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BRULEY’S

GENUINE

STEEL FENCE POSTS

NOT a sheet iron post or of light and springy material.

BUT a good and substantial post of the best BESSEMER steel, rolled.

FOR FARM, RAILROAD, LAWN, POULTRY or any use that may be required of it.

IT is a drive post made in two parts; the post of 1 1/4x1 1/4x 3/16 inch steel, 50 inches above the ground (standard height) which is inserted into a very strong base made of heavy angle steel 2 1/2x2 1/2 x 1/8 inches, 2 feet long.  The post is held firmly and very rigid by a smart blow from the sledge and can not be separated unless it is taken out of the ground.

The tongues are so arranged that any size of wire can be used and near enough so that you can fasten as often as you like when using woven fencing.  Just drop the wire in the tongue and give it a tap with the hammer and the wire is held very firmly.  This is no delicate affair but fool proof because it is a part of the post and there is no part to lose or to get ready.

The corner and end posts are much heavier and have a three foot base of heavier material.  The braces are so fashioned that no extra space is used and will hold the post rigidly and gives you absolute assurance against a sagging fence.  A good corner and end post is very essential to a good fence.

The post and base is given a coating of the best grey enamel lead we can get and will resist the weather actions better than any carbon paint or zinc dip galvanizing.

We give you a driving cap with each order - no charge.

IT is indestructible, will not rot or burn and does not come in contact with the soil, the base being underground is preserved and the post is inside of the base, hence no contact with the ground.

IT is a very neat post.  Our lawn posts are three feet above the ground and have an ornamental cap which gives a rich effect.  The ornaments can be had at a slight cost.  Property well fenced with THE BRULEY POST has an added appearance of at least 20 per cent.

IT protects your stock from lightning, because each post is a ground, which prevents it following the wire.

IT is an actual necessity and not a luxury.

IT is the cheapest post made considering tiem and replacement, no cement, no digging, just drive it home, takes a minute and the post is set to stay.

No trouble with the Bruley post in any way, anyhow.  When your wooden posts rot off or burn off, replace them with Bruley’s.  Some rainy day take a few posts in one hand and a sledge in the other and put in your posts on any part of the farm - no team is required.

IT IS A LIFE TIME POST

IT WILL NOT HEAVE

IT WILL NOT BREAK

IT WILL NOT WORK LOOSE

IT DOES NOT REQUIRE A LOT OF ENTRY-- just fence posts and a sledge.

IT WILL NOT DISAPPOINT YOU

YOU NEED US.

Price 40c for standard post in small lots

Prices for large quantities and corner posts upon application

WRITE TODAY!

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Undated events but probably prior to 1910

How do you pronounce Brule’?

The family name of Brule’ is pronounced Broo-lay.  In Wisconsin Emery grew tired of hearing it pronounced Brool so he added ‘ey’ to the name and then people pronounced more nearly correctly.  He was proud of his name, and liked to see ‘E. Brule’ or ‘E. Bruley’ stamped on metal items.  I saw this on a table fork Aunt Dede kept.  She said he stamped his name on many things.  Phyllis gave me an 1854 half dollar with ‘E. Brule’ firmly stamped on it.

Entertainment choices

Emery was a great movie fan, and always sat in the same seat.  He also thought séances were frauds, but never missed a chance to attend one.  If a séance was held in the area, he hopped on the train and went.  As the spirits at the séance were being ‘materialized’ and flying through the air he would grab them.  This broke up several séances.  He broke up another by asking for and receiving a written message supposedly from a dead relative.  Grandfather told the séance conductor he was a fraud as the message was written in English and the relative could only write French.

Christmas Eve

Emery would buy all the unsold toys in the store and take them home for his daughters.  Before he had children, he is said to have bought French wax dolls for a niece and also given her a hammer as well as the dolls.  (By this time Emery’s brother Ed lived in Neillsville where he’s married and had children.)

Health Scene

Emery gritted his teeth as he slept.  Mother said the nose rattled the windows.  Gritting his teeth may have contributed to the loose teeth he eventually experienced.  Undaunted, he designed a gold wire apparatus, had the dentist install it, and kept his teeth.

When he had bursitis or arthritis in his upper arm, he heard of a Minneapolis spiritualist who could heal people.  Off he went.  The spiritualist told him if he would think to himself that his arm didn’t hurt the pain would go away.  This seemed to be the total of her treatment.  He asked what he owed.  She repeated she was sure if he would concentrate and think his arm didn’t hurt that it wouldn’t, but she didn’t seem to have helped him so she would charge him only a dollar.  Emery put a fifty cent piece on the table and prepared to leave.  "My good man," the spiritualist said, "My charge is a dollar."  Grandfather replied, "Well, think it’s a dollar."

Favorite sayings

"He’s so two-faced he has to look at his feet to see which way he’s going." 

When a person did not want to comply, he/she had "a pain between the heart and the will."

Early hi-tech and lessons taught

Emery had one of the first cars in Neillsville in around 1903.  Aunt Dede recalled it as an air-cooled Franklin.  The car seemingly had a chain drive which broke with alarming regularity.  When the chain broke, Emery abandoned the car and walked rapidly away from it.  He had nothing to do with the car until a mechanic repaired it and delivered the car to the house.  Emery taught Mother to drive.  After the rest of the family was asleep, they would go to the barn where the car was garaged, push it out to the street, and away they would go.  After she learned to drive Mother would chauffeur business people to the spoke mill at Cadott.

He also had one of the first phones in Neillsville.

Emery apparently had little faith in the stock market at the time he gave Mother a dollar to buy stock in a company he knew was faulty.  She lost her dollar, and never again had anything to do with the market.  He must not have followed this program with Aunt Dede who, as an adult, was very interested in the market.  Emery taught Aunt Dede to drive nails straight and true.  He sat her down on a wooden step, armed her with nails and a hammer; taught her to pound and pound she did until she was quite proficient.  She also learned when in the lower grades if she stopped by her father’s clothing store at noon, he would give her a nickel to spend.

Consumer goods and the social scene

Emery must have enjoyed clothes as he was in the clothing business at two different times in his life.  He once had a very elegant tuxedo-front full length fur coat.  The outside was seal with an otter collar.  The inside was lined with natural mink.  Aunt Dede was quite explicit about the details.  She said it was made by Hanson of Milwaukee, probably a well-known furrier of the day.  Once when on a train, a stranger asked Grandfather who had made the coat and how much it cost.  He replied he’s earned it selling Rumford Baking Powder.

Jane O’Connor recalled being told that Mr. H. L. Gates of Milwaukee, a friend of Grandfather’s, had his own private railroad car and that Grandfather often traveled with him.  When they went to New Orleans, Grandfather would have a barrel of oysters shipped to Neillsville.  He then had his annual oyster party - with men only as guests.  Emery felt only grandmother, not the maid, could fix oysters perfectly.  The dinner began with oysters on the half-shell; then proceeded to fried oysters.

Aunt Dede reported the junior-senior high school prom was often held at their house.

Emery frequently went to New York on business. While there he would buy china by the barrel. Whenever the pantry could hold no more dishes, a wheelbarrow load was delivered to whomever wanted some new-to-her dishes.  He also bought toilet tissue in huge cartons.  A large, sturdy, ornate Victorian walnut table with many leaves was also shipped from New York to Neillsville.  When Grandmother Brule’ broke up housekeeping, Mother and Daddy acquired the table. [This table is a bear to dust.]  John’s and my daughter Linda was fascinated by the fancy turnings on the table when she was very small; Mother said the table was to be hers eventually.  It now shows off advantageously in Linda’s home.

Love of animals

Emery loved animals.  He once had a pair of pet squirrels who had their own special bed with a silk coverlet.  Emery tucked the squirrels in every night.  When Wisconsin winter turned very cold, he used the second floor of a building he owned as a refuge for wild animals.  The windows were opened or removed (memory leans to ‘removed’), trees were set up, and plenty of food was made available.  (How the animals knew to come in is beyond me, but come they must have.)

Once when Grandmother was having a large luncheon party - a popular entertainment of the day - she was horrified to discover a big branch complete with bird’s nest and eggs nailed to the living room mantle!  Grandfather had found a fallen limb on the ground.  He did what he thought needed.  I do not know if the branch and its contents remained as a conversation piece for the party.

Grandfather had a pet raccoon he adored.  At some point the ‘coon hurt his paw and Grandfather teased him.  This upset the raccoon, which jumped on Grandfather’s back and began choking him.  The only way Grandfather could get the ‘coon to let go was to stick both his head and the raccoon in the rain barrel.

1910 Emery was again a-clothing merchant, according to the census.  Grandmother was again a milliner as she had been before she married.  However, she now had her own shop. The story goes that Emery bought the millinery shop thinking Anita and Maude would run it, but instead daughters Anita and Maude are listed as teachers.  The clothing store he owned then caught fire and burned.  Insurance apparently did not cover the loss. There was a mortgage on the house.