Society News and Events

Hello Forest County Residents!

Things are looking up in the coming days because the cold snap has finally ended! That was a difficult few days to get through for everyone, especially the brave individuals that had to work out doors. Although it was extremely cold it was not the coldest time ever recorded in the area. The most frigid days occurred in the recent past in 1996 between January 31-February 4  when high temperatures ranged from the teens to twenties below zero; lows dropped to the thirties to fifties below zero. The state’s record coldest temperature was set at -55 F set in Courderay WI on February 2nd and 4th (http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mkx/wiwx.php).

The Forest Republican Newspaper  for February 7th displayed headlines like “Brutal Winter Causes Woes for County Highway Dept.” which explained that the county had already used its total yearly allotment of road salt which was 3200 tons. Another article was entitled ” Local Groups Join Forces to Save the Deer” which detailed the white tail deer population freezing to death in their tracks and the effort of the Northern Buck hunters and the Crandon International Off-road Racing Association to rescue the animals from starvation by leaving feed throughout the area.

Living in Northern Wisconsin in the winter can definitely be a challenge! Feel free to share your memories from this event in history.

Happy New Years Forest County Residents!

I found a great article on the Wisconsin State Historical Society website about New Years Eve traditions in early Wisconsin. Check it out and see if this is something you would like to incorporate into your family’s celebration.

Wisconsin has celebrated New Year’s ever since Europeans and Yankees first settled here. French-Canadian residents brought a custom called “La Guignolée,” a sort of New Year’s trick-or-treat in which old men collected clothing and food for the poor. According to Elizabeth Therese Baird (1810-1890), daughter of a fur trader and a French-Ottawa mother who came to Green Bay as a teenage bride in 1824: “As soon as la fête de Nöel or Christmas-tide had passed, all the young people were set at work to prepare for New Year’s. … On the eve of that day, great preparations were made by a certain class of elderly men, usually fishermen, who went from house to house in grotesque dress singing and dancing. Following this they would receive gifts. Their song was often quite terrifying to little girls as the gift asked for in the song was la fille aînée — the eldest daughter. …”

“As they were always expected, everyone was prepared to receive them. This ended the last day of the year. After evening prayer in the family, the children would retire early. At the dawn of the new year, each child would go to the bedside of its parents to receive their benediction — a most beautiful custom; my sympathies always went out to children who had no parents near.” (Wisconsin Historical Collections)

http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/highlights/archives/2011/12/new_year_2012.asp

http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/whi/fullRecord.asp?id=16118

Hello Forest County Residents!

This week I am inviting you to make a discovery of your own!

Give the Gift of Family History this Season

Every family has a story to tell.  Whether the story is about your family’s migration from Kentucky or your Polish great-grandmother’s travels through Ellis Island, every story is important and needs to be told.  This year, give the gift of Family History by purchasing a gift certificate for one, two, or three hours of family research services at the Crandon Public Library.   Your gift will include a written report of the research conducted by the library staff using our online genealogical databases and materials from our local history archives.  Please note that the research your request does not need to be Forest County research.  The databases we offer are world-wide databases including Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org.

Individuals may also purchase a gift certificate for one, two or three hours of scanning and preserving old family photos to a computer disc to be shared with family members.  The cost of either gift certificate is based on a $15 per hour donation to the Crandon Public Library Local History department. 

To order a research services gift certificate, please call the library at 715-478-3784 or stop in at the library to see Amanda or Michelle.   Gift certificates may be used anytime during the year. 

Happy Thanksgiving Forest County!

I searched through the Park Hotel Register this week to find out who partook in the Thanksgiving feast at the hotel in the late 1800’s. From 1886-1888 everyone must have remained home with their families for the holidays or the hotel was not open because their are no guests registered for the fourth Thursday in November. In 1889, the Park Hotel served a Thanksgiving meal to Will Rogers, William S. New from Chicago, Matthew Ross, Egbert Wyman, and Frank Bishop from Escanaba.  I wonder what they ate?

Hello Forest County Residents!

This week’s discovery was found by the Crandon Public Library Director, Michelle, so if you see her let her know you appreciate her research skills. The find was old FBI case files from 1909-1921 detailing the rumors of anti-American sediments among the German immigrants that resided in Forest County during the time of World War I. Two secret service men were sent to Crandon to investigate these claims but only arrested one man for proclaiming:

” The Kaiser would have a gun big enough to wipe England off the face of the earth, and then the United States would have to look out, for the Kaiser has shown them all where to get off at. The Kaiser ought to be praised for what he had done and that he never declared war on the United States and that is was alright to sink the ships because the United States had no business to stick their nose in it”.

For his crime of carrying on with public enemies of the United States the pro-German man was taken to Milwaukee and forced into military service.

It is a great surprise that the United States Secret Service would send men to investigate Forest County for anti-American sentiments! This county can be very exciting at times!

 

Howdy Forest County Residents!

Today I am going to speak about a disaster the occurred in the 1920’s that I did not know about until last year when I interviewed one of Crandon’s oldest residents. She regaled me with her recollection of the grasshopper plague that hit Forest County in 1922 and 1923 in which swarms of grass hoppers destroyed the landscape. The interviewee recalled that during this time she was walking with a friend and her child and the child lost her shoe. When they went to look for it in the morning there was nothing left but a bit of sole because the grasshoppers had eaten it overnight!

This week I found the memories of Keith Jesse from Argonne written down describing the same catastrophe. Jesse wrote “The grasshoppers ate everything in sight. A lot of the farmers had to sell their cattle because they didn’t have money to buy hay with. Pa had sent to North Dakota and got three car loads of hay shipped in and we had to feed the cattle the rest of the summer. The county agent went to different farmers, and they had a meeting in Argonne. The agent came there and showed the farmers how to mix grasshopper poison which consisted of wheat bran, oranges, banana oil, and arsenic”.

http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/

Hello Forest County Residents!

Happy National Family History Month! This month long celebration originated when in 2001, Congress passed a resolution introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who wrote, “By searching for our roots, we come closer together as a human family.” Family history enthusiasts continue to celebrate Family History Month every October (http://familytreemagazine.com).

To commemorate this event my family and I went on a search for an abandoned lumber settlement that was managed by my great great great grandparents Horace and Delia Wheeler. I learned about the site from interviewing some of my older relatives and reading my great grand mother’s memoir. At this lumber camp my great great grandparents met when my grandmother was fourteen staying at the camp because her father owned the lumber business and my grandfather was sixteen working as a lumber jack. They ran away together down the railroad tracks all the way to Rhinelander and were married.

We were able to find the site by using the Soo line railroad as our guiding factor and we explored the woods and found an old trash pit and a root cellar! It was a very rewarding experience because I could spend time with my family while connecting with my ancestors.

I encourage everyone to celebrate Family History Month by creating a family tree, interviewing relatives, or going on an excursion to a place connected to your family’s past.

 

 

Hello Forest County residents!

Check out this photo! Can anyone tell me what these individuals are doing? My best guess was hauling water for animals or making moonshine.

Happy Labor Day weekend Forest County Residents!

I am sorry to inform you that this is the last week I am working as the full time archivist at the Crandon Public Library. I will still be cataloging archival material ten hours per week so I will do my best to write a new blog post during this time. I am working on finishing writing my thesis on the disappearance of Keith Siding as a lumber town so if anyone has any information on the subject let me know.

I would like to invite everyone to an Open House at the Crandon Public Library, September 10th at 5-6:30 pm. I will be giving a presentation on the work I did this summer and I would love to share my exciting discoveries with everyone so please attend! There will be food!

Alright back to business.

Did you know that the United States government was considering abolishing Forest County in the late 1930’s-early 40’s? According to an article in the Forest Republican, The Department of Agriculture recommended that the federal government let the Forest Service take over the cut over lands, relocate the families living in Forest County, and begin a reforestation program. These harsh measures were due to the fact that 75% of the cutover land was not fit to be farmed and a large portion of the land had already passed into the hands of the government because of tax delinquencies.

They did not go so far as to disband the county but they did put drastic measures into place in order to deal with the horrendous economic situation in Forest County. In 1939, the government enforced “rural zoning” in which any residents that lived in a sparsely populated area, was subject to tax delinquency, or lived on land that could not be farmed or logged had to be relocated to a more heavily populated area. All of the small towns in Forest County cost the state and federal government a great deal of money because they had to provide funding for schools, roads, and medical treatment to every community. The government’s solution was to buy their land from them at a very cheap rate and provide them better land to live on that the newly removed residents had to pay for over time. They created government housing right in the City of Crandon for the elderly that still stands today. This is the reason why so many small towns and rural schools ceased to exist in Forest County.