Clark County News

April 1920

Jacques’ Golden Glow seed corn has been grown in Clark County for the past ten years.  Average yield for the Jacques’ seed corn was over 120 bushel baskets per acre, producing a good hard corn. The corn was planted on May 15 and was ripe before September 1^st.

This seed was picked before frost and was very thoroughly fire-dried. Every bushel is guaranteed to germinate 98 per cent or money will be refunded upon return of the corn within 10 days of the time it was purchased.

Jacques seed corn if for sale at the Bruley Elevator and the Cash Hardware Store, both in Neillsville.

(William Jacques started the seed corn business on his farm which was located on the north side of Neillsville. He later moved to the Prescott area where he continued to grow corn to be sold as seed.  Jacques is still a familiar name in the farming trade.  William’s father, George had served as a Clark County District Attorney and Clark County Judge during the county’s earlier years.)

Ice customers, please take notice – parties wishing to have ice delivered must obtain a coupon book. The coupon books can be purchased at any bank in Neillsville, for the following prices, payable in advance: coupon book for 1,000 lbs., $4.50; coupon book for 2,000 lbs., $8.00; coupon book for 4,000 lbs., $15.00.

Buy a new Fordson tractor at the Chas. Byse Sales Co., in Neillsville or Loyal.  The Fordson tractor has power to spare for all farm work.  It does the work of three teams of horses and eliminates hiring two men to get your farm work done.  The Fordson power farming unit consists of the Oliver No. 7 plow, the Trac-o-packer, the Roderick lean double disc and the Amsco drill.  The Fordson tractor can be purchased for $850, F.O.B. factory.

Harold Balch was in Neillsville last week, helping to get work started on the new Indian School.  Balch’s firm of Madison drew the plans for the building, stating that it will be a very modern and up-to-date building.  It will be sufficiently large enough to accommodate over 100 pupils.  The building is to be constructed of brick and hollow tile.

Doc Leason has but two great pleasures in life.  One of those pleasantries is to pull half a dozen teeth at one sitting and the other is to pull a dozen fine fish out of the river without changing bait.  He is one of the first to wet his fishing line in the Black River each spring and one of the last to lay away his rod and reel in the late fall.  The other day he decided to practice up on the red horse.  He dug up a can full of worms and started walking to Turner’s eddy, where fish can be found all hours of the day or night.  He arrived at the eddy in fine fettle and stated to get everything set up for the venture which would fill his fish basket.  All went fine until he reached for fishing line, no line.  He made a good imitation of a mad man.  He spit in the river, slapped and felt every pocket on his clothing, jumped so high that his hat snagged in the tree branches and still no line could be found.  He forgot about fishing and went home madder than a wet hen in a rain storm.  When he got home, he was so upset that he sat up past midnight before he could settle down enough to go to bed and get a night’s sleep.

A thousand bushels of mighty fine wheat was scattered around last Sunday afternoon when a couple of freight cars on a through freight jumped the track near the Ring stock farm east of Neillsville.  The wreck occurred when the east-bound freight train went over the curve near the farm.  The last two cars, one loaded with wheat and the second carried baled waste paper.  It is believed that the car of wheat was too heavily loaded causing the trusses beneath it to break and collapse. The wheat was well scattered around the landscape.  Fred Bruley bought the undamaged wheat and brought it into the elevator on Monday. 

Bruley’s elevator has a quantity of fine wheat slightly damaged which will be sold cheap for chicken feed.  Get some right away because the supply won’t last long.

Arguments were completed before the Supreme Court last week by Attorneys John W. Reynolds, of Green Bay, who appealed for a writ of error, demanding the trial of Frank and Leslie Krueger, who were convicted of first degree murder in Neillsville during the fall of 1918.  Reynolds declared that there was no evidence against Leslie Krueger but that those of the entire Clark County area where prejudiced against the Krueger’s.  He said the court had erred in denying a change of venue.

Whether the jurors who tried the Krueger men as a result of the fight with a sheriff’s posse in which Harry Jensen, a member of the posse, was killed, did err in convicting them of murder, is now before the Supreme Court for decision.

Frank A. Jackson, district attorney of Clark County and assistant district attorney, Messer Schmidt represented the State of Wisconsin.

April 1950

The Silver Dome Ballroom will re-open for the season with an Easter Sunday dance on April 9.  There will also be a wedding dance for Jerry Cernik and Velva Fitzmaurice with music by Elmo Johnson orchestra.  Starting Saturdays, April 15, there will be dances every Saturday night.  Book your wedding dance, no charge and 300 free tickets will be given to the wedding party.

Leo W. Foster was elected as mayor of Neillsville in Tuesday’s spring election.  Foster was in the U.S. Revenue Service from 1920 – 1930.  He was offered, but declined, an appointment as deputy U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Wisconsin during the Coolidge administration.  He served s city alderman for the Fourth Ward, 1940-42; during this period was appointed, by the Governor, Vice Chairman of Civilian Defense in Clark County.  Also, he served on the County Board.  Shortly after the start of World War II, he became head of the Clark County ration board, serving in that capacity until Dec. 31, 1945.  He was a member of the original Thirty-Second Division in World War I and a special committeeman on the Clark County draft board from 1942-1944.

Evelyn Walk took the honors in the city bowling tournament for women.  She scored first place in the single events, first in all events and Nellie Quicker scored third in the doubles.

Twenty-nine transfers of property in Clark County were recorded in the office of the Register of Deeds in the last eleven days of March.  The total value represented was about $95,000.  Eleven of these transfers were of urban property, located in Cities and villages, representing values of about $22,700.  Eighteen transfers were of farm property, to aggregate value of about $68,000.

One transfer was resort property at Rock Dam, a tract of 120 acres, the deal included various buildings on the land and resort equipment, all for $5,000.

Irma Pepper has sold her home to Andrew and Irene Kapusta. The former Pepper home is located on Court Street, in the area which if familiarly known as the Dutch Hollow section of Neillsville.

Upon the expiration of his three-year lease on the West Side Food Market of Fifth Street, in Neillsville, John Swenson is giving up that business.  His stock and fixtures are being bought by Leo Korth of the Spencer community, who owns the building.  Swenson’s lease was from John Pietenpol, who later sold subject to the lease.  Korth intends to proceed with the business and to occupy the residence in the rear of the building.

The John Swenson’s will return to their old home on West Fifth Street.  The Kenneth Olson’s, who have been living in the Swenson house, are moving to the Charles Seif place on Grand Avenue.  Seif’s are moving to the Landgraf house, which they recently purchased.

Final plans have been made for pushing the construction of the Mead Dam. The engineers, Mead & Hunt, have completed the revision of the plans and the contractors, Ernest & Ben Gottschalk of Edgar, have promised to start on the job as soon as the ground can be worked.

Part of the dam will rest upon the disintegrated granite and the shale, but the structure will be held in place and supported by concrete placed in trenches running down to granite.  The trenches, 16 inches wide, will contain what will amount to a concrete foundation wall, which will support and protect the front and back of the dam.

The spillway of the dam will have a width of about 100 feet.  Upon the top of the spillway will be flash boards 23 inches high. The flash boards will be removed or will go out in the time of considerable flood water.  The construction of the dam will be kept close to the $60,000 appropriated amount.

Thirty-three persons became members of the Congregational Church of Neillsville at last Thursday evening’s service.

The new members include: Rev. R. Banks Blocher from Malvern, Pa.; Mr. and Mrs. Gus DeMert; Mr. and Mrs. Paul Ehlers; Mr. and Mrs. DeWayne Felser; Mrs. Joseph Felser; Mr. and Mrs. Howard Giese, transfer from the Presbyterian Church of Mt. Pleasant, Ohio; Mrs. Oscar Gluck; Mr. and Mrs. Ed Hagie, from the Shortville Community Church; Miss Alice Meredith; Miss Janet Meredith; Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Meredith, Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Karl; Robert Kunze; Miss Lois Larsen; Mr. and Mrs. Soren Larsen; Mrs. Adelaide Lowe, from the Presbyterian Church of Neillsville; Mr. and Mrs. Leon Metcalf; Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Metcalf; Mr. and Mrs. Robert Poler; Mr. and Mrs. George Prochazka and Richard Prochazka.

Mrs. Sena Petersen, of Owen, has attained the great age of 100 years on April 19.  The little frail woman is hardly more than five feet tall and weighs not more than 100 pounds.  Born in Denmark, her family feared she wouldn’t survive the passage to America safely as she had been in sickly health as a young woman.

Mrs. Petersen thinks she is perhaps one of the last women in Clark County who still uses a spinning wheel. She was a great Bible reader, representative of a generation that concentrated on daily Bible reading. 

Mrs. Petersen was well known as a good cook. Although she cooked some American dishes, her Danish culinary, particularly Danish soups, drew boarders to her place in earlier years.  It was her custom to take roomers and boarders into her home at that time.  Many of those people were new arrivals from Denmark, who felt at home with the Danish cooking and conversation in the household.

Mrs. Petersen’s time in Owen goes back to the lumbering days.  She and her husband came to the Owen neighborhood in about 1892.  They bought land from the John S. Owen Lumber Co., forty acres between what is now Withee and Owen.  The land then had many big trees on it and the arranged deal was that the Owen concern should take the timber.  After the timber was cut, Mr. Petersen succeeded in getting rid of the stumps.

Farming would eventually be a secondary occupation for P. K. Petersen.  The brick yard which he established on the land, came first.  His yard furnished much of the brick used in building chimneys and walls for the first structures in northern Clark County.  Although Mrs. Petersen had been brought up in a tradition of hard work, she did not work outdoors after they moved to America.  She had plenty of work to do inside of their home, caring for three children, preparing meals and providing a clean home for boarders and her family, as well as keeping up with her fancy work and operating the spinning wheel. Attending worship services and fellowship meetings at the church were considered a welcome relief from her household duties.  Her husband managed the outside affairs and work.

Mrs. Petersen has resided in the United States for 68 years, yet she has remained to a surprising extent a Dane, old style.  If she knows some English, and her daughter, Sena says she does, she prefers not to pay attention to it. The language she uses and likes is Danish.  Living in a community where there are so many Danes, she has had more occasions to continue in her mother tongue. A further help and incentive has been the Danish Nazareth Lutheran Church, where she met her Old Danish friends through the years. There, the old language was the common means of worship and social exchange.  In one respect, Mrs. Petersen is not old style.  She does not believe in corporal punishment.  Rearing three children, Sena, Clara and Ben, she never found a need to spank them.  She talked to them, told them what was right and wrong, as well as what was expected of them.

In America, Mrs. Petersen has lived her life in a narrow range. Her present home, just over the high bridge to the north, is less than a mile from the pioneer home.  Her son, Ben lives in her former house, the first home.  The two daughters, Sena and Clara, have a business in Owen. Sena now cares for their mother.

Through the years, Mrs. Petersen has instilled within herself and her children, a solid set of values in the community of which they live. There, they are surrounded by persons who know them and whom they know.  In her one hundred years, she has established a family structured in the old traditions of which she grew up with.

A circa 1940’s view of the 500 block of Hewett Street, Neillsville; The store’s front windows could be shielded from the sun’s rays when the cloth awnings were rolled out on the mounted frames.