February 1908

The advancement association is working on two propositions, which may be located here with but little expense to the city, a milk condensary and a table factory.  The National Condensed Milk Co. will locate here if sufficient amount of milk can be secured to make it profitable. As they require 15,000 lbs. of milk per day at the outset and that amount has already been secured, it is very probable that the company will commence the building of their plant within a few weeks.  The prices per 100 lbs. of milk that the company will pay for the first nine months are as follows: July 95c, August $1.05, September $1.20, October $1.40, November $1.50, December $1.55, January $1.50, February $1.50 and March $1.30.

It has been said that a milk condensary would drive the creameries and cheese factories out of business.  This is not true, although eventually the condensary might have the bulk of the business.  But there are certain sanitary regulations that milk producers must observe in order to have their product accepted by the condensary, such as no water, no contamination and so on.  The sanitary regulations are strict and many farmers would not comply with them. Then, too, in selling milk to the condensary, the farmer receives no returns such as skim-milk or whey, by-products which many demand in order to raise calves or hogs. There are many points favorable to the factories.  A condensary does not mean the eliminations of the creameries and cheese factories.  The condensary only takes milk within a radius of seven miles.

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Louis Moh, of Granton, returned Monday from Madison where he spent two weeks attending the farmers’ course.  He brought home with him a handsome Percheron stallion, which he purchased from Fred Pabst of Milwaukee. This is the stallion, which carried off the championship at the state fair last year. The horse is three years old and weighs 1900 pounds.

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Abbotsford’s new creamery began operations on Wednesday.  Presently, the amount of butter made is not large, but the company has assurance that it will soon have a large list of patrons.  People wishing to patronize the creamery are requested to either bring in the cream or notify the secretary, Louis Olson.  As soon as possible, the cream collection routes will be established.

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W. L. Hemphill returned to Neillsville on Saturday, from Salmo, B. C., where he went to investigate a gold mining proposition.  He is very enthusiastic over the proposition.  He says it is one of the best mines and offers the largest dividends of any he has ever seen.  Hemphill picked up samples of the ore at various points on the property and had them assayed at Spokane.  Of the six samples the highest ran $233.64 to the ton and the lowest, picked off the dump ran $1.70.  The average of the six samples was $49.80.  When it is considered what it costs to mill the ore and extract the gold, the profit of the transaction can readily be seen.

A gold mine, owned by one gentleman, has taken out a couple of hundred thousand dollars worth of gold, so far.  The property is adjacent to the Ore Hill mine, owned by railroad men and the project is to combine the two mines into one company.  A 20-stamp mill is in operation, so that stock in the company will pay dividends at the out set.  Shares in the company sell now at 50 cents each and will advance in price as soon as the consolidation is effected.  Hemphill brought his samples back with him and will be pleased to explain the proposition to any one who is desirous of making an investment in a project which looks good for a 15 per cent dividend from the beginning.

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Sleighing was very poor in the Pleasant Ridge area last Sunday, as Herbie Counsell found out.  His team and sleigh hit a large stone, breaking the cross bar on his new cutter that resulted in tipping his lady friends into the snow.

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A summer’s supply of ice was put into the North Grant creamery ice house last week. Gottlieb Pischer purchased the ice.

Also, in the Town of Grant, some one, doubtless thinking he was playing a great joke, entered Wm. Schoengarth’s barn the night of January 20. He untied five cows in the barn and created a general disturbance.  Schoengarth has a strong idea as to who that young man may be.  It would be well for that person to think twice before playing such tricks in the future.

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Herman Garbisch had the misfortune, recently, of falling and hurting his wrist very badly. Blood poisoning has set in and he is now in the Schwarz hospital at Granton where he is receiving treatment.

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As writer of the Levis Center news, I have heard some people say that there is good money in boarding school teachers at $2.00 per week.  I had the pleasure of eating supper with one of these school moms on Sunday evening.  Ever since, I have wondered how she tucked away so much grub under a ten-inch belt and why she got board so cheap.

The Day creamery paid 34.46 cents for butter during the month of January.  Who says that it doesn’t pay to milk cows?

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If you want superior laundry work done, let us send it to the Winona Steam Laundry for you.  Baskets of laundry are sent every Wednesday and are returned on Saturday morning.  Leave your laundry orders at the barbershop or Call Phone 103 and your laundry will be collected and delivered.  B. Townsend is the representative.

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Tuesday night, the pre-Lenten season was closed by a brilliant reception at the Neillsville armory. The event was hosted by Messrs. and Mesdames Dr. Matheson; Frederick Karner; C. Krumrey and L. H. Howard.  The party was no small under-taking, but the details were so well planned that it passed off delightfully.  The armory was beautifully decorated, strands of electric lights being hung from the ceiling and the balcony was festooned with crepe paper.  Rugs, potted plants and cozy corners turned the immense floor into a comfortable and home-like appearance. There were 22 tables of euchre played and Mrs. Otto Olson’s score won the top prize, a beautiful spoon.  Six gentlemen tied of the gentleman prize, but Dr. E. L. Bradbury was successful in the cut, the prize being a sterling silver flask.

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The 1908 Lenten season commences this year on March 4^th, the latest date for several years.  Last year began on February 12^th, nearly a month earlier than this year.  The full list of church dates is as follows:

Septuagesima – Feb 16 (70 days before Easter)

Sexagesima Sunday – Mar. 1 (60 days before Easter)

Shrove Tuesday – Mar. 3 (To make confession)

Ash Wednesday – Mar. 4

Quadragesima Sunday – Mar. 8 (First Sunday of Lent)

Palm Sunday – Apr. 12

Easter Sunday – April 17 (Think this should be April 19)

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Help Wanted – we want to hire a young man from the country who speaks German and wants to learn the hardware business.  He must be at least 16 years old.  Inquire at the Cash Hardware Store for more details.

February 1933

Married July 10, 1933, Mr. and Mrs. David Parry kept it a secret until Christmas day, 1942.  For nine and one-half years, plus a few days for good measure, they kept their friends guessing. 

Now that the announcement is out, it is dawning on the Neillsville community that here is an accomplishment of Note:  A woman has kept a secret for nine and one-half years.  Not only that, but the secret was kept by a woman, who, because of her occupation, has many contacts with business people of Neillsville, and who, being of a sociable nature, is in constant touch with many friends.

If the women join in the smile which accompanies the reference to the theory that women cannot keep a secret, they will smile still more when David Parry agrees that men are just as talkative as women and as little inclined to keep secrets.  That would be true of himself, ordinarily, Parry says, but here was one especial and particular secret and he kept it through thick and thin.

The marriage took place at Freeport, Ill. and was a sure-enough affair with a minister doing the honors.  The minister was the Rev. D. L. McNary, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Freeport.  Mrs. McNary witnessed the ceremony.  This unexpected experience just happened for Rev. McNary, for when David Parry and Esther Jackson set out on their vacation trip in the summer of 1933, they had no thought that it would be different from other trips they had taken.  But they had kept company for five years and had been engaged for some time.  As they drove along the question arose as to why they could not then be married.

There were difficulties, chiefly occasioned by the concern for Mrs. Jackson, Esther’s mother. She depended upon this only unmarried child, who lived with her at home.  It was Esther’s certainty that her marriage, accompanied by a definite change in her mother’s situation, would be seriously upsetting. 

The alternative was that the marriage might take place, but that her mother should not have opportunity to know and that her mother’s home should go on precisely as in the past.  So that was the point at which the discussion arrived and the marriage took place.

At first there were no difficulties. They drove to Janesville where they registered as “Mr. and Mrs.” Nobody, was encountered who knew them and the hotel register, though valid evidence, did not run a gossip column.  They did the same at Fond du Lac, where they registered the following day.  Then they drove to Berlin, to visit David Parry’s parents. The clouds were not unduly thick at that spot, for the elder parents were accustomed to accept David and Esther as young people with an understanding, but unmarried.  So they helped the bride and groom to go their separate ways.

Next, they went to Wisconsin Rapids, where they visited David’s brother.  There also the situation was understood, as of old, and there were no complications.  The bride and groom went their separate ways.  Presently David’s vacation ended, but Esther had more vacation time.  So she continued the visit in the Parry home at Wisconsin Rapids and David returned to Neillsville.  It was not exactly a case of parting-at-the-alter, but it approximated that.

In a few days, Esther returned to Neillsville and resumed her accustomed duties in the Schuster & Campman office and at home.  She continued to keep still about the marriage.  David resumed his bachelor quarters above the Northern States Power Co. office.  Their friends joked with them a lot and some of their friends now say that they suspected or knew it all along.  But all they did was to guess and both David and Esther made a business to mislead them.

In the kindly deception, there were a few close spots.  For instance, the Schmedels were a source of considerable perplexity.  The young people were close friends with the Schmedels and all four of them were friends of the Claflins, who formerly lived in Neillsville.  At least twice, David and Esther went with the Schmedels to visit the Claflins who lived at Barron.

Now the Schmedels rather thought they knew a thing or two and on these occasions they tried to put their guess to the test.  But Eshter (Esther) gently engineered Roy Schmedel out of his accustomed place and gave him opportunity to associate with David. Thus the evidence was strongly presented that the Schmedels, in their guesses, were far fetched.

David and Esther also visited occasionally at the home of Esther’s brother, Leo Jackson, at Madison.  The house there is not very large and it was necessary to make somewhat extraordinary provisions for two single persons.  The host and hostess used to sigh a bit as they put the emergency cot in place and they intimated something after years had passed about the greater ease of entertaining married people in their home. But their hints fell upon desert soil.  They got no information.

The marriage took place in the Depression and the economy was becoming more depressed, rather than less.  Mrs. Jackson’s health grew better, but times grew worse.  As in retrospect, the difficulties might now seem not to have been insuperable, they looked that way as business grew worse and the risk involved in setting up a household became greater.  Also, Esther and David had become accustomed to their status.  If in the earlier years, some of their friends had sometimes audibly whispered, “Why doesn’t he marry the gal?” custom had even worn down the whisper.

So the situation continued until the holidays of 1942.  By then it became evident that if David and Eshter were ever to have a normal domestic life, they had better be about it.  So they resolved he various difficulties confronting them and sent out the Christmas cards bearing the “Mr. and Mrs.” with the announcement of their marriage.  Those cards went to all of their friends, including those who had joked about it with them.  One of those cards went to Esther’s mother.  It was her first certainty of the situation.  She had done some guessing, but she had been in uncertainty, like the rest of the people.  An announcement went also to David’s mother, the first knowledge she had.  Meanwhile, his father had died, still in ignorance of the son’s marriage.

The announcement was celebrated in the Christmas festivities at the Jackson home, where David was a guest, as he had often been before. Also present in Mrs. Jackson’s home were her son Leo, with his wife and her daughter, Mrs. Violet Beggs, of Milwaukee.  Upon the first announcement, Mrs. Jackson was in a quandary lest she be left alone. But the sensible answer was that Esther, still needed at home, would continue living there and that David should become the man of the united household. Thus, after nine and a half years, David and Esther Parry faced a Happy New Year together, without a secret from their friends.

(David Parry was a druggist at the C. C. Sniteman Drug Store for a number of years.  Esther and David were well known in the community of Neillsville. D. Z.)

Esther Jackson and David Parry, both popular residents of Neillsville, were married on July 10, 1933 and kept their marriage a secret until the Christmas season of 1942.