September 1938

The Neillsville Press was sold this week to Wells F. Harvey of Sturgis, Mich., by A. F. Ender and sons.  Mr. Harvey, who comes highly recommended and with a wide experience in the newspaper business, take immediate possession.

A little over a year ago, A. F. Ender came here from Rice Lake and purchased The Neillsville Press.  Later he and his sons also purchased the Clark County Journal here and shortly afterwards The Granton Leader, all of which papers were consolidated with the Press, giving it a high rank among weeklies of the state.  Mr. Ender has made no definite plans for the future but plans to take a rest for a time.

Mr. Harvey is a newspaperman of mature experience. He was for fourteen years owner and publisher of The Pioneer, a daily at Big Rapids, Michigan.  He also published the Osceola County Herald, a weekly at Reed City, Mich.  Mr. Harvey has also had considerable experience on large publications but has always retained a keen interest in the rural weekly newspaper field.

Mr. Harvey will have the help of three sons, Robert, John and Wells, Jr.  There are three other children, located elsewhere, two of them being married and the third a student in college.          

•••••••••

The Cochran Hardware store this week announces a grand opening at the new location on Hewett Street, where Shedden’s store was formerly located.

M. A. Cochran and Harry Flitter came from Marshfield three years ago and purchased the former Howard and Blum Hardware on Fifth Street, which they conducted there until this week when they moved into their new location, where they announce a grand opening Thursday, September 1st.  Mr. Cochran has built a new home since coming here, and the members of the firm have taken an active part in the up-building of Neillsville. They have the only exclusive hardware store in the city.                                                                                        

•••••••••

Victor Sydorowicz, seven year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Nick Sydorowicz of Hewett Township, who was bitten on the finger by a rattlesnake Sunday afternoon, is recovering at his home after spending two days at the Neillsville Hospital under treatment.

Victor was playing with two small companions in the yard of his farm residence about 4 p.m. Sunday.  He picked up a tire casing lying on the ground and was bitten on the index finger of the right hand by the snake, which had wriggled inside the casing.

Apparently not believing the snake to be venomous, Vicor and his companions grabbed up stones and clubs and killed it. A few minutes later Victor’s arm began to grow sore.  He went inside of the house and told his father, who asked immediately if he had been bitten by a snake.  “No” answered Victor.

Then a short time later, the pain and swelling was increasing rapidly, Victor told his father what had happened. Quickly, Mr. Sydorowicz loaded his son into an automobile and drove to Neillsville for medical aid.

A local physician bled and cauterized the wound and kept hot applications on the arm.  Unable to get a rattlesnake serum in Neillsville, the physician telephoned to Minneapolis for the treatment.  It arrived about 3 a.m. Monday, and was administered immediately at the hospital.

According to the physician, Victor apparently received only a small dose of the poison.  He remained in the hospital over Mon day and was returned home Tuesday morning.

The tail of the snake, with all but two rattles broken off, was brought into the city by Mr. Sydorowicz and was given to the physician.

Victor is the first person who has been bitten by a rattlesnake in this section of the country, in the memory of several physicians in the city.                                                                                   

•••••••••

A loan of $8,000 to Joint School District No. 4 of the towns of Withee and Thorp for the construction of a new schoolhouse to replace the Yaeger School, which was destroyed last winter by fire, was made last week by the land commission from the trust funds of the state of Wisconsin.

The loan has been approved by Attorney General Orland S. Loomis and is available for immediate use, it was stated.

County School Superintendent Laurence M. Millard said that if possible, construction of the school building may be started immediately.                                                                                            

•••••••••

Charles C. Sniteman, Neillsville’s oldest druggist in the state, will observe his 87th birthday Saturday by taking his usual turn behind the counter in his store.

Mr. Sniteman never has been one to let such things as the flight of years disturb him greatly, nor has he been one to let such a thing as a mere birthday interfere with the task at hand.  “Birthdays come so often,” he said.

Mr. Sniteman has been a merchant in Neillsville for nearly 60 years. And during that time, a time during which he has been active in the interests of the community, he has watched the city grow and develop.

“When I first came here in 1878,” he reminisced recently, “There were only 800 people in the city.  The city has a good number of businesses for a place its size, and the present city’s business district has not expanded to a very great extent.

“The notable expansion has been in the improvement of the business houses, along with the filling in of holes in the district,” he continued.  “When I first came to town, two and a half years before the railroad was put through, most of the stores were wooden frame. For the most part they have been replaced.  One exception is the store now occupied by McCain’s.  That was a wooden frame office building.  The original shell still is in use and looks good, too.

“About the business district in 1879 were the Jim Hewett and Woods Store, where the J. C. Penney Co. store now stands; a building built by George L. Lloyd, which housed a tin shop and a loggers’ supplies store, where the Schultz Bros. Store now stands and a few others.

The nicest private building in the city at that time was the O’Neill House, on the corner of South Hewett and Sixth Streets.

•••••••••

Public office holder and not a citizen!

That was the embarrassing discovery Carl Carlson Berg, prominent Granton resident, came recently about himself.

Until a short time ago, Mr. Berg believed the first citizenship papers he took out after coming to the United States in the 1870s from Oslo, Norway, insured him lifelong voter’s rights.

So he held a number of public offices, including member of the school board of the Town of Lynn for 36 years and was an organizer of the Town of Lynn, one of its chairmen.

It was only a few weeks ago when a C.I.O. organizer in Montana got into a scrape because he did not have his final citizenship papers, that Mr. Berg started checking into his own citizenship status.  And he discovered that his first papers have not been valid since 1912.

Mr. Berg was in the county court house this week attempting to straighten out the matter.

•••••••••

In the wake of one of the worst flood conditions in the history of Clark County and Central Wisconsin, state and county highway crews, farmers, homeowners and businessmen were busy repairing the heavy damage done late last week by the rampaging Black River and its tributaries.

The floodwaters, which raised streams in the vicinity to all-time high levels of from 16 to 20 feet, were caused by heavy six-day rains north of the county and heavy local downpours.

Traffic, which was all but totally paralyzed in Clark County Friday and Saturday, was just beginning to move freely once more as highway crews, groggy from lack of sleep, who had worked long hours to put the roads back into shape.

Railroad transportation was seriously crippled during the flood period, although trains made their runs to Neillsville with little difficulty and the flood and weather were blamed for the wreck of the Northwest Limited of the Chicago & Northwestern railroad, and the Victory, near Junction Valley early Sunday morning. Three persons were sent to the hospital with many others cut and bruised.

Heavy losses to farmlands, stock, fencing and crops were reported throughout the inundated area of Clark County; but estimates of the amount of damage were not available.

September 1943

To meet the urgent need for harvest workers on Wisconsin cranberry marshes this fall, a campaign has been instituted with the support of government agencies to recruit able bodied men to get in this important, vital agricultural crop.

Harvest work will commence about September 15 and continue for several weeks.  Men who have had experience as cranberry rakers should apply at the marsh where they were last employed.  Others should contact the labor assistant at the county agent’s office in the county in which they live.                             

•••••••••

Neillsville and Clark County, which have in this wartime been accustomed to seeing its residents go to war production centers, found the tables reversed this week.

The one who did the table turning was Danial W. Brewer, who came to Neillsville from Washington, D. C.  He has purchased the Bishop Dry Cleaning business from W. H. Allen, who operated the shop for a short period after leaving the First National Bank.

Washington is overcrowded, Mr. Brewer testifies; and the manager of a business has more than his share of worry about help.  In Washington, Mr Brewer supervised a large cleaning and dyeing establishment, with which he was connected for the last five years.

In the last 15 years prior to that, he worked in several Midwestern cities.  One of these was Milwaukee.  While there he made at rip through this section; so he knew something about the area before he came here.

With him are Mrs. Brewer and their four-year-old daughter, Phyllis.

Willard Allen has gone to Rochester, Minn., where he is working at least temporarily as a finance representative.

•••••••••

Grand Opening - Andy’s Red & White Store by Victor (Andy) Anderson

Open House, Sept. 11, Music all day! Free cup of Red & White Coffee with a cookie, All Day!

Specials - Peanut Butter 1 ½ lb. jar 39¢; Red & White Flour 49 lbs. $2.13; Golden Sweet Corn 2 cans for 27¢; Sweet Potatoes 2 lbs. 23¢; four 11 oz. pkgs Red & White Corn Flakes 33¢ with a Free pkg of School Crayons; Schwahn’s meats - Bologna lb. 23¢; Sliced Bacon lb. 33¢; Smoked ham Hocks lb. 22¢.

•••••••••

The Salem Reformed Church of the Braun Settlement in the Town of Longwood, of which the Rev. B. M. Fresenborg is pastor, celebrated the 50th anniversary of the founding of the church, with appropriate services on Sunday, Sept. 12th.

The Rev. O. Saewert, of Plymouth, a former pastor of the congregation and the Rev. P. H. Franzmeier, pastor of the Immanuel Reformed Church of the West Side, were guest speakers. Services were held in the morning and afternoon.

Dinner was served at noon and a lunch was served to over 200 whom came from away to attend the celebration.

The Salem Church had its origin in the original coming to the Town of Longwood by a group of people from Sheboygan County. This was about 65 years ago. They settled in what came to be known as Braun Settlement. They had been Lutherans but there was no Lutheran minister at hand and they came to depend upon the Rev. John Schmalz, who was minister of the Immanuel Reformed Church west of Greenwood.  On Sept. 7, 1893, they drafted a constitution and it was presented to the congregation the following Sunday. The following eight men as head of families signed: Robert Horn, W. E. Braun, G. F. Braun, Friedrich Braun, Frank Horn, Christian A. Braun, William Braun and Joachim Wilk.  The only living members of this original group are William Braun of the Town of Longwood and his sister, Mrs. Frank (Louisa) Horn of Greenwood.

The congregation joined the Sheboygan classis of the Reformed Church. Gottfried Braun was elected elder and Frank Horn deacon.  The present building was erected and dedicated October 2, 1904.

•••••••••

Capt. Archie Van Gorden (Red to you) is home.  He returned from the war Monday evening, first of the Neillsville Guard Company to return to the Old home Town.

Ask Red how he is feeling and he will say, “I’m feeling fine.”

He spent five months, fighting Japs, mosquitoes, snakes and heat in New Guinea. He has had malaria ten times and has taken the cure seven times.  He is a hospital patient and is out on leave.

He left Neillsville October 15, 1940.  He returned September 20, 1943.  His absence has covered nearly three years.  During that time he had his part in conquering the tip of one of the hundreds, if not thousands of islands that Japan has taken in the Pacific. The Buna Campaign was completed almost one full year ago, that campaign in which the local boys had a heroic part.  In that full year, the Allies have made their way just about 100 miles to capture Lae.

Red had his experiences.  As an officer of the 128th he was a member of the first regiment ever to have been taken by air to the battle area.  The whole regiment, 3,000 men, went to New Guinea by air, when the Japanese were threatening Port Moresby.  When they arrived the enemy was only 30 miles away.

Red and his boys worked mostly at night.  They had to work when the supply material was there to move, when the ships were ready, and when the Jap bombs were not too thick.  It was at night that the mosquitoes also worked, carrying their load of malaria.                                                                                   

•••••••••

Home canning in Clark County is big business this year, by statistics of the rationing board, which issued 6,512 certificates of approval for the purchase of 329,263 pounds of sugar, or practically 165 tons of sugar for canning.