REMEMBER WHEN . . . Volume 4

 

 

Almost all eyes are on ski jumper Ivan Tjortness of the Racine Ski Club as he soars to a jump of 87 feet at the Club’s meet at Mt. Tom, east of Burlington, on February 19, 1950. A 20-mile-an-hour wind blowing directly into the take-off prevented contestants from bettering the hill record of 108 feet set in 1949. The longest jump of the day was 100 feet by Clarence Bergeson of Bush Lake, Minnesota. Burlington skiers, George Sandle and Larry Lundholm, both members of the Racine Ski club, often competed in the events. The photo is from the Burlington Historical Society’s Free Press collection donated by the late Elmer Ebert.

 

 

 

 

 

Well “bundled-up” youngsters play “crack the whip” along the Chestnut Street side of Echo Lake in December 1952. Head scarves seem to be the head covering of choice for most of the young ladies. Among the participants shown in this Free Press photo are Eric Larson, Rick Zwiebel, Jim and Joan Alby, Margie and Ann Schneider, and the Regner twins. Besides the natural ice on the lake being available for winter fun, the City also provided a skating rink at the North Street (now Congress Street) softball diamond.

 

 

 

 

An unusual ballpark was created on Echo Lake as the setting for the Burlington Jaycees’ Ice Ball tournament in February 1975. The cleared-off area along Milwaukee Avenue served as playing fields while spectators stood to the side or gathered in the snow. Wonago Lanes of Mukwonago won the first place trophy and cash prize by beating Lake Geneva Sports Shop, 8 to 2, in the finals. A lot of slipping, sliding, and fun was reported by several tourney participants.

 

 

 

 

Hunting is a winter sport for some folks. Here, George May, Clarence Colburn, Clifford Ball, and Howard Colburn (from left to right) show off some of the 45 rabbits they bagged during their hunt early in December 1907. The hunters are standing on the east side of the Colburns’ Log Cabin Tavern on the “Hillside” on Jefferson Street. Note the “Family Entrance” and Finke-Uhen signs at the side door and the wooden Finke-Uhen Brewing Co. case near Howard Colburn. The Finke-Uhen brewery was located on McHenry Street.

 

CHRISTMASES PAST . . .

 

As the holiday season approaches, many persons start thinking about the wants of holiday celebrants. High on that list are traditional Christmas trees. Here, in November 1952, Mrs. Sam Adler (the former Dorothy Stang Kerkman), with her two daughters and others, continued a Stang family tradition of supplying Christmas trees to Burlington. The tradition had been started by Mrs. Adler’s father, Lawrence Stang, Sr., over 40 years earlier. The group is shown loading the trees they had cut about 290 miles north of Burlington. They brought back three truckloads totaling 1,512 trees.

 

 

 

 

The post office is always a busy place in December as people mail Christmas cards and packages to their relatives and friends in places near and far. The "Christmas Rush" in December 1949 was no exception as the Burlington post office handled a record load. Here, postal workers Nick Hancock, Walter Riel, Sr., and Bill Rein prepare envelopes to be run through the cancelling machine.

 

 

 

Community charitable and social services groups can usually be found helping to provide Christmas cheer to the less-fortunate and the shut-ins during the holiday season. Here, workers for the welfare department of the Burlington Community Chest prepare to distribute large Christmas baskets to needy families and smaller baskets to hospital patients in December 1949. From left are Lena Karges, Lois Healy, Otto Koch, Carol Uebele, and Emilie Koch.

 

 

Many groups and organizations hold parties and get-togethers during the holiday season. Here, members of the Burlington Business and Professional Woman’s Club display holiday hats of their own creation at the Club’s December 1953 Christmas party at the Colonial Club at Brown’s Lake. The eye-catching hats in the back row are worn by, from left, Marge Kessler (whose hat was designed for dodging photographers), Grace Klinkhammer, Aurora Samuels, Evelyn Dwyer, and Kit Stang. In the front row, wearing their creations, are Peggy Vogelsang, Florence Gums, and Alida Clason. Bertha Newbury stands in the doorway.

(Note:  All the photos in this section are from the Burlington Historical Society's collection of Free Press photos donated by the late Elmer Ebert.)

GASOLINE SERVICE STATIONS

 

HICKS OIL STATION ‑
The Hicks Oil Co. filling station, operated by J. Harold Hicks, was built by Claus Ficken in 1939 on the corner of Geneva and Dyer Streets (now Milwaukee Avenue and N. Kane Street). The corner had been vacant since 1930, when a fire destroyed the Orpheum Theatre, known earlier as Teutonia Hall and the Opera House. The Cunningham Buick Co.’s used car lot is also seen in this early 1940s picture. This corner has since been occupied by various gasoline stations, including Elmer Bauman and Gil Tietel’s Standard Oil Station. Burlington Food and Fuel and Schilli Automotive occupied the site in 2012.
 

 

WADHAMS GAS STATION ‑
This location, on the corner of Pine and Jefferson Streets across from City Hall, was the site of the Prailes residence which was moved off in 1920 by the Lockwood Oil Co. to build a service station. It was the first “drive in” service station in Burlington. Subsequent occupants of the parcel included Wadhams Oil Co. in 1924; George Strock, who bought Wadhams’ interest in 1950; the service stations of Ray McDonald, Jim Strohm, and Frank Voss; Ziebart service shop; Wayne=s Pizza in 1984; Fidelity Title in 1987; and the Racine Journal Times office in 1997. The site was occupied in 2012 by The Smoke Shop.

 

 

 

 

CO‑OP FILLING STATION ‑
Purchased by the Burlington Consumers Co‑operative Oil Co in 1937, the Andres home on the northwest corner of Washington and Dodge Streets was remodeled into a service station, as shown in this 1952 Emmett Raettig photo. The house was torn down in 1959 for an enlarged service station. This site is now part of the parking structure across from the Hampton Inn Hotel on Dodge Street.
 

 

YONK & MARTINSON SERVICE STATION ‑
This site was the location of the Schemmer and Rossmiller Grocery Store in the early 1920s. Harry Terry also had a grocery store located here prior to a service station being built in 1938. The station was leased to the Sinclair Refining Co. and was first managed by Bernard Kempken. Subsequent managers included Irv Anderson, Albert Horter and Ernest Polze, Francis Menheer, Walter Yonk, Jr., and Robert Martinson (at the time of this 1956 Emmett Raettig photo), and Fred Beck. Wilson Classic Cars located here in 2004. The site was occupied by State Auto Sales in 2012.

 

 

FAMILY-OWNED GROCERY STORES

 

Albert T. Spiegelhoff rented this building on Chestnut Street from Mrs. Salome May and moved his grocery business here in 1918. Spiegelhoff bought the building in 1920, and his family continued the business here until 1977 when it was moved to the former Red Owl store building on the corner of Milwaukee Avenue and Lewis Street, where Reineman's annex is now located. Since 1977 this building (shown in a 1954 photo taken by Emmett Raettig) has been occupied by several businesses, including the St. Vincent de Paul store, Brusewitz plumbing and heating, Creative Cakes, Burlington Flowers and Interiors, and Grater Tater.

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Anna Lux and her son, John, bought the Harold Beck grocery and meat market on Main Street in 1940, and opened the East Side Market. In 1947, John sold the East Side Market to Gilbert Carroll, and ran a grocery store in Cedar Park. In 1948, John had this building erected on Main Street just north of his former store and opened a grocery store affiliated with IGA. Shortly after this Free Press photo was taken in January 1952, Joseph Grossman bought the Lux store and moved his Clover Farm store here. The building is currently occupied by Universal Communications and Computers.

 

 

George Schumann moved his Hillside Grocery store across Jefferson Street to this building, known as the Yanny building, on the corner of Jefferson and McHenry Streets in 1933. The building (shown in a 1930s snapshot from the Burlington Historical Society’s Harvey and Catherine Uhen collection) had previously served as a Catholic school and had housed a variety of businesses, including Joseph Yanny’s milk and cream depot and meat market, Nic May, Jr.’s meat market, Joseph S. Giudice's Hillside Market, Fred Boulden’s ice cream parlor, and the grocery stores of Vincent Schroeder, Mrs. Mary Armock, and Simon and Eva Hoelz. Schumann, whose daughter Eileen was also involved in the store, sold the grocery business in 1942 to Elmer Myers. The building, which has since housed a number of other businesses and organizations, was vacant as of July 2012.

PIZZA RESTAURANTS AND DUNNE'S DRIVE-IN

 

 

 

Luigi’s Restaurant and Pizza House, operated by Luigi and Alice Petracchi, opened in the former Jensen Tire building at 208 N. Pine Street in August 1957. Charles and Dolores Giammo bought the restaurant in July 1976. Other businesses in the building over the years included Hermie’s restaurant; Cornerstone Coffeehouse; JJ’s Donut, Deli, and Coffee Shop; and the La Chiquita Mexican grocery store. A fire "gutted" the building in July 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lawrence Marino opened Marino’s Pizza House in New Munster in June 1955. It was one of the first pizza restaurants in the Burlington area and a favorite place for high school students.

 

 

 

Charles and Florence Natale opened Natale’s Pizza restaurant in the Finke building on the corner of Chestnut and Pine Streets in 1963 after the Burlington Savings and Loan Association moved out. In 1967 Natale’s expanded into the adjoining building vacated by Tobin’s downtown drug store. The restaurant was gutted by a fire in June 1978. The Natales rebuilt the restaurant, removing the second floor and corner turret. The Natales closed their restaurant in August 1987. Since then, the building has been occupied by a succession of Italian restaurants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ed Dunne's A&W Drive-In stood on Highway 11 (Durand Avenue) across from Fischer Park at Brown’s Lake. The root beer stand was started by Harry Kwenski in 1949. Dunne took over the business in 1951 and operated it until 1974 when he sold it to Mr. and Mrs. John Evancho.

 

 

 

GRANDPA'S LETTERS - A LEGACY

Visits to Grandma and Grandpa's house are often among one's most cherished childhood memories. For Helen Lofy Mollinger, daughter of Adolph and Marie Rose (nee Schwaller) Lofy, visits to the Burlington home of her maternal grandparents, Frank A. and Margaret Schwaller, were especially memorable, as evidenced by Mrs. Mollinger's reminiscence, which is presented below. The composite image shows a circa 1890 photo of the house at 117 W. State Street, which the Schwaller family occupied from 1901 through the 1970s; a circa 1910 photo of Frank A. Schwaller (seated right) with some members of his family; and the unique signature that Schwaller used in letters to his granddaughter.

Grandpa's Letters:  A Legacy    
by Helen Mollinger
 
In the "Memory Box" I've saved since I was a little girl are letters from my grandpa, a gentle man whom I respected, admired and dearly loved. He wrote in beautiful German script and signed each letter with his name drawn into a dove. Now when I take time to peruse these thoughts from grandpa, each letter kindles a special memory.

Grandma and grandpa lived in a stately house high on a hill in the small southeastern Wisconsin town of Burlington. Weekend family trips from Milwaukee in our Jordan automobile were frequent, and each Sunday dinner seemed a celebration.

After grace, grandpa – a tall, handsome man with a commanding appearance – raised his wineglass in a toast, and in robust voice led us in singing THE MARSEILLES, the national anthem of his beloved homeland. This was the signal for tiny bespectacled grandma, wearing a flowered percale housedress and rickracked apron, to serve her feast, usually roast chicken, mashed potatoes, frenched green beans (which she'd stored in a kitchen crock), homemade bread, black currant relish (the Vitamin C of that era), apple kuchens and always baked beans that had been simmering in the woodstove oven since the night before.

Their spacious yard was a child's paradise where we children played hide 'n seek, raced up and down the steep driveway or sledded downhill in winter. In spring, we delighted in picking dandelion love bouquets and weaving their long juicy stems into golden necklaces, or sending fuzzy blowball wishes to the wind. The young rosette‑shaped dandelion plants were saved for grandma's hot bacon salads or her hot tonic tea.

I cherished long summer vacations when I was alone with grandma and grandpa at this birthplace of my mother. Father would buy a fifty‑cent ticket at the Public Service building for one passage to Burlington on the Rapid Transit Line, hand it (along with a Dutch Master cigar) to the mustached motorman and tell him I would be met at the Interurban station in Burlington.

During those summers, in grandma's kitchen I learned how to measure flour from the fifty‑pound bin, knead dough for bread and cinnamony kuchens, waterglass eggs and put up jars of fruits and vegetables – I even carried them to the cold cellar.

And I recall many magical moments with grandpa, especially listening to stories of his childhood in Lorraine, France. He skillfully recreated scenes of the dark night when he escaped to avoid serving in the Prussian War, of his mother waving until she could no longer see him and, later, of the hope he felt when he caught sight of "the lady in the harbor."

A master of many trades that included cabinet making, barbering and selling real estate, grandpa loved taking me to his downtown office where I could sit in his big swivel chair and write letters home. He was always interested in our family happenings and in my school work, and was proud when I studied French in school.

As years passed and my visits became less frequent, grandpa and I kept in touch through letters. He kept me informed about goings‑on in Burlington, and about his grapevines growing over the summerhouse. He also congratulated me on my school achievements. And when I became engaged to my Navy Lieutenant in World War II, 90‑year‑old grandpa sent me best wishes for a blissful union.

Grandpa's letters! For me, they are renewed gifts of "words to live by" – a legacy from a caring grandpa who accomplished much in 97 years of living. Symbols of strength, courage and love, grandpa's letters are time preserved.

- - - - -

Frank A. Schwaller, Helen Mollinger's grandpa, was born in France in December 1853 and emigrated to the United States in 1871 during the Franco‑Prussian War. After working in Michigan as a lumber camp laborer and barber, he came to Burlington in 1876.

He established a barber shop on Geneva Street (now Milwaukee Avenue) at the site now occupied by the Bigelow Appliance store. Schwaller also sold gents' furnishings at his barber shop and, according to an 1879 newspaper article, had on draught lemon beer, a drink of his own manufacture.

In 1881 he moved his barber shop to a building on the west side of Pine Street about where the Chase Bank drive‑thru is now located. In 1888 Schwaller bought a building on the opposite side of Pine Street, which he occupied until his death in November 1950. He used the building, which now houses the bakery for the Coffee House at Chestnut & Pine, first as a barber shop and then as a music store. Later he began a real estate and insurance business, which he moved to the second floor, while he rented out the first floor to various businesses.

 

PEARLS ONCE FOUND IN BURLINGTON WATERS 

            For a period of about 25 years ending in the early 1930s, clam fishing in the Fox river in hopes of finding pearls was a summertime occupation for a number of Burlington area people. Even after that, those wading in the river would sometimes search for clams, still hoping to find "pearls."
          In some years during the height of the pearl fishing "fever," starting usually in June, every day would see dozens of people ‒ with up to 100 reported on some weekends ‒ making a systematic search of the river bed for the clams that lived in the river north to Waterford and south to Wilmot. The stretch of the river south of Burlington between the Milwaukee Road trestle (now part of the White River State Trail) and the Soo Line (now Canadian National) railroad bridge (east of the Department of Public Works) was considered the most lucrative.
           The success of some of the persistent clammers in finding pearls was remunerative, while others spent a few days at the work and then quit in disgust. In one instance in 1911, Andrew Jacobs succeeded Frank Spicer in Charles Mole's barber shop when Spicer decided to try his hand at clamming. Information on Spicer's success has not been found, but a 1913 newspaper reported that Spicer was again at work at Mole's barber shop.
           In 1909 the local papers reported that people from Milwaukee, Chicago, and Waukesha were in Burlington, Rochester, and Waterford buying up the pearls at from $1 to $15, with the highest of those prices paid for a pearl found in the river near the Reesman farm northeast of Burlington. In 1910 local jeweler Leroy Crawford bought over $400 worth of pearls from the clam fishers. In 1912 Hermina Bulgrin found a pearl said to be valued at $100, quite a tidy sum in those days.

            The clam shells were also a source of revenue for some of the clammers. After the clams had been taken from the river, they would be steamed to force the shells open. After the meat had been scooped out, often for use as animal feed, and any pearls had been removed, the empty shells would be stacked in huge piles.
            For many years, the shells were shipped mainly to a button factory in Muscatine, Iowa. Sometimes, however, the shells traveled much farther. In 1910, for example, two railcar loads were shipped to Germany and one to Holland. The shell prices varied from year to year. In 1910 the clammers received about $6 a ton. In 1926, Fred Steffen reported shipping 25 tons for which he received $50 a ton. Fred and his brother, Charles, not only clammed themselves, but they hired about 10 boys each season and they bought shells gathered by other people.
            One of Burlington's long-time clammers, Julius Redjewski, kept his eye on the shell market the way farmers watch the livestock and crop markets. He sometimes held his shells in hopes of getting a better price. Redjewski, whose wife Johanna was also an ardent clammer, would sort into a special pile the small purplish clamshells prized by the button makers. One year he was paid $90 a ton for the special shells.
            In 1919 a new state law required clam fishers to obtain a license. State residents paid $5, while non-residents were charged $50. In 1921 two Burlington boys, 12-year-old Ray Heck and 14-year-old James Willick were arrested by the Racine County sheriff for clamming without a license. The case was eventually dismissed, but not before the boys were obliged to go to Racine and show a judge that they had applied for the necessary license.
            As cheap plastic buttons made inroads on the button industry, the demand for clam shells diminished and clamming fell off. By the early 1930s, this curious bit of Burlington's history had all but died.
            In 1944 some interest was aroused when a Whitewater man announced his intention to start a "pearl farm" in the Fox River at Burlington. He planned to develop cultured pearls, as the Japanese had done since the early 1900s with salt water oysters, using pieces of fresh water clam shells as a pearl-producing agent. The project, however, was not pursued.

 

WORLD WAR II ENDED CIGAR MAKING INDUSTRY IN BURLINGTON

The following article, lightly edited, appeared in the Standard Democrat of August 7, 1942, less than a year after the United States was drawn into World War II by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Last of Local Cigar Makers Closes Shop and Ends Era – War Conditions Force Ted Huening & Co. Out of Business Here

     Vanishing like its own rich smoke, the era of the handmade cigar fades a little farther from view this week with the passing of the only remaining cigar manufacturing business in Burlington, operated by Ted Huening, Henry Pfarrdrescher, George Rein and Charles Lightfield.
     It was the first world war that started the decline of cigar making by hand, and the second war that is forcing the Burlington concern from the market. In 1917 and 1918, when all available man power had been inducted to military service, manufacturers turned to machines to produce their cigars. Following the war, they continued to use the machines which were faster and much too expensive to discard, with the result that few young people learned the trade.
     Now a second world war has raised tobacco costs 30 per cent, put a ceiling on cigar prices, and made it virtually impossible to get tobacco leaf "wrappers" from Sumatra or to obtain skilled workers. Huening, like hundreds of cigar makers before him in recent years, is closing out. He says that he will turn the second floor of his building on Pine street into offices or a flat, and that he has no immediate plans for the future for himself.

Ted Huening cigar factory, 1920. Seated:  Henry Pfarrdrescher (front), Ted Huening, John Trier, Fred Krakofsky, Joe Hoffman, John Karcher, George Rein, John Wurms, and Louis Wolf. Standing mid‑way is Charles Lightfield. Man standing near back thought to be Ren Yonk.

     The closing will mark the end of a lifetime in the cigar making trade. Huening was born at Waterford, and as a boy tried to get work stripping tobacco in a small Waterford cigar factory for $1.15 a week. Failing, he came to Burlington and hired out stripping tobacco and learning the trade from John Trier who operated a shop at his home on Geneva Street (now Milwaukee Avenue).
     Retiring with Huening are Henry Pfarrdrescher, who started work with Huening in 1916 and has been shop foreman since his return from the world war in 1918; George Rein, who has been in the business about 40 years, starting with Ben Holmes and going to the Huening factory when Huening purchased Holmes' business; and Charles Lightfield, who started the trade in the Al Huse factory and has followed it for 30 years.
     In 1913 Huening started in business for earnest at a shop located at Washington and Dyer (now Kane) streets. There were then no less than seven cigar manufacturers in Burlington employing a total of 30 workers. In the past 29 years, Huening has bought out all six of the others, including Ben Holmes, Al Huse, Wolf & Moe, Tichlofen & Leber, Schuman & Amon, and Adolph Richter. The largest of the companies, belonging to Ben Holmes, was purchased in 1930, at which time Huening moved into his location on Pine street.
     About 18 months ago Pfarrdrescher, Rein, and Lightfield joined in partnership with Huening. Since then the four men have done all of their own work, hiring no new employees. As Huening puts it, there have been no new employees to hire, although at one time there were as many as 14 workers in the shop.
     Changes in the cigar industry in the past 30 years have come mostly in packaging and wrapping, Huening says. The cigars themselves have remained the same in size, design, and blend, but he remembers the day when they were peddled to taverns and stores in baskets by the manufacturer, and counted out by hand for sale. He remembers, too, when the ordinary cigar box that we know was an innovation, and when individual cellophane wrappers were used by his own company for the first time in 1932.
     Three kinds of cigars have been put out by Huening's Voucher company. One, the "Flor de Anson," is a blend acquired in the business transaction with Ben Holmes, and had been made for many years previously by Holmes' company. It was named for Cap Anson, a baseball hero of his day, who was a close personal friend of Holmes, and is the oldest Burlington-made cigar on the market, manufactured continuously since 1890. The other two brands are the popular "Voucher," originated by Huening, and "Margona."
     Raw materials have come to the cigar makers from far places:  leaf wrappers from Sumatra; domestic tobacco from Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Puerto Rico; and Havana blend from Cuba. The finished product, however, has been sold for the most part within the county, some through jobbers, but largely by the manufacturers direct to retailers and consumers.
     Huening believes strongly that in ten more years the making of cigars by hand will be a lost art. "It takes three years to become a good cigar maker," he explains." A good man can make 400 cigars in a day, but no one has time or the desire to learn the trade any more."
     Within the last year, he has seen a cigar press hung up on the wall of a tavern as a curiosity, labeled, "This is a Cigar Press." He plans to keep one or two of his own, he says, if they are going to become rare museum pieces like that.

Huening cigar factory artifacts in Society collection include cigar press (with handle), cigar cutter (lower left), Voucher cigar box (lower center), two‑piece cigar mold (lower right), and Flor de Anson certificate. The artifacts were donated to the Society by Huening's daughter, Mrs. Marion Spiegelhoff.

     It was around 1856 that the first cigar factory was established in Burlington by a Mr. Ropers. It is in 1942 that the last factory is discontinued. Huening says there will never be another cigar factory in the city; and he is quite sure that the hand craft of cigar making will soon have disappeared from the American scene.

 

 A MEMORABLE DAY - DEPARTING FOR WORLD WAR I TRAINING CAMP

       Saturday, September 22, 1917, was a memorable day for 60 young men from Burlington, Waterford, Kansasville, Union Grove, and other Racine County places. That was the day the men boarded a train at Burlington’s Soo Line depot and departed for their military training at Camp Custer in Michigan.
       The men, between the ages of 21 and 31, had been selected from those registered pursuant to the Selective Service Act of May 1917. They comprised the second group of draftees sent to training camp from this area following the United States' formal entry, in April 1917, into what was to become known as the First World War.
       What made the departure of the men even more memorable was the outpouring of community support which had begun even before the 22nd and which both Burlington weekly newspapers reported on extensively. The following article is from the Free Press of September 27, 1917. The accompanying photos were taken by Burlington photographer Otto R. Heinemann, who had a studio in downtown Burlington from 1915 through 1920.

Rookies Leave for Camp Custer
Second Quota of Men Drafted for Army Service Are Given a Royal Farewell Before Leaving

       The honor roll of this district has grown from eight in the first quota to sixty in the second quota, who left here on Saturday morning at 9:44 over the Soo Line for Camp Custer, without counting, though not forgetful of those who one by one have answered the call and left to do their bit in one field or another.
       The second quota mobilized here on Friday afternoon. Preparations had been made by the Woman's League, the Red Cross and the city of Burlington, en masse, to give the boys public recognition of our appreciation and endeavor to stand back of them until the boys come home again.
       The musicale given at the home of Mr. and Mrs. John T. Prasch last Thursday netted the neat sum of $37.50, which amount went toward paying for the comfort kits provided each soldier. One in camp wrote home "the kits are a mighty convenient contrivance if they are funny looking things from the man's standpoint. They are all right in camp." The ladies have already made and given about seventy of these kits, costing about $1.50 each.
       The public reception, patriotic addresses by Mayor H. A. Runkel and City Attorney C. O. Bergener, musicale and dance at the opera house on Friday evening, followed by refreshments for the soldier boys and their partners at the Knights of Columbus rooms proved a credit to the public spirited city in every detail. The boys were easily distinguished by their cards and roses attached and we are proud of every one of them.
       From 9:00 to 10:00 o'clock on Saturday morning all stores and factories closed and there was a general turnout to escort the boys to the depot, with an equally large crowd awaiting them there. The factory whistles vied with the Harmony Band on the line of march, but gave way to the patriotic airs when the depot was reached. Again each soldier had his red flower. The High School girls had prepared and distributed a box of candy for each one, the comfort kits had been stowed away for future use, smokes for the smokers were distributed to all alike, and large baskets of good things to eat en route carried into the waiting coach the boys had filled after the roll call.
       There are no slackers here, and so no need for the waiting alternates who stood ready.
       As the music by the band ceased, the farewells of loved ones, the wordless hand grips as train time drew near, was no time to measure loyalty by the ability to cheer. Many was the expressed and silent hope and prayer that peace may come before "our boys" are called to that indefinite "Somewhere in France."
       There were some who could and did sing "The Star Spangled Banner" with a large flag in their midst, as the train drew in. Even the train crew had the spirit of the waiting crowd, and the coach was detached from the freight cars with men and boys on top of them with a gentleness almost unknown and attached to the passenger train and the cheers and hats, hands, handkerchiefs and flags fluttered goodbye, and everyone tried to "send them away with a smile."
       It is time now to cheer them with the home letters and that is one thing that costs no more since than before the war ‒ a two-cent stamp. Use them freely for the boys. . . .
       The third quota of soldiers for Camp Custer will not be sent away on December 3rd as planned, as it is understood the camp is not ready to receive any more drafted men for the present.
 

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