also Thelen 1940s
also Hermina Thelen Obituary Information
By Edward Thelen (my father), written before his death in 1956.
For his children
So you would like to know about your grandparents
Hermina & Nicholas Thelen - 1909
| John Nicholas Thelen |
and |
Hermina Thelen, his wife |
Their lives, their times and their family,
as I recollect and as it was told to me.
December 1953
Edward Thelen
Introduction
Three Brothers
I remember Ben, who had a saloon in Stillwater. He ran an
upright business and was respected for running a "clean place." He
was aristocratic in dress and manner, and to the last, pretty much a
typical German aristocrat. He divorced his wife. The divorce
action raised a legal issue which was settled only in the Supreme
Court of Minnesota, He had four children, two boys and two girls,
The home life was stormy. Eva, one daughter, was a fine singer and
achieved local fame because of that talent.
My father, Nick, like Mike, became a farmer. His farm was
closer to Stillwater than Mike's. There were seven children in his
family, two girls, Lucy and Rose, five boys, Andrew, Will, John,
Edwin, and Edward, The first Ed died of diphtheria at the age of
8. The second Ed, myself, was born after the first Ed's death.
The name Edwin was changed to Edward and given to me.
I recall that my father and his two brothers did not mingle
too well, They had their quarrels and disputes resulting in periods
when, if they spoke to each other, the conversation was apt to be
very perfunctory. The young cousins, in their young days
particularly, were not too sociable, and as a result there was not much
visiting back and forth. However, it seems evident that the three
brothers must have worked well together to begin with.
There was another brother who came to this country, not as a
settler, but as a Catholic church man, He established schools or
hospitals, I understand there is a life-sized painting of him in
one if the Catholic hospitals in St. Louis or Cincinnati, He
visited with his three Stillwater brothers and wrote remonstrating them
when my father and Ben left the church. He died as the head of an
abbey in Belgium. My father said he had been demoted for some
church insubordination.
The three brothers, Mike, Nick and Ben must have been fairly
close in age. I believe my father was slightly the oldest, Mike
next and Ben the youngest, They all died within a year of each
other: my father on Aug. 5, 1909; then Mike and then Ben was
found dead, possibly from a heart attack, Physically all three
brothers were not tall, but were broad shouldered, sturdy and
strong, Their heads were more round than long. They could be
called the Roman-Swiss type. Ben and father were very quick to
anger and blunt, but could quickly be gentle and generous. When my
father became angry, his blue eyes looked positively black. They
all had worked hard and had amassed property. But my father
believed in education for his children. Lucy and Rose both went to
the River Falls Normal School and became teachers. School did not
appeal to Andrew. Will went on to the University of Minnesota and
became a doctor. John became a lawyer, as I did.
Emigration
How the family eventually was able to return to Bleialff, he
never stated, but his mother, his sisters, his brothers and he did
return there. As I understand it, that region was largely a silver
and lead mining country, A living was hard to make, Father told of
working in a bakery. The baker influenced my father to discontinue
the habit of smoking and father never smoked again. The baker's
influence extended into the second generation. None of father's sons
developed the smoking habit.
Then my father became a herder of cattle in the mountains.
He was able to earn a "halfcow." His earnings mounted until he
possessed a herd of some 28 head of cattle. One of my memories of
father was when at night he would show me the Great Dipper hanging in
the sky, and from it's position be would tell me what time it was.
This, he said, he learned to do in his vigils herding the cattle.
Arrival in U.S.
Father spoke of getting a job with Ben, of cleaning out
frozen and spoiled potatoes out of a cellar. It was probably so
unpleasant he couldn't forget it. Thereafter be and Ben worked on the
Mississippi River steamboats plying between St, Paul and St.
Louis. Their work was probably stevedoring, loading and unloading.
Mother told me an interesting story about her first sight of
father. He was one of a crew unloading cargo from a steamboat at
Hudson on a Sunday. She was a spectator, Suddenly a little boy was on
the gang plank and in the way of another stevedore who promptly
kicked the child into the water. Father, thereupon, jumped into the
water and brought the child to shore. That was a nice way for a
romance to start, wasn't it? How father was able to follow it up, is
a historical mystery.
In speaking of his boating days, he sometimes spoke of a
battle which he and Ben had with a "big Irishman." The Irishman was
armed with a knife with which be slit father's nose right down the
middle of the ridge of his nose. I know that story is authentic
because father had the scar to show, He never told the outcome of the
battle. Possibly some things are better left to the imagination.
But at any rate, he must have liked the life. He told many times
how he felt a nostalgic urge to go back to it from the hard work on
the farm, when he would hear the steamboat whistle calling him.
Bought 1st Land
Other than working on the steamboats which be had been doing
since arriving from Germany late in 1857, father spoke frequently
about working for farmers in the Kinikinic Valley between Hudson and
River Falls, Wisconsin. Yankees, he called those who spoke English.
English he wished to learn so the better to make his living in the
land of his adoption. (Unlike most German immigrants, he did not
encourage his family to learn or speak German. He wanted us to
learn the language which would help us make a living. He had us
read the English newspapers to him. Only occasionally would he
converse in German, even with mother.)
Father spoke of having, at
times, worked the ferry boat by means of a rope tied across Lake St.
Croix between the little community of Houlton and Stillwater,
lumbering center, until a bridge was built between those points.
The chances are that his brother Ben had quit steamboating
ahead of father, come to Stillwater to be near his brother Mike and
gotten into the saloon business in which he prospered. Ben himself,
although in that business, was not a drinking man, Ben's and Mike's
being here, may have influenced coming here, or at least, remaining
in the city of Stillwater. It may have been in this period that
father made his trip to what later became Minneapolis, to take a land
claim south and west of that place, He did not follow that up. As
father was almost a "teetotaler", I doubt if he ever worked for, or
with, Ben. He probably never worked with Mike. However, he must
have leaned heavily upon the advice and counsel of Ben, for his
first land purchase was from Ben, from whom, on November 2nd 1863,
he purchased eighty acres. Ben had purchased this same acreage less
than a year before and as a part of the purchase price had given
mortgage on it. Inasmuch as father's marriage was less than a month
later, had not he and Ben planned the acreage as the home for the
new bride?
Log House
A large part of the "eighty" and west of the log house was
prairie reaching to the St, Croix bluff, My sister, Lucy, recalled
how, as a child, she had herded cattle on the prairie and had
watered them at the river. Back of the house was a well and wood lot
which are still as they were. There are still some remains of the
old stage road winding up through the woods. This was the house to
which father and mother came after their marriage at Hudson,
November 24th 1863.
Marriage
REGISTRATION OF MARRIAGE
There had been different spellings of the name Thelen, and
father had been known as John N. Thelen or J. N. Thelen. In the
Registration, is was plain Nicholas Thelen. Previous to my finding
this registration I had never known of his mother, Anna Maria
Winkelman, nor had I known the names of my mother's parents.
I wonder about the courtship leading up to the marriage.
Some how I feel that father was not the lover be should have been,
according to the present standards. My mother was terribly young,
and was working as a hired girl for a well-to-do family in Hudson.
"Fulton" I think was the name. Her home was really near
New Richmond, Wisconsin, where her father, mother, sisters and brothers
lived. She was Protestant, father was Catholic, The way she said
it, I concluded the marriage was arranged by her brothers and her
family. But father was a handsome, hardworking man, who would
probably turn out to be a good provider. She was a good-looking girl,
who already knew how to work. The family thought well of it, so it
happened "for better or for worse!"
There is no question in my mind that my mother's married
life was not too happy. Father was about twice her age when they
were married. He had the typical German idea of a woman, as a beast
of burden, His life had always been hard. He knew little but hard
work and expected others to likewise work hard. He had a terrific
temper. His ideas were pretty much set. She was quiet, gentle and
rather reserved. She was uncomplaining, never demanding, but I have
known her to stand up for her rights, like a tigress. Marriage for
her at first must have been somewhat of a disappointing surprise,
possibly with moments of deep unhappiness. But with the years, she
was able to adjust and be mellowed so that the marriage was less the
ordeal it must have been at the beginning. With a woman's patience,
she got her way in family matters. There were times however, when
she had to go to her retreat in the solitude of the woods for
consolation and strength.
Mother's Stories
Mother loved to tell about her mother, who lived until she
was 96. It was shortly after the family arrived at their new abode
that mother Streeter was baking biscuits in an outdoor oven. Some
Indians rode up on horseback. She was frightened, of course, but
calmly took the hot biscuits out of the oven and gave them to the
Indians, who, thereupon, rode away, Mother had some schooling at
New Richmond. She wrote in a small round hand.
She spoke frequently of her people. It must have hurt her
when my father became angered at her people and stopped interchanging
visits with them. I did not know any of them until my father
died. I remember seeing a picture of her mother taken when she was
ninety.
Mother had a high pitched, little voice and once in a while
would sing bits of hymns, one of which was, "Work for the Night is
coming." Father had a lusty baritone. I remember being awakened in
the morning by father making the fire in the kitchen below, singing
bits form "My Old Kentucky Home."
Speaking of grand mothers, father must have thought a lot of
his and been close to her. One night he awoke and told mother that
he had seen his mother at the foot of the bed, He said that she
must be dead. In but a few weeks, I remember seeing a black bordered
envelope from Germany containing the news of her death as of
the time of his dream.
Mother always had the feeling she could tell when any of her
children were sick or in deep trouble. She profoundly believed in
psychic phenomena. She told of a family in Germany who saw their
son, a soldier in the army, come marching down the read toward them.
When the father and mother rushed out to meet him, he was not there.
It was his spirit. He had been killed just a short time before.
Hard Work
Father accumulated additional acres as the years passed, He
loaned money on mortgages and when the mortgagors defaulted, he got
more land. When he died he had the home farm of 400 acres and the
"other farm" of about the same size. This other farm was divided
and then passed out of the family.
Those early days must have been not only hard, but primitive.
The windmill and the modern well did not come until fairly
recent years, say about seventy years ago. Previous to that water
was bucketed out, old oaken bucket style, from a dug well a short
distance from the log house. There were no modern bath facilities.
I remember being bathed in a wash tub before the kitchen stove,
baking on one side and freezing on the other.
Trees had to be cut down, then sawed up and split and dried
for firewood for the stoves. Grain had to be threshed out by flailing
it, chaff taken out by tossing it in the breeze. Then the grain
was shoveled into sacks, picked up and put into a wagon, then
hauled by oxen (later horses) to the mill miles away to be ground
into flour and then hauled back, later to be made into bread.
The roughage was made into cattle, horse and pig food. At
night candles supplied light. Kerosene lamps were considered marvels,
not too many years ago, If a boy wanted to go shooting, he had
to make his own bullets or gun shells, After milking, the milk was
put into pans and taken down cellar to cool. After the cream had
come to the surface, it was skimmed off and put into a churner,
churned by hand until it condescended to harden into butter.
The butter had to be "worked" by hand and salt worked in.
In the Civil War Days and for many years thereafter, the
mothers not only made the suits, coats, etc. for their children,
but they had to take the raw wool from the sheep, card it, spin it
and weave it into cloth to make suits with. Knitting socks kept the
hands from being idle. Can you imagine bridge clubs in those "good
old days?"
Father and mother started out, not with horses but with
oxen. Horses came years later. Father, when he died, had hands
that were gnarled out of shape like limbs of an old oak. They did
not get that way from playing the piano.
Compensations
She and father had their old friends with whom they would
visit. I presume mother, like other country women, got diversion
out of driving into town to sell her eggs, butter, dressed chickens
and turkeys.
She had one real aversion, an Irish Catholic, I think she
resented the fact that the ordinary Irish person had a gift of gab.
She seemed to seriously doubt their veracity. She suspected all red
heads. I can't remember hearing mother gossip or speak maliciously
of anyone otherwise.
Father was a provider in a grand manner. In the fall he
would "lay in" several barrels of apples and sacks of flour. He
always wanted plenty of everything. One time on a shopping trip to
St. Paul he found a bargain in red socks for me. I was in High
School at that time. Doing penance, I was seated directly in front
of my German teacher's desk. My long pants failed to cover my red
socks. For weeks, I wore those bright scarlet bargain socks. I am
sure my teacher was shocked at my wearing what she must have
reasoned to be the same pair, all that time. When she looked down at
them, her face would reflect their color,
I remember an itinerant medicine man convinced father of the
wonderful healing power of some herb medicine. Father laid in a
supply of that. All of us were fed that bitter stuff all winter
long. I believe mother had to quietly dispose of it, to save us.
Ghost Story
Uncle and Aunt must have been
really impressed. They refused to sleep upstairs, Father and mother
had to give them their bed near a window downstairs. Father and
mother were awakened in the middle of the night by yells from Uncle
and Aunt downstairs. Uncle and Aunt were positive they heard ghosts
coming through the screen at the side of their bed. They wouldn't
stay in that bed and insisted on moving upstairs with father and
mother. Mother, afterward, told us it was the cat crawling up on
the screen to get in for the doughnuts she smelled inside the window
and not really a ghost.
Clearing Land
These stumps were also burned. When trees, brush and stumps were
cleared from quite a patch, then the oxen were hitched to a breaking
plow, This was a heavy wooden beam to which was bolted a heavy plow
share, to turn the furrow. Ahead of the plow share was a sharp
piece of steel known as the "knife" to cut the furrow and the roots
in front of the plow share. It took several strong, vigorous men to
drive the oxen and manage the plow. It was back breaking work. We
can only marvel at the labor involved in changing our forests into
present-day farms. After the plowing, boulders had to be dug out
and hauled away on what was called a stoneboat, a wooden platform
dragged over the ground. Then there was harrowing and preparing the
ground for the seeding of the grain to be planted.
Until a few years ago, there was on the farm an old fashioned
rail fence, rails split from trees felled in clearing the
land. Our pioneer forebears were and had to be clever with axe and
adz. It was no easy matter to be a "rail splitter."
Farming in 1800s
So
as to save wagon trips, it was advisable to make the wagon loads
large. That meant that as the bundles were pitched up by pitchfork
on the wagon, the bundles would have to be placed orderly, and thus
the load built up to a good size and also so as to keep it from tipping
or dropping a portion when conveyed on rough or sloping ground.
In my boyhood I became a good, fast loader and could handle the bundles
as fast as the pitcher could pitch them up.
Father had the reputation of being one of the best stack builders
in the neighborhood. He really was an artist. He taught my
brother, John and later me. Father could stack loads and loads of
bundles into the inverted cones, bulging from the base and gracefully
drawing to a point at the top, They were absolutely water tight.
They were built in pairs so that the threshing separator could just
squeeze between them.
For ages the threshing was done by flailing.
The flail was usually a short fillet of wood loosely attached or
tied to a handle. The flailer would grasp the handle and strike the
grain with the wooden billet to loosen the grain from the stocks.
In many cases, the loose grain stems were placed on a clean floor
and oxen were driven around and around over it, thus trampling out
the kernels of grain. Then came the mechanical threshing rigs,
which were moved from farm to farm and were worked by horsepower,
In my boyhood, the steam thresher had already become the thing. The
steam engine, steam burner, was already self propelled. Usually
horses pulled the thresher from place to place. In some cases,
however, the self propelled steam engine pulled the thresher, now
called the separator.
The separator was a bewildering and exciting structure on
wheels having a big maw at one end emitting loose straw at the
other. There were pulleys and belts and conveyor slats, The open
maw part of the machine was placed between the stacks. On each side
was a shelf from which was pitched the bundles from the stack. A
boy, called the band cutter, armed with a sickle or knife, cut the
band or twine holding the bundles which were then shoved toward the
man at the maw, who in turn shook the straw of the bundle loose and
fed it into the roaring machine.
For clean, efficient threshing this "feeding" had to be even
and steady. Just inside the maw, was a huge cylinder with steel
projections and revolving at high speed. This apparatus was a good
successor to the flail and served to loosen up the kernels. Straw
and kernels were then blown on to the part of the machine which
shook and shimmied so that the kernels settled to the bottom and the
straw passed on and eventually came out of the rear to be conveyed
out to become the straw stack. Meanwhile, chaff was blown from the
grain and Joined the straw. The kernels were run into a shoot, then
into a half bushel measure and dumped into a sack and eventually
landed into a granary.
In the neighborhood, there might be within whistling distance
three or even four of these rigs on the neighboring farms. It
was thrilling to hear, even before sunrise, competing whistles,
What a wonderful thing to be a farm lad and to have one of these
rigs come to your farm! To watch the engine burning straw to make
steam! Each engine had to have its engineer or fireman to keep
feeding straw, a man to keep a supply of straw handy and a tank man
to keep handy the necessary supply of water. There was always a
huge, long belt between the engine and the separator. The belt
conveyed the power to run the separator and had to be long to eliminate
danger of fire from sparks from the engine. The firing of the
engine was something to look forward to and the engineer was a top
flight hero, untarnished even when he guzzled from his whiskey bottle.
Was that not a merited privilege? !!
The separator was also impressive, but it was usually so
dusty and sweaty thereabouts and one had to be so careful not to get
in the way. Never will I forget the day I was allowed to be a
band-cutter. It was dirty and dusty as all get out, but I was a
man, a personage! It was a wonderful privilege and I would not have
traded places with the President of the U.S,A. I doubt if I ever
before or since swallowed so much dirt or dust, but what a wonderful
time I had.
But now much of the glamour has been taken away from the
harvest. The grain is out and threshed right in the field, no more
shocking, nor loading or stacking. Gasoline engines or tractors
never can be as exciting as the old straw burners and their early
morning whistles.
One of my early remembrances had to do with threshing days.
The threshers were on the farm about two miles from home. I had
been there and had been brought home with one of the wagons, conveying
grain from the separator to the granary at home. Our granary
was so built that the team and wagon could be driven right into the
granary and the grain dumped from the grain sacks right into the
bins to the side. I toddled from the granary up the hill to the
house. I wanted a drink. My mother was in the pantry making bread,
with her hands in the dough. My thirst unsatisfied, I remembered
that my brothers often climbed the windmill in front of the house,
so I climbed up the ladder, I must have fallen asleep some distance
up.
When I woke up, crying at the bottom, the threshers were in
the house eating supper. Hurriedly my cousin, John, put me into the
grain wagon and took me to the doctor in Stillwater who set my broken
arm. It was a poor job. A different doctor had to rebreak it
and reset it.
Citizen and Citizenship
Father later resorted to the law in foreclosing mortgages.
He had legal trouble with a character known as Jackass Kelly, It
seemed to have been largely a game of wits between Kelly and
Father's lawyer, which father enjoyed. I wonder if father's high
regard for law might not have influenced my brother John in his taking
up the law profession.
It is interesting to note that father did not hesitate long
in giving up German citizenship. He declared his intention to become
a citizen of the United Status on the 23rd day of February,
1858, a little over a year after arriving in this country. He actually
became a citizen in November, 1877, Following is the copy of
the Naturalization Record which I copied from an ancient volume in
the office of the Clerk of Circuit Court at Hudson. Note the name
he used at that time, "Nicholas Thelen."
After copying the naturalization order in Circuit Court of
St, Croix Co. Wis., Oct. 20, 1953, I called the Clerk of the
Ramsey County District Court, In the declaration, the name was given
as Nikolas Thelen, Date of arrival in U.S.A. was given 9 Sept.
1857. No other information.
Politics & Religion
The independent spirit of father and Ben became evident in
other ways as well. Father often repeated the adage which was a
principle in his life. "Paddle your own canoe," He joined no
organization nor group. He always wanted to be independent in thought
and action, Sometime prior to my brother Edwin's death, there was
trouble in father's church. Lucy, Andrew and possibly Rose, had
already been baptized Catholic, as had Ben's children. My father
often spoke of his resentment that at church services the priest
would read off the names of persons contributing and how much. The
name of Joseph Wolf, the local brewery man always led the list in
amount, at least. Father always figured that Wolf's whiskey was
largely diluted and would freeze in the winter In other words, his
friend, Wolf, was slightly "shoddy".
Another thing that rankled was
that, when the nuns or sisters deigned to come out to the farm and
father would go for them, they had every reason to know he was poor
and doing his best to raise his family. They never would sit in the
seat of the buckboard wagon with him, but would crowd together in
the back seat, leaving him alone in the front. What finally ignited
the powder keg was the discovery that the priest was embezzling
church funds. There was a general exodus from the fold, father and
Ben included. Father never joined another church. I remember he
attended a revival meeting but was not impressed. On some Sundays,
he did get out his German Bible and read aloud from it, of course in
German.
His leaving the church, however, raised a problem when Edwin
died. The family said the boy's death was a real shock to father
and mellowed him so that when I came, I was treated much gentler
than the other children had been. But where to bury the boy? He
was not permitted to he buried in a Catholic cemetery. It was
finally decided to establish a family cemetery. Then Edwin found his
resting place. Father was some how prompted to buy an English
Bible, I suppose for family reading. He got the help and advice of
the priest of St. Micheal's Church, a different Catholic Sect, in
the purchase of the Bible, which of course was Catholic. I remember
as a child, seeing this ornately bound volume as an integral part of
the parlor. It is still, despite its age, in excellent condition, a
testimony of its non-use.
At this point, I believe I should report as to Uncle Ben and
his particular church experience. Ben owned the stone building
known as the Thelen Block, on Main Street, Stillwater. The lower
floor was a saloon; the second floor, until the family of four
children required a residence elsewhere, was the home. Ben's wife
was an acknowledged beauty, Ben was a suspicious soul and jealous.
The story is that one day, when Ben came upstairs from tending bar
he found the priest visiting his good-looking wife. In no uncertain
language Ben told the priest he did not want him there, and to keep
away. However, only a few days later, Ben found the priest again
visiting his wife. There was a little statue of Christ in the room.
Ben threw it out the back window and threw the priest down the front
stairs and out. This incident may have led up to the divorce which
was bitterly fought up to the Supreme Court.
Unlike my father, Ben was more of a mixer. (I am not trying
to pun.) He joined the Masonic Lodge and was a highly regarded
member thereof. I don't know what prompted it, but he seems to have
been a purchaser of Wisconsin real estate before my father, father
purchasing from him. Ben held an eighty acre tract directly west of
our farm for many years. Ben was also a hunter and had the reputation
of being a very good shot. Mother spoke of Ben shooting prairie chickens
and other game. She had a high regard for him and also
for the other brother who was a Catholic Cleric.
Ghost Hollow
One of Ben's hunting incidents brings to mind Ghost Hollow,
which was a sort of wooded, rocky gorge leading down to the river
from the Wisconsin side. One of the things which made the place
ghostly was the finding of the skeleton remains of a man by the name
of Tacke sitting in a cave along a side of the gorge. The man had
died with his "hoots on" and his rifle rusting by his side. It was
rumored that the man who shot him did so that he might marry the
widow, which he did. Tacke, like another man by the name of Nebis,
of whom I will tell later, had fled Germany in the College Rebellion
in 1849, and had settled on a farm not far from where his remains
were found.
The gorge became a place of mystery. Strange stories grew
up about it. Mother told of being on top of the bluff overlooking
the gorge and was somewhat terrified (at least greatly impressed) by
hearing the sound of neighing horses and mooing cattle in the gorge,
when she knew full well there were no such animals there. She told
of Father returning home, after sunset, through the Hollow after
helping a farmer on the other side of it. As he entered the Hollow,
something seemed to catch at his legs and hold him back, so that he
could hardly drag himself along. He finally was able to crawl out
of the Hollow and arrived home, wet with sweat and bone-weary.
It was told that "dead eye" Ben was hunting one day in that
place of mystery. He saw a partridge sitting on a stump and took a
shot at it. The bird remained sitting on the stump. Astonished at
missing so easy a shot, Ben aimed very carefully and shot again, and
apparently missing, for the bird continued sitting. Ben again shot
with no better results. Then thinking that he had been shooting at
something that merely looked like a partridge, Ben approached the
bird and as he put out his hand to touch it, it flew away with the
usual whirring of wings. I have gone through the various valleys or
hollows all along the river, but I have never found any place that
quite fits the descriptions of foreboding and mystery.
Schooling
I do not know how far Andrew went in school, but he wrote
well and had a good command of English and Arithmetic. I would
estimate he had the equivalent of two years in High School. According
to his story, he must have been quite a problem child and had more
than his share of fistic battles. He was sturdy and quick and
strong and must have given a good account of himself, as he
willingly admitted.
Lucy attended High School on the top floor of the Lincoln
School. The Stillwater High School, which Will, John and I
attended, was not yet built. She and her class were about to graduate,
when the principal found they were shy of some one subject or
credit, I don't remember which, and they were not allowed to graduate.
She and most of her classmates never went back to complete the
course. She and Rose attended some Academy for girls at Newport,
Minnesota, a village in the Southern part of Washington County.
Later they both attended the River Falls, Wisconsin Teachers Normal
School, and each of them taught school thereafter.
After graduating from the Houlton Grade School, Will and
John attended the Stillwater High School. As I was old enough to
attend school then, and they were driving a horse and buggy to and
from school, they took me with them. I never attended the Houlton
School, but started and continued in the old, now torn-down Central
School in Stillwater, and then the High School across the street.
Will and John, after graduating from High School, attended the
University of Minnesota. They and another student there, had a room
there and prepared their own meals. Week-ends they peddled their
bicycles home, the thirty miles from their campus and back again.
In the winter time they came home less often. Will took up the
medical course. During his senior year he suffered from rheumatic fever
and missed much of his studies. I am under the impression he did
not graduate, but had to take the State Medical Examination, which
he passed.
John, who had debated a great deal for the pleasure of it in
High School on such profound subjects as "Is Marriage a Success,"
continued debating in college. He and two other freshmen won the
debater's contest and prize money against the Sophomore debaters. As
Sophomores, they repeated their success. John took up the law course
and graduated. He joined the Zeta Xi Fraternity and was popular.
He became the rooter-king at football games.
He was able to prevail upon father to go to the
Minnesota-Wisconsin football game. Lucy, Reuben Thoreen, my high school pal,
Emily and Molly Brunswick, father and I were the party. Well I
remember sitting on the wooden grandstand seats and they were 50 yard
seats at that. The game was interesting, but what thrilled me was
watching John in his white flannels going through his antics in
getting the crowd cheering. Father sat through it all silently, but
interested. When the game was over, he stood up, looked around at
the large crowd and remarked, "Well, I'm glad I'm not the only damn
fool."
Of course, both Will and John were graduated and practicing
in their professions when I got to the University. I took what is
now called Science, Literature and the Arts. I never distinguished
myself as a student, or as an athlete; had some interesting
experiences and a lot of fun. ln my fourth year I attended night law
classes in the St. Paul College of Law in addition to my senior
work at the University. The work was too heavy and I had to drop
too many of my academic subjects to graduate. I finished my law
school, however. Father died on August 9, 1909, when I was twenty.
My brothers arranged to finance my schooling. I often felt sorry
for myself. A father's counsel and inspiration means a mighty lot
to a boy of that age.
Logging
From the bridge one could look up the river towards the
"boom" and see, at times, just solid masses of floating rafts of
logs. To the south would be other rafts being towed away by tug
boats or larger steamboats. As one looked to the east shore of the
river, he would see a huge sawmill belching smoke with it's saws
singing as they sliced the logs into boards. This was the East Side
Lumber Company. And near it were many large piles of neatly piled
lumber - millions of feet of it. Then to the west, along the water
front, up and down from the city itself were other equally busy,
noisy saw mills, Stillwater, for many years prior to 1900, was the
lumber center of the world. There were boarding houses to shelter
the mill workers and the "river rats", men who worked on the rafts.
It was a town of many saloons. The "Black Maria" or patrol wagon,
was always busy conveying drunks to jail to sober up. Lumber Jacks,
with their shortened trouser legs, mackinaws and swaggering gait,
were a lusty race. In the winter they would work cutting trees in
the pineries in the north. In the spring back they would come,
spend their money like drunken sailors and, when broke, would get
jobs on the river or in the mills. Some of them would work on the
farm for father.
Some three miles above Stillwater was the "Boom." There were
quite a number of persons who were logging in the north tributaries
of the St. Croix. To get their logs to the market, the mills,
which would process them into lumber, they conveyed their logs to a
stream leading to the river. In the spring, when the freshets came,
the logs were then floated down the St. Croix. Each logger had his
own mark, or as they call it in cowboy country, his brand, which he
had axed on to his log, so as to differentiate them from those of
the other loggers. The brands were recorded, almost like a patent,
and by law, it was a crime to use another logger's brand. These
brands were usually composed of straight lines like a double XX or
IX or XII, so that they could easily be applied by a man with a
sharp ax, chopping them into the log.
It was the duty of the boom company to collect these logs as
they came down the river. Chains and ropes were extended from shore
to shore. Usually, the barrier was composed of logs chained together.
As the logs were caught, they were segregated according to
brand and placed in "rafts." The rafts were placed side by side and
held there by ropes attached to the logs. When a tier of these logs
thus attached was several hundred feet long, it was floated out of
the boom by a tug boat and towed down the river to the mill that had
the job of processing it. Sometimes loose logs would be brought
down the river, herded together or confined by means of logs chained
end to end. These logs might he hauled up to a railroad flat car
and conveyed to some distant inland mill.
Many of my high school mates worked on the boom in the
summer, mostly as "flunkeys" for the cooks who fed the many "river
rats." The men working on the logs had caulks in their shoes, so
that they could stand and run on the logs and ride them to their
proper place. Some of these men were very clever in being able to
stay on a rolling log. Two or more men would Jump on a log, each
with a "pike" to balance him, or even without a pike. They could
roll the log one way or the other, or suddenly stop it, each
endeavoring to roll the other off the log and into the water. The one who
could stay on would be the winner, This sport is now called
"burling." But now-a-days few can do it.
In logging the men had long pikes, which may or may not be
the proper term, with a spike at the end. A log at a distance could
thus be reached and pulled or pushed into position. Peavies were
used to turn logs over. Men were conveyed on the river in batteaus,
described as a long, deep boat holding several men equipped with
long bladed oars. Races between batteau crews were frequent. There
was much singing, yelling and ribald laughter. Because the men were
so often in the water up to their hips, and even over their heads,
it was the practical thing to cut off their trouser legs just below
the knee. "High water pants" they were called. The clothing was
wool and red was the favorite color.
The Boom had a distinctive horn, similar to the moan of the
freighters on the Great Lakes. Thin moaning, calling men to work,
could be heard for miles, early in the morning before six o'clock.
Each saw mill and boat had it's own particular whistle. At the
beginning of the day and at the quitting hour, the many toots and
whistles made quite a medley of sound.
The boom was the source of rope for the surrounding country.
One evening father decided he needed a supply of rope. He and John
walked up the Wisconsin side of the Boom for this supply and were in
the process of picking some up, when they noticed someone else,
possibly on a like quest. Father did not wish to be interrupted so in
a very gruff voice (and his voice could be very gruff and menacing)
he roared at the intruder, "What are you doing here, trying to steal
rope?" The man disappeared precipitously. This incident indicates
my father was no angel. However, this is the only time I ever heard
of his taking something not his. He was not above pulling a good
bluff, nor using his wits. He knew how to "horse trade". But I
think my father, in taking the rope, only reflected the times in
which he lived. It is a pretty well established fact that the
lumbermen of that day would acquire a small tract in the pine forest
and log an all the surrounding tracts, not their land. In this way,
they made their wealth and reputation as "good business men."
As the last of their children, I should be able to tell you but
strangely until now I, myself, did not realize what interesting
personalities my parents were, or what fascinating histories. they had.
I merely took them for granted and never asked questions that would
have opened to me most interesting life stories of pioneer days. I
can only give you my recollections of my own youth and of the things
told to me. In these personal recollections of my own youth I shall
give you the information I have secured from a search into available
records.
The Thelen record, here at Stillwater, begins before the
Civil War. Three Thelen brothers settled here, having come here
from Germany, The first was Mike who became the owner of a fair
sized farm some miles east of Stillwater, in the town of St,
Joseph, St. Croix County, Wisconsin. His settling here probably
was the reason for the later coming here of two of his other
brothers Nick, my father, and Bernard or Ben, my uncle. l remember Mike
particularly because of his flowing white beard. He was the father
of ten children, with some of whom I later became well acquainted.
I recall Mike's wife, a lady with a tremendously deep voice, who
could and did make hired men step around in no uncertain terms.
The emigration of the Thelen brothers from Germany was no
sudden impulse, From the stories I recall , their father, Peter,
was the youngest of his family. There arose the question of an
inheritance. The matter went into the court and he was defeated, He
thereupon took his considerable family from their ancestral home,
Bleialff, near Trier, in what father called the Rhine Province, and
started for America. The family got as far as Antwerp, Belgium,
where he died. The family was left practically without means.
Father spoke rather bitterly of having to beg in the streets and
vainly from the priests and nuns, I think it was at this time father
got employment in a factory which processed collected wool material
into cloth, which he called "shoddy" and which he despised. He
would never sell clothing to "rag pickers" He would destroy it in
preference to having it processed into "shoddy goods." As he despised
the shoddy in clothing, so be despised the shoddy in religion
or manner of life.
With the proceeds of the sale of his herd, he bought passage
for himself and his brother Ben to the United States. Mike had
already gone to the "land of promise" and possibly had written letters
encouraging the step and suggesting St. Paul, Minnesota, as their
destination. According to his "Intention to Become a Citizen", be
arrived in the United States Sept. 9, 1857. He and Ben arrived in
St, Paul, $7.00 in debt. On the way over, father became acquainted
with a Lux family, with whom be maintained a friendship thereafter.
Father bought his first land, the eighty acres, upon which
is located the home and the family cemetery, from his brother, Ben,
November 2nd, 1863, and married my mother some 22 days later,
November 24th, 1863.
Upon this eighty acre tract was a log house, which previously
had been a sort of inn or stopping place for travelers, going
eastward by horseback or coach, along the stage road leading from
Stillwater by the house. The log house had the usual cellar with it's
dirt floor. When I first remember the house, it had been reduced in
size and was being used as a storage building, a new residence
having been built Just before my birth. My brothers and sisters had
been born in the old log house. A winding stairway led upstairs to
the two small rooms there. A door on the main floor led to the
stairway. Tradition had it, that no matter how the stairway door was
bolted, it would open during the night and sounds would indicate
that something with rattling chains would creep up the stairs!
Repute had it that the place in previous days as a road house had
been the scene of murders, the bodies having been buried in the dirt
floor of the cellar. Despite those stories, the Nick Thelen family
lived there and the children other than myself, were all born there.
It was my fortune to have been born in the new house, which still is
the farm house.
Thelen Farm after 1890
Annotated picture
Thelen Farm, 2 pictures stitched
Off picture to the left are, Horse barn, Grainery, Wagon shed
As to that marriage, about all I can do is to give a copy of
the Registration of Marriage record,
(See next page.)
1. Full name of husband - Nicholas Thelen
2. Full name of father of husband - Peter Thelen
3. Full name of mother of husband - (2) Anna Maria Winkelman
4. Occupation of husband - Farmer
5. Residence of husband - St. Joseph, St. Croix Co. Wis.
6. Birthplace of husband - Bleialff, Prussia
7. Full name of wife previous to marriage - Hermina Frederice
Streeter
8. Full name of the father of wife - Emanuel Streeter
9. Full name of the mother of the wife (a) Maria R. Kestner
10.
11. Time when marriage was contracted November 24, 1863.
12. The place, town or township, and county, there the marriage was
contracted - St. Joseph St, Croix County, Wis.
13. The color of the parties (b) White
14. By what ceremony contracted - Catholic
STATE OF WISCONSIN ) ss
COUNTY OF ST. CROIX)
I hereby certify, that the foregoing marriage was solemnized
by me on the day above named and that the above is a true return of
said marriage, and the other facts there recorded.
Dated at St. Joseph, in the County of St, Croix, on the 24
day of November, A. D. 1863.
Name, (c) Rev. Nicholas Stehli
Title of clergyman, officer or other person pronouncing marriage
Residence, Hudson, St, Croix, County, Wisconsin.
STATE OF WISCONSIN ) ss
ST, CROIX COUNTY )
I, David Hope, Register of Deeds in and for said County, do
hereby certify that I have compared the above and foregoing copy of
MARRIAGE RECORD OF NICHOLAS THELEN HERMINA F. STREETER with the
copy of original thereof, and that the same is a correct transcript
therefrom and of the whole thereof as the same remain of record in
my office.
IN TESTIMONY THEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my
official Seal this 20th day of October, A. D. 1953.
DAVID HOPE
Register of Deeds
By Lorraine Frazier-Deputy
Mother spoke a bit more to us of her background. In Germany,
more especially Saxony, her father had been a miller, who had a
mill where be ground grain into flour. He had, what I understand to
be, a form of asthma. A doctor told him he would have to seek a
different climate. It was decided to go to America. Mother was
eight when they came to the United States, They were on shipboard
six weeks, She remembered her brothers tried fishing. They saw
flying fish and other sea life. After landing in New York, they decided
to come west. After arriving at Milwaukee they, with others,
traveled through the Wisconsin woods by ox team. At night as they
camped they could see by campfire light the eyes of wolves. Meeting
a bear on the road was no unusual event. The family settled on the
prairie near New Richmond, Wisconsin on the Willow River. One day
while out picking berries, she found herself face to face with a
bear. She and the bear were both frightened and ran in opposite directions.
Forgive me, I have deviated from the thread of my story.
Let's go back to the beginnings of married life on the farm. Father
worked day and night. There was land to be cleared and broken to
the plow. Crops had to be planted by hand, When ripe they were cut
by means of a cradle, a scythe arrangement. Dad would cradle all
day and then at night he would tie the bundles. There was no twine.
With a quick twist of his hands he would take wisps of the straw,
twist the heads into a knot, then slip this arrangement around a
bundle of grain and quickly twist the ends into a knot and thus the
bundle was tied. Imagine doing this cradling and tying a whole
field of grain! Mother would finish with her housework and go out
into the field to help, It was years later that the cradle was
supplanted by the reaper.
Oh! for the "good old days"!!!!!
Of course, there were compensations. People working close
to nature seem to have a deeper sense of values, a deeper faith,
more understanding, a poise and serenity which we, of a more
complicated world, lack. Mother loved all growing things, chickens,
calves, pigs. With plants she had a "green thumb." She seemed able
to get anything to grow, She told of prairie chickens following
potato rows and eating off the bugs. She raised turkeys, geese and
ducks. She was in constant warfare with the skunks and owls and
hawks and other despoilers of her flocks.
Father, like his brother Ben, had a lot of dignity but be
also liked a joke and a good laugh. He could even tell a tall tale
very seriously. My mother's brother and his wife came to visit.
That was when the family was still living in the log house. Of
course Uncle and Aunt had to stay over night, During the evening
meal father entertained by telling about the unhappy persons buried
in the cellar, and about the stair door opening at a certain time
every night. He told of attempting to catch the ghost or thing with
chains climbing the stairs. How he put a lighted candle under a
bushel at the top of the stairs and how he quickly lifted the bushel
measure off the light when the sounds of the chain nearly reached
the top, but there was no ghost.
"Clearing of Land" consisted of sawing down the trees and
brush, cutting off or trimming of the limbs, piling the limbs and
brush into big piles and burning them. The tree trunks would then
be sawed into regular lengths, some for firewood, others for logs
for building and others for rails for fencing. When all the timber
had been removed the remaining stumps would be grubbed out by means
of grub hoes and axes to cut the roots. When the roots had been
sufficiently cut, chains were fastened to the stump. Oxen were
hitched to the chains to pull out the stump and remaining roots.
After the grain was scythed and cradled, and the grain tied
in bundles, these bundles were shocked or placed upright in groups
of twelve or fourteen so as to shed the rain and to let the straw
dry, the better to loosen the grain in what was called "threshing."
After the shocks were dry enough so as not to "heat" and spoil when
piled together or stacked, they were gathered by wagon to a place
selected for the stacking, a place near a spot to place the straw
pile after the grain was threshed or separated from its straw,
Father had an early experience as an American citizen, which
gave him a profound respect for lawyers. He served as a juryman in
a murder trial at Hudson. An Indian was tried for murder, The trip
to Hudson, the County Seat, although only eight miles away, was no
easy matter, The road was cracked, through the woods and rough. I
imagine father walked it and thought nothing of it. Indians attending
the trial came by way of canoes down the river. Father spoke of
good-looking squaws and their papooses. The Indians were doubtless
Chippewas, who still have settlements near Grantsburg and Spooner
along the St. Croix.
STATE OF WISCONSIN CIRCUIT COURT OF ST. CROIX COUNTY
ST. CROIX COUNTY ss NOV. TERM. A. D. 1877
I, Nicholas Thelen, do solemnly swear that I will support
the Constitution of the United States, and that I do absolutely and
entirely forever renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity
which I, in anywise owe to any foreign Prince, Potentate, State or
Sovereignty, whatever, and More particularly all such Allegiance and
fidelity as I, in anywise owe to the present King of Prussia of whom
I have hereto fore been a subject, so help Me God.
Subscribed and sworn to, in open Court this 14th day of November,
1877, before me
S, S. Starr, Clerk of said Court
In the matter of the application of Nicholas Thelen, an alien, for
citizenship.
Nicholas Thelen, an alien by birth, produced in open court,
a certificate of his written declaration of his bonefide intention
to become a citizen of the United Status, filed under oath in the
office of the Clerk of the Circuit Court or District Court in and
for the County of Ramsey in the State of Minnesota, on the 23rd day
of February, A. D. 1858, and proved, by the oath of two credible
witnesses in open court, his time of residence in the United Status
and in this State, and his good character, sufficient to entitle him
to his citizenship according to the laws of the United States;
whereupon the said Nicholas Thelen in open court, took and
subscribed the oath to support the Constitution of the United Status,
and to renounce all allegiance to all Foreign Powers whatever, and
more particularly all such allegiance as he in anywise owes to the
Present King of Prussia of whom he was of late a subject, according
to law, and was admitted to all the rights and privileges of a
citizen of that United States.
THOMAS TOBIN
S. S. STARR
Naturalization Record 1, page 132
But there was a political rift between father and Mike which
must have begun at that time. Father became a Republican and an
ardent one. Mike was an equally ardent Democrat. The difference in
politics was certainly a factor in their numerous periods of decided
coolness.
I never heard of my father ever hunting, but he must have
had a gun, because Andrew spoke of "borrowing" it on some youthful
hunting incidents.
The schooling of the children must have been a problem.
Andrew told of having to trudge some miles eastward to a little
one-room country school. Then he later attended a school
called the Lincoln School on the North Hill in Stillwater (now torn
down) and also a school in a little community on the northern
outskirts of Stillwater, known as "Dutchtown." I remember seeing a
picture of the latter school with it's youngsters; Lucy was among
them. To attend that school must have been a hardship for Lucy, the
oldest child, and Andrew, the second in the family. Even by taking
shortcuts through the fields, the distance from the farm was about
two miles to Stillwater. Then the walk up to Dutchtown was a good
mile and a half. Imagine our modern kids walking that distance
through the winter snows and over the rudimentary roads of that
time, Later the Houlton School was erected. Rose, the third child,
may have attended that school, but she may have gone with Lucy and
Andrew. However, Will, the fourth born, and John, the fifth horn,
attended the Houlton School, about three-fourths of a mile from the
farm home and on the east edge of Houlton, the little Wisconsin
village on the bluff, just across the river from Stillwater.
But lets get back to the earlier days. The wooden pontoon
bridge across the river had been erected many years before. My
brothers and I drove it to get to school. On the pontoon section,
the part that swings open to allow passage of boats and log rafts,
was a tiny house or room attached to the side. This was the office
of the toll collector, for it was a toll bridge. In the winter we
avoided the toll by driving across the ice. It was fun to see the
men and boats working the log rafts. Often the bridge was "open"
and we had to wait for the log rafts to be pulled through, It was
our standard excuse for being late to school. The bridge had a
span, underneath which the smaller boats could pass. One day that
span caught on fire and fell into the lake, resulting in the death
of a young man I knew rather well.
H.S. Class 1907 |
map