The latest controversy we are hearing about across the USA is the pandemic crisis; should we get the shot or shouldn’t we? The newest ailment …
When I was 10 years old, I was having some trouble socializing and getting along with my brothers and sisters. Mom and Dad had their hands ful…
The Northern Pineries and the resulting lumber businesses played a big part in the founding of pioneer farms in Wisconsin.
Look closely at the 1915 photograph: Father, Mathias Scheckel, and his wife Catherine, surrounded by their 16 children. All became farmers or …
Nothing is wrapped in family tradition as much as the culture of Christmas.
The weather was up to something. It always is.
With today’s dress in schools it is unbelievable that the blue jean situation caused unrest in Kiel High School, Kiel, Wis., in the 1950s. Up …
During this Christmas season I am pausing from my traditional Focus On Nature stories to tell you an interesting story about “The Christmas Tr…
When my father was a boy, he got a wooden pencil and an orange for Christmas one year.
The year was 1952, and the Christmas program at Jefferson Prairie Grade School was fast approaching. Mrs. Pearl Duxstad patiently introduced u…
The crumbling remains of a two-story stone building along the Mississippi River are all that’s left of what was once a bustling brewery and hotel.
My paternal grandfather, Lemuel H. Waller, was born in a pioneer cabin in Trempealeau County, Wisconsin, in 1870. He was the first child born …
November is here, and it is time for, deer hunting, Veteran’s Day, and Thanksgiving. Yes, it’s time to talk turkey
It was opening day for pheasant hunting in October of 1964. Husband Ivan and five hunting buddies had left the previous day for Bijou Hills, S…
My great grandfather died in a tragic sock accident.
It would have been a perfect night for baseball if the other team had showed. A fierce storm in Minneapolis during the week had kept the visit…
It was February 1953. My husband Ivan had just completed two years in the U.S. Army and had spent the past year in Korea. He arrived at Camp C…
From Kings 4:26, “And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.” Solomon may have had thousa…
Sharp is a presumed male perspective. Axes, knives, razors, the occasional lawn mower. In my once childhood axes mattered more as chainsaws we…
The job is gone now, along with churning butter and lighting kerosene lamps. But I remember when hauling bundles on a thresh run was a way of …
When my grandfather, H.R. Johnson, went searching for a wife at the turn of the century, he looked for a woman who could cook, sew, put up pre…
The time and dependence of rural Wisconsin on the railroad has long been history. Growing up in the ‘30s and ‘40s in an unincorporated village…
My grandfather tended honey bees, to the consequence he used a reoccurring expression, “well ain’t he an old bee,” as when an older person was…
I was so tired I had to do the dishes in bed.
The Scheckel boys grew up on the 238-acre farm near Seneca in the middle of Crawford County in the 1940s and 1950s. We went after bounties tha…
Now, this is the story of Shorty McGrall
Editor’s note: This letter was submitted by Sharon Fortunak. The letter was written to Sharon from her teacher while she was hospitalized for …
Among car guys is a more personal query, what was the ugliest car ever? The Ford Edsel, 1958-60, places well as does Citroen and Studebaker. U…