This is an archived post from “The Aroma of Bread,” and was first published 15 Jun 2015.
I don’t know when it started, but if Butch wanted to get Marie’s goat, he would mention that she was a “salutatorian of a class of two.” Granted, Hilbert High School in 1939 only had 13 seniors, but as Marie would say – “She still had to get the grades.”
And get good grades she did. Back in the day before we were all concerned about privacy, Hilbert High School regularly submitted, to both the Appleton Post-Crescent and the Chilton Times, a listing of students who had made the “A” Honor Roll in a particular semester; Marie’s name was always included. Good grades and perfect attendance.
In 1939 the Hilbert High School Commencement was held on May 25th, and Marie’s speech was about Education. I wish we had a copy of this speech. To read how 17-year-old Marie expressed herself would be pretty amazing.
The salutatorian of the class of 1939 would soon be leaving the farm and moving to the big city of Milwaukee, where she would go to Beauty Culture School. While in Beauty Culture School she would study Cosmetology Law, and learn more about the brain and the nervous system than I will ever know. But that is for another post.
This archived post from “The Aroma of Bread,” was first published 11 Oct 2015
October 10, 1950
On October 4th, Marie’s younger brother Leo’s celebrated his 89th birthday, and yesterday would have been his 65th wedding anniversary. Sadly, he lost the love of his life, Angela, on 26 Sep 2011. But out of this sadness, a great friendship was born. My daughter, Kate sent Leo a sympathy card at the time of Angie’s passing due to the inevitable complications from Alzheimers. Leo responded to Kate’s message of sympathy, and soon monthly letters were being sent back and forth between New York City and Hilbert, Wisconsin, and in-person visits when Kate was home to see us.
Marie – July 1940, Calumet County Park
Kate is home for a time, and on Friday headed off with birthday cupcakes to visit Leo. They had a great visit just the two of them – no mom and dad to put a damper on the flow of conversation that happens throughout the year via the written word. We did make one request. We asked Kate to ask Leo about a story he told while we were gathered in Marie’s room at the St. Paul Home shortly before her death. What we remembered from that day, was that Leo had gotten into trouble at school, and a letter was being sent home for his parents from the principal. Marie was asked to intercept the letter.
Marie and Leo – May 30, 1944
As Leo told the story to Kate, it happened his freshman year of high school, which was the 1941-1942 school year. During this time it was very unusual for a student to have a car available for them to drive to school. There was such a person in Leo’s class. Kate didn’t get the impression that this car was a point of jealousy for Leo, but it must have created some annoyance. So Leo and a friend cooked up a plan. They decided to let air out of the tires of the car. They were caught. Taken to the principal’s office, the other boy was let go without punishment. Much like in today’s school system, athletes, especially during the season, are given special treatment for bad behavior. As Leo recalls, this boy was on the basketball team. Leo’s punishment was to be a letter sent home to his parents, granted this was not much of a punishment, but the “crime” did not really harm anything, or anyone. Knowing the letter was to be sent, Leo asked Marie to intercept the letter, which she gladly did.
Leo’s parting comment about this incident? It was not the first time that Marie helped him to get out of trouble, and it wasn’t the last.
This is an archived post from “The Aroma of Bread,” and was first published 1 Jun 2012.
Yesterday, May 31st, was Dennis’ birthday, he would have been 62 years old this year. It was also his nephew Mike’s birthday. Happy Birthday!
Birthdays in Marie’s kitchen meant Angel Food Cake, and it had to have confetti in the mix. A plain angel food was not a birthday cake, although plain angel food was perfect for summer strawberries that had been sugared, mashed, and left to sit while dinner was eaten. Years after box angel food cakes became available, Marie never tired of the novelty and ease of an angel food box cake. She had a vivid memory of mixing these cakes by hand, standing at the counter and whisking, whisking, whisking the egg whites till they were stiff.
Marie, who was given the nickname of “Wee” by her father because she was so small, learned to cook at a very early age. She was always needed to help her mother prepare the meals for the thrashers and other hired hands on the farm, but when she was a small child, her mother was often ill. Because of this, Marie would be responsible for preparing the full meal on her own. When she shared stories with me from this time, I could just imagine this small girl standing on the step stool wrapped in a big apron, mixing, cooking, baking, and making angel food cakes by hand.
Growing up on the farm, they did not have indoor plumbing nor electricity until Marie was well into adulthood, so there were many years where the only way to make this favorite cake was made by hand, and then baked in an oven heated by wood. What always struck me was that she did not talk about the novelty of using an electric mixer, or for that matter an electric oven! But it was the ease of opening a box, adding water, mix, and voila! Angel food cake.
A recipe from the 1944 edition of The Settlement Cookbook, page 437.
ANGEL FOOD CAKE ~ No. 1
1 1/2 cups egg whites, 12 or 13
1 3/4 teaspoons cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar, measured lightly
1 1/4 teaspoons flavoring
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons cake flour
Beat egg whites with a wire whip. Add cream of tartar and salt when eggs are frothy. Continue beating until a point of the egg whites will stand upright. Gradually beat in one cup of the sugar, which has been sifted twice. Fold in the flavoring. Sift flour once before measuring. Fold in flour gradually, which has been sifted 3 times with remaining 3/4 cup of sugar. Pour into dry, ungreased 10-inch tube pan and bake 65 minutes in a moderate oven, 325 degrees F. Invert pan until cake is entirely cold.
Archived post from “The Aroma of Bread,” first published 13 February 2016.
1942 – Outside the Fassbender home in Hollandtown
Marie met Butch when she was just 19 years of age, and as her brother states, she was in her “hyper faze.”
My in-laws met in June 1941 at the wedding of Butch’s brother, Hubert (Cub), to Dolores Wenzel. It was a small ceremony, taking place in the pastor’s chambers. Butch was standing up for Cub, and as a long time friend of Dolores, Marie had been asked to stand up as Dolore’s witness. The two girls had become friends when Dolore’s father worked as a hired hand on the Campbell farm, and the Wenzel family lived in a small house located on an edge of the Campbell farm. Marie agreed to be Dolore’s attendant, never imagining that her life was about to change.
Following the marriage of Cub and Dolores, the two couples remained friends. When Butch and Marie married in 1946, Dolores attended Marie as a bridesmaid, and Cub was a groomsman. It was into their home in Dundas, that the newly wed Butch and Marie moved, while their own home was being constructed in Hollandtown.
But about Butch and Marie. Shortly after they met, they started dating, and Marie loved to tell this story about herself from that period in time. Although she had met and was dating Butch, she was keeping her options open, and continued dating other men, specifically a man named Bill. On one particular day, she was visiting with Bill in the living room at the farm. They were having a great time, and Marie lost trackof the time, almost forgetting that Butch would soon be arriving to pick her up for an evening out. That is until she heard his car pull into the yard. As he headed to the front door, Marie began rushing Bill out the side door – or vice versa, I never thought to ask. Her father, Walter, met Butch at the door, stalled him a bit so that Bill was out of the house, and Marie could catch her breath, then let him in.
Couple unidentified, but a great shot from the drive of the farm, and both the front and side porch. Notice how close the porches are to each other.
The next day, Walter sat Marie down and said that enough was enough, she had to make a choice, as he was not going to go through all that drama again. She made her choice, and for the next five years she and Butch dated, getting married at St. Mary’s in Hilbert on May 7, 1946. They would have celebrated 70 years of marriage this year!
Marie’s Chicken Dumpling Soup
from Wende
Chicken Broth
1 cup up fryer chicken
Celery, cut into chunks for broth
Salt and pepper
Carrots
Celery for soup
Noodles, cooked
Put chicken in a pot with just enough water to cover it. add the celery and cook for 1 1/2 hours. Remove chicken from broth and cool. When cool, bone the chicken, and skim the fat off of the broth. Season the broth with salt and pepper, or Nature’s Seasons. Add carrots and celery to the broth, cook for five minutes, keeping the broth at a low boil.
Dumplings
5 eggs
3/4 tsp salt
2 cups flour
Mix all ingredients. Using a spoon, drop by small spoon full the dumplings into the low boiling broth. Cover the pot, cook the dumplings for 15 minutes ( do not take the cover off the pot).
After the dumplings have cooked, add the chicken and cooked noodles to the pot. Cook for 5 more minutes before serving.
I was surprised to discover that there is very little published on the web about the regiments of World War I. I guess that I have gotten so used to the vast amount of information that is published about the Civil War, from regiment listings, to battles that these regiments fought in, etc. Information is easy to come by, and amazingly detailed in its content.
As I prepared to archive images of William Patrick Campbell (Bill) in his World War I uniform, I decided to do a “quick” search to see if I could discover what regiment he was in, what years he served, and the important details of when did he enlist, and when was he mustered out. No such luck.
But there does seem to be a movement towards creating online content. The Wisconsin Veterans Museum in Madison, Wisconsin, is in the process of creating an online searchable database of our World War I veterans. Another site that is honoring the veterans of Calumet County, is the Chilton Veterans site. The site is: “…operated for the sole purpose of honoring veterans from all branches of service who honorably served the nation during their lifetimes.” In August 2014, a Veteran’s Memorial designed by James P “Jim” Suttner, was dedicated, and they will continue to add names to the memorial on a yearly basis. Something I should look into as a way to honor the Civil War veterans in my Cook family. I also found this site interesting: The Mobilization of the Wisconsin National Guard During World War I.
What I do know about William’s service, is that he filled out a draft card on June 5, 1917. [1] At the time of the draft he was 23 years old, working as a farm laborer for his brother-in-law, James Dawson.
William and Walter Campbell, Hilbert, WI
We know that William served, as he sent home an image of himself, which was taken by “Liberty Studio, Camp Mills, Hempstead, L. I” [Long Island]. The image was stamped with the Liberty Studio listing, but undated. Wikipedia [2] has this to say about Camp Mills. It was set up as a place of preparation of Army units, prior to being deployed to Europe. It opened as a temporary tent camp in September 1917, and closed in November, after preparing the 42nd and 41st Divisions. It re-opened, April 4, 1918, as a part of the New York Port of Embarkation for the
William and Walter Campbell, Hilbert, WI
troops on their way to Europe. At the end of the war in November 1918, it assisted in the reverse process, acting as a demobilization center, as thousands of troops poured back into the United States.
It would seem as though William returned home at the end of the war, as the family archive contains these two images of him with his brother, Walter, on the drive next to the farmhouse. Snow is seen in the background, and Walter appears to be bundled up. November, early December would make sense because of the snow, and the occasion of his return celebrated with a photograph.
Upon his return, he stayed in Calumet County for a few years, working as a farm hand on the family farm. By 1926, he was living and working in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as a fireman. He held this position for the rest of his working days, working in the the repair shop of the engine house.
This image from the Library of Congress, celebrates the September 20, 1919 homecoming of many of the soldiers who had been off to war. Surviving Civil War veterans are standing at the left of the larger returning WWI veterans.
SOURCES:
“World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918,” database and images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 Aug 2004), William Patrick Campbell; Roll 1674511, Draft Board 0; Wisconsin Registration. Calumet County. Form 1 ~ 214, No. 113; Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards. First Registration, 5 Jun 1917. For men age 21, born between 6 Jun 1886 and 5 Jun 1896.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Mills; accessed 24 Jan 2016.
My mother-in-law, Marie, kept a treasure box. Buried deep in the attic of her home I found an old Whitman’s candy box, and inside the box was a treasure trove of Holy Cards. Holy Cards that she had received as gifts, as rewards for good behavior, and some she just saved because they were pretty. In amongst these treasures from the 1930s, I found a different sort of card. This card lacked the pretty coloration of the rest of the collection. Turning it over I was amazed and delighted to discover that it was a card that had belonged to Marie’s grandmother, Elizabeth Bradley Campbell who had passed away in September 1900 at the age of 43, leaving a husband and eight children behind. A son Stephen had died of pneumonia just three years before in 1897.
The back of the card stated that Mrs. Lizzie Campbell was a member of the St. Joseph’s Union. This was her certificate of membership, “…having paid 25 cents, [approximately $6.80 in today’s money] the Annual Subscription for the ‘Homeless Child,’ is a Member of St. Joseph’s Union until March 1, 1898.”
The card goes on to state: “The object of this Union is the protection of homeless and destitute children, and the spiritual and temporal welfare of all subscribers to the ‘Homeless Child.’ His Holiness, Pope Leo XIII on the 27th day of February, 1883, graciously granted exclusively and for ever to the Members of St. Joseph’s Union (established by Father Drumgoole in the year 1876) and Indulgence of 400 days to Members who recite twice a day, the following prayer…”
Who was Father Drumgoole, and what WAS St. Joseph’s Union? Setting out on a websearch, I was surprised at how much information could be found about Fr. Drumgoole. While not all sites mentioned St. Joseph’s Union, it was clear that he was the patron for homeless news boys in New York City. This site is I feel is particularly good for background information: HistoryBuff.com, and to read the full life story of Fr. Drumgoole, this book published in 1954 looks to be an easy read: Children’s Shepherd, The Story of John Christopher Drumgoole.
The goal of the St. Joseph’s Union was to raise awareness and money throughout the United States and the world. This small card is evidence that this goal was achieved. The Campbells lived on a farm just outside of the small town of Hilbert, Calumet Co., Wisconsin, and attended church in Hilbert, where the Rev. Father Rhode was pastor. I would love to understand how he promoted the society to his predominately German congregation.
