THE WAUPACA REPUBLICAN POST

June 5, 1913

 

LETTERS FROM FORMER RESIDENTS

 

To Home Coming Committee, Waupaca, Wis.

            As I am one of the old timers of Waupaca, will send in a few items.  56 years ago I went to school a few weeks to Josephine Mary (now Mrs. Judge Odgen) the school house was just east of the Green Bay depot, and I could stand on the depot steps and throw a stone where we lived, just south and west of depot, near the old Mooney house and Horton’s.  Then I went to Mrs. Tucker in the Gothic school house, east of the old Court house, and Mrs. Potter taught there too.  The scholars I remember were Lyman and Eva Mooney, Dorothy and Ianthy Horton, Charlie Miller, Ida Lawrence, Ellen, Martha and Elba Hall, Jason, Frank, Mary, Lucinda and Clarinda Gurley, there were some Dreutzer boys and one girl, Irene Vaughn, Rebecca Shearer, Anna Powers, Mary and Joanna Miller, a little Luskum girl, Eddie Holt, some of the Lords, Frankie Parish, Willie and Henry Constance, Mary Bell, Miranda Hopkins, Cyntha and Sabey Thompson, three Hibbard girls and more I have forgotten.  Then we were moved to a white school house, I think farther west, but Mrs. Potter was still weilder, not of the birch rod, but of the leather strap she carried in her pocket (and we did have pockets in our dresses then) there used to be two boys, who got their strapping every day.  The first school exhibition was held in the old Court House and the last time I saw Dan Nickel he told me he remembered me as I spoke there that night, and by the way, my father married Mr. and Mrs. Dan Nickel, ministers were unknown there at that time so justices of the peace used to tie the knots.

            Charlie Bartlett kept a dry goods and grocery store, Dave Parish a shoe shop and Mr. Holt a store.

            The first newspaper I ever read was The Waupaca Spirit, edited by Redfield Bros., the two first stories were in that paper also.  “She had out-lived her Usefulness” and “The Blind Mother’s Farewell to her babe.”  A certain man that used to live there took his wife and children to Amherst for a visit and used too much “bug juice” and forgot about it so inserted the following in the Waupaca Spirit:

My wife has left my bed and board

For a few days, for a few days,

She left it of her own accord,

When I was drunk up town.

I caution all to this amount

Now days, now days,

Don’t trust her on my account

For she’s never a coming home.

                            Aim. B.

Next day he found out what he had done and had the following printed the next week:

My friends, you think my wife has fled,

For a few days, for a few days,

From my board and from my bed

When I was drunk up town.

But I caution all to this amount,

Now days, now days,

Don’t worry at all on our account

For we are safe at home.

                       Aim. B.

            Waupaca was first called Waupaca Falls, after an Indian Chief and the falls there. Gen. Scott was one of the old timers, the first planing mill built there was the Eagle Planing Mill, which was first used as a sash and door factory.

            The first teachers institute for this county was held at Waupaca in the old Brick School house, where I finished my school days.

            I remember being work up one night to see my father marry a couple and next morning father asked me what I was called up for and I told him to see some one married, then he told me I was a witness to the marriage of the Wares, but I don’t know which one and at that time there were no certificates given.

            Waupaca is a dear old place to me.  Dr. Thayer and Dr. Calkins were our first Doctors, and when Dr. Manchester first practiced, I remember of his riding horseback out near Manawa to see a patient one very cold day in winter, no much the way they go now.

            How many old hearts will be happy as they know they are remembered at old Waupaca by the younger ones.

                                                                        Yours for success

                                                                                    Mrs. Minor Cannaray,

                                                                                                Nee Frances West.

*****