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Random Thoughts

October 9.1948. That is the day we moved from 1948 Chicago to 1890 central Wisconsin. After the family members that moved us left with their cars and two wheel trailers we settled in for the night. All we had to eat were some sandwiches wrapped in cellophane and water drawn from the well. The next morning was when things started getting interesting. The 1947 Hudson was parked by the gas barrel but Ma couldn’t drive and Pa was blind. Pa told Ma to get behind the wheel and he would teach her how to drive by noon. The farm had a driveway off the main driveway that was about 1/8 of a mile long. All morning they went up and down the driveway with Ma following instructions and Pa telling her what to do. By noon ma could start the car and shift through all three gears. This is when I realized Pa was a great teacher. Maybe being blind helped but Pa could paint a picture in your mind with words better than anyone I ever knew. Many times in the years that followed Pa taught me things that a kid on the farm should know. More on that later. And that was with only a 4th grade education. They made arrangements to have a refrigerator and gas stove to be delivered and bought some groceries to tide us over. For me the day was spent exploring the immediate property and out buildings. There was a barn with spaces for cattle below and a hayloft above. In addition there was a sizable granary with farm equipment storage below that. It held a Farmall F-12 tractor and various small implements. There was also a pig shed on the end of the granary and a small stone chicken coop building below the barn. There was also a tool shed full of all the tools a small farm would need. Thinking back on it this was all very unusual. Typically when a farm was sold there was an auction and all the farm equipment and cattle were sold off. In this case it was like the owners just packed up and left. Everything one would want or need to operate a 77 acre farm was there left in place. The property and it’s contents were very interesting. The farm was first settled by a guy named Hans Hanson. Running through the property was fairly good size trout stream. Hans got permission from the state and built a dam and spillway across the stream. He built a wooden building that contained a grist mill above the spillway with a water wheel to provide power. By opening gates he could allow water through the spillway to turn the water wheel which had a shaft running up into the grist mill. This had a series of gears and pulleys with drive belts to run the grain grinders. Apparently he ground grain for decades with that mill. He owned the property right up until the start of WWII when he died. During the decades he owned the property he added all the stuff 1890 farmers added to their farms. He had a small vinyard of grape vines which bore wonderful grapes. He had a series of blackberry bushes along the grist mill and the other end of the property had another smaller stream that run through it. On this one be built a series of small dams so he could flood the marshes where he grew and harvested cranberries. The farm was bought by a guy from Chicago at the beginning of the war so he could get a farm draft deferment so he wouldn’t have to go in the army. He dabbled around all during the war just enough so he could keep his deferment and then when the war was over he left and went back to Chicago. In the process of living there a big rain came up and the trout stream level went way up. Instead of opening the spillway gates to let the water through he left them closed and the dam washed out. When we moved there the 6 acre lake was gone and the dam was laying down flat. The water wheel still worked but without the water from the pond you couldn’t get enough usable power to be useful. The thought has crossed my mind countless times if I still had that property and had kept it up it would be worth a fortune. Sigh! Woulda Coulda Shoulda. In any event Ma made it back from town that afternoon with enough provisions to last us till they delivered the fridge and the gas stove. We never called it Westfield. It was always town. We went to town we came back from town but never Westfield. In any event the following days were every bit as interesting.