Clark County Press, Neillsville, Wisconsin

February 25, 2009, Page 13

Contributed by "The Clark Co. Press"

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Index of "Oldies" Articles 

 

Compiled by Dee Zimmerman

 

Clark County News

 February 1874

 

There appears to be a great deal of dissatisfaction among the residents of the northern tier of Section 24 two west, recently added to the Town of Pine Valley from Weston.  They will present a strong petition to the County Board at the next meeting to be set back into the Town of Weston.

•••••••••

Daniel Gates has rendered the Agricultural Society material assistance by purchasing the $700 mortgage of Mr. Lynch, held by him on the fairgrounds.  Mr. Gates proposes to carry the debt for the Society until it is prepared to meet the obligation, which it will soon be in shape to do.  Mr. Gates is deserving of the thanks of the people of the county for his handsome favor.

•••••••••

The Puget Sound fever is becoming contagious around here.  The flattering reports sent back by former citizens who have located there, are tempting many to follow them.  That country may have some advantages over this, but in leaving Clark County one must throw away other and still greater advantages that will be sorely missed in that land of no snow.  It is the magnificent pine of that section that seems to have special attractions.

•••••••••

Mr. Nevins, Secretary of the Log Driving Association, estimates that the amount of logs put in this winter, in Black River, will be from 100 to 124 million, or about half the usual amount.

 

This having been one of the best logging seasons ever known on the Black River is generally agreed to by all lumbermen.  They are finding a general good compensation for the general depression in business, which compelled them to go into the woods with light forces.

 

W. J. Armstrong has a camp of eight men on Rock Creek, who had put in on Jan. 31st 800,000 feet of logs by actual scaling, or 100,000 feet to the man, which is generally counted as a good winter’s work.  He now has placed his figures for the winter, for this camp, at a million and a-half.

 

Al Brown and several other lumbermen have already filled contracts that they supposed would occupy all the winter, and are now putting in logs for any good customer that may come along.

 

There won’t be the usual amount of logs put in this winter, but the indications are that those who did logging will make as much money, even with a dull market, as they have done on other good seasons.

•••••••••

John Mills has obtained a petition, largely signed, for the continuation of the mail route between here and Mormon Ripple.  It is hoped that the petition will be granted by the Post Office Department, as that mail route is badly needed.

•••••••••

MacBride & Allen are getting up a couple of mammoth abstract books for Mr. Burroughs, of Madison, when completed it will contain a complete history of every forty acres of land in this county from the time of its survey, including a description of its timber, soil, improvements, value and such information.  The form which is one of their own is most admirably gotten up so that when the books are finally closed they will show the full history of the lands, with each forty separately recorded, for 48 years.

•••••••••

L. W. Gallaher is about to put machinery in for manufacturing staves in his planing establishment.  He has already procured a supply of stave bolts and expects to get his machinery in operation at an early day.

•••••••••

If the experience of others is of any value to the farmers of Clark County, the sooner they go into the dairy business the better for themselves.  At the recent meeting of the Northwestern Dairy Association, at Woodstock, Ill., said for three years past he had received over $100 each from his cows in butter and value of sour milk fed to pigs.  He milks a herd of 134 head.  The amount of purchased feed for each cow was worth $27 per year.  Mr. W. C. White, of Kenosha, had made during good prices, $100 per year per cow and during lower prices from 70 to $100 on cheese.

 

These facts show the profit of dairy farming, in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois and we do not see why these figures might not be reached in this section of the country, which though a little colder it is a superior grazing district.  What can be more cheerful than the thought of a cow paying a man $100 a year for the privilege of being owned by him?

 

February 1944

 

Lt. Col. Herbert M. Smith has returned to Neillsville.  Having been again in the hospital and having been ordered before a retirement board because of his wounds, he is now on the inactive list of the army.  His preference was for continued service, but the official’s judgment was against it, because of his disabilities.

 

Lt. Col. Smith will be in Neillsville for a few days and thereafter he and his family will take a trip into Southern United States.  The purpose will be to get into warmth and sunshine.  Although Col. Smith has crossed the equator twice in the army service and has been through a campaign in the tropical jungles, he has missed a genuine summer since 1941. 

•••••••••

The men of the Neillsville Service Company, members of the 128th, 32nd Division, will be returning home during 1944.  They will begin leaving the Southwest Pacific next month.  The number may be small at first, but there is ground for belief that all of them will be back in the United States before the year is over.

 

The word from the fighting area is the preference will be given to men who have had six months or more of tropical service.  Quotas are now being made up for the earlier shipments and upon the basis of the announced priorities, it may be anticipated that the men of the local company will be well toward the head of the list, for they have had nine months of tropical service and were among the first Americans to engage in the campaign on New Guinea.

 

Nor is there any likelihood that these boys will be asked to return to the Southwest service.  They have done their tough assignment and are due for a period of rest at home.

 

The details of the plans for return are given in the following article, radioed to the Milwaukee Journal by Robert J. Doyle:  “The first group of 32nd Division soldiers will return to the United States under the 18 months overseas order early in March.

 

“The order provides for return on a monthly quota basis, beginning in March, of army personnel with 18 months’ service in the Southwest pacific area.  Preference is to be given to those with six months or more in tropical areas of Northern Australia and New Guinea and other islands.

 

This is the biggest news Red Arrow soldiers have heard since they were sent overseas.  From morning until night they talk of little else.  Almost every soldier I have talked to in the last year has asked, ‘When are we going home?’ Soldiers have nursed returning home rumors since the Buna Campaign.

 

Among the soldiers who arrived in Australia more than 21 months ago with the 32nd Division; preference probably will be given those with the longest service in New Guinea.  Red Arrow infantrymen still with the division who fought in the Buna Campaign have had nearly nine months’ of tropical service.  First quotas will consist chiefly of such veterans.

 

“The majority of Red Arrow artillerymen remained in Australia during the Buna Campaign, and has had only four months’ tropical service.

•••••••••

The pinch in tires is really here.  The local rationing board went into February with some 70 unfilled certifications and the demands keep coming in.  But in February the quota allowed to the whole county is only about half the amount of the deficit existing on January 31.

 

The allotment of truck tires to Clark County was reduced about 10 per cent from January, but the allotment is now only about 25 percent of what it was when the quotas were first made.

 

On passenger tires the shortage is even greater, with the February allotment reduced about 23 percent from January and with the present total only about half of what was allotted a year ago.

 

This shortage of tires, now becoming seriously critical, threatens to tie up some trucks and cars in the county.  The situation will become proportionately more serious if and when the stormy winter weather is encountered.

 

(There are some of us who remember those days of not being able to buy new tires, using several “boots” placed between inner-tube and tire, covering the thin spots, which hopefully would enable the car’s traveling a few miles to town once every other week to get staple needs.  If you lived in town, you walked and didn’t complain about that either.  Despite the war back at that time, people didn’t complain.  Each family was grateful and satisfied with the basic necessities they had. D. Z.)

•••••••••

Vance Williams of Malta, Ill., spent several days here recently visiting his mother, Mr. H. E. Williams; who is spending the winter in Neillsville with her sister-in-law, Mrs. Ben Beeckler and family.  While here, Mr. Williams closed a deal whereby the ownership of the H. E. Williams farm, located one mile east of Trimberger’s corner on Highway 10, passed from the Williams family, who have owned this land since 1856, to Edward Sternitzky and sons.

 

Although the Williamses have given up title to this land, it becomes the property of another pioneer family, for the Sternitzkys followed the Williamses here just a few months later and have been neighbors of the Williams family all of these years.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Otto Hollenbach, who have lived on the farm for several years, are planning to move to a smaller place.

•••••••••

Sgt. Lawrence E. Drescher son of Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Drescher, Route 4, Neillsville, was engaged on January 21, in the dynamiting of a bridge within the German lines in Italy.  As a member of a party of 27 men, commanded by Lieut. Robert Bangert of Great Falls, Mont., he made his dangerous way in a forced march to the bridge, which was vital to the enemy and of which the Germans were expected to send armored troops over in a counter attack.  The sequel is not known to the home folks; only this much of the story.  The young man has been in the service since February 1941 and has been overseas about 16 months.  He is with the Fifth Army, battling below Rome, in Italy.

 

2nd Lt. Lois Olson Guest of the U. S. Army Nursing Corps, left Monday, after a short furlough spent with her parents, Mr.  and Mrs. Herman Olson, West Eleventh Street.  She has been an army nurse for the last six months.

 

Lyle Elmer Stafford of Greenwood is one Marine who came back from Tarawa.  He was badly battered and is now in a hospital at Oakland, California, but he is alive.  He thinks that is a somewhat a miracle after what he went through.

 

This is Lyle’s own story of the Marines’ attack upon Tarawa, written to the folks at home:

 

“We were jumping overboard from our landing craft to wade ashore when shrapnel from an exploding shell hit me in the neck and shoulder.  But I kept going.  About 20 feet from the beach I was hit in the head with a bullet.

 

“That put me out of commission and a buddy dragged me back in deeper water for protection against the heavy firing.  A bomb exploded near me and the concussion lifted me clear out of the water.  My left side was paralyzed and I thought my left leg was blown off.  Some buddies helped me over to a pier and we hung on to boards underneath the pier until a Higgins boat picked us up and took us out to a rescue boat in the night.”

 

The young man was awarded the Purple Heart in an overseas hospital.  He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Stafford of Greenwood.  He attended Greenwood High School and worked for Blum Bros. of Marshfield.

 

Malcom Andersen, airman of Neillsville and Hixton, Wis., receives pleasant mention in the book, “Here is Your War,” written by Ernie Pyle, noted war correspondent.  This is a quotation from the book, at page 100:-- “Once more I met up with the House of Jackson – the bomber crew of which I was so fond.  We followed each other around so much that our reunions got to be commonplace.

 

They were out on a mission when I arrived at their remote air dome.  So I went out to their plane’s parking place and was waiting when they came back.  The first man to drop out of the plane was Lieutenant Malcolm Andersen, of Hixton, Wisconsin, the navigator.  We were good friends and I hadn’t seen him for weeks, ‘Hi Ernie,” not shaking hands, just as if I had been there all the time.

 

“The House of Jackson was still perking, but the inevitable perils and shifting of war were starting to whittle it down.  The skipper was Capt. Jack Taylor of Wollaston, Mass.  He had been promoted to ground work in an operations job and took the faithful old plane on its mission only once in a while.

•••••••••

A&P Food Stores Specials: Marvel Enriched White Bread, 1 ½ lb. loaf only, 10¢; Sultana Peanut Butter, 2 lb. jar 35¢; Delicious Apples lb. 12¢ size 96 grapefruit, 8 for 32¢; Lifebuoy Soap, 3 bars 21¢.

 

(There were no meat specials, probably because at that time meat was rationed, requiring ration stamps allotted for two to four pounds of meat per week, depending upon the size of family per household.  Eggs and cheese were substituted to fill the protein need. D. Z.)

•••••••••

Brooder Houses can be ordered from the Fullerton Lumber Co. who will build them special for what you need.  The season for getting baby chicks will soon be here, so order early.  R. M. Larson is the manager.

•••••••••

Marriage Licenses issued: Carl Zarnstorff, 24, Genoa City, Wis., and Elpha Schuette 22, Town of Beaver; Roger B. Wolfram, 24, Owen, and Ruth E. Annentorp (Ammentorp), 21, Town of Longwood

 

Businesses on West (South) Hewett Street, near 5th Street intersection, about 1938, were Unger’s Shoe Store, Prochaskas Clover Food Store, First National Bank and Penney’s.  (Photo courtesy of Bill Roberts’ collection)

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