LIFE IN EARLY WAUPACA COUNTY

From Geraldine Trinrud

 

            Although Gottlieb Raisler served as a soldier in the Civil War, he was not a citizen of the United States, and one day in the year 1882 he decided to go to Waupaca and take out his papers.  He needed a witness and his brother-in-law, Charles F. Schroeder, decided to accompany him on the twenty-seven mile trip over rough roads to the county seat. Besides the Schroeder family was nearly out of flour and so the men took some wheat along to have it ground at the mill at Manawa during the time they made the trip to Waupaca and back, a distance of about twenty miles each way.

            So the two pioneer settlers started out early in the morning on their long trip.  Night came and they failed to return. While this caused some worry and disappointment, not so much was thought of it by the anxious wives, as travel was slow in those days.  However, as the second day wore on and no husbands appeared, the wives became almost frantic.  Besides the Schroeder family flour bin was empty and there was no corner grocery store to go to and no telephone to call up and no means of transportation except to walk, as the team was gone with the driver.

            The second night came and still no men appeared.  There was not much sleeping that night and Mrs. Schroeder made a trip on foot early the next morning to the Gottlieb Raisler home.  She found Amelia in tears over the disappearance of her husband.

            The two women decided to go and lay the matter before their relative, Julius Schroeder, a brother of Charles Schroeder, who lived on the homestead in the neighborhood.  After consulting it was decided that something must be done, and so Julius harnessed his team to a lumber wagon and started out on his twenty-seven mile trip to Waupaca.  When the weary driver and tired team reached Waupaca, Mr. Schroeder found out the cause of the sudden and strange disappearance of his two relatives.  It appears that hey were in the courthouse getting Gottlieb’s citizenship papers when it was discovered that Banker Mead was murdered and the two men with others were impaneled on the coroner’s jury by the sheriff.  They told the sheriff of their anxious wives in the wilderness back at Nicholson and he promised to send word to them, but in the press of duties forgot to do so.

            Then Julius Schroeder made another discovery at the county seat.  He found that he had arrived in Waupaca penniless and did not have money to buy a dinner for himself or feed for his tired and hungry team. He might have called upon his relatives, the two men on the jury, but the thought never came to him, and so he started back on the long way home.  Being hungry and tired when they started back, the condition of driver and team may be imagined when they finally got back home.  But the frantic wives forgot all else in the good news that their husbands were alive and well and would be home as soon as they could be released from the coroner’s jury in the famous Mead murder case.