulus that the O’Neill House was at its best.  Jim knows how it was done then and will see that it is done again.

••••••••••

The Northwestern Saengerfest will take place at Medford, June 22, 23 and 24.  The city is prepared to take care of 3,000 to 4,000 visitors.

••••••••••

Last Thursday was the longest day of the year and it was very cold.  Some people were lighting fires in their heaters and others brought out their winter coats again.  As often happens, the weather shifts at the summer solstice and from being cold, it usually gets hot.

••••••••••

R. Hendricks, of Marshfield, in charge of the Connor Lumber Company, is here this week while the manager, Lieut. Martin is off to camp.

••••••••••

Clarion A. Youmans passed away July 9, 1906, at the age of 58 years, 8 months and 25 days.  Death came to him at his home, after long months of confinement.  Mr. Youmans was born in Kenosha County, Oct. 13, 1847, later living near Poynette, Wis., in Columbus County, where he grew to manhood.  When still a young man, he came to Neillsville, where he worked as a clerk in George Farnham’s store.  He studied law at an early age; being admitted to the bar then practiced law as a member of the firm of Ring & Youmans for many years.  Also, he got into the lumbering business, and then purchased the fine Dore farm, two and one-half miles east of the city on Pleasant Ridge. The farm was his pride and joy.

 

In 1894, Youman was elected State Senator, and served his district well and ably in that high office.  Previously, he had served Clark County as County Judge and District Attorney.  He had not been an office seeker; his fellow citizens selected him to serve them as one most fit to serve.

 

In 1887, he was married to Nettie French, daughter to B. F. and Mrs. French, old pioneers of Neillsville.  Three children resulted from this union, Guy, Viola and Beth, who with the mother, sisters, Mrs. J. A. Kimball and Mrs. Ada Bosworth and brother, H. J. now share this great sorrow together.

 

Youmans was honorable always, genial, open-handed, public spirited, patriotic, and, always willing to put his hand in his pocket for aid to a cause that appealed to him as worthy.

 

In business, Youmans was daring and ambitious, going into large undertakings with a cool mind, with carefully thought out plans.  He had made considerable money in timber in years past and made a good thing out of the big farm.  For several years, he was one of a group of men who had a charter and the purpose to build a ship canal from Lake St. Claire to Lake Erie.  At the time of his death, he was heavily interested in a timber land deal in Florida, which would have brought him, had he lived, and will now bring his family, splendid results.

 

He was noted for an independence of mind that no office-holding or business considerations could alter.  His intense mind found pleasure in the game of chess, which there is nothing more absorbing or conducive to intellectual alertness.  Belonging to the class of men known as self-made, he was never-the-less widely read.

 

Neillsville and Clark County have lost a distinguished citizen.

 

July 1956

 

Members of the Loyal town board, their wives, and others were entertained Wednesday evening at the Andrew Lindner home with a 7 o’clock pork sausage supper.  The sausage was made by John Elsinger, Sr., and the meal was made complete with dishes made by the ladies present.  Mrs. Lindner and daughter, Carmin served as hostesses.

 

Those present were Mr. and Mrs. George Zuehlke, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Weyer, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Esselman, Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Loos, Mr. and Mrs. Dan Wolter, Mr. and Mrs. Roy Hales, Mr. and Mrs. John Elsinger, Sr., and Kenneth Weyhmiller.  An evening of card playing followed the supper.

••••••••••

Installation services will be held Sunday, July 8, 9:30 a.m. at the Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Greenwood and at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Longwood at 11 a.m., when the Rev. Ira J. Tanner, who recently accepted a call to serve these two parishes, will be installed by his father, the Rev. Idar J. Tanner of Oconomowoc.  A potluck dinner will be served at noon at Our Savior’s Church, in Greenwood, for both parishes.  The pastor and his family arrived here Tuesday from Oconomowoc, where he was ordained June 10.

••••••••••

The businessmen of Christie, in their continuing effort to improve their community, were sponsors of a meeting last Thursday, the purpose of which was to promote the improvement of County Trunk H, their main highway from the east.

 

Their earlier inquiries had informed them of the crowded program of the county, with strong demand for better roads from all sections.  Hence, they concluded that their best hope was to get County Trunk H incorporated in the state high-way systems, and thus feed it upon provender of wider provision.  With this in view, they contacted W. W. Clark of Vesper, Wood County Senator for this district, through a letter written by Herman Hediger.  Mr. Hediger invited the Senator to attend a meeting and the Senator, accepting the invitation, suggested the advisability of including in the invitation the Chamber of Commerce of Marshfield, that city being projected as the eastern terminus of the proposed state road.

 

The meeting was attended by upwards of 30 persons, being held in the Weston town hall.  Prominent in attendance was Senator Clark, William Uthmeier, Secretary of the Marshfield Chamber of commerce, and Carl Schmidt, Marshfield businessman.

 

Senator Clark approved the state road idea, but pointed out that legislation would be required to accomplish it, this causing a delay of at least a year.  Hence he recommended further effort upon the local level.  But by way of doing their utmost, he suggested that a committee appeal to the district office of the State Highway Commission.

••••••••••

An article about Dr. Sarah Rosekrans appears in the June issue of “The Wisconsin Family Physician,” a publication of the Wisconsin Academy of General Practice. Of this publication the editor, Robert DuFour, is executive secretary.  The following article was taken from the publication:

 

The informal social gathering of Wisconsin doctors had seen the usual run of amateur talent among its members when the tall striking-looking woman stood and began singing “Ave Maria.”  Her voice was so flawless that a newcomer might have considered her a professional concert singer.

 

And well he might, for the lady was Dr. Sarah Rosekrans, a family physician from Neillsville, Wisconsin, who had to once choose between singing and medicine for a career, who has sung in concerts throughout the United States and Northern Europe and who was once paid the virtually unparalleled honor of being asked to sing at the home of Finnish composer Jan Sibelius.

 

Dr. Sarah, who looks more like a mother than a grandmother of four, recently spent six weeks touring Central and South America for the biennial meeting of the Pan-American Medical Women’s Alliance and returned in April as the newly chosen president-elect of the medical group comprising the two continents.  Dr. Rosekrans will serve in that capacity until 1958, when she will begin a two-year term as president.

 

The interesting story of this small-town family doctor, who loved both singing and medicine, and for a time tried to follow both at once begins back in Danbury, Connecticut, where, at the age of four, she was often carried to the front of her father’s church to sing at services.

 

Even then, Sarah wanted to become a concert singer, but her father, the Rev. Severin Kristian Didriksen, a Congregational minister, considered music “too worldly,” and forbade her to pursue it as a career.  So Sarah turned to medicine.

 

At the University of Minnesota Medical School, she and classmate Milt Rosekrans married after their senior year of medical school.  In 1929, the young physician couple set up practice together in the county-seat town of Neillsville, Wis., where they are today.

 

But though she had never had a lesson, Sarah kept on singing and was determined to become a concert singer.  She recalls that, during the Depression days medical bills were often paid, if at all, in livestock or fowl, but in 1933 Sarah began traveling to Chicago for music lessons every two weeks.  She would practice medicine for two weeks, take a night train to arrive in Chicago early in the morning to save a hotel bill, take lessons for a day, go to a concert, sleep one night in a hotel, repeat the procedure a second day, then take another night train back to Neillsville and two more weeks of practice.

 

At home, Sarah practiced singing in the basement in order not to wake her two daughters.  For two and a half years, she followed this procedure; then took lessons somewhat less regularly for another year.  Her first triumph came when she won two consecutive bronze medals in the Chicago Music-land Festival and a third time took first place among all mezzo-sopranos.  In the decade and more following, she gave concerts in the Nordic countries, Chicago, the Midwestern States and Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium in Fort Worth, Texas.

 

By 1940, her singing ability had reached the stage where Sarah felt she had to choose between medicine and music.  She decided tentatively in favor of music, went to Chicago and got a contract at NBC, singing hymns of all churches over the radio three days a week.  After one summer of such commuting, she felt that, as much as she loved singing, “I just couldn’t quit medicine.”

 

Except for a period when Dr. Sarah was engaged in obstetrics and gynecology and some health infirmary work, she and Dr. Milt have practiced in Neillsville, in spite of difficulty in getting a hospital in the town.  The husband and wife practice medicine separately but often consult.  They like the arrangement except that they can’t often go out of town together. 

 

For husband, Milt, an inveterate hunter and fisher, it’s all right if Sarah attends the meetings provided he can get off to some of his beloved Wisconsin country to hunt and fish.  Sarah says Milt loves the small town better than she does but admits she’s come to be very fond of it, too.  Milt loves woodworking and has practically built the ranch style home with his own hands.

 

The invitation to sing before Sibelius, which Dr. Sarah terms “the biggest thrill of my singing career,” took place in 1949, during a three-month tour of Scandinavia, which she took as an unofficial observer of the Board Meeting of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women Clubs. After she sang a song in a small Finish (Finnish) town on the Russian border, word spread around about this American woman who could sing in Finnish.  When the BPW group had its banquet in Helsinki, they asked her to sing in Finnish.  Dr. Sarah chose as her second song “Tuol Tuol Neltonen” (A Wandering Maiden Sings) by Finland’s great national composer, Jan Sibelius.

 

In the audience, were two of Sibelius’s daughters, who invited Dr. Sarah to the family home to sing for the composer.  She spent several hours at the home, singing and conversing in Swedish with Sibelius, who receives guests very seldom.  His fabled love of cigars proved a reality; she recalls he smoked incessantly while she was there.

 

Dr. Sarah likes to attend meetings of the Wisconsin Academy of General Practice, the State Medical Society and others, if they don’t come at the opening of hunting or fishing season, when she has to cover for her husband, Milt.  She’s at home in the operating room, the meeting room, at a trout brook or in an informal conversation.  At the May State Medical Society meeting, when this editor interviewed family physician Dr. Sarah Rosekrans, as pleasant a three hours of conversation as he had ever passed, went by in what seemed like no more than 45 minutes.

 

(There are some who remember Dr. Sarah and Dr. Milt, having fond memories of both and who could share some of those memories, I’m sure. D.Z.)

 

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

 

Dr. Sarah and Dr. Milton Rosekrans, a wife and husband physician team, came to Neillsville in 1929, where they practiced medicine for many years.  The above photo was taken in their later years at a time when they were vacationing.  (Photo courtesy of the Prock family)

 

 


© Every submission is protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

 

Show your appreciation of this freely provided information by not copying it to any other site without our permission.

 

Become a Clark County History Buff

 

Report Broken Links

A site created and maintained by the Clark County History Buffs
and supported by your generous donations.

 

Webmasters: Leon Konieczny, Tanya Paschke,

Janet & Stan Schwarze, James W. Sternitzky,

Crystal Wendt & Al Wessel

 

CLARK CO. WI HISTORY HOME PAGE