Oconto’s Tank
The World War II tank has been a part of the Oconto landscape since 1957. It was first located at the American Legion Golf Club. In 2006, the golf course was sold so the tank was relocated to the rear of the Beyer Home & Carriage Museum grounds, becoming a part of an ever-growing Military Memorial display.
A. J. Lucia Cycle Co.
The OCHS has a small file entitled “Transportation”. In it are only a few items. A few were about the railroad which were moved to that file, and about fishing which were moved to that file. That left only 4 items.
One proved quite interesting. It mentioned the Lucia brothers who had a bicycle shop in Oconto.
I had heard years ago that there had been such a shop but nobody could corroborate it. Now I had a name. From there I found other information. [The Internet is great.]. I found Albert Joseph Lucia on FindAGrave.com, buried in Green Bay with a note that says “Albert Joseph (A.J.) along with his brothers Howard and William, owned and operated Lucia Brothers Garage in both Oconto and Green Bay, Wisconsin; they were Packard Dealers. Before selling automobiles they also sold bicycles and participated in many bicycle races.”
Then I found an ad on the Oconto WIGenWeb site that shows an address. Their store must have been right at the present intersection of Main Street and Brazeau Avenue.
Another item from the Oconto WIGenWeb site stated “The stellar attraction the following year [1902] – outdrawing even the trained lions, baseball games, and acrobats – was an automobile of the Lucia Cycle Company which ran an exhibition mile during intermission in the horse racing events.”
Then I found a book “Just Packards” by Angelo Van Boggart. In Chapter 14 “Packerland’s Plentiful Packard Dealerships” author Richard Jansen states:
“The story starts with A. J. Lucia, who had a bicycle shop in Green Bay, and his brother, Howard, who had a similar shop in Oconto,Wis. They combined forces and formed the Lucia Brothers Motor Car Co. in 1901, and they delivered the first car in Green Bay, a two-cylinder Duryea. Over the years, the brothers handled Buick, Dodge, Duryea, Franklin, Hudson, Pope, Stevens, Thomas Flyer and the Waverly electric.
In 1921, the dealership became the exclusive dealer for Packard, and by 1934, its territory included 12 Wisconsin counties and seven Michigan counties. Despite the brothers’ large area, it wasn’t big enough to keep the brothers in business through the Depression, so after 1934, the Lucia Brothers dealership was no more.”
So another business in Oconto is documented. If you know the story of any please share it with our membership.
Pensaukee’s Hotel Tycoons
By Peter Stark and Monette Bebow-Reinhard
In the history of Pensaukee, one name stands out: Freeland B. Gardner. Even though John P. Arndt began Wisconsin’s commercial lumbering there in 1827, it was Gardner who was instrumental in transforming Pensaukee into a company town beginning in the 1850s. Like most other 19th century communities along the west side of Green Bay, Pensaukee’s economy was closely tied to the production of lumber. But the town, described in a newspaper article of the period as being “destined for greatness”, had a secondary importance due to its location mid-way between Navarino (modern city of Green Bay) and Marinette/Menominee. It became a stopover for people traveling by boat or trail along Green Bay’s west shore. Early sawmills and their associated dwellings served as lodging places long before hotels, inns, and boarding houses were built. Capitalizing on this lodging tradition, Gardner decided to build the most lavish hotel north of Milwaukee near his team mill along the Pensaukee River.
You won’t find the name of Edgar A. Taylor mentioned in the popular histories of Pensaukee. Overshadowed by his wealthy and influential contemporary, Taylor also played a very important role in Pensaukee’s development. Arriving in the early 1850s he settled on the western edge of town and appears initially to have worked as a farmer employee of Gardner’s, probably supplying product and feed to Gardner’s company store, boarding house, and lumbering operation.
After a few years Taylor purchased a small plot of land from Gardner along the Fort Howard to Menominee road which had recently been laid out following an ancient Indian trail that bordered the western limits of Pensaukee proper. By the late 1850s the road had been improved enough to handle wagon travel and a stage coach route was started connecting Fort Howard (Green Bay) to points north. Every seven miles or so stage coach stops were established where horse teams were quickly changed and passengers disembarked and loaded.
Taylor’s place became one of these and he built a small inn where people could stay and dine. It became known as the Pensaukee House, part of which still stands today as a wooden out building of the modern farm located on the property. The exact location of Taylor’s building is shown on a map attached to an 1864 legal document recorded in the Oconto County courthouse.
His inn became the place to stay in Pensaukee. A writer described in 1866 having arrived at “E. A. Taylor’s Hotel in time for a good dinner”. But Taylor’s place was small while the regional population, and the number of travelers, was growing. With it came increased competition in area hostelry. In response, in 1870 Taylor borrowed $1648.53 from Gardener, a sizable sum for the time. He proceeded to build a new hotel on his property which was scheduled to open in late 1871.
Gardner, perhaps realizing the same business need, decided to commence his own large enterprise where Pensaukee’s boat landing is now situated. His 45 room multi-wing brick Grand Hotel was so extravagant that it inculded amenities such as hot and cold running water, something unheard of in the area for the time. Gardner planned to open it the following year giving Taylor’s new establishment some heavy competition.
Always shrewd, Gardner had carefully selected the site for his luxurious structure. In 1871 the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad had been laid through town just west of Gardner’s sawmill. He knew passenger train travel was the wave of the future, and that it would eventually replace the stage coach. He located his Grand Hotel kitty-corner from the Pensaukee train station. Also near the mouth of the Pensaukee River, it would easily service boat voyagers as well. His attractive business would appeal to the type of travelers that would bring respect to Pensaukee.
Initially, there seemed to be room for both Taylor’s and Gardner’s hotels, each appealing to a different mode and class of traveler. After all, the main north/south road with its stage coach route still passed Taylor’s place with no immediate threat of disappearance. Circumstances and events, however, make their own plans.
In the autumn of 1871 fires frequented the Pensaukee area, wiping out Holmes in Brookside, one of Gardner’s lumbering competitors. These sporadic fires culminated in the conflagration known as the great Peshtigo Fire on October 8, 1871, the same day as the more famous Chicago Fire. Since lands had been cleared of trees around Pensaukee proper, the town, including the Pensaukee House and Gardner’s mill, were spared that horrendous night. After the fire, Gardner diverted materials from the building of his hotel to rebuilding efforts in areas destroyed by fire, including Chicago, delaying its opening.
Around this same time E. A. Taylor reported that his wife had been killed in a train accident while traveling out east. Yet, Adelia later signs a deed for the property. Were they separated and did Edgar invent the story to cover the shame of his wife leaving him? Whatever the reason, he now faced operating his new hotel alone. The Peshtigo Fire probably took a detrimental affect on his fledgling business, adding to his burden.
On November 7th, 1871 by “fate or fate’s accomplice” Taylor’s recently opened Pensaukee House burned to the ground, never to be rebuilt. Unable to make his mortgage payments to Gardner, Edgar and Adelia conveyed the property back to him in 1872. The couple then disappear from Pensaukee, from its bright future, and from its history as well.
Gardner reaped the rewards of his competitor’s misfortunes, intended or unintended. He purchased his lumbering rival’s lands, and was now the sole hotel operator in Pensaukee. In 1875 the main road that had once passed by Taylor’s place was relocated to run between Gardner’s Grand Hotel and his sawmill operation. Gardner was in firm control of the town’s destiny. But in a short time nature and fate would again prove to have their own agenda.
After being open only a few years a tornado ravaged Pensaukee proper, wrecking the hotel and much of Gardner’s lumbering business. He continued on in Pensaukee but, unable to recoup, he died in 1883 while running to the Pensaukee Depot to catch a train.
With Gardner gone, Pensaukee’s once anticipated greatness fell–victim of the flames of competition, fire, wind, and circumstance.
Odd Wisconsin Archive
A Plague of Frogs
In the summer of 1952, the town of Oconto was invaded. The town lies on the western shore of Green Bay (map), and has been home to humans for thousands of years. Native Americans have lived there since at least 2000 B.C., roughly, when it was home to a community of Old Copper Culture people. Before Europeans arrived, the Menominee had a fishing village there, and gave Oconto its name. About 1670, French traders and missionaries arrived, but they didn’t stay long. The first permanent white settler arrived in 1846 to build a sawmill, and for the next century logging dominated the local economy. But by the mid-20th century, the forest products industry had slowed down. Leaders of the town of about 5,000 residents wondered what would come next.
It was frogs.
Leopard frogs. Rana pipiens, to be exact. In two days during the summer of 1952, the New Yorker reported, an estimated 175,000,000 frogs — yes, million — emerged from local marshes and “practically enveloped the town. The explosions of amphibians beneath the wheels of automobiles at night sounded like rifle fire. People mowing their lawns did so in a storm of flying frog legs and truncated frog bodies.”
The marshes near Oconto always supported frogs, but never before in such numbers. Typically, the water level of Lake Michigan would rise in the spring, wetlands would flood, leopard frogs would lay eggs, and when the lake level receded with the advance of summer, most of the eggs would die. But in 1952, Lake Michigan remained high. And inconceivably huge numbers of gelatinous frog eggs grew into hungry, live amphibians.
“A man I know,” continued the New Yorker reporter, “said they had besieged his house one night in what he swore was a highly organized way. He had gone out on his front lawn to have a look around with his flashlight and had been confronted by a million shining little eyes. He started toward the back yard and found that he had been outflanked. He swung the light around and discovered that the whole house was encircled. It was a scary thing to see, he said.” By morning they had departed for greener pastures, or puddles, and he was left to scoop them out of his basement window wells with a shovel. He took out two bushels.
As the summer wore on, Oconto townspeople joked about calling out the National Guard and eating frogs’ legs but nothing could be done. Besides, there was a silver lining: few mosquitoes were seen that summer, as tens of millions of sticky tongues snapped them up with lightning speed. Eventually the legions of frogs began to dwindle with the water levels and food supplies. The phenomenon has never been repeated, and apparently older local residents still recall the summer of the frogs with amazement.
[Source: Waldron, Eli. “A Carnival of Frogs.” New Yorker. April 11, 1953: 73-89. Quoted in: Turner, Frederick B. “The Demography of Frogs and Toads.” Quarterly Review of Biology 37/4 (Dec. 1962): 303-314. McCoy, Sue, et. al. Yarns of Wisconsin (Madison: Wisconsin Trails/Tamarack Press, c1978).
Account of the Hanging of Louis Nohr
Hanging of Louis Nohr, May 1871, at Oconto, Wis., as related to Atty Giles V. Megan, by George Merline, an eye witness.
“I was born April 29, 1858, and at the time of the hanging herein related, was a boy past 13 years. Oconto at that time was a typical lumbering town, and its population perhaps 4,000. As I recall, Oconto Company, Holt Lumber Company, and Spies Mills operated here. It was in the pioneer days of the lumber industry, and a large part of the population was made up of so called lumber jacks, who followed the lumber camps in the winter, log drives in the spring, and saw mills in the summer. They constantly shifted from place to place where lumbering was in progress. They were for the most part strong and hardy men, and some were of a rough and tough make-up.
On the evening of May the 2, 1871, the Turner Verein, whose membership was made up of persons of German descent, held its annual ball in a hall located in the upstairs of a building on the West side of Superior Street, and near the Holt Lumber Company’s Mill. Such brick building still stands and the lower part of same is now occupied by Albert Franks as a blacksmith shop. The lower story of said building was occupied as a butcher shop at that time, by Louie Nohr. He was about 40 years old, five feet six inches tall, weighed about 150 pounds, and was a member of the Turner Verein and their families were to be admitted to the ball.
Between ten and twelve o’clock in the evening, a small group of men gathered at the bottom of the outside open stairway leading to the hall. Some of their number had been drinking, and one Dennis White, a river driver, 22 years old, climbed the stairs and attempted to enter the hall. Previous attempts of the same kind had been made, and Louie Nohr, the butcher, stood guard at the head of the stairs. He cautioned White and bad words were exchanged. Nohr held a butcher knife about eighteen inches long at his side, which he raised and struck at White, exclaiming he would cut his head off. White threw up his arms and the butcher knife cut both of them to the bone severing arteries and muscles alike, with the result that for several weeks afterwards he had to be fed, at Dillon House, where he boarded.
After being slashed, White ran down the stairs and Nohr half way down with a loaded revolver in his hand, at the same time shouting to the gathering of men at the bottom of the stairs to leave the premises. Apparently they did not heed his command and he fired a shot into or over the crowd, assembled a little to the south of the stairway. The bullet grazed the chin of John Noyen burning the flesh and cutting off part of his whiskers as well. Nohr then pointed his gun in a northeasterly direction and fired a second shot which struck Joseph Ruelle, a young man of twenty-one years, who was standing near a hitching post away from the crowd, in the temple. Ruelle was taken to the Funke Hotel, where the Schedler House now stands, and died one hour later. Ruelle had finished the common schools, and was about to enter college. He was a musician in the local band.
The shooting occurred Thursday evening May 2, 1871. Nohr was immediately arrested and put in jail, where he remained until taken by a mob the following Sunday evening between 6:30 and 7:30. The jail stood on the site of the present jail, along side of it to the west was the wooden courthouse.
The anger of many local people because of the shooting, ripened into a mad frenzy and hysteria and on Sunday evening a mob formed at the jail. There were probably only fifteen or twenty men actively engaged in the undertaking, but several hundred people gathered, goading and encouraging the leaders on. A six by six timber 16 feet long was produced, and with six or eight men on each side, was used as a battering-ram to knock down the jail door. A. P. Call, a constable who lived in the jail with his family, was in charge of it. I don’t recall the sheriff.
Mr. Call attempted to block the entrance of the mob by standing in front of the door, but when the timber was thrust in his direction soon got out of the way. After the door was broken in, about fifteen men climbed upstairs. The fellow in the first jail cell told the mob leader, “It isn’t me you’re after. It’s Nohr. He’s in the other cell.” They proceeded to the other cell where they found Nohr, and the axes and hammers broke down the bars and took him out of the jail. They immediately put a rope around his neck and started dragging him north toward the bridge. The rope was about forty feet long and was pulled by fifteen or twenty men. He tried to break away and stop the process of the mob by digging his heels in the ground, but to no avail. When they came to the bridge, someone told Nohr to say his prayers because he was going to hang there. They passed the bridge however, and kept on going north until they came to the present Court House grounds, which then consisted of a field with a board fence around and a creek running through it, owned by Tom Milledge.
There was a large crowd of people all along the route. The rope was finally thrown over the limb of a twin oak tree that stood near the north-east corner of the court house grounds, he was hung there. He was still alive at the hanging but was badly used up, being punched and pummeled by the mob. There was sufficient daylight at the time of the hanging so that everything could be plainly seen. At the scene someone yelled, “Look out for revolvers.” The crowd scattered and someone fell into the nearby creek and nearly drowned.
After 4:00 Monday morning, a dump cart pulled by a team of horses, passed the Merline homestead, which still stands at 114 Washington Street, Oconto. It was observed by Mrs. Merline, mother of the relator, and it was afterwards reported the dump cart contained the body of Nohr, which had been cut down. His body was burned in a sand pit behind the Bond Pickle Co.’s plant, in a grove of jack pines. Thereafter, there was a cut in one of the pines nearest the grave the initials L.N. ’71. It was reported that the burial was not deep enough and that dogs dug up the remains, which afterwards were collected in a blanket and reburied by Dr. Benz, local coroner, at some other place.
George Smith, Sr., father of George Smith, former chief of police, was mayor of Oconto, and John Merline, father of relator, was city marshal at the time of the hanging. It was reported that several members of the Turner Verein left Oconto immediately following the shooting of Ruelle and the hanging of Nohr, and did not return for several weeks thereafter.
Green Bay Press – Gazette
January 9, 1934
Identity of Woman Found In Wilderness Never Revealed
MANY YEARS ago, when the logging industry on the Oconto river and its tributaries was in its infancy, many oxen were used in the woods to break and tramp the roads and to skid and deck the log. These oxen were kept near the city of Oconto during the summer months, then driven to the logging camps in the fall, worked at the camps during the winter month and then returned to Oconto after the camps broke up in the spring.
During one of those winters, one of the lumber companies from Oconto had a logging camp near the northwest corner of Oconto county, in the region of Pickerel lake. The spring came, the snow roads melted, the camp broke up and the oxen had to be driven back to Oconto. That task was assigned to a young lumberjack, Deles Washburn, who had considerable experience driving oxen, a “bull whacker” as they were called, so Washburn left camp one morning with a herd of oxen, for his long walk to Oconto.
The oxen were thin to flesh and tired from a long winter’s work, progress was slow and darkness overtook Washburn on his first day down river, near where the village of Mountain is now situated, at which place the driver decided to camp for the night. He carried with him hay and grain for the cattle and grub for himself.
Strange Woman Appearance
He had fed the cattle for the night finished his evening meal and was standing around his camp fire when he noticed one of the oxen had wondered away from the rest of the herd. Calling the oxen by name, Washburn was trying to coax the animal back when nearby, in the darkness he heard a woman’s voice say “Don’t be afraid he won’t go far”. and immediately a young woman came from a thicket of underbrush and walked over to where Washburn was standing.
There was no road In the county except this one supply road used by the lumber company in going to and from its logging camp. The nearest settlers were two or three families living at Gillett, some 25 or 30 miles distant. This young woman could not tell the “bull whacker” who she was or where she came from, so it did not take him long to discover that he had a crazy woman on his hands on his long trip to Oconto.
Worked Around Jail
The night was spent around the camp fire and next morning another day’s Journey was commenced and so on until finally they reached Oconto, the oxen were delivered to the lumber company and “Crazy Jane.” as she was afterwards known and called, was turned, over to the county authorities and was temporarily placed in jail while a diligent search and inquiry was going on trying to find out who this woman was or where she came from. Although every effort was made, not the slightest clue could be found which would reveal her identity. She was insane but harmless, so so she was put to work as a servant girl in and about the county jail and given her freedom to do or go as she might wish. She seemed to enjoy her work and every one in the neighborhood knew Crazy Jane.
A number of years later, when Jane had passed middle age, she disappeared from the jail one winter evening just as mysteriously, just as surprisingly as she had appeared from the darkness in the woods several years before. The city of Oconto was searched as well as the surrounding country but no trace of Jane could be found.
No Clue to Identity
There was a wide expanse of marsh land east of Oconto, extending several miles to the Bay shore. This marsh was seldom traversed except by an occasional trapper.
In the spring following the winter night Jane disappeared, a man walking through this marsh discovered the corpse of a woman, about two miles from the county jail. A coroner’s inquest was held and the body was identified as that of “Crazy Jane”, the verdict being “death due to exposure”, the theory being advanced that Jane had wandered away from the Jail, got lost and froze to death.
Who was this strange, mysterious character, what was her name, where did she come from, how did she ever get away up in the then wilderness at the time of the year when Washburn first met her? Although this happened nearly 70 years ago (1864) yet not the slightest clue has ever been advanced, not one bit of information has ever been found which, would even tend to identify this strange, mysterious character.
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wioconto/memoirsLostLady.htm
Also found at:
December 11, 1930
Oconto County Reporter Article Recalls Baseball
The story of what was essentially Oconto’s first city baseball team, formed in 1886 and winning 23 out of 24 games during its initial years, was recollected here recently by Frank Merline, 65, janitor of St. Joseph’s school, who was one of the two catchers on the team.
A picture of the players now hangs on the wall of Faulds’ Barber shop on Main Street, having been presented last week by Mr. Merline. It was taken 44 years ago, and depicts the men in their full playing regalia, with uniforms, heavy moustaches, and everything. Though this team was preceded by another called “The Clippers,” the two teams combined shortly after the second one was formed and the two together represented Oconto’s first city team.
Besides Mr. Merline, who was 21 years old when the team began, there were ten or twelve others who can still be recalled by old time baseball fans. All the players were local men: John Merline, Pat Scanlin, Jim Crowley, Ed. Brooks, Walter Grunert (mgr.), William Merline, Charles Reinhardt, Al. Merline, Steve Waggoner, John Runkle and Ed. Baldwin. There were four Merlines on the team, all of them brothers, and John Merline acted as secretary of the club. Waggoner and Runkle shared the battery play with Baldwin and Frank Merline.
Oconto was quite a baseball town before football and basketball diverted the interest of the fans, according to the man who used to be catcher.
“Why, say,” declared Mr. Merline, “when it happened that we played games on a week day, every business house in town closed up and the proprietors rushed out to the game. We used to have excursions accompany us to other towns, too, and I remember a big crowd of 350 followed us to Wausau once—quite a crowd in those days. We charged 25 cents admission and we often took in $175 or more. Once, when we played an all-girls team from Chicago, our receipts were $450, so you can imagine the crowd. Believe me, we certainly got support in those days!”
The games were played on a tract on the old race course, near the city park. While none of the players received anything like a salary, they divided at the end of the year the amount left in the treasury of the club. During the last year of the team’s existence, however, the men were given a monthly salary of about $75; some a little more, and some less.
In 1886, the first year for the club, the team won 23 out of 24 games, losing only to Marinette. Opposition was furnished by such teams as those from Green Bay, Appleton, Kaukauna, Marinette, in Wisconsin, and Stevenson, Escanaba, and Menominee, in Michigan. The Oconto team maintained an excellent record, though not always quite as brilliant as that of the first year, but the club disbanded along about 1890 because a new league had been formed and players from a Minneapolis team were hired to represent Oconto.
Baseball in 1886, says Mr. Merline, wasn’t as gentle a game as it is today. Only the catcher ever wore such a thing as a glove, and his protection was furnished only by a thin kid glove, with sometimes a piece of beef steak inserted in the palm for a shock absorber. Fielders and basemen never wore gloves, taking the ball in their bare hands at full speed.
“Believe me,” said the former player, “it wasn’t any fun to be a catcher. Sometimes, after a game, my left hand would be swelled at least an inch and of course the fielders’ and basemen’s hands didn’t feel any better.”
The bats used then were about the same as those used in the big leagues now, except, possibly, they were a little longer. Their shoes were fitted with triangular plates on the soles, fastened on with screws, and often they would remove the plates if they wished to wear the shoes after a game.
Six of the players on the city’s first baseball team are dead, but three of the Merline brothers, John, William, and Frank, as well as Ed. Baldwin, are still alive and residing in the city. Walter Grunert, who was manager of the team, is now living in Green Bay, where he has a jewelry store and Ed. Brooks is living on a farm near Abrams.
Frenk Merline is still a baseball enthusiast. Despite his 65 years, he still throws a ball around with the neighborhood boys and every summer he manages to play some with a real team.
Like most baseball players, he says he “would rather play it than eat!”
The current CoVid-19 pandemic has brought many comparisons to the influenza pandemic of 1918. A Wisconsin Magazine of History article from 2000 posted on WisCONTEXT (search 1918 at https://www.wiscontext.org) recounts the history of that time in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin was in a good position to ward off the effects of the 1918 influenza. As in other areas, such as the Wisconsin Historical Society which was founded in 1846, Wisconsin was a leading state in public health. The legislature created the State Board of Health on March 31, 1876. In 1883 the state required that every town, city, and village establish a local board of health. While not all had the expertise and experience needed, when the flu struck there were 1,685 local agents who could be a liaison with the state.
The so-called Spanish influenza began ravaging the world after a mild form that started in a military camp in Kansas followed the men sent to Europe and developed into a deadlier and more virulent strain. It became known as the Spanish flu since Spain was neutral in the war and so was not censoring news of the pandemic.
The new strain was far more contagious, had a faster onset, and worse complications. Some seemingly healthy people suddenly collapsed from the flu; some died in hours. In addition, 20% of those infected, often who resumed activities too soon, developed pneumonia. Half of those progressed to heliotrope cyanosis which filled the lungs with a black liquid often killing within 48 hours. This flu was also different in that the hardest hit demographic was adults age 25-40, rather than the young and old.
Wisconsin residents had been watching the progress of the disease as it swept through the military and in states to the east and south. By the end of September more than 1000 had died in Boston. In early October hundreds of thousands in Philadelphia were sick or dying. The incursion into Wisconsin seems to stem from two sailors from the Great Lakes Naval Station near Chicago who became ill while visiting Milwaukee in late September. Within 10 days close to 300 cases were reported. Madison had its first cases in early October with its first death on October 9.
Even before the pandemic hit full force, the State Health Officer, Dr. Cornelius Harper, called for a statewide educational campaign. This included pamphlets urging those who were sick to stay home and for the public to avoid large gatherings such as theaters and mass meetings, and to not have public viewings for flu related deaths.
On October 10, 1918, the situation had deteriorated to the point that Dr. Harper issued an order to all boards of health “to immediately close all schools, theaters, moving picture houses, other places of amusement and public gatherings for an indefinite period of time.” Although the US Surgeon General recommended that possibility, Wisconsin was the only state to follow it statewide and so comprehensively. However, because of the wording, not all communities realized it was meant to be mandatory.
The Oconto Falls Farmer-Herald reported that the local board of health felt that closings were not necessary at that time since the flu was not present and there were only a couple of cases of scarlet fever and whooping cough. It wasn’t long, though, before Oconto County realized the flu would affect them as well. In the following weeks several articles in the paper showed the extent of what was happening. General businesses seemed to not be affected by closures.
Oconto Falls
October 25: churches, schools, and theaters remain closed another week from scarlet fever
November 1: fewer cases were seen in the last week but more in the present week, so quarantine is extended
November 8: schools will remain closed, but gatherings are not affected
November 15: the quarantine is continued due to flu & scarlet fever
November 22: school to open November 25 after 5 weeks of being closed
Oconto
November 28: City of Oconto order closing all schools, libraries, theaters, dance halls, and public gatherings, and restricting other activities
no lingering, loitering, card playing, pool or billiard playing in saloons, pool halls, or cigar stores
churches could meet but no singing, hand-shaking, or public funerals
December 23: Farnsworth Library reopened after 25 days of quarantine
Morgan
December 13: Town of Morgan quarantine
The news from various communities in the county was peppered with people sick, recovering, or dying. In total 81 deaths from Spanish influenza became the official count. It’s hard to say, however, whether all cases could accurately be counted. Some may have been reported as due to pneumonia rather than the flu. The time period included was another factor. One death was reported in 1920. There were also some in the military who died while in service.
Concerns then were similar to those now, including the effects of closures and those taking care of the sick.
“This quarantine is possibly working some hardships, but it is not nearly so discomforting as would be deaths resulting from the epidemic…”
“Talk about heroes. There is no one more of a hero than nurses and attendants in the hospitals, where they hug right up to the sick and work their level best to save lives, and at the same time take great risk to losing their own life.”
In 2000 Milwaukee station WISN had a news highlight about UW Oshkosh students studying the 1918 pandemic. Helen Jelinske, formerly from Couillardville, was interviewed on her experience.
“Within two days you could have gotten the disease from someone else and died and you wouldn’t have had any notion of how sick you were even. It was that frightening.” 91-year-old Helen Jelinske of Waukesha remembers it like it was yesterday. “It felt as though everything inside of you was sort of exploding like there was so much internal pressure.” Helen was just eight years old when the flu came to her home in rural Oconto County on Christmas Eve 1918. “We were all sick but my mother was the sickest of all. We thought my mother was going to die that night.” Her mother pulled through but the family felt helpless. “You didn’t have one single thing you could do for yourself. We had no medicine we could take. We had no knowledge of how we could deal with this terrible sickness.”