THE WAUPACA REPUBLICAN

(date would be 1903 to 1906 era)

 

PERSONAL REMININSCENCE

 

            The editor of the REPUBLICAN cannot forget the fact of a circumstance which brought him in close friendly relation with the late Judge Ogden.  In reporting the death of our oldest brother in 1887 we mentioned the fact that he had been a school teacher for over forty years, in the ‘40’s at or near Niles, Mich. and in later years in Missouri where he had lived in Desoto and Hematite, with the exception of a year or so when he enlisted at the breaking out of the war and assisted Gen. Lyon in driving the rebels out of the state.

            We were surprised when the Judge called us into his office and said; “I see you mention the death of your brother John Holmes.  Did he have a brother Charley?”  We answered in the affirmative, when the Judge reached out his hand and said; “I am glad to know, and shake the hand of the brother of those fine young men who came to my place in Michigan over forty years ago.  John wanted a school and Charley wanted to work on a farm.  I was school director and clerk; gave John a thorough examination and told him he was just the man the district board and patrons wanted, and he commenced teaching at once, holding the school for a number of years giving excellent satisfaction.  I needed Charley on the farm and I never had a man take so much interest in the work, and so clean, noble, temperate, and honest.  I loved him as I did members o my own family, when he quit in 1849 it was to go to California very soon after the gold excitement started.  I paid Charley his wages due, besides a good sum he had left from time to time for me to save for him, amounting to three or four hundred dollars and I loaned him without a note $200 besides as it was a long and costly journey to go to California then.  Charley had some sickness to keep him hard up for a while in that golden land but about two years after a check came one day in payment of principal and interest for that loan.  I remember that the boys said that they had two little brothers at their home in Concord Mich., and another brother, a young man, besides two or three younger, and one married sister.”  We said that the younger of those brothers was ye editor and of that large family only ourself and those who were the two young sisters then, remain. Those two “little” boys graduated in Col. Deland’s printing office in Jackson Mich. from ’59 to ’61.  The war took three, only one to return.

            Thus it was, the Judge and ye editor who had succeeded to the paper he founded became better acquainted, which acquaintance ripened into warm friendship because of his personal knowledge, respect and friendly affection for those two young men who sough for labor and received it at his hands and proved their worth at time the writer was a mere child, and his kindly love and regard for them proved a magnet of attraction and the incident has been an incentive to us, and should be an incentive to others, to try and be worthy of the respect and esteem of such men.