March 1830

Saturday, March first, the local Farmers Unions of Fremont, Lynn, Lincoln and Sherman met in the Chili M. W.A. Hall and organized the Farmers’ Union Cooperative Shipping Association of Chili. The following directors were elected: Chas. Lindow, W. R. Happe of Fremont, Ray Lindow, Ed Ott of Lynn, Guy Hill of Lincoln and Elmer horn of Sherman.

At the next regular meeting, which will be held Wednesday afternoon, April 9th, the entertainment committee expects to present a short play.  Men who fail to bring their wives will be requested to sing a song or make a speech, so be sure and bring your wife.  Pearl Greene Co., Sec.                                                   

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The public schools of Greenwood have been closed for a week, due to an outbreak of skin disease, it was reported.  As a result there will be no Easter vacation for Greenwood pupils.                

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The first gold radio aerial has arrived in town.  F. O. Balch has strung up one of the new 24 carat gold plated aerial wires recently put on the market and the first program he got over the equipment was a Mexican stringed quartet at Mexico City, the longest range he has ever cove red with his set.  The gold plating is said to prevent the aerial from becoming tarnished and thus increases its sensitiveness to radio impulses.                                 

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The Tibbett Ice & Fuel Company is filling a large order for ice from the ice dealers of Marshfield.  The mild winter prevented the Marshfield ice men from harvesting a full crop, their storage pond being small in area and after the first ice crop was cut, mild weather prevented the formation of a second layer of ice of sufficient thickness for storage.

The ice being shipped is of very good thickness and quality.

The order has been completed, shipping out 48 carloads of ice in all, cut and hauled directly from the pond to the cars and on to Marshfield.                                                                                      

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If this appeals to you and your tabby has kittens born between March 15th and May 25, you will bestow a favor by notifying me, giving the approximate date of birth of kittens.  I will make a note of this and should I be in need of a foster mother for fox pups, and your cat’s lactation stage is nearest the requirements, I will gladly pay $5.00 for your tabby cat.  Contact: Robert Quinnell, Neillsville, Rt. 6.                                         

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Carl Opelt had quite a serious accident happen Friday when he fell between his team of horses and one horse stepped on his leg, bruising the flesh so badly that he will not be able to walk on it for some time, it is feared.

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The Women’s Relief Corps will serve their regular St. Patrick’s Supper at the W.R.C. Hall, Monday, March 17, beginning at 5:30 p.m. until all are served.                                                                     

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Nick Sydorowicz has bought from W. D. Martin his farm near Columbia.  Mr. Sydorowicz formerly lived at Thorp, but has been living on the cemetery road recently.  He and his family will soon move out on the farm.

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Last week the opera house at Greenwood, under the management of O. A. Hiles, began showing talking moving pictures and has first class equipment for staging that kind of entertainment.  There will be two changes of program a week, one program running Friday and Saturday and the other Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

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J. C. Moen has taken the contract to clear up the ruins of the Presbyterian Church, which was burned a few weeks ago.  He will utilize any material possible and fill up the basement with rubbish.

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The much heralded ‘economy’ plan of relocating No. 10 Highway to a point three miles north of Neillsville, as proposed by Herman Portz at the highway commission hearing Wednesday in the court house, was struck a damaging blow when estimates of the state highway engineer revealed that the cost would be much greater than for paving No. 10 as originally laid out.

The estimate of the engineer was $460,000 as the cost of the road Portz had outlined, that amount being only for the pavement into Neillsville and not including g a $25,000 bridge over O’Neill Creek and an overhead railroad crossing west of the depot, which would cost approximately $44,500, making the total cost of the project $528,500.

The amount contrasted with the $364,000, which concrete will cost on the present No. 10 Highway route.

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The auction sale of Mrs. Chas. Johnson on her farm west of Neillsville Thursday was well attended and considered successful.  Auctioneer Olson reports the high cow going at $300; another at $250 and the entire herd at a high average.

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Herman Hediger bought the old boiler out of the canning factory, loaded it onto his big truck and took it to his home in the Town of Weston to be used in the construction of a septic tank at his residence.

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Tom Wren reports that he sawed some dandy pine logs at his mill at Sydney this spring.  One pine tree brought in by August Dux scaled 1.139 feet of lumber; he sawed boards 19 inches wide out of one of its logs.

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Carl Lewerenz, Jr., who for the past year has been employed by O. W. Lewerenz, has bought the latter’s garage in Loyal and has moved his family up there.  This will give the public service on all Chrysler products at Loyal as well as here.

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Grant Turner was born July 11, 1898, in the Town of York and died in Rockford, Ill., March 20, 1930.  He was married July 15, 1924 to Miss Arlene Welch in Rockford, Ill.  They have made their home in Chicago and Rockford since then.  He leaves to mourn his early death, his wife and two children, Gene and Beverly; his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Abie Turner; two sisters, Mrs. Emil Schoenfeld of York and Harriet at home; and six brothers: George of Chicago, Clayton, Myron, Victor, Orville and Wilbur at home, and a large number of other relatives and friends.  His funeral was held Sunday in the Methodist Church at York and burial taking place in the York Cemetery.

March 1950

Members of the Neillsville High School’s football and basketball teams Monday elected their captain for the season’s closed and closing.  Marvin Klann, senior and guard, was elected captain of the football team.  Elected captain of the basketball team was Louis Kessler, senior forward.                                 

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True to form, March roared in Wednesday like a lion.  It came on the tail of a high went wind, which had blocked north and south roads of the area and had kept them effectively blocked since Tuesday noon.

While main roads were maintaining traffic, the side roads were well-nigh impassable; and driving was dangerous as fine, silt-like snow was shipped into the air to obscure vision.

Both Neillsville public school buses ran into trouble on their runs Tuesday afternoon and one of them completed only the first of its two scheduled trips.

This bus became enmeshed in a snowdrift southeast of the city, on a town line road just off highway 73.  There a wrecker and several men battled until 9:30 p.m. to release it.  High school pupils who had been waiting for the bus to take them home finally were forced to remain in the city overnight.

The second bus finished its appointed task; but not without incident.  It was breaking through a big drift in the Town of Pine Valley.  Driven snow at that point obscured both the vision of the bus driver, Cecil Minette and the driver of a Pine Valley snowplow, which approached the drift from the opposite direction.

Both vehicles were moving slowly and the snowplow gently pushed the bus aside, into the side of a deep drift.  About 12 pupils were riding in the bus at the time; but the contact of the bus and the snowplow was reported as so gently as to have been scarcely noticed.                                                                           

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The ‘castle’ landmark of Black River Falls is for sale to the highest bidder, to be torn down by July 1, 1951.  The stately residence of the late Representative and mrs. William T. Price will make room for the new Evangelical Lutheran Church.

The house and wrought iron fenced grounds occupy an entire block.  The three-story, 20-room residence is the only remaining local vestige of 1880 ideas of architectural elegance.

Price had the house built in 1880 at the then extravagant cost of $40,000.  The front hall woodwork of carved maple is estimated to have cost $10,000.  The balance of the woodwork is solid oak.

Green marble tiles for the six fireplaces were imported from Italy.  The 12-foot ceilings, stained glass windows, fancy conservatory, a crystal chandelier, and two bathrooms in an age when even the one was the mark of real luxury and the real tapestry walls of the dining room added dignity and elegance to the Price home.

The house was the social center of the town.  With the marriages of the three Campbell sisters, Julia to W. T. Price, Nellie to Warren C. Jones and Margaret to Dudley J. Spaulding, the three families were closely related.

Their families living on fashionable ‘Price Hill’ wee the elite of Black River Falls.  They held their own family gatherings on the large grounds, adorned with two bronze fountains, circular wooden walks and a summerhouse.

After coming here from Pennsylvania, Price, a lumberman, owned the Price Manufacturing Co.  He was a widely noted speaker and was famous for his speech on the river and harbor bill in Congress.  He died Dec. 6, having lived in the new home only a short time.  His son, Hugh, completed the unexpired term in Congress.

Of the Price children, only Miss Margaret is living and now makes her home in California.  She sold the estate to Gaylord R. Sechler, a Black River Falls grocer.

After Sechler’s death his wife divided the huge home into apartments.  The property went to her grandson, Robert Sechler, at her death.  He sold the estate to the Evangelical Lutheran Church.  An auction sale was held in the fall of 1949 and many lovely old antiques from the Price and Sechler homes were sold.

To Matt Severtson, 92, who is probably the only still living person who had a hand in the building of the house, the razing will be the destruction of a masterpiece.

For the past few months, the house has been vacant.  Trash liters the back porch.  Many small glass windows of the conservatory are broken; torn pieces of screen flap mournfully in the winter wind on the large screened front porch and the snow-laden sky hints at the anticipated death of the beauty and grandeur of the old Price home.

(William T. Price was actively involved in the logging and lumbering industry of both Jackson and Clark Counties.  Had it been saved, the Price home would have been a great historical site. DZ)

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Harvey and Marie Roehl, husband and wife, have sold 80 acres of land in Section 31, Town of York to Mr. and Mrs. Earl Luchterhand as joint tenants.

Reinhold Weis, his wife, have transferred to Joseph J. Shefchik and his wife, Emma A., a property in Loyal, consisting of two lots and two half lots in the Ruplinger Stave and Heading Company’s second addition to the City of Loyal.

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Three men caught 250 perch Sunday and that’s no fish story, John C. Brandt, city clerk-treasurer, insists.

Mr. Brandt went ice fishing on Bren Bay Sunday with August Hensel of Wausau, a brother of Mrs. Brandt and another friend.

Mr. Brandt’s comment that ‘they were biting good,’ seemed a masterpiece understatement in view of the alleged results.

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Boy’s Confirmation Suits, in New Spring Shades, All-Wool, Hard-wearing Fabrics in Fancy Spring Patterns and Plain Shade Gabardines, $16.95 to $24.50; Also available, Boy’s White Dress Shirts.  All at Berger’s Clothing Store

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Frederick Seelow, who attended the University of Wisconsin short course under a scholarship award, has finished there and is now working on the home farm.                                                      

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Nineteen teams competed Sunday in a city bowling tournament.

Lynn Insurance took first place, with 2,818 in the handicap play.

The top teams, with their scores, follow, in order: Five, 2,738; Deep Rock, 2,627; Clover Farm, 2,599; Steinies, 2,586; Model Laundry, 2,585; Zilk Villa, 2, 581; Urban Sales & Service, 2,579; Jack Sprat, 2,575.

Florence Carl rolled a series of 499 actual pins; Ione Bruhn, 491 Louise Tibbett, 470.

High single games of actual pins: Marian Zeigler, 215; Florence Carl, 195; Ione Bruhn 187.

The Lynn Insurance team, top winners, consist of Kathryn Schlimme, captain; Eva Christie, Doris Struble, Pearl Wasserberger, Vivian Quicker.                                                        

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Workmen have moved into the front end of the Neillsville Dairy building, on West Street, where they are giving the remainder of the building a face-lifting.

Behind the new front will be a modern dairy bar, according to the new owner, H. H. Quicker.

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The Silver Dome, which has been closed since the first of the year, will re-open with an Easter dance Sunday, April 9.  The Kellers, who have been spending the last three months in Florida, expect to return a few days before the opening date.  They have spent the winter remodeling their property in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., into apartments.

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Tony Sylvester will not return to Neillsville this spring as professional at the Neillsville Country Club.  In correspondence with officers of the club he made it clear that, for personal reasons, he would appreciate being relieved of his commitment here.  His new post at Harrisonburg, Va., is a year around job.  He has already started there and it was obvious, both to his local friends and to himself, that it was not feasible to hold him here.

The club directors have now arranged with R.B. Hillis of Pittsburgh, who was recommended by Mr. Sylvester.  Mr. Hillis is past 50 years of age and has had more than 25 years experience in the golf business.  He will act not only as the professional but also as greens-keeper.

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