Don Schutte Remembers. . . . . . . . .

My Life in Levis Township, Clark Co., Wisconsin as I Lived it Starting in 1938.

I moved with my dad and mother and brother to a farm 5 miles south of Neillsville, Wisconsin in march of 1938.  I was 5 years old and my brother 3 years old. I remember it as a cold, wet and muddy spring. we farmed with horses and had lanterns and oil lamps. for about 2 years. we got electric put in about 1940. i remember the cost of wiring the house and barn as being $125.00. there were no wall plug ins or wall switches. just a string on the light fixture. we pulled the string when going to bed and tried to jump into bed before the lights went out. i remember of dad and the hired man coming home from work and doing chore, milking and feeding the cattle. after that they hooked up a radio. they had to run an aerial wire about 100 feet to get reception. in 1942 or so dad and 2 neighbors bought a 10-20 McCormick-Deering tractor on steel lug rear wheels. I was about 10 years old and drove the 10-20 to cut the neighbors oats. one of the 3 owners had to go to the service and then there were 2 owners. they bought a 22 inch case threshing machine and then threshed oats for about 7 neighbors. had to go up one side of the blacktop road about a mile, pulling the threshing machine with the steel lugged 10-20. then plank it across the road and thresh the neighbors on the way back on the other side of the road. i was the so called "engineer". I was about 11 and when the threshing machine was running, i sat on the 10-20 and threw the clutch in if the machine plugged up or there was no wagon to unload. it made for a long day. one time they threshed about 4 miles south of our farm. I got to drive the 10-20 home pulling the threshing machine at about 2 plus miles per hour ! ! i remember of walking to school with the neighbor kids and pushing cars out of the mud holes on highway 95, south of our farm.  I remember of one farmer in the town of levis who bought a nice farm north of Neillsville, Wisconsin and when he came to Neillsville to get deed etc. the farm was in the south east corner of levis and all woodland. he cleared the land and farmed it and made a good living.

we had no water pump on the farm to pump water for the cattle and had to depend on the windmill to pump water. when the wind didn't blow, we had to pump water by hand.

when mother washed we had to carry in wood for the stove to heat the water and carry in the water to put on the stove, then carry out the water when the washing was done. later in about 46 we had an electric water pump hooked hooked up to the dug well. we dug a trench by hand from the house to the barn 6 foot deep for the water pipe and I helped my uncle put drinking cups in for the cattle. we then had just a cold water spigot run into the house!! that was great.

we walked a mile to and from school. sometimes in the winter the neighbor kids dad would take us to school with the team of horses and bob sleigh.

I remember he also had a ford model "t" motor mounted on a car chassis with it hooked up to drive a saw rig. it had a pole so it could be pulled with a team of horses and he went around to the neighbors and pulled the saw rig back to the woods and they sawed up the pile of logs for firewood. then we loaded the wood on the wagon pulled by horses and took it to the house and piled it in the woodshed.

this makes me tired just thinking about the "good old days" living in the town of levis.