ALBERT TRAXLER

My Grandfather

By Dorothy Traxler Steies
The Fourth Child of His Youngest Son Nick

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Written on the occation of the Reunion at
Menomonie, Wisconsin
September 5, 1948
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When I was first asked to write this story, I eagerly agreed as history was always a favorite subject of mine in school. Frances, (Mrs. Wm. McKenna, Brookside Home, Menomonie, Wisconsin), and I had already exchanged some correspondence on the subject, and I thought it would be easy. After considerable digging into records, the enormity of the task slowly dawned on me. I tried to get out of the job, but was unsuccessful. I felt totally inadequate to the task. I still feel, that I, who never saw my grandfather, am least qualified to write his memoirs. I am writing this for the family, and so am calling people by the names by which we knew them best. The uninitiated should refer to the graph of the family tree as prepared by Sadie and Alice (Mrs. Reed; Mrs. Dan Kennedy, 550 College Avenue, Waukesha, Wisconsin). Frances will recognize whole letters of hers inserted here. By rights this whole story should be written between quotes.

If each of Albert Dreschler’s grandchildren were to write his story, each would be different. Which would give the truer picture? One can only write of one’s own experience and I think each branch should add its own chapter.

The spelling of the name is the first thing one encounters. If one bears in mind that D in German has a T sound, and sch an X sound, you can easily see that in this country of many nationalities the name was soon spelled as it sounded, “Traxler”. We found no court order for the change.

We started this reunion as a centennial, but found that we were six years early. The date given in “History of Dunn County” is in error. There are such few written facts to go by. A paper filed in New York states that Albert Dreschler and wife, Teresa Sager Dreschler, with two minor children wished to make this country their home. He gives Prachatietz, near Prague, Bohemia, Austria as his home and 1820 the date of birth.

There is no mention of brothers, nor do his children ever remember his mentioning any. Yet I have found quite a number of people here by the same name, or near enough to think it was derived from the same name. A striking incident is the fact that all came from ancestry from this same place near Prague. Most of these people are also of the Catholic faith.

Grandfather was thirty-four years of age at the time of his coming to this country. What lay behind this drastic change in his life? He was past the age when adventure alone would be the motive, and one doesn’t bring a wife and two babies on an adventurous trip. Let us look back into the country from which he came.

The whole of Europe was struggling back from the Napoleonic Wars. Austria particularly was seething with unrest. The Emperor, Vrenz Jesef, had come to power after several civil wars with members of his own royal family. Sides had been taken; fears and hatreds aroused. The people had lost faith in their leaders and were looking for something…almost anything…to put their hopes in. Taxes were unbearably high. The encyclopedia gives the area of Bohemia, Austria as 20,600 square miles with a population in 1855 as six and one half million people. Try to picture twice Wisconsin’s population into one-third it’s area. The people felt trapped and helpless; I imagine the same mental attitude must exist there today. Now there is no avenue of escape open.

Into this congested picture of discouragement stories came of a country across the sea where land could be had for the taking. This new country was eager for settlers…wanted them. All you needed to do was to cut down the trees and till the soil. Strange tales indeed to the ears of these people who looked upon five acres and one cow as wealth enough for any man. By this time letters had come back establishing the authenticity of the stories. Had the Knopps written urging them to come? The only obstacle that separated them from this enchanting new country was the ocean, and the only thing required was the courage to make the trip.

In 1844 Albert Dreschler had married Teresa Sager. Her father was the Herr Sager who owned the town’s tanneries. The bark used in tanning was oak bark taken from the Black Forest of Germany. Grandfather’s work was to pile this bark into long rows. I am glad Grandmother chose to accompany her husband to this new land and share his trials and hardships. Many women remained behind until homes were established for them. I am sure a secure niche was offered her in her father’s home. Was this decision to come to this new land made slowly and reluctantly after visualizing the hardships ahead, or did they start out joyously?

Aunt Mary was four on February 2, 1850 and Uncle John two on January 6th, 1852 .

Of the long trip over only one fact is handed down to us, that is the memory of how sick Grandmother was on the way over and Aunt Mary’s fear that her mother would die. It must have been something more serious than seasickness. Was there a contageous disease on board? Was the food contaminated in some way? These children must have witnessed a burial at sea. A child of four can remember many things, especially those out of the ordinary. It must be an interesting problem to discuss with some modern psychologist, this fear that blotted all else from this child’s memory. Aunt Mary was never able to recall a single item about the trip, what the boat looked like, or if there were any other children aboard. She remembered only a fear that her mother would die and they would have to put her body in the water, and she cried and begged her mother not to die. This memory stayed with her always.

After landing in New York, Grandfather went directly to Waukesha, Wisconsin. Why they selected Waukesha isn’t known. Perhaps they had friends there; perhaps it was only a desire to be in this settlement of German speaking people, isolated from Milwaukee. There, on October 20th, 1855, Grandfather filed the first papers stating that he wished to become a citizen. Uncle Mark was born then, March 21st, 1856. Grandfather left his family at Waukesha and came to Menomonie to work for the Knapp-Stout Company. This was about 1857 or 1858, before there were any houses east of the river. Blueberries grew where the courthouse now stands. Indians had encampments where the Stout buildings are located now. The street paralleling the river was known as Water Street, and consisted of but two rows of houses.

In 1858 he sent for his family. Imagine Grandmother, who in her native land was the daughter of the town’s wealthiest man, coming to such a place. Imagine her walking up the Knapp hill with Mary, 8, John 6, and Mark 2. She found shelter that night with the Knapps, who were also from Prachatietz. A few days later the Knapps helped Grandfather build a crude house near a spring back of the present John Behling farm. This was before any surveying had been done and just previous to the enacting of the homestead laws. Grandfather had squatters rights to the land. Later, when the land was surveyed, it was found to belong to the railroad company. The Government had deeded ever odd numbered section of land ten miles back through which the rairoad ran to the company as an incentive to opening up the territory. It was here on June 13th, 1859 Uncle Anton was born, and dad (Nick) was born in the summer of 1862. All accounts agree that dad was a wee baby at the time of the Sioux Indian massacres in August of 1862. Mrs. Buckley always thought that dad was born before the 4th of July; others thought he was only a few weeks old. The exact date was never recorded and forgotten. Dad kept June 29th “as good a date as any,” he always said.

The Sioux Indian massacre of New Ulm occurred from August 18th to the 25th, 1862. Everyone was afraid the Chippewas would join the Sioux in the uprising. A rider came through with the news that the Chippewa were on the warpath. This was a false alarm. Grandmother, alone and horror-stricken with fear, took her children and fled to the fields. She piled corn shucks around her and the children to hide. The story is told that bread was left rising on the table and she only grabbed one blanket as she fled, and it was three days later before she was found. She had taken off most of her own clothing to put around the children to keep them warm. The fear and exposure proved too much for Teresa Sager Traxler, and she died in October. She was buried in what is now Lake View, no marker was ever placed upon her grave.

Imagination can picture the life of these five children. Mary was but twelve, John 10, Mark 6, Anton 3, and dad but a few weeks old. They must have been made of very sturdy stuff indeed, and one wonders how they got their vitamins; but all grew to maturity and all had an innate sense of right and wrong, and loyalty to friends and neighbors.

The first school was a private one, owned and maintained by Captain Wilson for his own children. He encouraged all the children to attend. Here John, Mark, and perhaps Anton later went to school. It was a white frame building situated on the top of Knapp Hill. Some of you may remember it. The Knapp-Stout Company was the largest lumber concern to exist at that time. When the cities along the Mississippi River wanted lumber for their homes instead of logs, they went up the river looking for easily accessible timber. A fine stand of pine was found along the banks of the Red Cedar River, which was a favorable stream to float them down to market. One has almost forgotten that this country was covered with those tall, huge pines. Perhaps the very last one stood in our own yard, an immense thing, four or five feet through at the base. A pine is never quiet, even on the stillest night there is a rustle in the needles. We, Nick Traxler’s children, were all lulled to sleep at night by the murmuring of this pine.

Such was the timber that attracted the Knapp-Stout Company to Menomonie. The first permanent settlement was in 1830. Knapp and Wilson came in 1846. This became the Knapp-Stout Company. The Wilsons had charge of getting the timber out of the millions of acres of virgin forest that they owned. Tainter had charge of the mills, and Stout sold their products, mostly in St. Louis. The company owned numerous farms at Washburn, Prairie, Moore, Creaser, etc. When the men were not busy at the pineries or mills, there was always work on the farms. There was no such thing as unemployment. An idler was allowed two meals and a bed for one night, it was then go to work or move on. An idler was never tolerated around camp. The company owned its own stores, made their own money, and was judge and jury at all trials. No unions to protect the laboring men here; yet, as I recall the many stories about these early days told around the kitchen stove in my youth, not one do I recall of injustice or cruelty. They must have been men of high principles. A dollar a day was the prevailing wage. Not very high as we think of wages today, yet one can drive down any street in Menomonie, especially Wilson Avenue, and see those big rambling houses still in good condition. One must bear in mind that all these houses were built on that dollar a day wage.

We have many evidences of these men’s sense of obligation to the country and to the people who worked for them. The Tainter Memorial, The Wilson Home, now Stout dormitory, and all of the Stout buildings are the ones that come to our minds; but do we know that the lakefront around Menomonie was bought by Senator Stout so it would not fall into private hands and always belong to the city as a beauty spot? The Natatorium was built and equipped by Senator Stout and given to the city. All of us took gym there when we went to any school in the city.

I found no evidence that any of the Knapp Stout Company were members of the Catholic church; yet the first Mass held at Menomonie in 1855 was held in the Knapp Stout Company building. The site of the first church building was donated by the Knapp Stout Company. Again, when the church burned in 1899 it was Senator Stout who offered a temporary place for Mass. In their hayday, 1880 to 1890, they employed from 1000 to 1500 men. Their mills shut down in August, 1901.

In 1865 the railroad company claimed their land grant. Grandfather, finding it necessary to get a home for his children, homesteaded the east half of the northwest quarter of section eight in the town of Menomonie. Most of us remember this as the Emil Kaatz farm. I believe Ericsons own it now.

There was a small frame house situated on the top of the hill overlooking the junction of Wilson and Annis Creeks. There was a large pine tree north of the house and at the foot of this tree, in the early days, was a spring. Perhaps it determined the location of the house. From here dad received his first and only schooling at Tramway school. I don’t recall how old he was, but I do remember his saying he was old enough to get paid wages for helping to build the first school he attended; perhaps a lad in his teens. When Aunt Mary was but fourteen she went to work in the company kitchen. One can hardly conceive how four boys,..twelve, nine, seven and five, took care of themselves, as their dad’s work kept him away all day, but there was always cornmeal mush to eat and fish and wild game, which was mostly venison. Frances writes that in later life, when Uncle Mark was ill, he often asked for plain cornmeal mush to eat. Perhaps he hoped it would taste as good as when he had had it served many years before with the hearty sauce of youth and hunger. Here they acquired their spirit of independence and individualism that helped them build homes for themselves with scarcely anything to start with.

Their nearest neighbors were the Gepharts, Seiferts, Buckleys, and Knapps. It is easy to visualize these good housewives handing out an occasional snack to these four waifs. The story is told that their hair would become matted, sores would form from lack of care and a neighbor would administer an occasional shampoo. Their closest friends were the Buckleys. The two families were friends through youth, manhood and old age. To us they were always Uncles and many a story can we recall of hunting and fishing told by them.

How these boys kept their faith is miraculous, with so few opportunities to learn of their faith or to practice it. I can easily place in this picture a devout and gentle mother, who in the short time she was on this earth, instilled in her children’s hearts a love of God and of his Blessed Mother and when she was called on High continued to watch over her flock and guard them from harm. On is also forceably reminded of the saying that when God takes children’s mothers away from them by death, He substitutes His own Blessed Mother in return. It is true that in an era when many were lost to the faith, these boys continued always to practice their religion.

The hardships of early youth seemed to cement these boys closer together. Uncle John and Uncle Mark filed on adjoining homesteads and married sisters. When Dad came to file he got as close to them as possible.

Their home was crude and simple and often referred to as the Traxler shack, but it did not lack in hospitality. It was the favorite gathering place for both old and young men. On a winter evening they sat and talked or played cards. Their bread was made from a piece of dough laid away from a previous baking. This dough was brought out and used as the leavening agent for the new bread, and a piece of that dough saved for the next baking, etc. This will make bread, but not the lightest or tastiest. It is usually heavy and sour. I recall being told that the loaf of bread was brought out, put in the center of the table and the men would sit around the table playing cards; they would reach over, cut off a piece of the bread and sit there chewing it and playing cards. Dad always indignantly denied ever eating sour bread, but stoutly maintained that it was light and sweet. Well, sweet or sour, no kings’ table served better friends.

Besides cards, their pleasures were fishing, hunting, strenuous dancing and singing the ballads of the lumber camps. Uncle Mark and Dad had excellent voices and many a party was made lively by their songs. I wish they had had home recording so we could at this time put a record on and hear Uncle Mark sing, “The Jam in Gerry’s Rock”, or Dad’s “Irish Christening”, or their duet when they sang out on “The Bold Wisconsin River”.

Uncle John was the first to leave this home for another, his own. On April 29th, 1882 her married Cunegunda (Carrie) Frisle. Uncle Anton married Mary Young January 8th, 1885, and on November 30th, 1886 Uncle Mark married a sister of the girl John married, Mary Frances Frisle. They all selected good Catholic girls to be the mothers of their children. We, Nick Traxler’s children, being doubly blessed, we had an Irish mother.

All had large families and we children grew up together. As I recall my youth, we Traxler’s were almost a closed corporation. We sought each others company at every opportunity and never tired of being together. As I look back now, we must have been an arrogant lot. I recall our taking over whole dances when no one would be on the floor except Traxlers; Art Johnson always included, but he was a Gephart. Buckley’s had no children our age, or they would have been there too. Grandfather’s final citizenship papers were issued at Menomonie on April 27th, 1871.

Between 1880 and 1890 the Twin Cities were being built and brick was in great demand. A fine grade of clay was found on Grandfathers farm and Winterbottom & Holmes of Chicago bought the farm in 1884 and began making brick. A large boarding house, sleeping shanties, post office, store and saloon appeared on the west bank of Annis Creek. Many of the brick buildings and most of the brick pavement in East St. Paul originally came from Grandfather’s farm. He lived with Uncle John until he died in January 1888. He had a complete set of teeth when he died. Dad also made his home with Uncle John until he married in 1894.

AUNT MARY SNYDER

If we have a budding Edna Ferber in our midst, there is enough material for several best sellers in Aunt Mary Snyder’s life.

Aunt Mary lived three miles south of Menomonie. It required a lot of planning for a visit to see her when I was a youngster. First the weather must be such that the cattle and horses could be left out all day. Then we must all be well, no small feat in itself when there were eight of us. If all that were accomplished, it meant getting up early enough to have the milking all done and the milk separator washed up. All of us ate, washed, dressed and got ready for early Mass. We children would be packed into the back of the sleigh. Straw was put in first, then a blanket, and we were tucked in with more blankets, scarfs and shawls, and then off we would go for that 6 miles into town for Mass. If it were summer we took the surrey. Yes… “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top.” After Mass, instead of coming home we’d go to the Snyder’s. These trips are all rather hazy in my mind. I don’t remember them very well, only that they were always red-letter days and I always stuffed myself with food. We had to leave early to come back home. There were always cows to milk and chores to do. It was a long trip that required planning and it wasn’t made often enough for us to get well acquainted with Aunt Mary Snyder.

When I was at Steis’ in 1933 and Aunt Mary Snyder lived on Eighth Street, I spent many an afternoon with her. This is when I plied her with questions and heard the story of her fear of her mother dying on the trip over. While there, I heard of the efforts of a twelve-year old girl to raise a baby brother. Of the worrying about doing the right thing for baby Nick. She said one night her mother came and told her that she was doing alright, and that Dad was going to live. In the morning she told her father about it. He told her no, her mother hadn’t come back to her and that it was but a dream brought on by her worries and that she mustn’t worry so about things; but Auntie, living then in the shadow of her life, said she always thought God had allowed her mother to come to her in that manner, for she never worried after that. Who can say she was wrong?

She often spoke of her dependence on John. He was younger but she especially sought his advice and help. I believe she held a special place in her heart for her brother John and her baby brother Nick, who was more like a child of her own. Aunt Mary Snyder’s childhood alone would make a best seller, or perhaps not, truth being too fantastic to sell for fiction. To be more literal, she had no childhood. She was thrust from babyhood to the cares of a family. She had no formulas prepared by doctors, no Pablum, and no canned baby food. I wish I had taken notes, but I was only listening for pure enjoyment. I can only write a few of the stories I recall.

One story we have all heard her tell was that of the Indians coming and peering in through the low windows. The children’s minds were filled with the stories of the atrocities of New Ulm. They feared especially for their baby brother. They had heard that the Indians put the baby’s bodies on poles and paraded in their war dances. The only place they could think of to hide was under the bed. If they crawled under, they couldn’t get under holding the baby in their arms, as the bed was too low. She couldn’t put the baby on the floor and pull him under, as the floor was rough and full of splinters. John said “ Mary, put Nickie on a pillow and then pull the pillow in.” It was done this way. Aunt Mary always ended the story the same, “John was the smartest."

Here is where I got the impression of a frail mother, not the robust type one usually associates with frontier times. Aunt Mary says her mother could only eat the bread made from white flour; she couldn’t eat the course flours usually milled. White flour was not easily gotten, but the store always saved white flour for the Traxlers. Even that sometimes was not available. Then Mrs. Wilson or Mrs. Tainter would send white bread over to them from their own kitchens. Aunt Mary would smile and say, “I wonder now how much of that white bread mother got, and how much we children ate.” She always spoke of her brothers in glowing terms, how good they were always, never mentioning the hard work that must have fallen to her lot.

One story I remember of her and John being with their father in town. They were each given an apple, a rare treat in those days. She said she hurriedly bit into hers and then looked at John who was holding his in his hands and rubbing it so carefully. She asked John if he wasn’t going to eat his. “No,” he answered, he was going to take it home and divide with Mark. She said she took hers home too, only hers had that awful bite out of it .

All of us have pictures in our minds of Aunt Mary as she laughingly prophesied that she and John would outlive the rest of the family, because they had gotten well salted on the way over. The prophesy came true.

About 1872 or 1873 when Aunt Mary was twenty-three she married Anton Long. He owned the farm south of Menomonie referred to before. Albert Traxler owns it now. Another best seller could be written about this marriage. Long was a carpenter, and left Mary at Dad’s home to go to Hudson to work in the car shop. He intended to be home in the fall, before their baby was born. Auntie never spoke about this part of her life to me. It was from Dad and the uncles that I heard of her waiting in vain for his return. He was never heard from again. They say, as the time for her baby’s birth drew near, she walked up the road hoping to see him coming, or stood at the window waiting. When the baby was born her brothers went into the woods and cut a log and hollowed it out for a rude cradle. Her baby weighed but three pounds. She cried to think her baby had such a crude cradle. What a priceless heirloom it would be now. Angie (Long-Lawrence) Miller was this baby.

When Auntie was in her sixties a former neighbor, Mrs. Seiferts, called her to her side. On her death bed this former friend said she had been the cause of Long’s disappearance. This lady had written Long, so she said, lies about Auntie. Auntie asked why she had done this. She said she thought Long would come back and marry one of her girls, but instead he disappeared. She asked Auntie to forgive her before she died. Auntie said, “If god forgives you, I will.”

Auntie married William Oferski, who changed his name to Snyder, because he was a tailor (schneider) by trade. Five children were born to this union, three girls and two boys. This marriage brought Auntie a lot of unhappiness and grief. One son left home at an early age and became a wanderer in strange lands and places, dying afar. One daughter died in the full bloom of youth. Auntie’s grief, trials and hardships she kept locked within her heart. Only her joy and happiness did she share with others. Highlighting her entire life was her son Bill’s love and devotion. It was the golden thread woven through the pattern of her life. Our budding Edna Ferber could write another story of this son’s devotion to his mother. (Alas, Bill, we can’t cannonize you until after you are dead.)

Aunt Mary Snyder died September 11th, 1940; 90 years, 7 months and 9 days old.

UNCLE ANTON TRAXLER

Of Uncle Anton I remember nothing; I can’t even recall the haziest picture of him. I was but six when he died August 1, 1907 of an enlarged spleen. He was the first of the family to die, and was but forty-eight years old.

The same problems of seeing Uncle Anton’s family were to be met as in visiting the Snyders. So it was a trip we seldom made. They lived east of Menomonie. Leona and I roomed together when we went to parochial school, so I got to know her best. We were always very congenial, but I think we were a little bit afraid of Uncle Anton. You see, they had more money than we did. Now I can’t recall one little thing done or implied to make us feel that way. I suppose the fault was ours; we were the proud ones. That was the Irish in us.

Aunt Mary Traxler was left a widow with four girls to raise, her son had died in his teens. A widow in those days lived by housewifely tasks, sewing, etc., so Aunt Mary moved into town. One winter was enough to teach her that an inactive life was not for her. Much against all advice, she went back to the farm. She went into farming in earnest; she studied farming. She was the first to experiment on better methods and went into registered cattle and dairying. The picture most of us have of Aunt Mary Traxler at the gatherings of relatives and friends was the fact that she was always out talking farming with the men, much to the chagrin of the girls. At first, I imagine she sought the gathering of men to listen at the edges of the conversations, to gather knowledge they let fall and to ask for advice. The situation soon changed. Her record soon proved that her words were well worth listening to. It was of her advice was asked. She could whip up a cake or pie in jig time that could take its place with the best of them, but she soon grew tired of exchanging recipes and baby methods and drifted out to her real interest, farming. I can vividly recall my feelings when I got the wire that she and Leona were going to visit me at Wolf Point, Montana. I was living in a tiny three-room house, not entirely modern. I had taken that to live in in preference to the apartment I had at the hotel. There was a housing shortage at that time too. We had been paying $50 a month for a place at the hotel that wasn’t clean or comfortable, and when I could move into this little house for $12, I thought I was lucky; but now here was my rich relatives coming to visit me. Well, I was in for it! I soon changed my mind and feelings entirely. She was so intensely interested in everything she saw, we couldn’t get her into the house before she had spied things in the yard they didn’t have in Wisconsin. I can remember her cries as she called Leona to see this and that. She discovered prickly pear and Russian thistle before breakfast. This guest whom I had feared was my choicest one of all times. She was like a child exploring things. I am awfully glad I got to know the real person and if she had lived closer where we could have met often, we might have been friends sooner. She was gracious and kind, so in her was reflected all that I know of my Uncle Anton.

UNCLE MARK TRAXLER

Uncle Mark lived much closer than the other two families, consequently we got to see them oftener and to know them better. I always think of ice cream when I think of Uncle Mark. They (Uncle John too) put up ice for hot weather use. Was it true they made ice cream every Sunday, or did they just tell us that because they knew we loved it so? To make ice cream was the only way you got it in those days.

Uncle Mark was a big man, tall and gaunt, almost to thinness. His son, Mark, is the nearest to him, but in my picture of Uncle Mark, he was a smaller and much thinner man. Was he as heavy as his son Mark at the same age, or as big? I do not know. If I were to pick one outstanding item in Uncle Mark’s make-up, it would be his pride in his family. He always had an item to relate of some accomplishment of one of his children. How his eyes would light and his face glow as he told it. There was always a pipe in his mouth, usually it had a long curved stem and I remember one especially. It had a little metal cover over the top. Of course, I asked why he had the cover over it, He told me it prevented sparks and particles of lighted tobacco from falling out when he smoked around the barns.

Uncle Mark’s family was older than ours. Paul, the oldest in our family, being the age of Frank, the youngest in Uncle Mark’s family. We often spent a Sunday at Uncle Mark’s, and ice cream would be made. Paul often hiked through the woods to spend an afternoon at Uncle Mark’s and at his return he would tell us that him and Frank ate two gallons of ice cream. Mother would be horrified – what would Aunt Mary think of her! Hadn’t she taught him better manners? A second helping, if it were urged upon you, you could accept, but to sit down and eat a freezer full of ice cream was unthinkable! Paul would maintain they made it to eat, why not eat it? He and Frank, and maybe some others, had been home alone, so they made themselves a freezer of ice cream and ate it. Mother felt disgraced, and we girls stoutly maintained he was only bragging. Being a bit older now, and wiser about the capacity of boys and ice cream, do not have the doubts I did then.

We had three Aunt Marys. Aunt Mary Snyder, Aunt Mary Traxler, and this Aunt Mary, who was “Aunt Mary, Mark’s wife.” The neightbors referred to the three Mrs. Traxler’s (who lived within a radius of three miles) as Nick’s wife, John’s wife and Mark’s wife. Uncle Mark married Mary Frisle, and because we had three Aunt Mary’s, we called this one “Aunt Mary, Uncle Mark’s wife."

How different Aunt Mary’s life might have been if we had known then as much about allergies as we do now. Aunt Mary suffered from asthma and it made a semi-invalid out of her. There was nothing much done about asthma then. It was something you had, or you didn’t have. She had a saucer on which was poured some powder that sent up some vile smelling odors. When she had a bad choking spell medicine was poured in the saucer and someone held it while she inhaled the vapors. She would fall back, weak and exhausted. Disease might rack her body, and keep her tied to a chair, but Aunt Mary, Mark’s wife refused to let it conquer her. She kept her finger on the pulse beat of her family; she was the head of the household. From her invalid’s chair she ruled her home like a queen from her throne; her husband and children always her obedient and loving subjects. Her one dread, and the prayer that was sent up daily, was that she would be spared a long lingering illness. She thought she would become tuberculous. One associated the two diseases in those days. Her prayer was answered; she died July 21, 1918, when the car went over an embankment. They were on their way home from Mass after she had received communion just a short time before.

How beautifully God answers our prayers sometimes, while at other times He makes us wait much longer. Uncle Mark had to suffer long hours of pain before he was relieved of his suffering. I can see that tall, gaunt frame almost bent double with pain, as he went to church. If he went to bed, he said, he knew he’d never get up. He died of cancer October 13, 1923. He was 67.

Uncle John Traxler

At Uncle John’s we were as much at home as at our own place. They had children our own age. We went there and stayed all day or crawled into bed with Gertrude and Esther and stayed on the next day; they, in turn, did the same. We played dolls, quarreled and made up again.

In thinking of Uncle John I am reminded of the poem of “Mary and her Lamb"

“Why does the lamb love Mary so,”
The eager children cried.
“Because Mary loves the lamb, you know.”
The teacher did reply.

We all loved Uncle John because we knew he loved us. It was as simple as that. He radiated love and charity, and no one who came in contact with him was not the better because of knowing him.

Uncle John had married Cunegundca Frisle April 29, 1882. They had the largest family – ten children. Did anyone ever call her by her name, “Cunegunda”? I do not think so, she was always Aunt Carrie. Aunt Carrie fed us, petted us, shooed us out from under foot or scolded us, as she thought we deserved at the moment. But through it all, we knew we were being loved. I wonder if Aunt Carrie remembers the time we burned up the kittens. The old-fashioned stove had two oven doors, one on each side. It was summer – the fire had gone out. I sat on one side of the oven, Gertrude on the other; we were making the kittens walk through the oven and back under the stove and then around again. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know. Our attention was called to something else and we closed the oven doors, leaving the cats inside. Auntie came to get supper and built a fire. I don’t remember why the cats didn’t make a noise, maybe Aunt Mary built the fire and went out somewhere while it got started. Maybe the cats had suffocated before the fire was built. When next the oven was opened, there were the cats burned to a crisp. I can hear Aunt Carrie yet as she scolded “You youngens,” her favorite expression. It was a rebuke, a warning, a term of endearment or a caress, depending on the tone of her voice.

Our lives were so intertwined you couldn’t separate the two. My childhood holds memories of happy hours at play with dolls, huge dinners – always bread and butter with sugar on it for a lunch – my youth with parties and dances there and at our own home. Many a dance Henry took me to. If he hadn’t been my cousin I think I would have been quite smitten with him.

Love is made of so many little things. Someone said “It’s someone who knows all about you, and still sticks.” Through good times and bad you knew Uncle John and Aunt Carrie were there. No task was too great or too small for them to do. If it were sickness, death, grief, sorrow or merely a present on your birthday they would remember.

I wish I had the command of words to paint a picture of the bigness of these two people. I can only repeat the trite expression, “I loved you dearly.”

Uncle John died March 6, 1940 at 88 years of age.

My Father, Nick Traxler

The picture that will come to the minds of you cousins will be his wit, humor and that inexhaustible fund of stories he always had on hand. That was not a front he put on for company, it was the father, we his children, knew. I am as much at a loss as you are at the source from which he drew his stories. He never repeated himself, and there was never an occasion that Dad did not have a story to fit. Many a tense situation was saved by Dad’s timely humor. I remember one gathering, at the time the Ku Klux Klan was so strong. The speakers must have been fluent and able, because neighbors you had known all your life suddenly stopped speaking to you, or looked at you with hatred and suspicion. Into such a group walked Dad. The silence was electric, the air was ready to burst into accusations against friends and neighbors. Prejudices had clouded their minds until they had lost all good sense and logic. Dad said, “ Did you hear about the KKK who died? He was in quite a fix. He couldn’t get into Heaven with St. Peter at the gate; St. Peter was a catholic. He couldn’t appeal directly to Christ; His mother was a Jew, and he couldn’t go to hell; the Devil was a Negro.” Everyone laughed together as friends and neighbors should. You all have your choicest “Uncle Nick” stories.

Yes, life was a happy, joyous thing to Dad, but the phrase that I think describes my father best is the biblical description of the man who was “just, temperate and moderate in all things.” Yes, he was a just man. Justice could be meted out with an iron hand if Dad thought it was needed. Many a man who thought he was getting by with something would suddenly find Dad’s hand on the scruff of his neck. He could act swiftly and surely in defense of what he thought just and proper. You never were in doubt about where Dad stood on matters.

He was temperate and moderate in all things. He enjoyed all things of life, but everything was done in moderation, both work and play. There was always time to quit work a little early if one of us was going out in an evening. Sometimes I found it quite exasperating, this moderation. We often sat around the table on a winter evening listening to Dad read a story aloud. Mother would have her knitting or sewing. At nine o’clock Dad would close the book; it was bedtime. It mattered not if the heroine was about to jump off a precipice. I can see Dad’s look of astonishment at the exclaims from me “But finish that chapter, Dad!” It was his bedtime, and the book would still be there tomorrow night.

Another outstanding characteristic was his stress of being punctual. Being on time to Dad meant being there fifteen minutes early. Getting ready for early Mass was the time he would be urging us to hurry, so as not to be late. We teasingly told him he wasn’t afraid of being late, just afraid he’d miss his visit with John Knapps before Mass.

Dad was thirty-two before he married Alice Scully, July 13, 1894. From the time the home place was sold until he married, he made his home at Uncle John’s. At the folks silver wedding I remember their repeating how surprised folks were that Dad had married “that little girl,” and then adding, “Well, she isn’t any bigger now.” Mother was but five feet tall and never could quite make 100 pounds in weight. She had the black hair and blue eyes of the Irish. She had been raised in St. Paul and was afraid that she wouldn’t measure up to what the relatives and neighbors expected of Dad’s wife. She didn’t know how to knit and was afraid someone would find her lacking in that. A wife who couldn’t keep her husband and family in knitted socks and mitts would be a useless thing indeed. Dad taught mother how to knit and she practiced alone until she could do it quite well. The women were suspicious of her and several times invited her out in an afternoon to visit and knit. She brought other work and evaded the issue. Then when they thought she really didn’t know how, she took out her knitting too. I wonder if she really had fooled them.

Mother always worked far beyond her strength year in and year out. The amount of work she did amazes me the more, the older I get. From whence did the frail little body draw its strength? From the time she was nine years old she had earned her own living. She walked seven miles and wrapped candy all day as a child, never having quite enough to eat. Some of the things she did were extraordinary even for those times. All of the babies were kept in pure white until they were past two years old, and there were nine babies to wash for by hand on a board. Eight of us grew to maturity – one dying at 2 ½ years. Baby clothes were all ironed in those days. When I was out in Montana and had a baby of my own, I had learned that the clothes next to a baby’s skin, diapers and such, are better put on unironed. I have folded them and put them away, but I had to go get them again. I could feel mothers accusing eyes on me and hear her as she said “Did you notice she put those diapers on unironed?” To mother it meant one thing, carelessness and laziness. I ironed the diapers.

I recall a scene from our table. Dad had to eat bran bread at all times. Now we children just loved it, but white bread must be on-hand for company, so both kinds were kept on hand. Mother did not like to bake both kinds at the same time. When the dark bread was freshly baked, and there was more of that, we children were supposed to eat that and save the white bread to make it last longer, if company came… when the white bread had been freshly baked and there was more of that, we were not supposed to eat the dark, that was then saved for Dad. The question at the meals would be “What do we eat, Mother, light or dark?” We didn’t care, we liked either. We were just asking her the state of her larder. That was a carry over from the earlier times when dark flours were the coarsest and commonest, white flour the finer and better. You offered your guests only the best; therefore, you offered them only white bread. What a lot of work she might have saved herself! Mother’s dark bread was delicious, a treat to the most finicky guest.

Then there was Mother’s make toadies, no one made them but Mother. She often made them for supper. She made them, therefore the “make”; she served them as fried potatoes might be served, therefore toadies (tatters) – make toadies. It was like an omelet with flour in it, only cut up and each piece fried crisp and brown. They never taste quite as good when we try to make them now.

We had 75 hives of bees that provided us with about 1000 pounds of honey a summer. We ate it all, selling little. The bees were Mother’s work too. When Mother visited me at Glasgow I recall one incident. We had a neighbor, one of those bores who talk incessantly of their families; this lady had six children and most of us had to be silent while she went on about her work and her big family. She started one day on Mother and was going along at a great speed when Mother said, “How many children do you have?” She said “six.” “Do you have a washing macine and refrigerator?” to which she answered “yes.” “Do you keep a garden?” to which she said “no.” “Well,” Mother said, “I had eight children and washed on a wash board, had no refrigerator, had milk dishes to take care of and had a garden bigger than your whole yard. I also took care of 75 hives of bees and then when I got all that done, went out and set up grain.” The woman was silent for a whole five minutes. Well, Mother did.

We always had a cookie jar full of cookies, both light and dark, we were that kind of family. Our home was a happy, congenial one; where, as I often said, I never heard Mother or Dad speak a harsh or cross word to each other. It sounds strictly sentimental, but the fact remained, they never did. If they disagreed about anything, it was discussed away from us children, nor were any of us ever whipped or slapped, maybe we should have been, but we weren’t.

From my dad I learned the true values placed on life; to be self-reliant – make my own decisions – think clearly. Friendships Dad valued highly. No one came to him in the name of a friend and went away unaided. Some even abused the privilege. Dad could strike as shrewd a bargain as any in a business deal, but let anyone appeal as a friend and he was putty in their hands. Some of the things that appeared to outsiders as stupid merely were done because someone used the guise of a friend.

Dad and Mother were both generous with their time, love and worldly possessions. With nine children of their own, and eight of us that they raised, there was never a time when Dad did not have from one to three stray children at the place. Pg His motherless childhood made him an easy prey to anything motherless. Mother was as willing as Dad in offering a refuge to these unfortunates.

The Buckleys have been mentioned before in this story. Mrs. Buckley had thirteen children of her own. Dad was just younger than any of hers and she was the only mother he had known. He was her “baby Nickie”. She often walked to town and carried home the groceries on her back, not only for her own big family, but the Traxler’s as well. Dad always called her “Mother”, and we, “Grandma Buckley”. About once a week or so we went to see her; often Dad went alone, but sometimes we went with him. As I remember Grandma Buckley, she was a sweet little lady in a wheel chair. She was badly crippled with rheumatism. She wore a white cap or bonnet like a nurse on the back of her head, and a white apron with her crocheting in the pocket. Dad would sit on the floor, usually resting his head on her knee, or the side of her chair. “Well, Mother’” Dad would say, “Let’s light our pipes.” She smoked a clay pipe. Dad would get her pipe, light it with an ember and they would sit together. Her hand would creep over to his hand, and they sat so by the fire, saygging little – talking of trivial things – crops, weather, etc. Mother, Ella and we children would withdraw a little, leaving them alone. I wonder now at what they thought. Why didn’t I ask more questions of this lady who had come from New York with her husband in a covered wagon? Ella was a friend in the biggest and truest sense of the word. We confided our troubles and our joys to her. From her we heard of Dad’s walking thirty miles from one of Knapp-Stout Company farms to get to Uncle John’s wedding.

Tom was always “Old Tom Buckley”, a little small, spry dried up old man with a thin voice. Always a privileged person when he came. He never stayed much at our house, he didn’t like women folks. He was a bachelor and much preferred Uncle Mark’s. He could go up to the Wheeler farm and be entirely away from women. In the later years, after Auntie’s death, he spent a lot of time with Jack. Dad would save up a little chores for Tom to do, to make him feel needed; something to mend, a handle to be put on something, or a blade to be sharpened; but Tom came and went again as he pleased, getting up and silently walking off,never saying good bye.

I wonder if he was as good a marksman as the stories he told? Dad would never tell us. We sat around listening to the same stories being told over and over again, as old folks are apt to do, as I am doing now. We gleefully compared notes afterward, pointing out to each other where the stories differed from the last time he told them. To paraphrase Art Linkletter of Truth or Consequences fame, “weren’t we devils?” He bossed us children unmercifully, a privilege all the Traxler’s had given him. At threshing time he would come and do some little chore. I can vividly recall Tom chasing us out of the grain bins. “Get out of there,” he would say in his high squeaky voice, “there’s eighty acres on this farm and you don’t have to be there.” We’d go find Dad and tell him Tom had chased us out of the grain bin. “I’ll get him away,” Dad would tell us, “and then you can sneak back in.” We picked up every kernel of grain we’d kicked out too. We didn’t put an oat kernel into the barley bin or vice versa, although it was only used for feed. Let it be said to the credit of our parents, the discipline they taught us, none of us ever answered Tom back or disobeyed him. Yes, even you, Jack when Tom called you to account for the time you got in nights – as we inwardly seethed, we were silent. You devised better and more silent ways of getting in the house, which somehow never quite worked, but you never answered him back. The only thing you did was tell the story that you always knew where Tom was, because when he went to the Wheeler farm the dog came down here. It was told with no malice, only amusement.

When Tom was 88 years old, he fell out of a tree, breaking both hips. He was after a swarm of bees. He was up and around in no time at all, didn’t even limp and lived many years more, just getting a little more dried up as the years went by.

Dad suffered from heart trouble all his life. My earliest recollection is riding around the field with Dad, a box was fixed on the back for us to ride in. If Dad stopped the horses and didn’t answer us, we were to go and get Mother. There might be members of my own family that didn’t know why the colored rag was fixed to the top of the pole used as a whip for the horses on the binder; it was so Mother could see if the horses were moving. If they stopped, she would know Dad was in trouble. Dozens of times a day Mother stepped out to see if the whip was moving, or sent one of us to look. There was never any fear attached to all this. It was discussed in such matter-of –fact tones that we were never alarmed and it was always fun to go to the field with Dad.

Dad loved little girls especially, I guess. I was babied more than the rest. To others I may be Dot, but to Dad I was his baby girl, Dorothy Ellen, and how I loved it. The three boys who were born after me must learn to stand on their own feet. He wouldn’t make sissies out of them. In me he could indulge himself to the fullest. You see, I was thirteen before Alice was born.


She had one sweet little custom that I never can forget,
And a gentle benediction crowns her memory for it yet,
I can see that little mother yet and hear her as she pleads:
“Now it’s getting on to bedtime, all you children get your beads.”
Even the traveler who stayed the nite upon his journey knew
He must join the little circle and say his decade too;
And I believe she darkly plotted when a sinner hove in sight,
Who was known to say no prayers at all, to make him stay the night.

Then we’d softly gather round her and we’d speak in accents low,
We prayed as Sainted Dominic prayed so many years ago;
And that little Irish mother’s face was radiant for she knew
That where “two or three were gathered”, He was gathered with them too.

Over the Paters and the Aves how her revered head would bend.
How she’d kiss the cross devotedly, when she’d counted to the end;
And the visitor would rise at once and brush his knees and then
He’d look very very foolish as he took to the floor again.
For she’s other prayers to keep him, they were long prayers in truth.
We used to call them trimmings in our disrespectful youth.

She would pray for this one’s some complaint or that one’s hurt hand
Or that someone else might make a deal or get a bit of land.
Yes, and then again to make it rain or else to make it dry.
She lit our drab existence with her simple faith and love
And I know the angels lingered near to hear her prayers above.

Oh those little Irish mothers passing from us one by one
Who will write the story of the good that they have done?
All their children may be scattered and their fortunes windward hurled,
But the “trimmings” on the rosary shall bless them round the world.

{Unknown author}

We say deliver us from a sudden and unprovided death. It is the unprovided part we wish to be spared.

Dad’s heart had been getting worse all that winter. He wasn’t out much; somehow he knew he hadn’t long to live. If we were given the privilege of selecting the day on which we die, what day would be nicer than Holy Saturday? Dad had been to communion on Palm Sunday. He told the priest it was probably his last. He died Holy Saturday, April 7th, 1928. He was 66 years of age. I know he was with the risen Savior on Easter.

After Dad’s death Mother was faced with problems that were far bigger than ever should have been placed on her shoulders, but she met them as she had all the problems of her life, cheerfully and heroically. The depression was upon us. The problem of making ends meet in those trying times proved too much for many an experienced farmer and Mother had never taken much part in the practical problems of the farm during Dad’s lifetime. In addition, there was a small debt. A man had come to Dad for help, as a friend, leaving Dad to pay the bill. It was not a huge amount, but any debt was big with no income from crops. That had just been met when the farm buildings burned. Mother’s friends and neighbors again rallied round her with generous offers of their time. There was only $1000 of insurance, which was not even enough to start building. The neighbors went into the west 40 acres and cut the logs, hauled them to the mills, had them sawed and brought back and piled ready for the contractors to use. A lot of the material for the new barn was gotten from the place, it was a great help. The loss of the barn by fire was not the greatest loss. The shock of the fire so upset the cattle that they didn’t give the proper amount of return in milk and she was without an income until fall. What could she do? The cattle must be kept and fed. Not a chick as much as laid an egg all summer.

Mother struggled on with another debt to pay off. When mother sold the farm in 1936 to Edward, it was again free from debt. When others thought they were doing well to keep going, this little lady paid off a debt a man should have paid, and built a barn. Truly Mother was a valiant woman. It is no great wonder her health broke under it. After one of your parents die it is not so hard to see the other go. Mother lived thirteen years after Dad’s death. She was lonely for him at all times. She had several paralytic strokes and was afraid she would become a helpless cripple; she was spared that. She died July 3rd, 1941 of a hemorrhage. She died in Monte Vista, Colorado, while visiting Nicholas.

In writing this story I first asked the advice of a friend whose hobby is genealogy. He directed me to the proper channels of inquiry in Austria. I got nowhere, no records seemed available. His own family is Irish and so it is the Irish records and books he has. In idly fingering his books, I asked him to look up Mother’s families, Scully and Wise. I made a thrilling discovery. Both sides have a long written lineage. The Gaelic book, Irish Names and Surnames, by Woulfe, and published by M.H. Gill & Sons, Ltd. Dublin, give Scully as an Irish Chieftain in limerick in the year 1000, and Wise as Normans coming to Ireland just a little later, at the time of the Norman Conquest.

John O. Hart, the Irish historian, in his book “Landed Gentry” gives a complete lineage of the Scullys. In almost every blacklist of Papist, they are on it giving their names and the property confiscated by the crown. They must have been right clever though, because they never quite got them all landed, for a few hundred years later in the new blacklist, there they are, still Papist and still having some land for the Crown to take. Another thing that made them easier than some families to trace was that their chieftain blood showed up right through the line. They were frequently connected with the Army.

John O. Hart even names Joseph Scully a brigadier in the Irish Army who came to America in 1846, when the Irish Army was disbursed and worked with the Northern Pacific Railroad at St. Paul, Minnesota, N.M.I. I had to do a lot of inquiry, being new at this genealogy game, before I run the N.M.I. down and found out it meant “no male issue”. There could be no doubt about it, that was Mother’s father. I did not have access to the books on the Wise family, but John O. Hart gives the references.

Did I say – I wonder where Mother got her courage and strength? I wonder why Mother did not know of this wonderful family heritage. Her father died when she was very young, or he might have told her. Being Irish, I think he would have. It was her proud Norman blood which prevented their mother from saying more. Her children did know that she was convent raised and educated; her family disowning her when she entered the Convent of the Holy Cross Order. When a branch of the Order came to America, she came with them. A siege of typhoid fever left her in such poor health she couldn’t take final vows, so she left the Order. She never let her family know she was not in the Order. Even in her most dire need, she never appealed to them. I wish Mother had known of this wonderful family record.

Have I pictured all my family and Uncles and Aunts as Saints, too perfect? One thing I never questioned for one moment. I knew I had the very best parents, brothers and sisters, and the very best aunts and uncles and cousins that anyone could have in the whole world. I think so still. They had their failings and faults peculiar to their temperaments and the times in which they lived. The lines were drawn much sharper between right and wrong in their days than ours. Their shortcomings they acknowledged as such and as such they were looked upon and repented of. Sins were sins, and called such. Drinking to excess was drunkenness, not a social accomplishment.

Let me close with the words of Francis Nappen Smith of Box Elder, Montana:.

How many tears and heartaches were buried in the past
To make this wondrous country; a State that’s unsurpassed.
Their laughter and their joys too, still linger on the trail
To guide the modern pioneer, whene’er he seems to fail.

And so we look with due respect at old names tried and true
Whose owners made this country, the best we ever knew.
And so we work and slave and toil to make Wisconsin grow
And make it worthy of the memories of a hundred years ago.


P.S. Several of my impressions seem to be wrong. Paul tells me Uncle Mark was as big or bigger than Markie and that Uncle Mark’s strength was enormous. I wish someone would write down some of Uncle Mark’s feats of strength.

Paul also tells me Tom Buckley was a crack marksman. Those stories were not idle boasting. Someone should write them down too.