Grandpa Lee was born in or near Westby, along with a brother and three sisters. The farm was located near a little town called Bloomingdale. He worked on the farm and, until fairly recently, if you visited the old place, his initials were painted on the corner of the old barn. There has been some renovation and the last time I visited, they were gone.
From the Bloomingdale cemetery on the hill above, you can see parts of the farm fields and this cemetery is where many of the people I will try and remember things about lie in repose. It is a beautiful place and must have been a magical little bubble in which to be a child, grow up, and fall in love.
The things I have been told about Grandpa Lee include doing a lot of farm chores, playing baseball, fishing, and sleighing and ice skating in the winter. When he was older he got a job with the Pet Milk Company which had a plant in Sparta, many of the buildings of which are still there but used different ways. He apparently had a knack for doing the chemical tests on the milk in various stages of the condensing process. The road down from Cashton Ridge to Sparta was, in those days, convoluted and steep, winding around from one hill to the next. Grandpa Lee used to follow the snowplow in the winter, lest he not be able to make the climb or descent.
This is a on old picture of Grandpa Lee and Grandma Lill with my mother.
He also worked many years as a "jobber" for the company, which simply meant that he traveled routes through various towns in Wisconsin, visited the outlets (mostly grocery stores), took orders later to be delivered, and set up displays. By the time I was born, all of the above was ancient history to Lill and Lee. When their kids were in high school, Lill would sometimes trust my mother to be in charge and she would join Lee on a run for a few days. They might get in a couple days of fishing and card playing at Eagle's Nest flowage between Tomah and Necedah.
According to my uncle, this was leaving the foxes in charge of the hen house. In the younger years, the three girls apparently would lock my uncle in the closet so they could party. When he was older, the four youths took turns having beer parties in the house; then cleaned it up before their parents' return.
Lee and a friend had developed an ice cream stabilizer which they marketed for some time either through the Pet Milk Company or through connections they had made. They named it "HiBub" and my baby picture was on the label. "Bub" was his nickname for me. My mother received a couple of hundred dollars in royalties for the use of my picture, which she kept in a bank account. I don't think the product lasted in popularity all that long.
Grandpa Lee always had a deal going on, usually with cars. He had an Edsel at one time and I can remember the push-button shifting. He would have a Mercury from time to time, always fairly big sedans because, after all, he had four kids. You could put four people in the back and three in the front, easily, with these oldsters because they had not yet invented bucket seats.
Lill and Lee would occasionally make a drive, either up the Cashton Ridge or up the Norwalk Ridge to visit either their parents in Westby or Lill's uncle and aunt in La Farge, alongside the Kickapoo River. An easier trip was to La Crosse to visit siblings there, but no trip was quickly made like it is today. As I mentioned the drive up the ridges took forever, unlike today after the roads have been widened and straightened.
I can remember being about three years old and in the back seat with Lill in the front and Lee driving. I'm not sure who was in back with me but I do not believe it was my mother. We were driving south from Sparta on Highway 27 to go up Norwalk Ridge and on through Ontario and ultimately to La Farge.
I was in a bad mood and I can very clearly remember throwing a tantrum for the first five or so miles. We were almost as far as Farmer's Valley, which is now called Janus Avenue. At about the point where the Farmer's Valley Cemetery is located, Grandpa Lee pulled over and they put me out on the shoulder of the road, which, in those days was just grass, and drove away.
I stood there, watching the car get smaller, and burbling the equivalent of expletives for a three or four year old. The car stopped, then backed up. I was told I had to behave if I wanted to get back in.
I got back in and pouted for a while, but the tantrum was over. Grandma Lill would try and keep me engaged, as she later did with the other cousins, by looking for white horses in the fields along the way. I was to get a quarter for each white horse. I would find several but I really do not remember getting any quarters.
In that day, Highway 27 had to go through a little tunnel under the railroad track that eventually became the Sparta-Elroy bike trail. Grandpa Lee would always toot the horn when we went through the tunnel. If he forgot, I reminded him.
On the way home from any of these drives, Lill and Lee would always stop at the A & W Root Beer Stand on the corner of Water Street and Wisconsin Street. It is still there, although it is now Rudy's Root Beer Stand. I would get what they called a "baby beer", which was a small mug of root beer which amounted to about a cupful. It was a great idea and I loved it and clamored for it. I'm sure many of the cousins yet to be born at that time can remember getting a "baby beer".
Lee always had a big idea fermenting. At one point, while my mother was still in high school, he moved the family to Madison. They had a small cottage style house down by First Street where Johnson Street cuts through to get over to East Washington. I am typing these words not more than two miles from that house.
My mother had to go from teeny tiny Sparta High School to East High in Madison, which looks like something between a castle and a fortress, even today. She went in one door, freaked out, and went back out another door and home, so the story goes.
I don't think that move lasted more than a year before everyone agreed to go back to Sparta. Lee tended to move the family a lot and I know of five or six houses or apartments in Sparta where they lived. In fact the Cottage Street house might have been purchased upon returning from Madison.
I lived like a little child-emperor with all these loving people to adore me and take care of my every whim. Sparta was not a big town yet and I could roam freely in the park, stick my head into the cannon, ride my tricycle around the block and up to the cemetery and do mischief with all the flowers and pots beside the graves, and play in the back yard.
I remember playing with a boy who lived about a half block away and who was a little bit older than me. He had gotten the old newspapers and carefully rolled up sand from the backyard into them to make a stack of "grenades" which he hoarded in their garage. The atomic bomb had been used to end the Pacific War and he called these little packages "A-bombs".
He hurled one against the inside wall of his garage and yelled "A-Bomb!" as the newspaper broke and sand went all over the place. We took a few outside and were throwing them. I was yelling "B-Bomb!" and "D-Bomb!" and "Z-Bomb!" when one hit me directly in the face, filling my eyes, nose, and mouth with sand. I ran home crying and told Grandma Lill.
There must have been a boy delivering the newspaper, and I must have seen someone paying him, because I got the idea in my head that I could take the old newspapers from the stack in the kitchen and peddle them throughout the neighborhood. I would take a couple and go down the street ringing doorbells.
I can remember only one success. There is a beautiful old house on the corner of Montgomery Street across from the park. I can remember the man inviting me inside to meet his wife. They were a little older and probably grandparents missing their grandchildren. Here was this curly haired little street urchin on the porch selling newspapers. I thought it was a bridge too far to have to go inside and pitch my newspaper, but I did always get a dime.
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