Title: SMALL POTATOES
Sub-title: Boyhood Memories of the Depression Decade
in River Falls
Author: George D. Foss
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INTRODUCTION
This is my personal story from the time I first realized there
was such a thing as a depression up to the point where it ended
for us, which was the start of World War II.

I hope my efforts here will provide one more first-hand
perspective, and faithfully add to the already colorful history
of River Falls.

This collection of short stories was taken from my original
genealogical work which I began writing in 1965. The complete
ten-volume work consists of both the maternal and paternal lines
of my family, including hundreds of old photographs. Original
sources were
identified wherever possible. The first two copies of "Small
Potatoes" were submitted to the UWRF Area Research Center in
River Falls, and the Pierce County Historical Society library in
Ellsworth in 1988. All of the text has been transcribed to
GEDCOM files on floppy disks. One complete set of disks has been
submitted to the LDS Family History
Department in Salt Lake City, UT., and another set was
submitted to the RootsWeb WorldConnect Project in Bakersfield,
CA. 

When I first considered writing a family history I didn't think
I would get very far because I had so little to go on. It looked
quite hopeless. It didn't seem possible to go much beyond either
of my grandfathers.

Through all my youth I was continually exposed to the small
talk of my parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins concerning the
trials and tribulations of the Smiths (the maternal side of the
family). Now this didn't mean much to me at the time, being one
of the youngest in the entire relationship, and more than that,
I wasn't much interested. All I knew was this was a large
family, and we seemed to be related to half the people in River
Falls, and many jokes were made about it.

Sometime during the early part of 1965 it occurred to me that I
still didn't understand my place in this relationship, nor did I
know anything of the history of these people. It was then I
decided to take immediate action. It was my plan to learn as
much as possible concerning the families of both of my parents. 
As I reflected on how to proceed, it became clear to me that for
most people the most interesting part of a man's life are the
years of his youth up to the time he gets married. After
marriage his time is taken
up with the business of raising a family and providing for
them. Certainly from time to time events occur to break up the
staid routine of married life, but it is the lives of young
people that are filled with the events and crises on a daily
basis that provides the colorful
viewpoint. When a group of people get together it isn't long
before the conversation drifts to the days of their youth. I
know I was always fascinated when my folks talked about their
childhood days. It was fun to listen when Dad talked about his
boyhood down on the farm near Martell. All three of us kids
would beg Uncle Eldon Nash (see his obit. on this site) who
lived with us, but who was only distantly related to us by
marriage, to tell us about "the olden days."

After listening to stories of days gone by I began to wish that
someone had taken the time to write down what they had seen and
done, no matter how trite it may have seemed at the time.

As I searched through the literature and newspapers I found
little that I thought told the story of our family and the
people they associated with. After more than a year of this, I
felt like saying "we lived her too!" Our place in history should
be recorded. Just the fact that we were born is justification
enough. It isn't necessary that every schoolboy know the history
of everybody's family, but I think the record should exist. I
want my children and their children to hear the story from our
lips, so they will know history as we saw it and lived it. Oh,
sure, we are the "SMALL POTATOES," but why leave it a that? I
think we
are all capable of telling our own story.

I'm happy to say that my efforts here may have inspired my
brother "Bud" (Norman A. Foss) to write his own book on his teen
years as he lived it. He did this in collaboration with his old
high school friend John Prucha. He and John self-published the
book "KINNICKINNIC YEARS", copyrighted in 1993. This a 395-page
illustrated book which is an account of life in River Falls
during the period, 1930 to 1950. I would be happy to carry out
lookups in this book for anyone interested.
I've often wondered when in history would be the best time to
have lived? I guess there's something good to be said for every
age. Even if you don't realize it at the time. If you ask me now
if the 30's was a good time to have lived I would say no! There
were breadlines, dust storms, and it was terribly hot. It was
kind of a bad time looking back on it. Yet I now realize what a
unique period it was. There was some fun. There wasn't much
money, but things didn't cost so much. There weren't many things
to do so the things we did were all the more precious -- going
to the movies, talking, reading, listening to the radio (or
should I say looking at the radio). Of course there was a lot to
look at then, or listen to -- Amos & Andy, Fibber McGee & Molly,
Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, and Jack Armstrong. You could
escape through your imagination to another world -- what a world
it was. There
are memories that have special meaning that can't be shared
with anybody. Looking back through the years, looking back and
remembering the joys and pleasures that are gone. Looking back I
find the kind of memories that bring me pleasure still linger
on. I believe in the past. When the past is out of sight there
will soon come a day when we can all look forward to, a day when
we can all say "How pleasant it is looking back on today."
From the time I was five years old I have nearly total recall
of my boyhood in River Falls. This was about the time we moved
from Aunt May Belle's place on Spring Street to the Denzer house
on Cascade Avenue. Whether it was my age or the impression of
the crises our family was experiencing at the time I don't know,
but in any event it remains clear
in my minds eye. To appreciate the 30's you had to be exactly
the right age. You had to be too young to remember what it had
been like when times were good, and not old enough to have many
responsibilities. I fit that mold to a "T". Going back to an era
when hamburger cost a dime a pound, but dimes were scarcer than
dollars are now, would not be an improvement. We recognize this
intellectually. But emotionally most of us who were young in the
30's retain an illogical fondness for what history tells us was
a dark gray segment of history. Now as I reflect on these times
I realize what a unique childhood I
had. I heard stories and dissertations that were I half as
talented as Mark Twain I could more than double his output on
Americana as it relates to a small town in Wisconsin during the
Great Depression. I will try. Let me tell you of pigeons darting
in the sky as they fly back and forth between the Maple Street
bridge to the roof of Moss's Produce building on Main Street. Of
people waiting in line behind the city hall to get their ration
of Government surplus food. Of those days so hot the heat
quivered upward from the oiled streets, and nights so hot people
slept in their yards to get a breath of air. And there were
good times too. Let me tell you what people did for fun when
they didn't have money.

THE PASSING OF AN ERA
I suppose almost everyone can eventually say he has seen the
passing of an era and the beginning of another. This happens to
be true for me as well, but I think in my case the distinction
between eras is much more dramatic than most. The fact that I
grew up in a small rural community such as River Falls is
probably a big factor here. According to my age I shouldn't know
about cultivating with a team of horses, milking cows by hand,
shocking corn and grain, or Model T's, or steam threshers, or
horse drawn sleighs, or hitching posts in town that were still
in use, a man walking along Main street every morning sweeping
up horse manure, horse-drawn water wagons, and horse-drawn ice
wagons, dirt streets, and oiled streets, and the steam railroad
engine -- but I do. I saw and experienced all of this first hand
and I remember it as if it were yesterday.
 
It would be hard to find a decade with more grim and melancholy
events than the 30's. Still, many of us who lived through those
days look back on them with affection. Looking back, all things
assume pleasing forms, even the tragic and terrible are not so
bad as they take their place in the picture of memory. How often
we go through what seems at the time a disagreeable experience,
only to have it turn into a happy memory. Often our most vivid
and enduring remembrances are apparently simple, even trivial
things. As I have compiled this family history I have asked many
friends and relatives to reach back into their childhoods and
tell me what they recall with greatest clarity. Almost always
they mentioned experiences or incidents of no great importance.
Not crises or traumas or triumphs, but things which are
altogether small in themselves carry sharp sensations of warmth
and joy, or sometimes of pain. Nothing is trivial. We all have
those memories and we cannot get another set; one has only
those. If only we could relish each day as we lived it, rather
than finding pleasure in the sad afterglow of reverie. If only
we could learn to overlook the petty annoyances, the needless
fears that obstruct our enjoyment of the moment, and recognize
the true value of now before it is gone forever. Perhaps someday
these things will be a pleasure to recall. River Falls was out
of the mainstream and modernization did not arrive in this area
until about the end of WWII in 1945. This was the town I knew
when I was growing up. That town is now no more than a distant
memory, it no longer exists. When I go back there now(1988)-(and
also in 1999) I hardly recognize the place. The railroad is
gone, the Denzer house on Lake George has been torn down, Lake
George is choked with weeds, the stockyards disappeared years
ago, the college farm was moved and modernized and the UWRF
campus has blossomed into a huge complex.

THE DEPRESSION DECADE 1930-1940

My childhood coincided with the Great Depression, so most of
what I saw and did 
reflects what it was like to live in a small town during that
trying period of history.
 Generally, historians seem to designate the years from 1929 to
1937 or 38 as the period 
of the Great Depression.  However, it wasn't over for most of
us until the bombing of 
Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in December of 1941, when we
finally didn't owe a bill
at the grocery store. I can't pinpoint it, but it wasn't until
we moved from Aunt 
May Belle's place on the corner of Third and Spring to the
Denzer house on Cascade 
Avenue in the fall of 1932, that it became impressed on my
memory how our family 
became one of the victims of the Great Depression.

It is interesting to contrast my view of the Depression with my
wife Bette's. 
Bette says she has very little recollection of the Depression
years. She was raised on 
the family farm that had been in the Young family for at least
two generations, and 
they were mostly self-sufficient and economically secure.

DAD LOSES HIS JOB
After Dad moved the family to River Falls in 1922, he got a job
selling feed for the Washburn-Crosby Company of Minneapolis, MN.
He did very well at this, and 
everything was well with Mother and Dad for nearly ten years. 
It was sometime 
in 1932 when Dad loaded us all in the car and drove us to the
company offices in 
St. Paul. The family waited outside while Dad went in to
complete his business. 
When he came out he carried the well-known "pink slip" which
meant he had been let go.
The real implication of this firing was that Dad was one of the
last to be let go. By that 
time the country was filled with the unemployed, and
consequently, those people who 
were the first to lose their jobs were able to grab onto
whatever was available, so that 
when my father tried to find work there just wasn't anything to
be had. In the 1930's 
when a man lost his job he had to sink or swim on his own.
There was no unemployment compensation to tide him over while he
looked for work.  Older people like Uncle Eldon 
had to depend on what savings they had or move in with
relatives to sustain themselves.
In the summer of 1932 the Starbuck Construction Company of
Starbuck, MN got a contract 
to lay seven blocks of sewer mains from the center of Main
Street up to Walnut to Sixth 
Street and north on Sixth Street to Maple Street. I don't have
the particulars as to just 
exactly when Dad started to work for them, but I have a
snapshot of him dressed in bib
overalls wielding a sledge hammer while just behind him was the
big ditching machine 
operated by the Starbuck Company.  I don't know how long Dad
worked on this project, 
but I think our family was in pretty good shape financially
through 1933 because we had
a pretty good Christmas. The years 1934 through 1936 were the
worst
ones for us when we fared rather poorly.

W.P.A
The big government "make work" program called the W.P.A. came
to River Falls in 1934 
and was used to build the municipal swimming pool in Glen Park,
the water reservoir on 
the Mound, and put in sewer and water throughout the city. Dad
worked for the W.P.A. 
in River Falls putting in sewer and water from 1936 to 1939. He
got $40 per month at 
that time. His previous business experience came to his rescue
when, in 1939 he qualified 
to work for the W.P.A in the Pierce County Courthouse in
Ellsworth, in the office of the 
Register of Deeds. This courthouse job paid more money and it
was nice clean office work. 
Dad worked there until the program was terminated in 1941. We
qualified for Surplus Commodities in 1939, and were supplemented
with this food give-away until Dad left 
the W.P.A. in 1941. These food surplus commodities were doled
out once a month down 
at the city hall in River Falls. Some of this food consisted of
packages of dried fruit
such as apples, apricots, and prunes. Every once in a while
there was fresh fruit--mostly poor quality grapefruit. Certainly
just going down there to the city hall and standing in line for 
the "dole" was the most degrading thing a person could bear.

In 1941 Dad got a job painting houses with a man named Joe
Adams. This was another pretty good break for my Dad because Joe
Adams was an old time painter who really knew the business and
he taught my father all the tricks of the trade. When Joe Adams
died my Dad took over his business and he did very well as a
house painter until he went onto Social Security in 1955. In
1957 he was diagnosed with cancer, and died from the effects of
Hodgkin's disease on June 10,1958 in Vets Hospital in
Minneapolis, MN.

THE DENZER HOUSE ON GEORGE'S POND(1932-1937)
The Denzer house was located on West Cascade Avenue, the first
place West of the bridge that crossed the railroad. When the
railroad closed down, the tracks were covered up and the Denzer
house was demolished.

The house was a multi-family dwelling. It had three entrance
doors located at its mid-point facing Cascade Avenue. We moved
into the east wing. This consisted of a kitchen and a woodshed
on the north, then a dining room, living room, and a bedroom
downstairs. There were three bedrooms upstairs. We paid lower
rent for this wing of the house because there was no indoor
toilet. The outhouse was located about 100 feet north of the
house on the crest of the hill overlooking George's pond. Half
the people in River Falls had outhouses at the time. I
never like to use an outhouse because they stunk, they never
had good paper to wipe with, and there was always a nest of
hornets in them. Most outhouses were supplied with a Ward's
catalog. The softer yellow index pages were always used first.

While we lived in the Denzer house, we came into possession of
an old parlor organ that once belonged to my grandmother Serepta
Smith (see her obit on this site). This organ was in rather poor
condition but we were able to play it and have fun with it. My
Dad could play a number of
church hymns on it and we sometimes gathered around it for some
old-fashioned sing-alongs. Dad also played his violin a lot
during that time. I still have the old violin which is now
broken and unplayable. I don't know what became of the organ,
but I would guess we threw it into the city dump when we moved
from the Denzer house. The round oak dining room table we had is
now in the possession of my daughter, Georgia Jones. It has been
refinished to almost new
condition. Mother had a three-burner kerosene stove and a large
"Kalamazoo" wood-fired range in the kitchen. She also had an
icebox and a kitchen cabinet. We heated the house with a "Round
Oak" wood stove which was located in the dining area of the
house. The only heat
upstairs came from the heat that circulated up the stairway and
what little filtered around the stovepipe that passed through
the second floor. The center door at the front of the house led
to an upstairs apartment that was rented to some men college
students. I think at the time we moved into the house there was
a family named Kohl living in the west wing, but they moved out
shortly after we arrived and the Harry Laramy family moved in.
Directly west of the Denzer house I recall the following
residences: James Gray, Harvey Wygant, Nels Parson, the Tobey
sisters, Jim Peterson, and George Cox. A single lane dirt road
ran north past the Cox
residence towards George's pond, and eventually ended up at the
Earl Foster home near the dam at the city power plant. There
were three more houses west of the Cox's but I don't remember
who lived in them. Clyde Beebe lived directly south across
Cascade Avenue. Their lot took up nearly half of that block and
was filled with a woods of huge oak trees. Most of the people
who lived in the area south of Cascade towards Prescott would
either take a shortcut through the Beebe woods or the railroad
tracks when walking downtown. I remember names such as
Bevington, Kieth, Kohl, Linehan, McEwen, Hall, and the Greens as
families that lived south of the South Fork bridge. Nels Parsons
was a Spanish-American War vet. Every year he put on what was
left of his uniform and would march along with the other vets to
the cemetery on Decoration Day. Nels was a short heavy set man
who was always friendly to us kinds.
The two Tobey sisters were out of the olden days. I don't know
how old they were, but they always dressed in black like ladies
of the Civil War era. They lived in a small section of a very
large old frame house. They had a long old-fashioned board
sidewalk that ran in a double curve
from the street to the house. When the Tobey sisters died or
moved away, the house was torn down and a new house was built on
that spot by President Ames of the State Teachers College.

I LEARNED WHAT IT MEANT TO STEAL
I recall an incident that occurred while we lived in the Denzer
house. I don't know the exact year this happened, but at the
time of the incident I didn't know the real value of a dollar. I
would guess the year was about 1934 or 35. Here's what happened.
I was home alone one afternoon and I spotted a silver dollar on
the top of my folks dresser. I didn't know how much it
was, but I knew it was valuable because it was so much bigger
than a familiar nickel. Since there was no one around I decided
to take it and buy some candy. I went downtown to Mueller's
Corner Grocery Store.  Then I proceeded to pick out some candy
and handed old man Mueller the silver dollar. He said "wait a
minute, you have some change coming." 
Well, my eyes nearly bugged out of my head when he kept putting
change into my hand. There were quarters, nickels, dimes, and
pennies. I only thought about how rich I was. Then it started to
sink in that I had really gotten into more than I had bargained
for. What to do with the big bag of candy, and what to do with
all that change? I went down by the railroad tracks and hid it
all under a big rock. After I got home no one had missed the
dollar yet. Soon, however, a crisis swept over the family. My
folks never accused anyone, but they never let up in their
relentless search and discussion about it. This went on for
several days. I was aware things were bad, but I didn't realize
the scope of this. I never let on that I took it because by this
time I was scared to death, and I didn't know how to confess.
This episode came at such a time in my life that it left a
lasting impression on me. Instead of thinking that I had gotten
away with the perfect crime, I realized from that time on what
it meant to be honest. No one could have taught me a more
profound lesson than the one I learned by myself at that time.
I'm still bothered over the agony this caused our family.
THE SHACK ON GEORGE'S POND
Some first-hand accounts of the hard years of the Depression
were gathered from cousins Belmer and Wilbur Miller who were
just coming of age when the Depression hit (see the obits for
both Belmer and Wilbur on this site).

Belmer and a distant cousin Vernon Peck( see his obit) were a
pair of young bucks in the early days of the Depression. In 1930
Belmer was 17 and Vernon was 19, and they were both ready to
take on the world. Together they rode the rails out west two
times and shared all of the
trials and adventure of "Kings of the Road" during that
colorful though troublesome time.

They gave up on their attempts to make a living out west when
they were hired by a local River Falls man by the name of Frank
Baker. Baker owned a number of work horses and cornered the jobs
of city street watering, seeping, etc., along with a number of
other enterprises he
had going. One of his businesses was to supply coal to the
college and high school. He hired Belmer and Vernon to unload
coal from railroad cars onto his horse-drawn wagons, and haul it
to the college and high school. Belmer said he and Vernon had to
unload (by hand shoveling) a 60 ton load of coal from a railroad
car in less than 10 hours and haul it to the schools. The reason
for this added effort was that Baker didn't want to have to pay
demurrage costs when a car was tied up on a siding an extra day.
For this backbreaking labor, Belmer and Vernon were paid 75
cents per hour, which in those days was very good pay. They
usually unloaded one car per week so their total weekly wage was
about $7 a piece. When there was no coal to shovel Baker kept
them busy cutting wood about 4 miles north of town on hwy. 65.
Belmer said Baker treated them pretty good, and sold them the
left over milk from his cow for 5 cents per gallon.

The reason I mention the milk is that Belmer and Vernon
prepared and cooked their own meals in their homemade shanty on
George's Pond. Belmer told me he once invited his mother (Aunt
Gertie) and my mother to have dinner at the shack (see the obits
for Gertude Miller and Bessie
Foss). I remember the shanty very well because it was located
directly across from our house on George's Pond.

Belmer and Vernon built their shanty using the metal
advertising signs that were left over from the Hancock Oil
Company after it was bought out by Phillips 66. These signs were
collected and stored in River Falls, and they were free for the
taking. The shanty was set into the river
bank on railroad property, and was visible only from the far
side of the pond (which is where our house was). The shanty was
well-built and of generous dimensions for the two bachelors.
They heated it with what was known in those days as "lug-nite
coal." (I hope I don't have to explain
that term?). Belmer said they got permission to take what coal
droppings they could find on the railroad right of way.

On a summer's evening some of their friends would drop by with
a banjo, jews harp, guitar, and violin and they would entertain
themselves. Needless to say the local residents registered
complaints to Dan Linehan who was the police chief at the time.
When Dan and his deputies, Heem Hutchins and Rohl Walters
stopped by to see what was going on, they determined there was
no problem, and they joined in playing and singing along.

THE GREAT FLOOD OF 1934
Belmer and Vernon lived in that shanty for about two years
until they were flooded out by the big spring flood of 1934.
They were asleep in their shanty when the flood hit during the
night. Belmer awoke when his hand accidentally dropped over the
side of his bed into water. The
water had risen almost to their bodies, and they had to escape
by climbing out the window. After they surveyed the situation
they climbed onto the roof of the shanty and caught some of
their belongings which were floating out through the window. I
remember how excited my folks
were when we looked out our window early that morning and saw
the magnitude of the flood. As we looked out across the pond we
could see that the water was nearly up to the roof level of the
shanty, and they were fearful for the safety of Belmer and
Vernon because they thought
they might be trapped inside the shanty. They were relieved
when they found out that both of the boys were safe.

I remember walking from our house down to the power dam to
watch the water as it crashed through the valley below. It was
an awesome sight.  The foam from this action was piled up nearly
100 feet and there was a strong pungent smell in the air from
the mist.

It was a school day, so we all started out for school as usual.
But when we got to the Maple Street bridge, the city crew had
blocked it off and no one was allowed to cross the bridge. The
river had risen to the point where it was running across the
roadbed of the bridge, and large
chunks of ice were piling up on the upstream side. The same
condition (even worse) was taking place at the Falls Street
bridge, so we had a day of vacation from school.

After the flood Belmer and Vernon abandoned the shanty because
it was essentially ruined. Some time later that summer two town
derelicts moved into this foul smelling place and lived there
for another two years before the shack was finally condemned and
torn down. The
railroad siding behind where the shanty once stood is now what
is called the "White Walkway."

MENTORS
As I sit here writing about my boyhood I think I know much more
about River Falls and what happened in the 1930's than most
people my age. One important reason for this was the fact that I
had a brother (Bud) who was five years older than me and a
sister (LaVerne) who was seven years older, as well as numerous
cousins who were also older and who lived on
nearby farms. They all provided me with an expanded set of
memories during this period. I was at an age when I doted on
everything that was said and done by these older kids. As a
result, it is difficult for me to separate their experiences
from my own, so I'm sure I sometimes get
them mixed together into one story. This isn't all bad because
what they saw and what they felt I also saw and felt. It just
means they broadened my horizons during this period, and it gave
me a breadth and depth into this era which few others my age
were ever privileged to
know.

It was these older kids who picked up on the jingoes and radio
personalities of the day. There was the knock-knock craze:
"Who's there?" "Boo" "Boo who?" "Whatcha cryin' for?" Some went
around saying "Vas you dere Sharlie?" and "you Na-a-a-s-ty man"
and "Ya wanna buy a
duck?" They repeated off-color Mae West and Pat & Mike stories. 

My sister LaVerne and her friends were star-struck teenagers,
who read magazines about movie stars with all the latest gossip
about them. She was exposed to things that kids my age wouldn't
ordinarily see or remember. Of course she told all about her
experiences to my mother, and I soaked up those stories like a
dry sponge. For instance, she had a classmate named Marilyn
Stillman whose brother played in the Arnie Kuss dance band. 
When the band was first organized, they called themselves "The
Royal Badgers," then, after they got their big break playing
over the radio at the Midway Club in Mandan, N.D., they changed
their name to "Arnie Kuss and His Midway Club Orchestra."


News items from the Feb. 9, 1933 River Falls Journal:
--Arnie Kuss and his Royal Badgers were to furnish music for
the River Falls Armory Association dance.
September 7, 1933.
--Arnie Kuss orchestra returns from long trip to Bemiji, Minn.
Members are: Arnie Kuss saxophone and clarinet; Wayne Wilcox
saxophone and clarinet; Charles Stapleton trumpet; Roger
Stillman trumpet; Don Foss drums; Ford Johnson banjo and guitar;
Leonard Munson piano; and Bud Hawkins bass.
January 9, 1936
--Arnie Kuss Orchestra returned home Monday. Arnie Kuss and his
orchestra returned home Monday evening of this week after a four
month engagement at Mandan, N.D. where they played in the Midway
Club, and broadcast over stations KFYR, Bismarck, and KGCU,
Mandan, three times a week. The Orchestra is now booking
engagements in this vicinity, and all
members of the band express their appreciation of being home
once more, although they enjoyed their Mandan engagement and
gained much valuable experience.

The Arnie Kuss band practiced from time to time at the Stillman
home, and of course the young girls were always hanging around
watching them (today we call them 'groupies'). In spite of
vigorous protests to my parents LaVerne was forced to take me
with her, so I got to attend
several of those band rehearsals.

How proud I was to watch cousin Don Foss playing the drums for
the Kuss band. I think this is how I became so interested in
playing the drums. Aunt Maud (see obit. on this site for Maud L.
Foss) had a picture of Don playing his drums with the typical
backdrop of palm trees and moon scene behind him. I studied that
picture every time my folks and I visited them. It really made
an impression on me.

Laverne also went to the dances down at the Ellsworth Pavilion
with Marilyn Stillman and her folks to see the Arnie Kuss band
when it played there. The Pavilion was something to behold. I
went there years later after I got out of the Navy. The ballroom
was on the main floor, but
the action was in the basement where they served beer and hot
beef sandwiches. Those sandwiches consisted of a big scoop of
stringy over-cooked beef between two slices of bread. They were
the forerunner to the "sloppy Joe." The bar itself was nearly 40
feet in length, while
the remainder of the basement was filled with an odd assortment
of tables and chairs of all sizes and shapes. The back door to
the basement led to the back parking lot where a man's honor
could be tested. It was a common occurrence at every dance to
see some young buck strutting around with his shirttail hanging
out mopping a bloody nose. There were always a couple of hero
worshippers following close behind, either consoling or
congratulating him depending on how he made out in his latest
fight in the back parking lot.

THE FALLS THEATER
The Falls Theater is still in the same place now (1988) as it
was over 50 years ago. In the 30's they ran two movies each
night, a matinee on Saturday and one on Sunday. Before the main
feature came on they ran a number of selected short subjects
such as the Movietone News, a cartoon, a travel log, and an old
comedy. Comedies such as Our Gang, Buster Keaton, Edgar Kennedy,
Harold Lloyd, and the Keystone Cops were the usual fare.

The theater week started off every Sunday with a new big-draw
picture that usually ran for three days if it was a blockbuster.
The feature was changed each day after that until the following
Sunday. On weekdays the theater ran two showings every night.
The first show started at 7
p.m. and usually rant until about 9:30, then it was rerun.
Sometimes there wouldn't be more than a dozen people in the
theater for the second show, but it was run anyway. They had a 2
p.m. matinee on both Saturday and Sunday. The feature on
Saturday was invariably a western, or at the very least some
sort of fast moving action picture for the kids.

Laverne probably regretted the day she started taking me with
her when she went to the movies. No doubt it all started when an
"Our Gang" comedy film came to the theater, and LaVerne
suggested to the folks that she might take me with her. Children
under 10 were admitted free when accompanied by an adult. To
make a long story short, I became obsessed
with going to the movies. For a while LaVerne would just leave
me off at the theater, then come back and pick me up at 9:30
when the first show let out. It wasn't long before I was going
to the movies all by myself. Kids were supposed to be with an
adult, but I always watched to
see who was taking tickets. The hired help wouldn't let me in,
but the theater owner must have got a kick out of how I worked
them, and he nicknamed me "Jasper.' Several times LaVerne had to
come into the theater to wake me up and take me home when I
stayed over for the second show to see the comedy one more time.
It embarrassed her terribly to have to do this. She would find
me sitting in the front row center sound asleep.

A number of promotions were tried to get more attendance. The
best of these was called "Bank Night." This was held every
Saturday night for quite a long period of time. I don't know
exactly how they ran this, but if your ticket sub matched the
number that was drawn during the intermission you won cash
money. The biggest winner that comes to mind was the time Mrs.
Lars Bergstrahl won $300. I was there and felt the excitement as
she went to the stage to collect her prize.

From time to time the theater billed live "Vaudeville" acts.
One of these I attended was a black family act that sang,
danced, and played a variety of musical instruments They lived
out of an old bus which was parked in the alley behind the
theater. Another act I saw was a cowboy
artist who carried out a variety of stage tricks such as knife
throwing (at his wife), roping, use of a bullwhip, and shooting
a revolver. Other acts were booked, but I didn't get to see them
all. As I recall, some of those acts, or individual artists
became nationally famous in later years.

One summer a man with a 16mm movie camera roamed about the town
for nearly a week taking pictures of everything and everybody.
When he took your picture he would give you a little handbill
that said if you wanted to see yourself in the movies be sure to
attend the theater on a certain date( few weeks into the
future). It seemed to work, because as I recall, the theater was
packed on that day.

The dreaded day finally came when the people at the theater
started charging me to go in. In order to come up with the
precious 10 cents for a ticket I would scrounge around to find
two milk bottles. They commanded a 5 cent return. Better yet, a
picnic beer bottle had a return of 15 cents, but it was rare to
find one of those. Pop bottles had a 2 cent return. My favorite
movies were the Laurel & Hardy comedies. I also liked most
westerns. Every Saturday the theater usually ran a thriller
serial in conjunction with a cowboy movie. Those serials always
ended with a cliffhanger so that you had to come back the next
week to see how the hero survived. Some titles that come to mind
are, "Zorro," "Buck Rogers," and "Fu Manchu."

"CLIFF'S" POPCORN STAND
The theater sold its own popcorn, but hardly anyone bought it
at the theater. They usually bought their popcorn from "Popcorn
Sam" who had his colorful machine on the corner of Main and Elm
which was directly across the street from the theater. In the
late 1930's Uncle Clifford Smith bought the popcorn stand that
was owned by "Sam" the popcorn man. This machine was gas fired
and it was mounted on four large diameter spoke wheels (similar
to a bicycle
wheel). For many ears this machine was stored each day in a
small room located about 100 feet from the corner where it was
operated. Clifford then got permission from the city to
permanently park it on a small wooden platform on the corner of
Main and Elm. Later on he housed in a weather tight wooden
structure. George Aadalen then built his barbershop in the space
previously used to store the popcorn machine. The popcorn
business sustained Clifford and his family, and it was a fixture
on the corner of Main and Elm for many years. I operated this
machine for "Uncle Cliff" many times while I was a teenager. For
a short period of time a man named Jennings put up a similar
popcorn rig directly north across the street from "Cliff," but
they never provided good competition. I know when I ran the rig
for "Cliff" it was fun to see if I could sell more than my
competition across the street. We always kept an eye on each
other. A paper sack of popcorn (about 2 cups) loaded down with
melted creamery butter sold for a nickel. A small box sold for a
dime, and a large box sold for 15 cents. It seemed like everyone
asked for "extra butter." I don't know why Cliff sold out this
nice little business, but he did. Then he and his wife LaVerne
moved from River Falls to Hudson. I think the city of River
Falls stopped issuing permits for that popcorn business shortly
after Cliff sold out. In any event, all street sales of popcorn
disappeared from Main Street until a man called "Pops" went
into business with a mobile unit.

UNCLE ELDON AND A MAN'S DOMAIN
In addition to learning from the older kids, I was a constant
companion to "Uncle Eldon," who at that time was known as one of
the town characters. Everybody in our relationship, and nearly
every kid in town called him "Uncle Eldon." Eldon came to live
with my folks "temporarily" in July, 1928 when "Aunt Carrie"
died. Eldon lived with us as a member of our family until he
died in 1950 as the result of slipping on ice on the sidewalk in
front of the Consolidated Lumber Co. on South Main Street.
"Uncle Eldon" loved to take me with him when he made his
'rounds' about the town. These walks with Eldon are indelibly
impressed on my memory. The flagpole, the City hall, jail, and
fire department; the blacksmith and harness shops; the barber
shops; the pool halls; and the feed store. A man's domain. The
blacksmith shops and the harness shops were strictly for men as
were most of the other places we visited. Even the slatted steel
park benches at the flagpole were a man's domain. The women of
the town usually gave all these places a wide berth. I remember
Mother commenting on the men leaning against the front of the
Silver Dome Cafe. She indignantly said those men thought nothing
of spitting across the paths of people towards the gutter as
people passed by.

ZORN'S BLACKSMITH SHOP
I would sacrifice sitting around Henry Zorn's blacksmith shop
or Harv Wygant's harness shop just waiting for my nickel treat
from Uncle Eldon. Henry Zorn's blacksmith shop was one of two
blacksmith shops in River Falls during the 30's. The other one
was Lars Bergstrahl's shop. There was another shop located in
the rear of Lund's Hardware store, but it was mainly a farm
machine repair business--they didn't do horses, and we didn't go
there. Zorn's shop was located on south Main, while Bergstrahl's
shop was way on the north end of Main street. Although Eldon
visited both shops he preferred to hang around Zorn's the most.
Zorn's building was a single story rectangular frame building
that was covered with ugly molded tin sheets. The building was
set back from the main sidewalk along Main street so that it
presented no problem to women who chose to walk on that side of
the street. However, I know Mother
always avoided passing there and would walk on the other side
of the street. The front of the shop facing Main street had big
double doors that were open almost all year long. As you walked
past on the sidewalk you could look into the interior of the
shop and see what was going on.  It was easy to hear the clang
of the hammer on the anvil and see the horses waiting to be
shod.  Henry Zorn was a big strong man probably of Bohemian
heritage, and he had a pronounced foreign accent. On first
meeting him he appeared and acted like a stern, rough man, but
he treated me quite well, and I never did anything to test him
either.

Henry kept four or five wooden nail kegs near the front of the
shop for customers and kibitzers to sit on. There were always a
couple of old fogies sitting there. They passed the time
visiting among themselves while Henry went about his business as
if no one was around. When I went in there with Eldon I never
moved off one of those kegs.  The blacksmith's art totally
fascinated me. I sat in there enough times so that I am quite
sure I watched him carry out every facet of the trade of
blacksmithing. By the mid-30's there were fewer and fewer horses
to be shod, but he always had work to do. His biggest business
was sharpening plows and repairing farm machinery. There was a
time I'm sure I could have sharpened a plow if he would have let
me, and if I had the physical strength to do it. It was fun to
watch him heat up the forge before working on a plow. To me it
was mysterious and awesome. I always likened it to hell. The
coals could be silent blue, black or white. Yet when he turned
on the blower it became an inferno. He would plunge the tip of
the plow into the coals and then go off and do some
other chore for a minute or so, then he would come back and
keep looking at it until it was white hot. Then he would carry
it a short distance to a powerful mechanical hammer that would
bang fearfully on the metal creating a shower of fearsome fiery
sparks that reached clear to the
ceiling, and pound it to his liking. Then he would swing it to
the anvil and go at it with a heavy hand held hammer. His
rhythmic beat of the heavy hammer on the anvil filled the shop
with music. Then back into the fire, repeating the process until
he got what he wanted. There was an air of finality in the way
he took a newly formed plow, white hot from the forge. Using
long tongs, he dunked it quickly into water. Sizzling steam shot
up, a tribute to a task well done. By the set of his square
chin, I knew the piece was exactly how he wanted it. I grew to
like the smell of horse flesh and sweaty leather. However, I
never got used to the smell of the smoke that came off when
Henry fitted a hot shoe to a horse. It was hard for me to
understand why this didn't hurt the horse. Even so, I learned to
recognize the wild look when a horse got a notion to bolt, yet
Henry's manner was almost caressing to the horses who patiently
awaited his gentle hammering to place the shoes intact. Henry
would always let me pick up a few horseshoe nails off the floor
and showed me how to make rings out of them. I kept all my
friends supplied with this nail jewelry. I wish I had kept some
of them for old time's sake.
THE HARNESS SHOP
There were two harness makers in River Falls during the 30's.
Harv Wygant's place in the back of Lund's Hardware, and Jake
Schorta who had a small place in an appendage to the Emil
Carisch Pontiac Garage. Harv was a man of short stature with
somewhat of a pot belly. He
walked with an affected strut while his arms swung stiffly out
away from his body. Everybody could imitate him. He talked out
of the side of his mouth ala the "Lollipop Kids" from the Disney
Wizard of Oz. Harv was something else--his high personal ego
required a constant
audience. His shop was small, but he had places for the old
fogies to sit. Harv did most of the talking as he worked at his
bench stitching, riveting, and cutting leather. One of the
fascinating
operations he did was to oil the heavy leather harnesses used
for work horses. These harnesses were hoisted into a steel vat
of about four feet in diameter that was filled nearly full with
a dark-colored oil. After soaking for a prescribed period of
time they were again hoisted
high in the air over the vat while the excess oil drained off.
As harness work disappeared, Harv turned to selling and
repairing guns. He also went into canvas repair and other jobs
that required in-place heavy sewing.
Harv considered himself a deer slayer par excellent. His
imagination knew no bounds when he would tell of his adventures
in the north woods. It's a shame, but I don't remember enough
detail about any of these escapades to do them justice at this
time. One adventure does come to mind, about the time he told
how he ran down a wounded deer and killed it with his hunting
knife. That episode took him a full hour to tell.

GREENWOOD CEMETERY
One of Uncle Eldon's favorite walks was to take me out to
Greenwood cemetery on a nice summer day. In those days the
cemetery was at the edge of town. Eighth Street was no more than
a muddy single lane that skirted the west boundary of the Elliot
& Wasson farm where the
Greenwood Elementary School now stands. It still had a few
hitching rails for horses. There were also hitching rails
outside the cemetery fence where people who rode horses in the
Decoration Day parade would tether them. As we walked the
cemetery scanning the names on the headstones Eldon would point
out this one and that one and tell me stories about each
one. Eventually, we would visit the grave site of Aunt Carrie
and he would proudly tell me that someday he would be there too,
and that all of the funeral arrangements had been made and paid
for. The irony of this was, that when he died the funeral home
denied having been
paid. I always felt bad that Eldon had been cheated out of the
one thing he was proudest of. I personally made headstones for
both he and Carrie and put them on the graves. Bette and I
always place flowers there on Decoration Day. 'Rest in peace you
good man.'

DECORATION DAY
Everybody called it Decoration Day, but officially it was
called Memorial Day, and it was always held on May 30th. This
was the first holiday in the spring, and it was usually a good
time to be out and about. I always went to the Decoration Day
parade with Uncle Eldon.
The parade to the cemetery followed about the same format every
year. The parade formed on Second Street near the City Hall. The
local American Legion led off with the colors followed by
several carloads of dignitaries. I may have seen one of the last
Civil War vets, but I can't be sure. I was very young when the
last Civil War vet rode in the parade, and I never saw one that
I could remember. The high school band came next followed by the
WWI vets, and the
Spanish-American War vets (Nels Parsons and a Mr. Phillips, and
a couple others). Other units in the parade were the Boy Scouts
and Girl Scouts, the Women's Relief Corps, followed by several
units of the local National Guard. There were many children
riding bicycles decorated with colorful crepe paper and tinsel,
as well as a dozen or so people riding horses bringing up the
rear. The ceremonies at the cemetery consisted of the band
playing the National Anthem followed by an invocation by one of
the local clergy. A male quartet usually sang a hymn. Then
current members of the high school speech class would recite the
Gettysburg Address and the poem "In Flanders Field." Then there
would be an address by some invited speaker who would tell us
one more time what it meant to be an American.
Following the address there might be one more musical selection
by the band, and finally, the 7-man American Legion firing squad
with a 21-gun salute fired over a symbolic grave. As the final
echo of the last shot was fired taps were played as the flag was
raised to full staff--all
very dramatic. The Women's Relief Corps, about 6 or 7 women
dressed in white, carried out a simple ceremony by placing
flowers on the symbolic grave, with each lady reciting some
reflective words as they placed fresh bouquets of Lilac and
Bridle Wreath on the grave. While the Relief Corps carried out
its ceremony the high school band played the selection "Nearer
My God to Thee."  After the ceremonies at the cemetery were
completed, many people
strolled about the cemetery placing flowers on the graves of
their loved ones and visiting among themselves. In the meantime,
the American Legion contingent marched back to Main Street where
they raised the big flag from half-staff to full-staff once
again, while at the Cedar Street
bridge the Women's Relief Corps carried out a second ceremony
honoring those men who died at sea. They recited reflective
words as they tossed bouquets of flowers over the bridge rail
into the river below.

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY
The public library was located in a small wooden frame building
sandwiched between the City Fire Station and the former Carisch
Hotel. I would estimate the library dimensions to be on the
order of 12 X 30 feet. In the early 30's the librarian was
little old lady named Lucy Copley. In the latter years of the
30's Ardis Jackman started working there as an assistant and
eventually became head librarian. Both of them knew me quite
well.  I made very good use of that library. My sister LaVerne
was instrumental in helping me to develop an interest in books
and going to
the library. She always brought books home for me every time
she went to the library, then I would beg her to read them to
me. One of my first favorites that I begged for time after time
was a series of books called "The Little Folks." These books
were well illustrated, and it
fascinated me as to how these Lilliputian-type characters
carried on. Over the years I think I read just about every non-
fiction book in the place. I was interested in everything--
particularly books about wars and the accompanying history.
However, I was most interested in anything
to do with science. Later on I got into mystery books, and for
a time I think I read all of the Perry Mason stories available.
When I was an eighth-grader I recall a favorite book titled "Hob-
Nailed Boots." This was the story of a teenage boy living out in
the Great Plains. I read
it a dozen times or more.CHRISTMAS 1933
When I was a little boy growing up in River Falls in the
Depression years, the first exciting holiday harbingers were
Christmas cards. In those days postage to mail a card was 1 1/2
cents. The first cards started to arrive in the mail around
Thanksgiving, long before the
December shop-window decorations, and long before wreathes were
hung on doors.

I was mesmerized by those cards--sometimes funny, sometimes
tinselly, sometimes plain. I delighted in the prestige of having
my name mentioned in the incoming cards. While we lived in the
Denzer house I was a strong believer in Santa Claus and the
mystery of Christmas. You didn't think of the negative side of
things--you simply enjoyed. The Christmas of 1933 wasn't a bad
year for the Foss's, but from that time on I liken myself to the
comic strip character Charlie Brown, the eternal optimist, who
always hoped for the best, but was devastated time after time.
The year of 1933 turned out to be special because it had snowed
about three to four inches that day, and it was still snowing as
we finished our supper. Christmas eve was a magic time for me.
Mother would fix the traditional oyster stew supper, then while
she was supposedly clearing away the supper dishes Dad would
take us kids for a ride to see if we could spot Santa. Of course
both Bud and LaVerne were in on the game which was being played
out for my benefit only.  In those days milk was delivered about
town by a horse-drawn sleigh by the college farm dairy. As we
drove around town looking for Santa Claus, Dad, Bud, and LaVerne
spotted the fresh tracks of the dairy sleigh and they convinced
me that we were following Santa about town as he delivered the
presents. As luck would have it they timed everything perfectly
so that as we drove towards home we found the tracks as they
went right past our house. They convinced me that Santa must
have stopped at our place. We entered the house through the back
door which led to the kitchen where Mother was busily preparing
chickens for the Christmas day meal. She feigned ignorance and
said that she had been
out in the kitchen and didn't know if Santa had come or not.
When we turned the lights on in the living room there were all
the presents under the tree. They had achieved the perfect ruse.
I was totally convinced that this was indeed from Santa. I'll
never forget this thrill. There were presents for everybody that
year. It was well timed though, because the next several
Christmases were some of the most disappointing times in my
life. One of the presents I got was a beautiful illustrated book
of Mother Goose which I must have committed to memory that year.
LaVerne got a pair of ice skates, and Bud got a pair of skis. I
remember Bud proceeded to make a ski jump on the hill behind our
house.  We all watched as he sailed down the hill over the jump
and proceeded to land with the points of the skis straight down
in the snow. He landed on his head and ended up with a nose
bleed. That was the end of ski jumping that year.

MOTHER
As I try to remember Mother I see her as a soft and quiet
person who was deeply religious. It was rare that she raised her
voice for any reason. Yet she was ready for a laugh. She was an
uncomplicated person who was liked simple things, yet she was by
no means a shallow person.  Some of the things she liked were
reading, listening to the radio, and gardening. Mother and I
worked the crossword puzzle in the paper everyday. Our
dictionary was always handy. She loved growing flowers, sewing
beautiful things, and cooking and baking nice things. She was a
faithful member of the Lutheran Church, working at the Ladies
Aide, the Royal Neighbors, Women's Relief Corps, and a birthday
club. She took an interest in whatever us kids were involved in
and did her best to promote us. She did everything within her
power to make our home a nice place. She wasn't strikingly
beautiful, but she radiated a sincerity,
and humility that imparted a sense of beauty. Mother never
complained about her station in life, living in near poverty all
through the 30's, and always in poor health. In spite of severe
health and economic problems she taught us how to remain stoic,
laugh things off, and try to make the best of things. I'll never
forget her admonition to us kids when we felt discouraged. "We
don't have money, but we're not poor and we're not going to act
poor. Keep yourself clean and neat, keep you head up, and stand
up for yourself, and do the best you can."  Mother taught us how
to live with adversity. To strive and succeed in spite of it all-
-and we did! My sister LaVerne, making reference to certain high-
feeling citizens said, "These people in River Falls are nothing
but small potatoes and I'm not going to be one of them." I think
she had more self-determination and will than anyone else I have
ever known. She didn't have red hair for nothing. It was this
pronouncement that led me to title my family history "Small
Potatoes."

MOTHER'S WEEKLY SCHEDULE
Mother followed the prescribed schedule for household chores.
Monday was always wash day. As I recall, on Sunday night Dad
would help her get set up for Monday's washing. He placed a
copper boiler on the top of the kitchen range, filled it with
rain water from the rain barrel if it was summer, and melted
snow water if it was winter. He would also fill the water
reservoir which was a part of the Kalamazoo range. Then he would
cut up about two 5-cent bars of P&G laundry soap into the boiler
which would then be allowed to dissolve overnight. In addition
to the P&G soap, Mother used Hilex bleach and bluing in her
washes. She also used starch to stiffen shirt collars and
certain other articles of clothing.
During the heat of the summer Mother used her three-burner
kerosene stove whenever we had 15 cents to buy a gallon of
kerosene. In those days it was possible to buy kerosene at the
grocery store. I don't know why but almost everyone who bought
kerosene used a raw potato on the spout of the can to close it.
Where the screw caps went I'll never know.
During the period of 1934 and 1935 we were without electricity.
The city turned our electricity off when we couldn't pay the
bill. Most people in town had electric lights, but electricity
didn't come to the rural areas until the late 30's. Bette says
she remembers it wasn't until 1940 that the REA came through
their farm which was located 6 miles east of Ellsworth. Until
then they had gas mantles throughout the house. For our lighting
we used kerosene lamps. Mother had experience with kerosene
lamps as a youngster, so it wasn't as great an imposition as one
might think. Kerosene lamps required a great deal of care and
were a part of Mother's daily routine. She had the right touch.
She knew just how to cut and trim the wicks to achieve maximum
light output without blackening the glass chimneys. Even so, the
glass chimneys had to be cleaned from time to time. Mother used
a wadded up piece of newspaper to wipe off the soot. And of
course, the bowls of the lamps had to be filled with kerosene
when the fuel
ran out.
On Mondays Mother always got up very early because it was an
unwritten contest between the neighborhood women as to who would
be the first to hang out their wash. Mother had a series of
galvanized washtubs arranged on wooden wash benches in the
kitchen. She hand-scrubbed the clothes by means of a wooden
washboard that had a scrub surface of corrugated metal. The
scrubbed clothes went into a first rinse tub, then they were
rung out by means of a portable wooden clothes wringer that was
a hand-cranked affair. Then the clothes into a second rinse tub,
rung out again, and finally taken outdoors and hung on the
clotheslines to dry. Sometimes when Mother was washing sheets
and blankets the two of us would wring them dry by twisting them
in opposite directions, me on one end, Mother on the other. I
also operated the wringer from time to time.

Regardless of the weather, the clothes were lugged to the
clothes line in wooden baskets that once held apples or oranges.
In the winter the clothes froze stiff on the lines, and it was
funny to carry a set of long johns into the house and stand them
up against the clothes bar. Mother liked to freeze dry the
clothes because they had just the right moisture for ironing.
She also used a clothes bar and some lines inside the house to
hang the wet clothes when the weather was inclement. In the
winter this caused the windows to steam, and the house took on a
swamp-like atmosphere. Tuesday was ironing day. When we were
without electricity Mother used a set of old time irons that
once belonged to Aunt Carrie. She had about a half-dozen of
these irons which were placed strategically on top of the
kitchen range to heat up. As she ironed, the heavy cast-iron
irons would cool off, and she would set them back on the stove
and grab a hot one using a wooden detachable handle. She had to
be careful not to scorch the clothes as she ironed. She
accurately tested them either by rubbing them on a pad of
newspaper or by touching a wetted finger to them. No Chinese
laundry could do a wash and iron job any better than she did.

Wednesday was patching and sewing day. She was adept at all
manner of clothes repair whether it was hand-sewing, or using
her treadle Singer machine. This Singer held a place of
prominence in the house, and I was always fascinated to watch
her work so deftly using that machine. She called on me many
times to thread the needle when her eyes tired. My sister
LaVerne took this old Singer machine after Dad died and had it
made into a unique serving table. I know Mother baked twice a
week, but I don't remember the exact schedule she followed.
Maybe she played this by ear depending on how the larder was.
She may have done some baking on Tuesdays if the ironing didn't
do her in. I know Thursdays and Saturdays were also used for
baking. Mother was an expert at cooking and baking with that old
Kalamazoo
wood-burning range. She baked about six to eight loaves of
bread at a time, and usually made some kind of caramel rolls
with the extra dough. She almost always saved enough dough to
make a flat bread that she covered with cinnamon and sugar. I
loved this as a treat after coming home from school. Many a time
I was scolded for running through the house when she had a cake
in the oven. It took me a long time to learn that cakes would
fall if they were disturbed at the wrong time. Mother would test
a cake for doneness by pulling a straw from her
kitchen broom and punching it into the cake. If the straw was
clean when it was removed from the cake the cake was said to be
done. I always thought that everything she made was the best,
and I know she took real pride in what she did. One of the few
things she made that I
didn't care for were molasses cakes and cookies. Believe me, I
ate them under protest anyway, as was done with anything she
made. Nothing was permitted to go to waste.
Friday was cleaning day, and with only the use of a broom and
dust cloth. Mother never owned an electric vacuum cleaner. She
owned an old Bissel carpet sweeper later on, but the Congoleum
rugs throughout the house were scrubbed on hands and knees.
Saturdays were usually devoted to getting ready for Sunday.
There was last minute baking, polishing and shining, and getting
clothes ready for church on Sunday. If Dad and I got a rooster
or two from the Equity Elevator, Mother got them ready for
Sunday dinner. I don't know about the rest of the family, but I
always got a bath on Saturday night. I took my bath in the large
washtub out in the kitchen. In the winter we always had the
kitchen range stoked up so that the kitchen was nice and warm. I
didn't use a modern bathtub until we moved to the Westside in
1937.
Saturday night was shopping and visiting night on main street
in downtown River Falls. The farmers planned their chores on
Saturday so that they could be in town by 6 or 6:30. Those that
had kids let them go to the movies while they shopped. The
stores stayed open until 9 or
9:30. Most people would hurry to get their shopping done early
so they could visit with their friends. The taverns were a
meeting place for many families, especially those from the
Cherma and Big River settlements. You could find anyone you
wanted someplace on main street on
a Saturday night, and you would probably find them in the same
place visiting with the same group week after week. While Uncle
Clifford Smith operated the popcorn stand on the corner of Main
and Elm, you would usually find most of our relatives in that
vicinity. River Falls had center parking then. When my Dad's car
was working you would always find Mother and a few friends
sitting in it watching the passing parade. From time to time,
some church would put on an ice cream social in "Bum's Park" at
the flagpole. At other times the summer high school
band played concerts there( I played drums with the band at
that time). And at still other times you might see religious
preachers with their musical groups at that spot. If you wanted
a real religious experience you might visit the "Holy Roller"
church tent. They put on an annual summer revival for many years
located on the vacant lot between Stewart's department store and
Melgard's Monuments. It was fun to listen to their spirited
singing and preaching which was much different than you might
find at the Lutheran, Methodist, or Congregational churches. As
the evening wore on, they usually reached what appeared to me to
be a frenzy where they were all speaking in tongues, moaning,
waving hands, and crying. When we got back home after a Saturday
night on the town, the lamps were taken down from their daytime
perch on the kitchen shelf. They were lit using what we called
"farmer's matches." You could buy a big box of those wooden
matches for about 5 cents. We had one lamp on the kitchen table,
one on the dining room table (where I did my home work), and a
couple more that lit up the living room. We had a couple of hand
lanterns which were used for those long dark trips to the
outhouse. This was a common sight throughout River Falls at that
time. Many people had to live the same way we did. At bedtime,
Mother carried a lamp upstairs. After she tucked me in and we
said our prayers she took the lamp back down stairs. In the
morning we made our way downstairs by the light coming up the
stairway. We were all grateful when we could afford to have our
electricity turned on once again.

SUNDAY
Mother got us all up and going on Sunday morning. She prepared
as much of the Sunday dinner as she could before church so that
when we got back home at about 12:15 to 12:30 she could put
dinner on in short order. In the Lutheran church the kids who
weren't confirmed went to Sunday school before church.
Confirmation was usually at age 14. LaVerne was confirmed in
1934 and Bud was confirmed in 1936. I was confirmed on October
5, 1941. Uncle Eldon did not go to church regularly, but when he
did, he professed to be a Methodist. After we returned home from
church we all read the Sunday paper while Mother put the dinner
over. Bud delivered papers so we always had a newspaper. We
didn't have to buy them because he always managed to have an
"extra" paper after he was done with his route. I always teased
sister LaVerne to read the funnies to me until I learned to
read them for myself. The funnies I like the most were: The
Katzenjammer Kids, Mutt & Jeff, Tillie the Toiler, Maggie &
Jiggs, Gasoline Alley, Moon Mullins, and a single picture that
was called a Rube Goldberg. I was
fascinated with the Tarzan drawings, but I didn't like it
because the story was typed along the bottom of the picture in a
narrative form as an ongoing story, and not in the balloons as
the other cartoon were. Sunday dinner was a lesson in etiquette.
We were all dressed in our
Sunday best, we all sat down together while either Mother or
Dad said Grace. No one reached for anything until it was
properly passed from one to the other. We had a glass of water
in front of us, but we were not to dink it with our food (Uncle
Eldon was an exception). Mother supervised the entire dinner.
She was the only one to leave the table while we ate. We all
knew the proper use of silverware and the eating of food. It
seemed like I was never going to learn to get through an entire
meal without being scolded for smacking my lips, or chewing with
my mouth open. We always used linen napkins, and we always ate
with one hand in the napkin placed on our lap. I was left-handed
as was my Mother, but I learned how to eat at a table without
anyone noticing.  I can sit down anywhere in a crowd and very
few people notice I am
left-handed. LaVerne was as much the reason for this lesson in
etiquette as anyone. She was at an age where she was starting to
notice what it meant to be elegant, and she imposed it on all of
us. I hated her then, but I thank her for it now. The Sunday
leftovers were served at Monday's meals. Mother always planned
for leftovers at all times. Nothing was thrown out that could
possibly be used. We had an icebox to keep things in. During her
lifetime Mother never had the luxury of a modern refrigerator.
Dad was still using an icebox when he died in 1958. We threw it
into the dump along with almost everything else when we cleaned
out his home after he died.THE SAUERKRAUT FACTORY
Another activity that we participated in during the fall of the
year was to 'harass'the people at the sauerkraut factory. Us
kids would go down to the factory and 'steal' a head of cabbage,
then eat until we all had stomach aches. The kraut factory was
run by an association of local cabbage growers. They either
owned or rented a windowless wooden frame building that was
located next to the spur railroad track which serviced the
Municipal Power Plant( that spur track is now the "White
Walkway"). The farmers who supplied cabbage to the kraut factory
hauled their produce with horse-drawn wagons.( See Pierce
County Heritage Book, Vol. 5, pp 37, UWRF Archives). The
Heritage book has a picture of a wagon load of cabbage ready for
unloading at the kraut factory, and a story of the local pickle
factory as well. I personally can recall times when the line of
wagons loaded with cabbage waiting to be weighed in on the
factory scales stretched out for nearly a city block. After a
wagon had been weighed, the cabbages were dumped onto a wooden
incline so they eventually ended up inside the building. Inside
there were a number of women sitting at tables trimming off the
outside leaves of the
cabbages, and then coring them prior to their being chopped up.
All of the residue from this process was carried by means of a
conveyor belt to a disposal heap located on the outside of the
building. Us kids would hang around this disposal heap waiting
for a reject head of cabbage.  The women inside knew this, and
every once in a while a clean head of cabbage would come off the
conveyor and we would grab it like it was gold. They thought we
didn't know the game, but we weren't town kids for nothing.
Inside the building, the clean chopped up cabbage was
continually dumped into huge wooden-slatted silos. I'm guessing,
but I would
estimate those silos were about 10 to 12 feet in diameter and
about 10 to 12 feet tall. Men wearing white rubber knee-length
boots walked around inside the silos tossing salt as they
stomped the cabbage down.  When a silo was full it was capped
off with a large wooden cover, then they would start filling the
next silo. I don't remember what the capacity of the factory
was, but it must have been enormous, based on the number of
wagonloads of cabbage that were processed.

THE HEAT AND COLD OF 1936
I will never forget the heat AND COLD of the 1930's. The
strange thing to me is that everybody talks about the record
heat waves, but most seem to forget that the winters of the 30's
were very cold. But first, let's consider the heat. Again,
comparing the 1930's with any other period
before or since is like talking apples and oranges. In the 30's
(and that means the entire decade) the summers were unusually
hot and dry. As far as I can remember, the Kandy Kitchen was the
first business in River Falls to install air conditioning. Some
said it was bad for your health to go from the 100-degree
sidewalk to the 72-degrees of the cool Kandy Kitchen, and then
come back out-- most people were happy to try it anyway. Near
the end of the decade I can think of several businesses that
were air-conditioned: The Theater, the hotel, O'Brien's Cafe,
the Falls Dairy, and there were probably others. I particularly
remember the summers we lived in the Denzer house on Cascade
Avenue from 1933 to 1937. I slept in an upstairs bedroom. 
Strange as it may seem, on the hottest nights I would cool off by
covering myself with a heavy quilt. This must be what the Arabs
do?  Apparently a body temperature of 98 wasn't as bad as the
air temperature. Of course, the blanket came off when I got too
warm. This didn't always do the trick because several times Bud
and I slept outside
on the ground. The ground was dry and hard, and the grass was
dormant and straw-like. We would lay out there looking up at the
stars and wait for one to fall. There was little air pollution
and few outdoor lights, so the milky way was brilliant from one
horizon to the other. In spite of the drought, the mosquitoes
would drive us back into the house before morning.  The year
1936 has the all-time record for heat. Temperatures topped the
100-degree mark 13 straight days, and this was broken on the
14th day by a cool 87 degrees. Heat already had been plaguing
most of the nation by the Fourth of July. Then on July 6th the
temperature went to
102. On July 7 it was 103. On July 8th it was 105. On July 9th
it was 102. On July 10th it was 100, and on July 11th it was
106. A news report on July 12th said, "Break in heat forecast."
But it went to 105. It went to 107 on the 13th, and again on the
14th. Then it reached an all-time record of 109 on the 15th when
it finally started dropping to 102 on the 16th, 17th and 18th,
and to 101 on the 19th, and finally broke below 100 on July 20th
when it dropped to 87.
Around Wisconsin these were the reported records:
Wisconsin Dells . . . . . . . . . . 114
Eau Claire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Spooner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Mondovi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
River Falls . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Green Bay . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Now for the cold. January, 1936 was the second coldest since
1918. I don't have a tabulated record for the decade but I do
recall that we hit 35 to 40 degrees below zero almost every
winter at some point. As for snow, the actual snowfall may or
may not have set records, but the effects were much different
than now. In the 30's many of the roads were impassable much of
the winter, especially the secondary and town roads. I lived in
town and we could walk wherever we wanted to go. Many farmers
came to town in the winter with team and sleigh to have feed
ground, or, in many cases, just get supplies. My boyhood pal
Gene Laramy and I made it a game to hitch our sleds to a
farmer's sleigh for a ride. Cold winters may return, but they
will hardly be old-fashioned again. 

MORE FROM THE 1936 NOTEBOOK
Mother could send me down to Sheldrew & Beebe grocery store
with my little wagon and a grocery list, and I would bring home
two large paper sacks filled with groceries for one dollar. All
I had to do was hand Mr. Beebe my list and he would fill the
order and charge it to my
folks. This was the way all of the grocery stores operated.
They all had charge accounts. 
Butter sold for 38 cents/lb., one dozen eggs for 17 cents,
potatoes were 60 cents/bu., and live hens were 15 cents/lb. Five
big pork chops for 25 cents. Soup bones were free if you bought
some other meat. The most inexpensive meats were hamburger,
ground sausage, beefsteak, liver, spare ribs, and baloney. Bacon
was sold in several grades, and was relatively inexpensive.
Coffee was ground fresh from the bean. Milk was delivered to the
homes in returnable glass milk bottles. A quart milk bottle had
a 5-cent return. When we had wieners they were 18.6 percent fat
and 19.6 percent protein. Now, in 1988, they are 31.2 percent
fat and 11.8 percent protein. You surely wouldn't expect a 1936
wiener to taste and feel like a 1988 wiener--and they didn't.
Peanut butter was a problem. When you opened a new jar of peanut
butter there was about a half-inch of oil on top. The oil
separated out as it stood on the grocer's shelf. One had to
carefully try and recombine the oil with the solids without
making a mess. By the time a jar of peanut butter was nearly
empty it was like trying to spread dry window putty. No matter,
as inconvenient as it was, it was still much better than the
homogenized version we buy nowadays. It is almost impossible to
duplicate the old recipes that call for peanut butter because of
this difference. Today's peanut butter tastes like so
much fat with very little peanut butter taste. Ice cream was
much better tasting in those days too (it was really ice cream).
So were the chocolate candies. The only place you can buy
chocolate candy that compares to the dimestore candy of
yesteryear is in the expensive shops. Candy bars sold for 5
cents. A bar of comparable size today would cost about $1. A 5-
cent Halloway All-Day Caramel Sucker was so big and lasted so
long, it made your mouth sore by the time you finished it. I'll
never forget as a child of 7 or 8 going over to my Aunt Louisa's
house where she gave me my first taste of a chocolate covered
cherry. It was pure ambrosia.  I always waited for that treat
whenever I visited her home. Today that
same brand of candy tastes like so much wax. A frosted malted
at the Kandy Kitchen was the forerunner of today's Dairy Queen.
Frosted malts came in three sizes: 5, 10, and 15 cents. 
A 15 center was nearly a quart. They were made with real ice
cream, and there is nothing that compares today. A quart of ice
cream was 25 cents. My favorite 15-cent ice cream sundae was
called a "Sensation." It consisted of two scoops of ice cream
covered with chocolate syrup, all topped off with a big glob of
marshmallow sprinkled with vanilla malt powder and chopped nuts,
and finally a big cherry. So when an old-timer tells you that
things tasted better and were of better quality, don't laugh it
off--it was a fact.

GENE LARAMY--MY CONSTANT COMPANION
The Harry Laramy family came to River Falls from Spring Valley
in 1933. Harry and Ida Laramy were the parents of three
children; Behlmer (age 8), Gene (age 6), and Richard (age 3 or
4). The Laramys moved into the West wing of the Denzer house. We
shared that house from 1933
to 1937.  Gene Laramy and I started kindergarten at the
Westside school that is now named after another childhood friend
named DeWayne Meyer. Our boyhood in the 30's on and around
George's Pond was Tom-Sawyer-like. All through those years Gene
and I were inseparable.--and together we did just about
everything that Mark Twain ever wrote about Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn. We had our caves, homemade rafts, we smoked
cornsilk and indian tobacco, we even had our own version of
Indian Joe. The whole river, the town, and the railroad was our
playground. It was interesting to live near the railroad. We
hardly ever missed a chance to stand on the bridge on Cascade
Avenue as the train headed for Ellsworth. We would wave to Matt
Shade and the engineers as they rode by. Then we would end up
breathing that awful sulfurous smoke from the train. Matt Shade
was the brakeman on the local branch
of the Omaha railroad for 38 years. He was a kindly man with
pure white hair and a big white mustache--always dressed in his
black uniform with a black brakeman's cap. Gene and I climbed
all over the box cars, coal cars, and oil tank cars that were
parked on the sidings just north of our house. We watched
carefully all the procedures the railroad men made as they
switched and moved cars around, and we knew what all of the
levers and appendages
were for on those cars. This is where Gene touched his tongue
to a heavy steel coupling when it was 10 degrees below zero.
When he pulled away it peeled a layer of hide from the tongue so
that it bled profusely.  We also played around the Consolidated
Lumber yard and the nearby
Texaco filling station. A man by the name of Jim Rock ran the
station and lived just south of the station, while Mr. Pomeroy,
the bulk man for the station lived in the house just north of
the station.

ON GEORGE'S POND
Lake George or George's Pond is formed as the backwater to the
main power dam, which was best known as the Junction Power
Plant. George's Pond was named after a man named George Cox who
was an early settler. Mr. Cox owned the parcel of land which was
flooded when the Junction Mill dam was built. It is a body of
water of perhaps 10 to 15 acres. Its widest point was directly
north of our house so that when we looked out our north-facing
kitchen window we got a panoramic view of  the biggest portion
of the pond. We were unable to see all the way to the dam
because the hill on which the Earl Foster home was built
prevented that.  Living on the pond presented us kids with very
interesting pastimes. We were continually near the water summer
and winter. My Dad had a garden on the crest of the hill between
our house and the pond. It was terraced out of the hillside. On
a summer evening after working in the
garden he would dig a few worms and go down to the pond and
fish for the little stunted bluegills and bullheads what hung
out in the shallow water on our side of the pond. This pond was
polluted by raw sewage that was dumped into the river as it
passed through town, so Dad fished on for the cat and the dog.
He would make his way out to an old stump that was about 4 to 5
feet from shore by stepping on rocks and debris. "Queenie" the
spaniel who was still with us would wade out into the water and
stand beside Dad as he fished. "Tommy" our big calico tomcat
would remain on the bank and watch from there. When Dad caught a
fish he would throw it on the bank where Queenie would proceed
to eat the body, then she would return to the water again. While
Queenie was waiting for another fish, Tommy would eat the head
of the fish that Queenie left behind. This process was repeated
until neither the dog nor the cat could eat another fish--then
they all marched home together. As I said, the Earl Fosters
lived in a house on the pond very close to the dam itself. They
had two boys and a girl. Jim was a year older than me but we
were in the same grade in school (See a reprint of a feature
article on Jim from the River Falls Journal in BIOGRAPHY on this
site). Next was Joan who was a year younger, and then Bruce who
was a toddler. I spent a lot of time at the Fosters. Jim and I
were
close boyhood pals.

A CLOSE CALL
The Fosters were great outdoors people who loved to hunt and
fish as much as our family did, so we had a lot in common. They
owned a nice aluminum rowboat (probably a 12-footer) which Jim
and I rowed about on the pond. The Fosters would let me take the
boat out alone any time I wanted. I don't remember how it came
that I had the boat alone one day, in any event the Fosters were
not at home. Being only 9 years old at the time I wasn't
particularly aware of what was going on around me and I rowed
the boat way up the river to a point close behind to where the
Hotel Gladstone was located. About that time a storm started to
brew out of the east. Since I was in the sheltered part of the
river I wasn't too concerned, but I figured I had better head
for home. The wind became so strong it produced white caps on
the pond which I then recognized as a bad sign. As I approached
Foster's boat landing it became apparent to me that the wind was
going to blow me right past the landing and over the dam if I
didn't take some drastic action. Normally the water behind the
dam was kept a foot or so below the crest of the dam, but on
this day they were letting water flow over the dam and if I
didn't get to shore before I got to the dam I was sure to be
swept over and probably killed. I simply rowed as hard as I
could towards the south shore and as luck would have it I was
able to grab onto the rocks
as the boat past beneath the bridge. This was less than 25 to
50 feet from the dam itself. Once I got the boat stopped I was
able to pull myself and the boat along the shore until I reached
the boat landing.  I'll never forget my sense of relief when I
finally had the boat secure and I left for home. The area
surrounding the pond was still wild when we lived there. The
willows, the nettles, and the tall water weeds were still there.
On the north side of the pond about 50 feet south of the
railroad trestle there was a swampy point that was overgrown
with cattails and other typical swamp plants. Through the center
of this point there was a small channel formed by a spring that
emptied into the pond. This swampy point was the nesting place
for all sorts of water birds and animals. On and around the pond
we saw Red Winged Blackbirds, Blue Herons, Kingfishers, ducks,
muskrats, and mud turtles. The southeast bay of the pond was
very shallow with numerous deadheads protruding out. The pond
bottom in that bay was a deep layer of mud.  there were no water
weeds of any kind in the pond itself. It was very
clean in that respect. The main river channel followed the
north bank of the pond and the
water varied from about ten feet deep at the east end of the
pond to about 15 to 20 feet just behind the dam itself. The
remainder of the pond was only a few feet in depth. Although the
water was polluted from raw sewage, kids thought nothing of
swimming near the dam. There was a big elm tree on the north
bank where some boys had tied a rope which they used to swing
themselves out over the river and dive in.  The Fosters
attempted to plant bluegills, crappies, bass, and northern's in
the pond, but they never thrived there. The only fish that could
be caught on a regular basis in the pond were stunted bluegills,
bullheads, and carp. Every now and then someone might report
landing a fair-sized brown trout. Numerous trout could be caught
on a regular basis beneath all three dams in town.

GLEN PARK
When we lived in the Denzer house on George's Pond, we were
also near to Glen park. It was only little more than a block
west of us where the swinging bridge spanned the South Fork
River of the Kinnickinnic connecting us to Glen Park. The
swinging bridge (built in 1925 at a cost of $4800) had become
somewhat of a landmark for River Falls, and was rebuilt in 1987.
The new bridge is almost identical to the old one.
The swinging bridge brings back many memories. Every once in a
while some idiot loaded with too many beers would drive a Model
T or a Model A automobile across the bridge. The bridge was just
not sturdy enough for this sort of shenanigan. As a result, the
city placed metal posts at each end of the bridge to prevent
cars from entering. One time on a dare while I was about 9 years
of age, I walked the entire length of the bridge on the wooden
handrail. It's about 30 to 40 feet down to bedrock just beneath
the bridge, and almost certain death to anyone who might fall
from there. The South Fork river cascades over this bedrock and
finally over "The Falls" located about 50 feet west of the
bridge. The falls are about 5 to 7 feet in height and provided a
nice place to swim and frolic at that time. During one of these
swims beneath the falls I stepped on a piece of glass from a
broken pop bottle and had one heck of a time climbing up the
hill to go home for treatment. Another time while I was running
barefoot across the bridge I stubbed my toe on a sliver of wood.
The walkway of the bridge consisted of 2 X 12 wooden planks that
became weathered and worn, and as a result they formed long
slivers. the sliver that I got was about 6 inches in length and
was driven into my foot starting just behind my toes all the way
to my heel. This was a very painful trip to the doctor. The only
other time I remember hurting myself going barefoot was about
the following year when I stepped on a large open safety pin
which penetrated quite deep into my foot. I pulled that one out
myself
and my folks healed it by painting on iodine and having me soak
it in hot Epsom salt water.
Just below the falls is that part of the river known as "the
glen" which gave us the name of the park. In the early days
before the swinging bridge was built people could cross the glen
on an elaborate structure of wooden stairs. I have an old
postcard with a picture of the glen and the stairway. As of
1937, when you stood in the center of the swinging bridge and
looked nearly straight down on the east side you could still see
the vestiges of a wooden dam in the river below. I'm sorry, but
I don't know the history of that dam.
In 1933 there were still penned animals in the park. Most of
the smaller animals such as fox, badger, rabbits, goats, and
banty chickens were located about where the Municipal swimming
pool is now. Just west of that in the ravine leading to the
river bottom one could see a large
pen containing deer, and just outside the deer pen there were
three large well-made cages with bears in them. I will never
forget a park celebration (probably the 4th of July) when the
park was filled with people. Many of us were watching the
bears. People could stand on the hillside and look down to
observe the bears through the wire top of their cages. Each cage
had a climbing post made from a large tree for the bears to
climb and exercise on. While we were all watching, Danny
Demulling (about age 10) crawled out onto the top of the wire
cage to throw some food to a bear. He taunted the bear to climb
up the tree to get it, and when the bear came up the tree it
reached through the wire and clawed Danny so that he was hurt
and bleeding. That year the bears were removed from the park and
never replaced. As for the deer, they simply opened the pens and
allowed them to escape down the river. However, the deer had
become accustomed to being cared for and fed and continued to
hang around the park. The following 4th of July when fire
crackers were going off as usual, a couple of scared deer
followed their former caretaker Wilbur Rupert very closely all
day for protection. In time, they all returned to the wild.  The
bear cages remained for a number of years before they were removed
and the gully filled in. While those cages were still there us
kids played in them all the time. Each cage had a concrete den
built back into the hillside. They were about 6 X 6 and about 4
feet high. These made good places to try out cigarettes, corn
silk, etc., in secret.

THE LOWER DAM
The backwater to the lower dam formed immediately below the
Junction Power dam and the confluence of the South Fork. The
"Lower" pond was the smallest of the three ponds in town. Some
people refer to this pond as "Lake Louise," but I don't know the
origin of that name. Its dam is located just below Glen Park and
it had both a wooden wheelhouse and dam when I was a boy. This
dam and wheelhouse were nearly totally wiped out during the big
flood of 1934, but it was rebuilt and is still in use. The lower
stretch of the Kinnickinnic from the lower dam to where it
empties into the St. Croix River at Clifton Hollow was never
fished much when I was a boy. This was because the municipal
sewage plant was located just below Glen Park, and it emitted
foul water into Lake Louise, and everything downstream from
it. Another reason people didn't fish down there was the danger
of rattlesnakes.
Nowadays(1988) the lower "Kinni" is the best part of the river
and produces more and larger trout than the upper part of the
river. The reason for this is that a new disposal plant was
built that could meet DNR standards, and the water level in the
river was held constant so
that it didn't fluctuate anymore.

DOWN CREEK
On a Sunday afternoon in the fall of the year many people went
for a walk "down creek." "Down Creek" meant the entire area
starting from just below the lower dam to a place about one mile
down river known as "Rocky Branch." To get down onto the path
below the dam one had to carefully navigate a steep rocky path
located next to the wheelhouse. This little obstacle limited the
sightseers to those who felt surefooted enough to go down there.
Once down on the river bottoms it was easy walking the well-worn
path taken by the many nature lovers.  I went for walks down
there many times with my folks when I was about 8 or 9 years of
age. My Dad knew this area and its history pretty well. Few
adult persons see nature in detail with little knowledge of what
it is the do see. Dad was a student of nature and knew the
meaning of every murmur in the foliage, and could identify all
the wild life that was to be found down there. The first item of
note were the remains of three lime kilns located a few hundred
feet downstream from the dam. Then almost directly across the
river on top of the opposite
bluff was the old pioneer Foster cemetery (now under the
protection and care of the Episcopal church). In the summer of
1940 brother Bud was hired to clean up the cemetery, and I gave
him an assist. By the time we finished the old cemetery looked
pretty good once again.

ROCKY BRANCH
The path followed the bank of the river which ran in south
westerly direction. The river valley was cut quite deep in this
area forming what I would call a canyon. This canyon ran for a
distance of about a mile to "Rocky Branch" where a spring-fed
brook emptied into the main river. At this point the canyon
ended abruptly forming an almost sheer cliff of limestone rock
which lent itself to the name. When we were somewhat older and
went down there on our own, we would follow the brook to a place
known only to a few of us boys. We called this place
"the cable." At this place the brook had cut a deep groove in
the sandstone and dropped about 5 feet over a pretty falls into
a deep blue spring pond. This is where we found solitude,
learned to smoke cigarettes and swam in the cold water. Whoever
owned the land had strung a steel cable across the falls and it
was fitted with a pulley. We would hang on the pulley with our
hands and ride the cable out over the deepest part of the pool
where would let go and drop into the water from a height of
perhaps 5 to 10 feet.

"DIGE" WYGANT
The H.O. Wygants lived the second house west of us on Cascade
Avenue. They had one son nicknamed "Dige"(C.J. Wygant) who was
about age 16 or 17 at the time. Their back yard went to the bank
of George's Pond as did all of those living along the north side
of that part of Cascade Avenue. Dige and his gang built a very
elaborate shack on the bank of the pond directly behind the
Wygant house. The shack was made from old car doors which had
been filched from the nearby railroad. Car doors were the wooden
objects of about the dimension of a conventional house door.
They were used as partitions inside railroad freight cars and
were a very useful item for some people. This shack was of
generous dimensions, and had a secret room concealed in the back
made by digging into the hillside. Dige and his gang carried on
with all manner of delinquent acts and activities. They smoked,
they drank, they read the pornographic material of the day, and
they enticed teenage girls into their secret room. Gene Laramy
and I were always fascinated by all this activity and we tried
to pry into whatever was going on. We received an education at
that early age that most boys didn't learn until they were old
enough to visit the pool hall. Ah, those memories-- the secret
sense of sin you felt when you peeked into that shack at Dige's
collection of girlie calendars and other pictures. When we knew
it was safe we sneaked inside and went through every thing that
was laying around--not stuff you would find in any library.
One day we made Dige mad at us for one reason or another, and
after I spit at him in the face he caught Gene and me and
carried us into an old barn that was at the back of the property
between Wygants and us.  He took wire that he found in there and
tied us back to back to a wooden board, then shut the door
leaving us in the dark. I don't remember If he put gags in our
mouths or not, but after an hour or so we were discovered by my
Dad and released. I don't know the upshot of what happened when
my Dad confronted Dige and his father, but I know he was livid
when he left us. Gene Laramy told me 30 years later that this
experience affected him so emotionally that he was
claustrophobic from that time on. I was afraid of the dark until
I was about 12 or so, but I eventually got over it.
I know of one instance where Dige and his pals went too far
with their activities. First, note that the shack was located
about 300 feet west of the railroad tracks. One day Dige and his
friends decided they would try to intercept the telegraph
messages sent between River Falls and
Ellsworth. They used a fine copper wire that they got from a
model T Ford starter coil, and they cleverly attached this wire
to the telegraph line. The wire was concealed by tying it to the
telegraph wire right next to a pole and running the wire down a
natural crack in the wooden pole. I don't know if they buried
the wire or not, but in any event they strung the wire from the
pole to a telegraph key that was located inside their shack.
Then they proceeded to confound the railroad authorities with
this prank for a long period of time. It took the railroad
people a long time and much effort to solve this puzzle, but
eventually they did, and it was said that it cost Dige's father
$500 before it was over. That was a lot of money in those days.
Dige built a deluxe raft made from railroad car doors and eight
or ten gasoline tanks salvaged from old model T Ford cars. He
had the raft tied up to a short dock next to the shack, but I
never saw him use it himself. Gene Laramy and I used the raft
when we knew the gang was gone. He never caught us at it. Dige
also had a rope swing that hung from a huge soft maple tree that
was located next to the pond. The rope was tied at a point
midway between shore and a raised wooden platform placed some
distance from the shore. The platform looked like and "H." It
consisted of two poles located about 5 to 6 feet apart sunk in
the pond bottom, and connected by means of a 12-inch wide wooden
plank located about 6 to 7 feet above the water. Only the older
boys were able to swing from the roof of the shack out over the
water and land safely on the platform. Gene and I tried to
master this, but we never did. One time they teased my sister
LaVerne into trying it, and she ended up falling into the pond
below and had to wade ashore on the muddy bottom.
One time Dige made a giant kite which he flew out over George's
Pond. He had so much string out the kite itself was nearly
flying over the high school which was located several city
blocks north of the pond.  In spite of Dige being unkind to Gene
and me (probably with good
reason), he was sort of a hero to us. He was an excellent ice
skater, and was one of the outstanding skaters during an era of
good ice-skating in River Falls. Gene and I always admired his
outstanding prowess on the skating rink, and as a result both
Gene and I became excellent skaters in our own right, and I
think we were the best of our age group at the time.

FUN THINGS FOR BOYS
Gene Laramy, Jim Foster, and I kept ourselves busy with all the
common toys and pastimes that made the rounds in River Falls in
the 30's. One homemade toy we enjoyed a great deal were
handkerchief parachutes. The handkerchief of choice was the big
red bandanna that most working men carried in their hip pockets.
These handkerchiefs were about 15 inches square and made of nice
cotton. To make a parachute, we would attach a piece of cord
string of about 20-inches in length to each of the four corners
of the handkerchief, then gather the ends of the
four strings together where we tied them to a carefully
selected weight (usually a stone, but some times a steel nut if
it was the right size). If folded properly and thrown high into
the sky, they would open up and float gracefully back to earth.
All of us boys developed good throwing arms while playing with
this toy. Another thing that helped us to develop good throwing
arms was to stand on the shore of Lake George and skip flat
rocks across the pond. We did this by the hour. The object was
to see who could cause a stone to skip the most number of times
as it skimmed across the water. We made rafts out of railroad
ties to boat about on George's Pond.  Railroad ties were easy
for us to find along the nearby railroad tracks, so it was
natural that we would find something to do with them. A two-tie
raft would just barely hold up a 50lb. boy You could float on it
but you always got wet. I don't know why we thought we needed
bigger rafts because we always got wet anyway. I still don't
know why our folks weren't more concerned about us always being
in and around that pond. We did know how to swim, but you know
kids?
Another favorite toy was the homemade dart. These darts were
made using wooden farmer's matches, a sewing needle, and some
stiff paper.  To make a dart, one would cut off the scratching
tip of the match as squarely as possible with a single-edge
razor blade. Then by holding the pointed end of a sewing needle
against piece of hardwood, we would carefully force the eye-end
of the needle into the freshly cut end of the wooden match to a
depth of about 1/8-inch. Then we would fix paper fins to the
other end by using the razor blade to make a single slit into
the end of the match to a depth of about 1/4-inch. Two
rectangular pieces of stiff paper from a Wards catalog were then
pushed into the slit and trimmed even. These little darts flew
straight and far--and were capable of putting out an eye if it
hit one. Luckily, this never
happened to us.
Paper airplanes were an art. Most kids tried their hand at
making paper planes, but only a few of us knew the proper
folding techniques to make really good planes that would glide,
loop, or fly great distances. A wheel from a worn our baby buggy
and a 3-foot long stick with a
cross-bar nailed to one end provided hours of running down the
sidewalks guiding the wheels. We learned all manner of elegant
maneuvers with these sticks and wheels. On rainy days which
always seemed to come on Saturday we would make wooden swords
and sharpen one end. Or we might make "spool tractors." A wooden
spool from our mother's sewing basket formed the wheels and
axle. Serrated edges were cut on each end of the spool to form the
treads of the wheels. Then a heavy duty rubber binder was
threaded through the center of the spool. A short piece of a
farmer's match held one end of the rubber binder, while at the
other end of the spool axle a long farmer's match was used was a
wind-up lever. A piece of mother's paraffin wax cut in the shape
of a large button formed a friction bearing so that when the
rubber band was wound up tightly with the long wooden match the
wax prevented the rubber from unwinding too fast. These little
"spool tractors" would crawl slowly for long distances across
the floor and even over small obstacles placed in their path.
Rubber guns were big pastimes in all the neighborhoods about
River Falls. Entire neighborhoods got involved in rubber gun
fights. These fights usually started off peacefully enough, but
before it was over someone went running home crying and hurt. In
our day, the nearby Texaco Gasoline station provided all the old
inner tubes we needed to make rubber gun ammunition. When
tubeless tires took over, the demise of the rubber gun was
assured. Gene and I would also bring home old automobile tires.
We would run down the sidewalks and streets coasting these
tires. Our hands were always black from pushing these tires along.
Every summer we made a new and better slingshot. We became so
expert with these devices that we could hit just about anything
under a distance of 25 feet. 

When the college dairy stopped delivering milk with their horse-
drawn wagon Uncle Eldon got it from the college just for the
asking. We took the wheels off from it and I used it for a
private shack of my own--boy was I proud. One day I noticed it
was gone. I soon discovered my brother Bud and some older boys
had hoisted it way up into a huge soft-maple tree located down
near George's Pond. In spite of my protests, it never got it
back. Those boys used it as a hide-a-way for smoking cigarettes,
etc.

THE MOVE TO THE WEST SIDE -- 1937
I can't be sure of how the West side got to be known as
"Booklyn Heights," but during the Depression years some cliquish
people living on the East side of town coined the phrase
"Poverty Heights." This seems to be a sinful quirk innate to
most of mankind--to kick a man when he is down.
We moved from the Denzer house in the spring of 1937 because
Dad got too far behind in the rent. There was no place we could
afford to move into at that particular time, so we were forced
to move in with Aunt Gertie and Uncle Fay Miller on the West
side of town (see the obit for
Gertrude E. Miller). Their house was located at 115 North Pearl
Street. This move was only a temporary setback because we knew
that cousin Belmer and Lora Miller were about to move to
Prescott, and we planned move into their place when they moved
out. While we lived with Aunt Gertie there was an old recluse of
a woman who lived in a shack just across the street overlooking
Rudy Larson's junkyard. She lived in filth with a dozen or more
cats that were never allowed outside. She was very secretive and
aloof to all the neighbors; she had few teeth in her head, and
she had one eye that looked off in a different direction than
the other one. Us kids looked on her as an old witch (a real
one). When she made infrequent trips to shop for groceries she
always carried a broomstick as a walking stick, and she never
hesitated to use it to swing at anyone who came too close to her
even while she walked on the sidewalks.
When cousin Belmer and his wife Lora moved from their apartment
in the upstairs of 301 1/2 Pine Street we moved in. This
apartment was located directly across from the high school
athletic field. Looking out our living room windows facing
south, we had a nice panoramic view of the athletic field. From
here my folks entertained friends and relatives who called. They
delighted in sitting by the windows to watch sporting events
when school was in session, or to watch people skating on the
ice rink in the winter.

Willis Johnson and his family were living in the apartment
downstairs in this house we always referred to as "the brick
house." This house was originally built as an Episcopal church.
The cornerstone was still visible near the northeast corner near
the foundation. I don't know if the Episcopal church ever
recovered the artifacts from this cornerstone or not. For all I
know they may still be in there. I always liked to visit the
Johnson family downstairs because they were
all such talented people. I liked to watch Willis when he did
some oil painting, wood working, or other interesting craft. At
the time Willis was out of work and his family was nearly
starving until he finally got employment with the Lang Overall
Factory on Second Street. A couple of times before the Johnson's
moved they invited us down for some family sing-alongs and
popcorn. I think Mrs. Johnson played the piano. The Johnson's
had two children at the time, a boy named Dale and a girl named
Wannie. We were only neighbors for a short time, and they
moved to a house further east on Pine Street not far from the
railroad depot. Willis took on the job of scout leader for the
cub scouts and held meetings in his home. It was about this time
that I joined the cub scouts at his home. Willis was very active
in scouting activities for
many years.
After Willis Johnson and his family moved out of the downstairs
apartment in late 1937, the Harry Laramy family moved in. This
was a pleasant surprise, because here Gene and I were back
together once more living in the same house. Harry Laramy was
employed by the City of
River Falls driving a wagon team doing road work. Gene and I
were now part of the "westside gang."

THE WESTSIDE GANG
What a wonderful place to be as a kid. We had the entire block
of the high school and athletic field to use almost as our
private playground. The entire football field for running,
flying kites, sailing coffee can lids (the first Frisbee),
sailing balsa airplane gliders, and playing one o'cat. Other
games we played were: Annie Annie Over, Hop scotch, Kick the
Can, Cops and Robbers (acting out the most recent cowboy
movies). We became expert at climbing the school playthings
which developed our strength, overall athletic ability, and
competitiveness. Living next to the high school had a lot to do
with our growing up.
Our neighbors next door to the north on North Pearl Street were
the Ray Meyers. They had a boy named DeWayne and a girl named
Marcella. DeWayne was 8 and Marcella was 5 or 6 in 1937. The
Meyer's grandmother, Mrs. Schoonover lived there with them. The
Kenneth White family lived one block west of us on Pine Street.
The Whites had three boys; Jack, age 13, Charles, age 9, and
Roger, age 6. The Dryers lived directly south across the street
from the whites. The Dryers had several children, but I only
remember the two older boys; Dan, age 8,
and Bill, age 6. The Cody's lived directly south on the other
side of the athletic field. They had moved to River Falls from a
farm up by New Richmond after Mr. Cody left the family nearly
destitute. It was very difficult for a single mother to try and
raise a family of three boys and three girls ranging in age from
about 2 or 3 to about age 10 at that time.  The oldest was a
girl named Leona who was in my class in school. We became
lifelong friends and still exchange cards at Christmastime.
Other children in the neighborhood were: the Linehans; Eva
Jean, Helen, Tom, and Danny. The Moss's; John and Dorothy
(twins). Jerry Malmer. The Bye's; Curly and Galen. Sue Savage.
Rosemary Lofgren (she lived with her mother and stepfather
Paul Lindquist). The Bergstrahl's; Chuck and "Punky." Orin
Wenzel. The Reed's, Janet and a sister. Bill Oligney. Jack Kuss.
Bob Zarbock. Bob Demulling. Clarice Olson. The Hilbert twins,
Don & Ron. Lloyd Ostness. Ben Frank. The Jenkins', Doug ,Ed,
Bill, and Eloise. Jim Rupert, and the Weber Boys, Don and
Wesley.THE SKATING RINK
I was always the first one on the skating rink at the start of
the season and the last to get off in the Spring--yet I never
actually owned a pair of ice skates. I always had to use my
sister's. I first learned to skate down on George's Pond in 1935
or 36. My first skates were a pair of rusty clamp-ons that my
Dad dug out of an old trunk. They wouldn't stay clamped on your
shoes, and they were never sharp.

Sister LaVerne got a nice pair of quality shoe skates about the
time we moved from the Denzer house to the brick house on the
Westside. Her feet weren't much bigger than mine, so I would
sneak her skates whenever I knew she would be gone. When I first
tried them they were too big for me, but I would stuff cotton in
the toes and wear two pairs of heavy socks. She got very irate
when she would go skating with her friends and discover cotton
in the toes. Luckily for me she didn't go skating very often.

When I was 11 or 12 my folks found a pair of boys hockey skates
on sale at Lund's Hardware Store, and they bought them for me
for Christmas. As I opened them on Christmas I thought I had
died and went to heaven.  They were just what I wanted. They
were top quality skates with modern tube runners, and they had a
substantial hard toe. I could hardly wait
to try them out. When I did, true to my Charlie Brown image, I
discovered they were both for the left foot. Dad returned them,
but they couldn't find the right skate--so the deal was closed.
I never did get a pair of skates. I couldn't believe this
happened, because it was the most important thing in my life at
that time. So I continued to sneak LaVerne's skates, and I
became one of the best skaters in my age group in town in spite
of it all.

You could tell what part of town a kid came from just by his
skating ability. The closer they lived to the rink, the better
they could skate--and vice versa. I lived right across the
street from the rink, and there wasn't a kid in town within two
years of my age that could beat me. On Saturday mornings all the
kids in town would come to join in the games we played on the
ice. One popular game was called "Pom-Pom Pullaway," or "Crack
the whip." Here a good skater would start skating around the
rink backwards, and he would be joined by another skater
facing him and holding his hands as they continued to skate.
Others would then grab onto the those skaters in chain-like
fashion by grasping the skater ahead of them around the waist.
The backward skater would start to speed up with this chain of
children in tow, when they were
going about as fast as they could, the backwards skater would
make a sharp turn and pull on the chain as hard as he could-- as
a result, the velocity of each skater along the chain would
increase to the point that they could no longer hold on and the
last two or three on the end of
the chain would fly off into the snowbanks at a high rate of
speed. Another game we also mistakenly called "Pom-Pom Pullaway"
included anyone who wanted to join in. Here two players were
selected by lot to be "It!." These two would position themselves
at rink center while the rest would go behind an imaginary goal
at one end of the rink. On the command "Pom-Pom Pullaway" it was
mandatory for all those behind the goal to attempt to skate to
the opposite end of the rink to another imaginary goal without
being "tagged" by either. skater in the center of the rink. As
you were tagged you remained behind at rink center to help tag
others as they skated through each time the command was
given. The game ended when the last skater had been tagged. Then
a new game would start with the first two tagged from the
previous game being "It!." We played these games nearly every
Saturday morning all winter
long. No games were allowed on the rink at any other times.

Wilbur Rupert who was the custodian of Glen Park in the summer
was in charge of the skating rink in the winter. He was assisted
at the skating rink from time to time by his brother "Dode," a
local plumber. Wilbur was born in 1888 and his brother Dode was
five years younger. Dode and his family lived a few houses north
of us on North Pearl Street. Since I lived right across the road
from the rink I was over there watching them nearly every day. I
must have been a pest, but Wilbur seemed to like me, would
answer my incessant questions, and he told me all about the
skating rink business.

He told me he learned how to make a "proper" skating rink while
he lived in Canada. He started to build the rink in late
November after the ground was frozen solid and the winter season
was here to stay. If the ground was covered with snow he would
have the city snowplow clear it. The first thing he did was to
form a frozen base using a big fire hose with a tin nozzle that
he had designed himself. With this special nozzle he could apply
the water in coarse droplets at a high rate. As soon as a layer
was applied and frozen, succeeding layers would be added until
he had a rough base two to three inches thick. Then a couple of
two-man crews would start to build up a smooth top coat using
ordinary garden hoses with the nozzles set to give a fairly
coarse spray. Again, they never flooded on the water, but the
man with the nozzle would walk
along applying the spray in a sweeping motion while his backup
handled the hose behind so they could keep moving. Usually the
water froze within a minute or so after application so they
could continue working in this manner all night long (which they
did on several occasions). At
the end of this stage the ice was about four inches thick, and
for the most part had a smooth flat surface with very few
ripples in it.

The final mirror surface was achieved in the same manner as the
previous stage, but the nozzles on the garden hoses were set to
give a much finer spray. The walking technique was also changed
so that they never left a puddle of free water to form any
ripples. When the Ruperts declared the rink was ready for
skating, believe me it was ready, and not before. They kept the
rink in mint condition all winter long. Every night after the
rink closed they would scrape the surface clean. If it snowed
and it wasn't too deep, they would clear the snow using a two-
man shovel. But if it snowed several inches they would call in
the snowplow. The plow had chains on the tires and it would mar
the rink. This meant a full night or two of spraying to get the
mirror surface restored. Wilbur said you must never apply water
to a snow covered rink
because the ice wouldn't be any good. He would never allow
anyone to kick or chip holes in the ice, and when natural cracks
formed he would be out there on hands and knees with a pail of
snow slush troweling them in. That rink was flawless for the
most part all season. What a
pleasure it was to skate there.

Our living room in the upstairs apartment on Pine Street
overlooked the skating rink. Almost every Sunday Mother and her
friends would spend an entire afternoon sitting by the windows
watching the skaters and visiting. In the evenings when the rink
lights were on, and there was a
gentle snow falling, what a wonderful sight it was. At other
times of the year they would watch football and baseball games
being played.

For a few years the city sponsored a winter carnival at the
rink.  Professional skaters gave exhibitions in barrel jumping,
speed skating, and figure skating. There were races held for the
local kids. I'll never forget when at last I would be able to
show the world how I could skate (and win a 50-cent prize to
boot). There were two races for my age group. First, a head-to-
head race around the coarse, and second, a backward race around
the same coarse. When I lined up at the starting line and saw my
competition I knew the prize was as good as mine. But
true to my Charlie Brown image, that was the precise time my
skates chose to wear out. On "Go!" I darted out ahead of the
pack, and I was already sure by then I had the race won, when
all of a sudden the rivets holding the blade to the shoe tore
loose and I fell down in total humiliation as my pal Gene skated
past me. I tried to get up and skate but it was no use. Then as
I experimented I discovered I could still manage to skate in the
backward mode. With this glimmer of hope I entered the backwards
race and won it. So Gene and I were both happy at
each having won 50 cents that day. There was no possible way to
repair those skates and they were tossed into the junk. For a
while I borrowed my brother's skates, but shortly after that I
gave up skating altogether..

I went skating at that site in about 1956 when I was teaching
my little daughter to skate. The rink was rough, it was full of
holes and cracks, and it was almost impossible to skate It was
no wonder the kids didn't use it. To me this was a good example
of what happens when no one cares or takes pride in their
work.THE WICK FAMILY
The story of the Wick family is right out of "The Grapes of
Wrath." Bill Q. Wick told me how it was they came to be in River
Falls. Bill was my age, and was the oldest of five children. He
had two sisters and two brothers. The youngest child was only 2
years of age when they came
to River Falls.

Bill said his folks moved out to California to try an make a
living, but they discovered that it was just as bad out there as
anywhere else. They were almost destitute when they decided to
pack up and move to Glidden, Wisconsin where they still had some
relatives. After a hard
trip, they finally drove into Wisconsin at Hudson, and by that
time they were nearly at the end of their rope. They were out of
money, they were running out of gas, they hadn't eaten in a long
time, and the kids were a real problem. As they came to the
crossroad where the sign pointed to River Falls-9 miles, Mr.
Wick said, "That sounds like a nice place, if we're going to
starve, we might as well do it there."

They made it to the City Hall in River Falls where he met
police chief Dan Linehan. After Mr. Wick told Linehan of their
plight, Linehan directed them to the Lutheran parsonage after he
learned they were Lutherans. At the parsonage, Reverend Johnson
immediately got them some help. First, he found them an old
vacant house on the south end of town, and gathered enough food
to sustain them until Mr. Wick got a job selling Rawleigh
Products door-to-door. This was in the summer of 1938.

The Wick family were all very nice people, and very
intelligent. Bill was the top student in our class while he was
here. Mrs. Wick had been a former teacher of English, but I'm
not sure what Mr. Wick was trained to do, except I remember he
was a very nice man. Bill and I became close friends. We went to
grade school and Sunday school together. We both became boy
scouts, and together we worked at scouting very seriously. We
were confirmed together in the Lutheran church on October 5,
1941. Other members of the confirmation class were: Gene W.
Laramy, Ruth M. Nelson, Donna Mae Olson, Norris A. Crist, Leroy
Peterson, Lorraine McCue, Harriet E. Long, Betty Mae Franzen,
Ruth Seekamp, Richard Frey, Lawrence Christenson, and Ann Lee.

Sometime in 1942 or 1943 Mr. Wick died after a short illness.
By that time the Wicks had six children. Soon after Mr. Wick
died Mrs. Wick moved her family to Seattle, Washington where
they had some relatives. Bill graduated from the university at
Corvallis, Ore., and became a
forest ranger. He and his wife returned to River Falls for a
visit in about 1950. A party was held in his honor at the farm
home of John and Jo Ronningen. We were all surprised when we saw
Bill again. When Bill left River Falls as a boy he was taller
than any of us, but when he returned as a man, we found we were
all taller than him. What a difference a few years can make.

BOY SCOUTS
Most of us kids idolized the older boys who were the 'real'
scouts. They had uniforms, badges, and they did a lot of fun
things. Bill Wick and I were totally fascinated by all aspects
of scouting. I'll never forget going to a Scout Jamboree that
was held at the high school gym where several scout troops from
nearby towns participated. They carried out all manner of
contests and demonstrations. Bill and I knew right then that we
had to join the scouts. As I recall, the boys who were in
scouting practiced what they preached--they honored their oaths,
codes, and duties.

At 12 years of age Bill and I joined the Boy scouts of Troop
121 which was being sponsored by the local American Legion Post
121. There was another troop in River Falls at the same time,
but most of their members were from the Normal Training School.
The members of the respective troops held a certain disdain for
one another. We didn't associate with those boys any more than
we had to. 

At the time I joined scouting a high school teacher named Clark
Ingli was the scoutmaster. Shortly after I joined up we got an
assistant scoutmaster named Eugene "Ping" Gossen. Since the
local National Guard preempted Mr. Ingli's time it wasn't long
before "Ping" was promoted to the job of scoutmaster. "Ping"
took the job seriously and did an excellent job. He was also our
main teacher at the Junior High (7th& 8th grades). When it came
time to sign up to go for a week's outing at the Anderson Scout
Camp near Houghton, WI., my folks somehow came up with the $5 or
$10 fee. As I recall the Anderson Camp was located on the banks
of the St. Croix River a few miles north of Houghton. At the
camp we were housed in wooden barracks with bunks stacked three
high. There were about 20 boys in each barracks. The camp
furnished straw-filled mattresses, but we had to bring our own
blankets. It was a fun week and
I enjoyed every minute of it. We swam in the St. Croix, we
built observation towers using hand-hewn saplings tied together
with ropes, and the older boys spanned the river with a rope
bridge.

One requirement to advance to a Second-Class Scout was to take
a 14-mile hike(7 miles out, and 7 miles back) cook dinner, and
return home on the same day. A hike to the old Kinnickinnic
Monument out on Hwy 65 filled the bill. So on a nice Saturday in
October, Bill Wick, Thor Johnson, and I set out. We followed the
highway on the way out, fixed our dinner, and climbed to the top
of the monument. The monument consisted of a natural sandstone
edifice capped off with limestone slabs. In 1940 the top of the
monument was about even with the tree tops of a large grove of
Red Oak trees, and it was still visible when viewed from the
highway. At the present time(1988) the monument can only be seen
from the highway in the Fall of the year after the leaves have
fallen. The limestone caps are now gone, and as a result the
sandstone erodes very rapidly. After tiring of exploring the
monument we headed for home. However, on the way home we decided
to cut across country instead of following the highway or any
roads. Let me tell you, seven miles across country, and crossing
the Kinnickinnic River
proved to be a bit much. When we arrived home very late that
afternoon we were three tired kids.

After "Ping" left for military service Oliver Lumphrey became
scoutmaster. Oliver was a good person and was very sincere, but
he didn't seem to measure up to "Ping." I advanced to the rank
of 'Life Scout' before "Ping" left, but I dropped out before
reaching the rank of 'Eagle Scout.' I still feel bad at not
having done this. "Ping" was killed in a B-25 bomber somewhere
in the South Pacific during WWII.

LIVING ON NORTH PEARL STREET
In 1940 we moved from the upstairs apartment in the 'brick
house' at 301 W. Pine Street, next door into a two-story frame
house at 309 North Pearl Street. The house had just been vacated
by the Ray Meyers family. They had a boy three years younger
than me named De Wayne, and a girl named Marcella, who was 8. De
Wayne became principal at the River Falls Schools, and Marcella
married a classmate of mine named Ed "Bud" Brannigan. The old
high school was renamed the "Meyer's Middle School" after De
Wayne retired from teaching. This house was the best place our
folks had lived in for nearly ten years. First of all, we were
living alone in an entire house, and second, it had all modern
plumbing and electrical fixtures. Mother still cooked on her
Kalamazoo range and kerosene stove, we still had the icebox, and
we still heated the house with wood in our Round Oak heater
stove, but we couldn't have been happier. The property had a
large barn which served as a garage and storage area. The
Laramy's still lived in the downstairs apartment in the 'brick
house,' when we moved out, and I
can't remember who moved into our vacated upstairs apartment. 

Our neighbors next to us (north) were the Harold Masons. Mr.
Mason was the superintendent at the high school at the time. The
Masons had two boys and a girl. The girl was of college age and
I can just barely remember her. Then came Harold Jr. who was a
year or so older than my brother "Bud," and then Bob who was a
year or so older than me. We knew the Masons quite well because
Bud was a good friend of both Junior and Bob. It was a real
shock the day Mr. Mason committed suicide by shooting himself.
This tragedy was felt all over town, and his funeral was held in
the high school auditorium. Mrs. Mason and her family sold the
house to Al Matzek that same year and moved away.

Al Matzek owned the oil station near the Prairie Mill at the
end of Division Street. After the war in 1946, Al acquired the
Kaiser-Frazer auto dealership. In about 1948 he sold the
dealership to Delbert Johnson and the oil station to Jerry
Filkins. Al and his wife raised a girl named Doris Tobias (about
age 7 or 8 in 1941). Doris had an older sister and three older
brothers who were living in Ellsworth at the time. We were very
close friends of the Matzek's.

The house on the corner of Pearl & Cedar north of the Matzek's
was the "Dode" Rupert house. They had one son named James who
was a few years younger than me. While working on this genealogy
I took a class in Norwegian which was taught by Jim Rupert at
UWRF. An older couple named McCue lived on the corner west of
the Rupert's. The rest of the block was vacant which us
neighborhood kids used as a softball diamond.

The Al Bye family lived about two blocks North on Pearl Street.
They had five children that walked past our house everyday on
the way to school. Somehow the oldest boy nicknamed "Curly"
became friends of Al Matzek, and Al hired him to work for him
part-time down at the station. "Curly" became Al's right-hand
man, and I think he worked for Al until Al passed away. "Curly,"
who was a year or two older than me passed away shortly after
Al. Curly's brother Galen was my age and we became very close
childhood friends.

Aunt Louisa Eaton owned a couple of vacant lots two blocks
north of us on Pearl Street. She let my Dad put in a garden
there. It was a very convenient walk up the alley from our house
to tend the garden. There were two elderly bachelors from
Bohemia living in a small house next to
Dad's garden. Only one of them could speak a little English. My
Dad became friends with them, and they allowed my Dad to use
water from an outdoor faucet to water his garden. These two
bachelors were avid gardeners themselves, specializing in fruit
trees which they had planted about their yard. They were very
expert in the art of grafting, and several of their apple trees
contained 3 or 4 varieties on a single tree. They taught my Dad
how this was done. After these two bachelors moved away the
Goodrich family moved in. They had a daughter named
Bernice who was about 3 years older than me, and a son Donald
who was my age. Don and I went all through high school together,
and we were very good friends.

One of the Jewish families who were part of the Lang Overall
Factory owners, lived north across the street from the McCue's.
They had at least two daughters, one of which whose name I can't
remember was in my class in school. When the Jewish family moved
out, the Einar Bouvin family moved in. The remainder of that
block was vacant.

Later in 1940 or 41, the Laramy's moved out of the downstairs
at 301 W. Pine, and The Rudy Johnson family moved in. The
Johnson's had three children. The oldest was a girl a few years
older than me; the oldest boy ( a year younger than me) was
nicknamed "Spike," and the youngest boy was nicknamed "Buster."
Rudy worked for the city hauling gravel with a team of horses
the same as Harry Laramy. The Laramy's purchased a house one
block north of the Junction Power Plant.  Mr. Laramy kept a team
of horses that he used when working for the city, and he also
kept a cow that Gene had to tend. I still chummed around with
Gene, and went with him many times while he moved the cow they
had staked out on the vacant lot across the street from them.

One didn't need an alarm clock to get you up bright and early
when you lived in River Falls. If you slept with your window
open you would hear roosters crowing, cows mooing ready to be
milked, and sheep bleating all about town as the sun came up. It
was hard to tell where the country ended and the city began.
Besides having the college farm located fully within the city,
there were small farms which merged with the city on the
outskirts.

At age 14 while living on Pearl Street my life supplied me with
a great number of memories that are indelibly impressed on my
mind. I went to Boy Scout camp on the St. Croix River; went to
Balsam Lake with the school safety patrol; went to a big three-
ring circus at Ellsworth with Bud, Bob Mason, and a couple
others; I caught a red-tailed hawk and brought it home, fought
Tom Linehan to a standstill in a fist fight out in our back
yard; was accepted into the newly formed River Falls Drum &
Bugle Corps; nearly blew my eyes out with a homemade
firecracker; nearly lost my eyesight by pouring melted lead on
a cold wet sidewalk; collected a ton of paper to sell; picked
strawberries for money; went fishing for carp down behind the
creamery; delivered newspapers; and it was at this time that I
decided I was going to be a
scientist someday.

THE RAT TRAP
It was summertime, and we had some extra people (relatives)
staying with us for one reason or another (Mother called them
'starboarders').  In any event, I had to sleep on the daybed
downstairs. As usual, it got too hot some nights to sleep very
well, so we kept the door open and I would slide the daybed over
so as I laid there I could look out through the screen door into
the back yard. For whatever reason, it being too hot, or just
being uncomfortable, or being exposed to the rising sun, I would
wake up nearly every morning at about daybreak. As I looked out
on the yard early one morning, I saw a rat run from the shed of
the "brick house" next door through Mother's flower garden over
to our barn. Soon, I saw another one go, then another. When Dad
got up that morning I told him what I had seen, and we went out
into the yard to look it over. We discovered that rats had worn
a trail between the two buildings. Both of our families stored
corncobs to burn in the stoves. Dad said it was the corncobs
that drew that rats here. I suggested we try and shoot them or
catch them somehow, but Dad said that would be too slow, and
that he would get rid of the corncobs and the rats at the same
time. Nevertheless, I couldn't leave well enough alone. There
just had to be some way to catch those rats. About that time
Mother and I had been over to Grandpa Smith's house when they
were about to throw an old bird cage into the junk because it
had no bottom.  Although Mother was against bringing home more
junk, I talked Mother into letting me have the bird cage. Well,
after I had examined the cage, I noticed the wire door to the
cage had to be lifted to open it,
and that it would fall down closed of its own weight when let
go. It occurred to me that I might be able to use this cage to
trap those rats. So I cut a small sliver of wood to prop open
the cage door. I tied a long piece of string to the wooden stick
so that from quite a distance I could pull on the string, which
in turn would cause the door to drop shut, thus trapping a rat
inside the cage. The next morning I was ready. I woke up early
and started my watch for the rats to make their early morning
trips from the house to the barn. It wasn't long before I saw a
rat coming down the path to where I had placed the cage. My plan
was perfect. When the rat reached the cage he couldn't resist
going into the cage to examine a nice pile of corn and
other goodies that were placed inside. As soon as he was inside
the cage I yanked on the string causing the door to slam shut.
Now I ran into something I hadn't foreseen. I had the rat in the
cage all right, but there it was jumping violently around on the
grass trying to get out. 
Remember, there was no bottom in the cage. My solution to this
dilemma was to try and kill him on the spot while he was still
in the cage--but how to do it? If Dad had been up he would have
used his 22 rifle to shoot it, but I was on my own. So I went
into the house and found the biggest butcher knife Mother owned
and proceeded to try and stab the rat to death through the bars
of the cage. In the excitement of trying to stab a jumping rat I
knocked over the cage and the rat scampered away. When I told
the story to Dad he had a big laugh, and I gave up the quest to
trap rat for something better to do.

THE PET PIGEON
It was spring time and it was a nice time to be playing around
the river. Jim Cody and I were underneath the Maple Street
bridge throwing rocks at the pigeons that flew back and forth
between the bridge and the top of Moss' Egg Produce barn on Main
Street. While we were quietly laying in ambush we heard little
baby pigeons in a nest. The nest was located up on one of the
concrete piers of the bridge. The nests were too high for us to
reach, and there was water between us and the piers. Somehow we
found a log nearby, leaned it over the water against the piers,
and managed to climb up and take the pigeons from the nest. The
baby pigeons were not quite ready to fly and I was able to catch
a pair of them and take them home.
Dad helped me build a cage for them out of a wooden orange
crate and some chicken wire. It turned out to be a very nice all-
weather cage and coop. We hung it on the south side of the barn
about four feet off the ground. Dad gave me a nickel and said to
go down to the Equity Co-op and buy some cracked wheat and
cracked corn. Dad then taught me how to feed them and take care
of them until they learned to drink and feed themselves. They
became real pets, and were so tame we could let them out of the
cage and they would fly to us anywhere in the yard. They loved
to fight us. When I would taunt them with my fingers they would
peck at them and growl just like a dog. I can't remember the
exact details, or how it was the pigeons were down on the ground
when they were attacked by a rat. By the time I saw this attack,
the rat had already killed one of the pigeons and was trying to
kill the other one when I intervened. The surviving pigeon was
badly bitten and one wing was bloody and broken. Dad thought I
should kill it in an act of mercy but I talked him out of it. We
kept the pigeon in a box in our kitchen. Dad tied a bandage on
the broken wing to hold it straight. By the end of the summer
the wing had healed enough so we put the pigeon back in its cage
on the side of the barn. It kept trying to fly with that
crippled wing, but it looked hopeless. Slowly but surely it
started to improve and it was able to fly about the yard pretty
good.

Very early one morning we saw our pigeon in the alley behind
the barn in the company of some of the wild pigeons from the
flock that roosted on the Moss barn on Main Street. Dad told me
our pigeon would eventually turn wild again and fly away with
them. Sure enough, one day he flew away, but every once in a
while he would return to the cage where I would play with him.
One day he flew away never to return, but I did spot him from
time to time with the Main Street pigeons. It was easy to
identify our pigeon with the crippled wing.FISHING FOR CARP 
Dad suggested that since I was getting up with the sun every
morning it might be better if I went fishing--that's the best
time to go anyway.  He helped me get my cane pole and some worms
ready for the next morning, and suggested I might go down and
try for a big trout. Early next morning I set out for the
Kinnickinnic River. The walk to the river was a straight shot
from our house down Pine Street all the way to the train depot,
across the tracks past the River Falls Launders & Cleaners to
the river.
It was nice and peaceful down there and I was just sitting on
the bank watching my line, when all of a sudden, I heard a rush
of water about 20 to 30 feet upstream from me. I went to
investigate and found that a pipe located just at the waterline
was spurting out large amounts of milky water containing all
manner of white curds and other refuse. On further investigation
I discovered this milky water was coming from the creamery as
the men were hosing out the processing vessels, and getting
ready for the next day's business. Within minutes after the
creamery effluent entered the river the milky water near the
pipe literally boiled from the action of hundreds of fish trying
to feed on this effluent. I quickly threw my bait into the midst
of these fish and immediately caught a good sized carp. Within a
short time I had landed several more carp. This action lasted
for about a half-hour until the milky effluent dissipated and
the fish stopped feeding. I left the carp to rot on the bank and
headed for home.

After I told Dad how much fun it had been, he suggested some
new tactics. He changed my outfit to a stronger line, a bigger
hook, and had Mother boil some potatoes so they were about 3/4
cooked. We cut up the boiled potatoes into pieces the size of a
sugar cube. Armed with these new baits, hooks, and line, I was
ready for the big kill.

Every morning when the weather was nice I went down behind the
creamery and fished for carp just for the sport of it. My
pleasure was increased when one morning I was joined by Oliver
Hanson. He was a young man in his thirties who told me he worked
at Lang's Overall Factory. He and I became good pals fishing for
these carp, and we had contests to see who could catch the most,
and the biggest. I never took a carp home, but Hanson did. Dad
thought Hanson probably smoked them--that was O.K. The carp in
that stretch of the river were not as polluted as they were down
in George's Pond. My largest catch was 64 carp one morning, and
the biggest one I ever caught weighed 10 1/2 lbs. Hanson once
caught one that weighed 14 lbs.

THE RED-TAILED HAWK
Spike Johnson and I were rummaging around Rudy Johnson's
junkyard one day for one thing and another. When it came time to
go home we didn't walk up the street like normal people would
do, but we took a shortcut up the hill through the brush behind
where Oscar Thoen lived. As we neared the crest of the hill we
spotted huge Red-Tailed Hawk sitting on the ground in the
thicket just watching us go by. We wondered why he didn't fly
away. So we taunted it and soon discovered he couldn't fly. I
found the handle off an old kitchen broom and we got the hawk to
sit on it. We then carried the hawk perched between us on that
broom stick. We
carried him a distance of several blocks to our home. When Dad
came home and learned what we had done he said we were lucky the
hawk hadn't grabbed us with his talons. Dad was right, because
the hawk's talons tore deeply into that broomstick. After Dad
examined the hawk he
discovered the hawk had a severely broken wing and couldn't
fly. He said he would have to kill it. It not only was the right
thing to do for the hawk, but it was too dangerous to keep
around. Dad shot it with his 22 rifle and we buried it.

HOMEMADE FIRECRACKERS
The Fourth of July was over and it was a let down with no more
firecrackers going off. About this time I found the shotgun
shell reloading kit that once belong to Grandpa Smith. Dad kept
this in an old trunk in the barn. On examination of the kit I
found a supply of gunpowder, brass shell cases, wads, caps, etc.
On thinking about it, I thought there might be a way to use this
stuff to make a giant firecracker. I found an old burned out
cardboard tube left over from a
rocket that we had fired off on the Fourth. This tube was about
four inches long and it had a good sized hole going through its
center. It was glued to a wooden stand and the fuse hole was
still visible at the base. I proceeded to fill the tube with
gunpowder, then packed the powder tight using the wadding from
the kit. Everything looked fine. I knew there was enough
gunpowder in there to make a bang that could be heard all over
the West side if I could make it explode. I needed a fuse.

A fuse was made by rolling gunpowder in toilet paper much like
rolling a very thin cigarette. The fuse was about 6-inches long
which I thought was a great plenty to get a safe distance before
it exploded. I placed the firecracker in the alley behind the
barn, stuck the fuse into the
fuse hole and tried to light it. I had some difficulty getting
the fuse lit out in the wind, but I kept striking matches until
at last the fuse lit. Instead of burning at a nice smooth pace
as fuses should do, this one zipped in one flash and set off the
firecracker before I knew what happened. It blew up right in my
face and I was blind! Really blind!!! I thought at that moment I
was permanently blinded because everything I tried did not clear
up my eyes. I groped my way towards the house crying for help,
but Mother wasn't home. By the time I made it to the house, my
crying started to clear my eyes and I could see again, although
still very hazy. I got into the house and started flushing my
face and eyes with water. Pretty soon I was seeing pretty good
again. My face hurt and stung, so I thought I would look in the
mirror to see what
damage there was. I was almost afraid to look in the mirror for
fear of what I might see because I could feel the burn sensation
all over my face. When I looked it wasn't as bad as I first
anticipated. My face was covered with red dots. I looked like
had a bad case of the measles.  After Mother came home I told
her what had happened, and after she examined me and found I
wasn't seriously hurt, she rubbed my face with a burn salve.
Luckily my eyes were O.K. The reason I wasn't killed or blinded
was the firecracker hadn't exploded with brisance, but only
burned rapidly into a big POOF! The red dots on my face were the
result of powder burns from individual particles of gunpowder.

HOT LEAD
Us kids were forever scrounging scrap barrels and waste heaps
in the alleys behind Main Street. We were looking for anything
that might be of value, or that might amuse us. I obtained a few
pounds of scrap type metal from the River Falls Journal. It
consisted of small pieces of
broken and useless type. I don't remember what plans I had for
it, but I decided to melt it all down in a coffee can. On the
morning I decided to melt the lead, it had rained, and
everything was still wet. After the lead was melted I thought I
would pour it out on the side walk to form a
single large sheet of the metal. When the lead was poured onto
the cold wet sidewalk it literally exploded when it hit that wet
surface. A large glob of lead blew straight up into my face and
burned it so badly it stuck right to my face. When I peeled it
off a layer of skin came with it, and left an area of cooked
bloody flesh just an inch below my left eye. I was fortunate it
did not go into my eye or it surely would have blinded me. I was
left with a scar on that spot for many years before it
eventually disappeared.

THE MOVE TO MAIN STREET
I think we moved from our house on Pearl Street to an apartment
upstairs over the Red Owl Store on Main Street soon after
LaVerne and Glenn were married in June, 1941. This building was
located on the corner of Main and Elm--the southeast corner
across from the flag pole. The J.C. Penney store was directly
across the street from us. It was while we were living there
that I started working for Ray Henneman in the Penney Store
after school and on Saturdays.
That summer I gave up my paper route to go de-tasseling corn
for the Jacques Seed Company at Prescott, WI. This was my first
opportunity for making some real money. When it came time to for
signing up with the company I just barely qualified. They had so
many applicants that they were reluctant to take on the younger
kids. Somehow I got hired.

Every morning at around 4:30 a.m. about 30 of us would report
to Ginger Filkin's oil station on south Main. Here we would
crawl into the back of a large truck owned by Jacques. We would
then ride the 12 to 14 miles to the corn fields near Prescott.
We carried our own lunch. The Jacques foreman would assign each
of us a double row to pick and it usually took us about two
hours to complete one of those long rows of corn. After we
completed a row we would get a 10-minute break, and then off
again to pick a fresh row. At noon we had 30 minutes off for
lunch, and then in the afternoon we would make two or three more
trips through the fields
before they took us back to River Falls again. I remember names
like Danny Demulling, Don Baird, and Harley Milliken in the
crew. There were crews made up of girls, but they worked in
other fields, and they kept the boys and girls separated. Once
in a while at noon we would see them, and some of the older boys
spent a lot of time chasing these girls.

I made the mistake of wearing a black felt hat the first day or
two, and as a result, I was overcome by the heat and had to quit
working one hot afternoon. Dad advanced me the money to buy a
new straw hat. The first day I showed up with this new hat the
older boys spotted it and took it from me. During the game of
"keep away," Don Baird ruined the hat. Now that didn't mean much
to him because he could afford to go and buy another one, but I
couldn't, and I didn't know what I was going to do. I tried to
get him to compensate me for the hat, but he never did, and I
hated the guy from then on. Don contracted leukemia a year or so
later and died at the age of 21 or 22.

We were paid 35 cents per hour that summer. I saved everything
I made and used the money to have my teeth fixed. The Jacques
foreman thought I was such a good worker he selected me to stay
on as part of the cleanup crew. This was a real honor as only
the good workers were selected for this. Cleanup was easier,
cooler, and we got paid more. It was sort of a
bonus for doing good work. Later on when the corn was picked I
was also selected for a cleanup crew. This job was even better.

I had never been to a dentist other than to have a tooth pulled
up to that time. But now I was already old enough to be self-
conscious about my looks. I went to Dr. Kalk. He had a terrible
reputation for being rough, but he was also supposed to be the
best dentist in town. He did
a complete overhaul on me for $75, and he never used a
painkiller. I went through hell, but he did a good job and my
teeth looked good up until I went into the Navy in 1945. 

WORKING AT THE J.C. PENNEY STORE
Soon after school started in the Fall of 1942 Mr. Dawson called
me into his office and asked me if I wanted a job after school.
He had been contacted by Ray Henneman who managed the local J.C.
Penney Store.  Apparently, Dawson thought I was a stable,
reliable boy he could
recommend to Henneman. In any event, I had to get a Social
Security card, the original, which I still carry to this very
day. Next year, 1989, I will start drawing on this.

My duties at the J.C. Penney Store were to come down every day
after school and clean up the store, refill shelves, and unpack
freight. On Saturdays I would also do some waiting on customers.
Ray took a liking to me and taught me how to draw the price
cards used throughout the store. Everything was hand drawn in
those days. Ray got me the special J.C. Penney drawing course
and as set of Speedball drawing pens, then he taught he how to
draw. I had an artistic knack so it came easy for me and my
signs were as anyone could make. Ray was pleased with my work

All the other employees in the store were older women who took
delight in hassling me. The oldest and senior clerk was Mrs.
Esther Doffing. She was an older sister to Arnie and Carl Kuss.
She had separated from her husband, and had a 10-year old
daughter named Carol. Then there was Peg Kealy, and Marge
Falteisek. Peg was about to marry Walter Huppert, and Marge was
about to marry "Lars" Larson, the painter. The office work was
carried out by Mary Gregor who soon married Jerome Halada. Mary
died from cancer this past year(1988).

All sales were recorded in a sales book with a carbon copy. At
the end of every day Mary would collect the sales slips and
empty the cash drawers. Then she would balance the books. The
clerks were competitive to see who had the most sales each day.
We were all paid in cash every Saturday night. One Saturday
night at closing time I heard the worst ruckus while I was
sweeping up the store. It turns out that I had made more sales
that day than anyone else, and they all made a big fuss over it.

THE LAST MOVE FOR MOTHER AND DAD--1943.
After Bud went into the service, we moved to the Thelander
house at 128 W. Cascade Avenue.
I finished high school, and joined the Navy. Mother Passed away
in 1945 while I was still in the Navy, and Dad continued living
at that address for another 12 years until he passed away.
THE END