Clark County Press, Neillsville, WI, March 23, 2011, Page 10

Dwight Roberts closed up his fruit business on Monday and sold his building on the corner to Walk Bros. He has not fully decided what he will go into, but thinks of doing some farming and market gardening. Competition in his class of goods made it unprofitable to continue in business.

The Warehouse Company is buying live sparrows to be shipped to New Zealand. The poor people of that far-away island have no sparrows and they long for them. Well, canaries are better to our notion, if one must have feathered noise-makers.

John Christie concluded he had better haul logs at night, than to be left without snow. So last Sunday night he commenced the hauling.

Joseph Henry Hoover and Miss Clara Klein, both of the Town of Grant were united in marriage, Friday, March 8, at the courthouse, with Judge Geo. L. Jacques performing the ceremony. The bride is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. D. Klein, old and respected citizens of the Town of Grant. The groom’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Hoover, were among the early settlers of Lynn, where he has still recently resided. He is now the proprietor of the Harness Shop at Granton in which village the young couple will make their home.

Anton Kransinsky, a wealthy German of Montfort, Grant County, Wis., who last fall bought 560 acres of land in Levis, has during the winter completed a fine house, barn and other buildings at a cost of not less than $2,000. Mr. Kransinsky moved into his placer last month, bringing with him 18 head of cattle, 4 good horses and other stock. He had two large train cars of farm machinery and household goods.

C. M. Staples from Volga, South Dakota is moving to Sec. 19 in West Levis. He has bought 320 acres where he is building a fine set of buildings. He brings with him a good lot of cattle and horses and will have a gem farm in the Town of Levis. (These parcels of land are in what is now Dewhurst along Bruce Mound Ave & Hwy 95 east of Merrillan. DMK)

A. Schlender, of Columbia, after logging for ten days across the “Alps in Levis,” took a rest last Saturday and went to Neillsville on business.

Feed grinding can be had at W. H. Lowery’s farm. All kinds of grain can be ground and crushed; also corn including the cob, can be crushed.

Several farmers who live in the Connor’s Mill area have been hauling brick this past week, for a schoolhouse to be built.

Word was received last Saturday of the death of Samuel Smylie, which occurred at his home in Kenton, Okla., Feb. 25. Mrs. Smylie was formerly a storekeeper and postmaster in Christie, who was well liked and respected by all. He leaves a wife and three children to mourn his death.

H. G. Prust, of Chili, was in Neillsville Saturday. He got stocked up with legal blanks to supply his real estate office. He will receive his commission as notary public in a few days and will be prepared to make out and take acknowledgements for all kinds of legal documents. He has resigned as postmaster of Chili, and Mr. Fraser has been appointed in his stead. Mr. Prust states that the post office business in Chili has more than doubled in the past few years, especially since the Snow post office has been discontinued.

(The Snow post office, a general store and black smith shop were located on the north side of Hwy 10 one-fourth mile west of the Wood County Line. D.Z.)

Chas. Duvall, Jr., of the Town of Unity, who is building a cheese factory at Haskins’ corners, was in town this week. He is building a good factory, which will be equipped with modern machinery and expects to run a creamery as well.

On Tuesday Mrs. Levi Archer sold the old Archer homestead in the southern part of the Town of Pine Valley to Edmund Sydow, of Lake Mills. This farm consists of 120 acres and a large set of farm buildings, consideration $5,900.

Also this week, L. M. Sturdevant executed a deed of the Sturdevant homestead to G. A. Helpap, of Lake Mills, consideration $6,400. These are two of the oldest and best farms in the township and if reports are right, both purchasers are men of means and good farmers.

(The two farms were located three miles south of Neillsville, before the Highway 95 and 73 split, the Archer farm on the west side and Sturdevant farm on the east side of the road. D. Z.)

What was known as a Sturdevant farm, west of the city in Pine Valley, was sold to Herman Wagner, 40 acres of the place was owned by Robert Sturdevant and Helen and Stella Munford, and the other 40 by C. C. Sniteman Co., with total consideration, $2,800.

W. W. Lyons, Town treasurer of Loyal, made his annual call at our office Friday. He has served his town quite a number of terms as treasurer and is considered a most competent officer. The fact that he returned with only $87 taxes not collected from Loyal, speaks well for that town.

Bids will be received for the construction of a filtration plant for the Neillsville Water Supply. Decision upon this course was made Tuesday evening by the city council. Bids will be called for as soon as necessary preliminaries can be completed.

The Gluck Sport Shop building on West Sixth Street has been purchased by Gareth Bollom from the owner, Elsie Bishop Lambert. Bollom plans to operate a radio and record shop at the site, moving in by March 1. The Sport Shop will be in the rear of the Family Shoe Store on Fifth Street also owned by Gluck.

Neillsville High School Warriors honored two fellow athletes and teammates this week when they chose this year’s outstanding basketball player on the school team and named the captain for the past season’s football team.

Bob Kunze was voted the most outstanding player on the basketball team this year. Kunze was the team’s high-scoring forward for the season. Captain of the 1950 football team was named as Irving Metcalf.

The departure of Mr. and Mrs. Klingeberger, set for Wednesday, March 7, marks the end of a pastorate of a little more than six years, in the West Side Reformed Church of Greenwood. Mr. Klingeberger goes to the pastorate of Grace Reformed Church at Kohler, Wisconsin. He had announced his resignation Oct. 9, but his plans were changed by a severe heart attack, from which he is sufficiently recovered to undertake the new pastorate.

A congregation, which filled the church, attended Mr. Klingeberger’s final service last Sunday. In that service was held the dedication of a seven candle candelabra, a memorial to Ferdinand Decker, and a Missal stand and Missal Bible, memorial to Ed Schwarze.

Received into membership of the church were Mesdames Otto Meinholdt, Edward Meinholdt, and Oscar Meinholdt and a fourth Mr. Chester Nirva. Messrs. Otto and Oscar Meinholdt renewed their membership.

Confirmed at the services were the following: Leanne Vollrath, Myrna Meinholdt, Jacqueline Irvine, Joanne Miller, Mary Jane Noah, Jerald Richmond, Robert Timmler, Orville Schwarze, Roy Rasmussen, Verlan Noah and Roger Liebzeit.

First Methodist Church at Loyal was the scene of the wedding of Miss Arlene Holnbach, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Otto Holnbach of Loyal, and Henry Allen Knoll, Granton, son of Mr. and Mrs. Henry A. Knoll, Sr. The wedding ceremony was performed on Tuesday afternoon, Feb. 27.

The bride was attended by her sister, Miss Barbara Holnbach, and the groom by his uncle, Earl Markham.

The young couple will be living on the groom’s farm following their honeymoon.

Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Bradbury have purchased a Red Owl Store in Lakefield, southwestern Minnesota and will take possession at once. Mr. Bradbury and son, Al will leave Thursday to take over the store. Mrs. Bradbury, who has been employed as secretary County agent’s office the past three years, has resigned her position and will join Mr. Bradbury March 17. Mrs. Mable Chapman and the Bradbury children will join them there as soon as Mrs. Chapman disposes of her real estate.

The departure of the Bradburys marks the break of an old Neillsville family with its home base. Lewis Bradbury, now 48, was born in Neillsville and had made it his home all his life. Mrs. Bradbury came to Neillsville when she was a baby, and has lived here ever since.

Lewis’ father came to Neillsville more than 50 years ago, and practiced medicine here many years.

Aloney Rust Owen, scion of the Owen family of Wisconsin, has died. Funeral services were held for him Monday at St. Katherine’s Mission in Owen. Officiating were DR. Kenneth Crosby, rector, and the Rev. Ronald Ortmayer, former rector. Interment was in Riverside Cemetery. Pallbearers were: David Owen, Ralph Owen, Jr., William Catura, Jr., Jack Olds, Ben Bruchert and Walter Cattanach.

Throughout his life A. R. Owen, followed the lumber business, like his father before him. Born in East Saginaw, Mich., his first breath was taken in an atmosphere of trees and of lumbering. His father, John S. Owen, had lumbered in the pine forests of Michigan, and was attracted to the relatively virgin forests of Central Wisconsin in 1874, when the son, A. R. Owen, was one year old.

The John S. Owen family settled at first in Eau Claire, and its early activities were conducted from that city as headquarters. There, A. R. Owen, the son, attended public schools until he was ready to enter the Shattuck School at Faribault, Minn. After completing his work there he went to Cornell University, where he was a member of Chi Psi Fraternity.

During A. R. Owen’s schooling, John S. Owen had been developing his lumber interest. He had by 1893 purchased 30,000 acres in northern Clark County and in the area adjacent thereto. He had moved his headquarters to Owen, the city, which came to bear the family name, had organized the John S. Owen Lumber Co., and had begun to develop a far-reaching plan for that area. That plan consisted in orderly annual cutting, then turning the land to agriculture by attracting settlers and in building the community at Owen, where the large Owen mill was located.

The father, John S. Owen, lived to see his program far on the way. Dying in 1939, he had outlived the larger forest tracts of Central Wisconsin. In his later years, also, he had been able to place upon the shoulders of his son the responsibility of liquidating the large affairs of the John S. Owen Lumber Co., including considerable tracts not yet developed for agriculture. That liquidation was not fully completed at the time of A. R. Owen’s death.

Throughout the lives of John S. Owen and A. R. Owen, father and son, first call upon the lumber produced by them went to the men and women who were building up Clark County. All over the County buildings stand today, that originated in the 30,000 acres, first bought by John S. Owen, lumber cut up in the Owen mill at Owen.

As time passed, and as the Owen forests became exhausted, the family turned its attention to securing and supplying lumber to meet the needs of a large portion of Central Wisconsin. It was this enterprise, which fell largely upon the shoulders of A. R. Owen, and to the development of which he gave his major attention. Incident to that purpose he became president of the Three States Lumber Co., of Blytheville, Ark., and chairman of the board of the O & N Lumber Co., the large retailing organization, with nine outlets in Clark County, with head offices in Menomonie and with branches elsewhere in the adjacent area.

A. R. Owen was an officer and director of various outside corporations, and was a member of the University Club at Milwaukee and of the Chicago Club in Chicago. Throughout his life, however, he was true to the family policy of sustaining and promoting the interests of the city of Owen. Among his chief interests was St. Katherine’s Episcopal Mission, which he helped to found.

During his active life, Mr. Owen was known locally as A. R. Owen. His full given names were not commonly used. It is of interest to know, however, that the name Rust derives from the family of his mother, whose maiden name was Cora Rust.

Married in 1898 to Florence Elizabeth Benson of Lake City, Minn., A. R. Owen set up his family home at Owen and maintained it there until the end. During the last two years he had been largely alone in the old Owen home, Mrs. Owen having died January 3, 1949.

Following the death of A. R. Owen the Owen activities in this area will be carried on through the family of Ralph W. Owen of Eau Claire, a brother of A. R. Owen. In this family there are two sons and two daughters. Both of the sons are active in the O & N Lumber Co., Ralph being vice president and general manager of that enterprise and David being manager of the O& N yard in Eau Claire.

The two children of A. R. Owen have taken root elsewhere. The son, John S., is first vice president of the First Wisconsin National Bank in Milwaukee. He has three sons. The daughter, Mrs. Thomas Sargent, resides in West Hartford, Conn. She is the mother of two sons.

This railroad trestle, constructed in the early years of the City of Owen, carried the Owen Company’s log trains over the Soo Line tracks, built to avoid a crossing at the grade. The engine on the trestle was the property of the Owen Company, which had ample rolling stock to care for its large operation.

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