THE SCHULTZ STORY

The following historical summary was written some 50 yearsago by Raymond Schultz, eldest son of Fredrich and AmeliaSchultz, as his recollection of the early days of his fatherand mother's years in Oconto Falls, Wisconsin. This storypoignantly reveals the thoughts and remembrances of a youngboy who had to quickly become a young man as his family dealtwith the trials and tribulations that affected the entire Schultzfamily. The period of time that this story covers is from thetime when the Schultz farm was purchased through Fredrich'suntimely, terrible accident when he lost his hands.

This story is basically written in Raymond's words. Inrecording this story, some grammatical changes and necessarysentence structure have been made. There were some areas thatwere illegible due to water damage to the original copy, sowe filled in the story as best we could. Theodore was atWartburg Seminary and asked Ray to provide some family historyfor an assignment he had. Ray wrote his story in a compositionnotebook which followed Ted throughout his service as a NavyChaplain and through his many "calls" as a pastor.

Tillie and I worked together to develop the attached familystory and it couldn't have been done without her "filling inthe blanks."

The Schultz family history would not be complete withoutmention of the family members, as follows:

FredrichAmelia

Anna MarieRaymondFredrichTilliePaul EdArnold HenryTheodoreAdolph

SchultzSchultzSchultzSchultzSchultzSchultzSchultzSchultzSchultzSchultz

(1876 - 1962)(18? - 1947)(1908 - 1908)(1909 - 19 )(1911 - 1986)(1913 - 1999)(1915 - 1991)(1915 - 1998)(1917 - )(1919 - 1988)

The 1990 Schultz Family Reunion genealogy lists preparedby Mel and Sharon Raatz will provide some comprehensive infor-mation about the descendents of Fredrich and Amelia Schultz.

If you would like to add some of your memories of theSchultz family during these years we would be happy to includethem as an Addendum to this historical data.

Developed by Tillie Raatz and Ann SchultzEdited and typed by Ann SchultzJune 25, 1999

SCHULTZ FAMILY HISTORY

Years after the lumber camps had moved further north,leaving behind all logging roads and plenty of largestumps(stumps were left from a huge forest fire), people settledin the Oconto Falls area of Wisconsin one by one. Log hutsand some nice frame homes soon began to dot the country side.The second growth of timbers was well underway, supplying thenewcomers with building timbers and firewood.

Father was a hard worker and was working in the paper mill.He had loaned a friend $300 and when the friend could not repaythe money, father had to take the man's farm in repayment ofthe loan. The farm consisted of 120 acres (three forty acresections). There was a grainery upstairs from the house welived in that was located on the first forty acres. There werelarge stumps on some of the acreage and it was very hard toplow this land. We would dynamite and blast to clear the stumpsand then sell the pine roots to the paper mill for firewood.

Father received several proposals to sell the farm andmade up his mind to sell forty acres with the building on andstart 9ut on the 80 acres he had left. One fall he made abargai~ with a young couple, Mr. & Mrs. Henry Raatz. The horsebarn was moved to the second forty and remodeled into one largerone with a window on the east, south and west side. The entranceto the house was on the north side. The horse barn was on highblocks. It was early in the spring but the ground was stillfrozen. There was a creek a few hundred feet south of the house.The water from the melting creek covered large pine stumps.Logs were rotten; laying in every direction as the trees fellor were blown over.

It was still plenty cold when we moved into our new horneon our new farm. There were three of us; me, Fred, and Tilliewas but a few months old. That one room was crowded. Motherwas used to a large roomy house and this was a real hardshipfor her to overcome. There was a big kitchen stove in one cornerof the room and three beds were placed about the house. Withthe rest of the belongings, it made it almost impossible toget about. There were no other buildings to store the furniturewe had.

Father bought a log barn from an old farm a few miles away,took it apart and moved it to our new place and the buildingwas fairly wide. The first floor had one square window on thesouth and another window on the east side. Our entire stockwas housed in this barn - cows, a couple of hogs and horses.The hay was stacked outside. Father always went to work inthe logging camp up north during the winter months. There wasno income from the farm and one winter's wages was enough topay for the taxes on the farm.

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The hay was covered with snow and ice, as were the cornstalks after snow storms so they sometimes froze to the ground.The hay had to be carried several hundred feet to the barn andsqueezed between the cows to put it into their manger. Thebarn had no floor so plenty of straw was used. This, with abig armful of hay, made walking very difficult in a dark barn.The little window was sometimes covered to keep the barn warm.The cows had to eat their feed in the dark all through thewinter.

Once a month or so, mother would hitch up the horses andgo to town to get groceries with the little money she had.Sometimes, if a neighbor went to town, she had them bring themail and groceries along. Father would send a few dollars tomother for sorely needed clothes, along with a note. When motherwould come home she would weep and read his letter. With reliefshe would say "father is still all right and living". Everyday mother would gather us all around her and we would prayand sometimes sing a hymn and then get up and say "we hope fatheris all right"!

One day I had just finished with the early evening chores.~ I sat resting at the foot of the straw stack, watching the golden

sun go down. It had been a beautiful day. The snow had beenmelting on the south side of the buildings. There were a fewclouds scattered apart in the west. As I watched the sun sinkfurther and further behind the far away hills and trees, theclouds seemed to form the image of two horses pulling a sleigh.My imagination had more to do with this than actually seeingit because father was expected home any day now. Once in awhilea snow bird w6uld jump around on the snow banks and chirp inthe twilight. When the barking of the dog disturbed my peacefulday dreaming, I ran around the straw stack and it was father,just driving in the yard. The horses were tired. Father lookedhappy and had a smiling face. Mother was wild with happiness.Spring could never come too soon for us so we could see fatheragain and enjoy the fresh summer air. Early in the morningthe sun would come peeping over the hills, casting long shadows,but soon would fade away. The golden warm sunlight coveredthe green countyside in the valleys near the farm. Near thecreek the fog hung close to the ground like ghosts. The songof the birds came rolling over the countryside. We could hearthe balking of a calf as we brought them from their nightpastures into the barm. We would watch the birds in the fieldsand the robins on the fence, signifying the beginning of spring.

After we had done the milking we would have breakfast andgo to work; father in the field, mother in the garden, and Fredand I would drive the cows to the meadows and watch them sothey would not get in the cornfield or oats or whatever wasplanted around this field. Sometimes cows would get away

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unnoticed; they would wander off into the neighbor's grain.The people this happened to were the Pieslers who lived acrossthe road. The Pieslers locked the cows up in their yard andwouldn't return the cows unless we paid for their damage. Therewere many quarrels and hard feelings.

During the summer, father dug the basement for the house;built a foundation from rocks and put the house on a solidresting place. Later he added to the house so we had more thanthe kitchen and sleeping room. Theodore was born in the falland we sorely needed more room because by now there were eightof us, (Father, Mother, Ray, Fred, Tillie, Arnold, Paul andTheodore). Father made improvements every year.

Father took some rye to the flour mills to have some flourground for our winter's supply. As the snow flakes began toflutter and cover the ground, father would pack his clothesand tramp off into the northern woods to work through the winter.Day by day, the short days and weary winter nights slowly passed.In March, when the weather started to get milder, our thoughtswent to.~pring, long ahead of time. We would start tomato seedsin boxes of earth as we looked through seed catalogs and at

k the beautiful fruit pictures. Just looking at these pictures,I could taste the tomatoes or fresh apples. We would satisfyour cr~ving with the fruit we had in the basement. Finally,father: would come home from the camp and we would be glad withjoy to see him. He seemed like a stranger because there wereso many months since the time we had last seen him. Motherfelt the gayest and had a cheerful tone. Father always camehome from camp with a big beard because he never shaved allwinter. And tben - came the beautiful spring again.

One day father went to an auction sale and bought a feedcutter and a gasoline engine. The feed cutter had one big flywheel and a small pulley for the belt. The feeding rollerswere open on the top of the gear that turned the rollers. Therewas no guard and the straw and stalks had to be hand fed. Therewas a large clumsy chunk of iron which turned the feed cutter.That summer father built a shed against the barn. When wethreshed the oats and rye, this was our feed. We would carrythe corn stalks and other feed into the barn which was justaround the corner.

That fall a cow had wandered away unnoticed and walkedalong the road toward Pieslers. Bayer, Piesler's helper wasa radical sort of man. While Piesler and Beyer were outsidedoing some work by their barn, they saw this cow. Piesler,with a pitch fork in his hand, and Beyer with a large club,came running toward the road to get this cow. Because theywatched it come on their property, they thought they could use

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the cow to get some money from father. Father saw that thecow had crossed the road onto our field but Piesler took afterfather with the pitch fork. He followed father for about oneeighth of a mile and stopped at the gate by their farm. Motherwas in bed as Mrs. Emily Schultz (a mid-wife) had just deliveredAdolph. She saw what was happening, as did our helper who wasoutside. Both he and Mrs. Schultz hollered at Piesler to stop.Beyer heard and started to walk back to the barn and Pieslerwalked along the road to his home. The cow had already rejoinedthe rest of the herd. The next day father and Mr. Schmidt droveto Oconto Falls and had Piesler arrested. The court wantedto place him in prison, but father again showed his kindness,pleaded with the court to release him on bond so he could bewith his family. This was granted. The anger was still ragingafter this. We were in constant feat that these two - Beyerand Piesler, would set fire to our buildings, but this nevercame to pass.

Father had plenty of wood from the woods to be cut forfirewood but winter came sooner than usual, so father againpacked his clothes and tramped off to the woods. Fred and Icut wood every evening after school so we had something to burnthrough the night. It started to snow and snowed every dayand was very cold. Soon our wood pile was all covered withsnow and there was not much left. Mother and I would shovelaround in the snow, looking for wood. Mother would dress inoveralls, then we would shovel the snow away where we wouldthink the wood was. The wind was blowing and it was snowing.It was getting almost impossible to find a piece of wood. Snowwas everywhere and it snowed every day. The fence posts werealmost covered with snow. It was getting near spring in March.We were hoping to get a little warmer weather soon. We hada raging snow storm - it blinded us when we went out to do ourchores. We needed more wood and there was none to be found.Father had some heavy planks piled in the shed for buildingpurposes. Mother took these into the kitchen to saw them upfor firewood because there was nothing else. While mother andI were cutting the planks the storm was blowing and roaringas if it wanted to crush our house. It was getting dusk whenthere was a sudden flash of light. A second later came arumbling of thunder. This contitiued for a few seconds and thenceased. We huddled around our stove and later went to bed.Early the next morning we awoke. The wind had stopped. Thesun was just peeking around over the hill. The fields werecovered with snow deeper than ever. We could see the neighbor'schimney with white clouds of smoke slowly rising heavenward.The trees looked like scared ghosts with the branches reachingtowards the sky.

Day after day the weather was nice, the snow started tomelt fast. The hilltop ground started to peek through the snow.

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Beautiful spring and summer was again at hand and fatherwas home from the lumber camp. The farm was improved everyyear, all around. Father started his plans to build a big haybarn the following year. All summer he and mother worked hard.Mother planted pickles for the pickling factory which we helpedto pick. Everything went as father wished it to go that fall.We had gathered plenty of firewood and sawed it with our powerdrive saw. Father again planned to go to work that winter toearn several hundred dollars at the lumber camp up north butsomehow something or other kept him from getting away so earlyso he planned on leaving right after New Year. Father had pulledout a large pile of pine stumps that summer. He now cut themup, hauled and sold them to the Paper Mill at Oconto Falls forfirewood. Almost every other day he hauled a big sleigh loadinto town. Father had and old violin he had fixed up becauseit had not been played for years and during the evening he playedsweet songs on it. He loved music. In his young days he hadplayed it often but now other duties kept him from enjoyingwhat he loved. After Christmas was over we were going to fillthat little feedshack by the barn full of feed so it would lastfor a long time and we would have feed for the cows while fatherwas in'~he lumber camp.

The day we chose to cut was cloudy. We did our choresthat morning, had breakfast and started out to work. With horsesand sleigh, pick and shovel, we went out in the field to digout the corn stalks from the snow. There was not much snowbut still plenty to do without the shovel, so we hauled oneload home and cut it up. It started to mist, the sky was grey,but we kept right on. Mother would hand the straw over thebelt to fathe~ who was feeding the feed cutter and Fred or Iwould hand the stalks to father from behind. We started outagain - we had hauled a load of corn stalks from the field tohome but left it until afternoon. It started to get colder.Everything was icy and wet. The horses were still in the barn.As we were cutting away the wet straw, it would be hard to feedinto the cutter and the corn stalks were hard. Fred and I wouldexchange. I would unload and hand father the corn stalks andFred would throw the cut feed away from the machine into theshed.

I had just changed jobs with Fred and I was throwing thefeed into the shed and he was unloading the load. A lot ofstalks were on the ground. Father was standing, sometimesuncomfortably, doing his work. I was busy shoveling the feedaway when I heard father give a loud yell, but from all theracket from the running machine, I thought he yelled at Fredthat he should hand the stalks faster, or something. But thenI looked up and saw father was real blue in his face, his eyeswere wide with a frightening stare. I then realized he hadbeen caught in the machine. Mother looked up and she saw father

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caught in the machine. She yelled and cried - she did not knowwhat to do first. She ran back and forth. Fred quickly pushedthe belt off the pulley and stopped the engine. Mother tookhold of dad's shoulders, thinking she could pull him out ofthe machine. His right arm went under the rollers and the knivescut off his right hand. Father, trying to stop himself fromgoing in further, was going to brace himself with his left handbut slipped and his fingers caught in the turning rollers andwere all mangled. We all yelled in terror and Beyer, acrossthe road, happened to be outside, heard our crying and yellingand figured something was wrong. He came running over, quicklyhitched the horses to the sleigh. Mother ran into the houseto get a bed sheet. Father, mneanwhile, walked from the barnto the house. The snow where he walked was red with blood.Mother wrapped the bedsheet around his arm and hand, helpedhim into the sleigh and Beyer drove him to the doctor in OcontoFalls, five miles away. We were all fearful, terror strickenand crying, thinking father would now die and we also mistrustedBeyer. We thought he would now murder father, but after severalhours Beyer came back when it was dark. He told us what thedoctor had done - that he had cut the clothing from father'sarms and put a tourniquet on his right arm, cleaned his wounds,put him into his car and drove to the hospital in Green Baybecause Oconto Falls had no hospital. After hearing this, we"felt a little better, believing he was telling the truth. Ourneighbors, Beyer and Piesler from across the road and Jeskes,further up the road, had a bitter grudge against us for someunknown reason, so we didn't trust any of them.

Later we received word from Dr. Goggins that he had operated"on father's arm and hand - that he would only have part of the

thumb and a very short finger on his left hand and the rightarm was off almost to the elbow and if he would live untilmorning, he would pull through. He had lost too much bloodand was in shock. All night, I thought it seemed impossiblethat this had happened to father. Mother, in her sleep, wouldget up, walk about the house and then wake up, not realizingwhat she had been doing. She was also in shock. Morning came.We were all praying that father would have pulled through.About 10:00 a.m. we received wo+d that father was doing fineand was expected to live. Once a week, the nurse would writea letter for father and tell us how he was getting along.

Mother had little money, but managed to get some to takeher to the train to go to Green Bay to see father and how hewas getting along. When she came back she was rather relievedbecause father was getting along fine and did not feel any pain.The nurses had to feed him like a baby but now the other thing- "what are we going to do now?" confronted mother most of all.

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But she said "After all, we all were very glad father was living,even though he could never do any work".

One day, in school, I saw an announcement printed thatthere was to be a box supper for the benefit of Fred Schultzand went on to describe what had happened to father. Thatevening, Fred and I went over to the school to see what thiswas. Father was still in the hospital. As we neared the schoolwe never saw so many people crowding around to get into theschool. As we managed to get in, a man was standing on a highbox auctioning the boxes of food or lunch the people brought.The people paid an enormous price. Some of the fellows whowere drunk bought pies and smeared them on the school hall walls.After everything had been sold, the speaker told the crowd whatit was for and how much money they took in, but our two neighborsmore than ever resented and hated us, even cussing us on theroad when we went to school. But other people allover, werevery sympathetic and helped wherever they could. I was then12 years of age.

We had very little to eat in the house. There was no moneyfor food so all we had was potatoes, bread and milk. The chickensnever laid eggs in the winter. One day our cousin, who livednear Oconto Falls, met father at the depot as he was returningfrom the hospital in Green Bay and drove him home in his car.As he passed the school it just happened to be recess. Thatafternoon I was happy again, more than ever glad to see fatheragain. After school was out, I hurried home. As I came bythe window I saw father standing, both hands wrapped up in bigbulky bandages with a support around his neck. Upon entering,father saidnello to me in a meek tone. His face was pale white.He had always had a healthy look, but now he was also weak.He walked into the dining room, which was also our bedroom,sat down on the chair, looking out the window and at his bigbandages. I saw tears in his eyes. I tried to find somethingto ask or tell him, but I couldn't. He got up from the chair,walked to the other window and looked out of the window andthe tears were rolling down his cheeks. I, too, almost beganto cry, but he turned and comforted us all, saying that maybeGod had wanted this to happen and that he will again see usthrough and everything will be all right again.

There were seven of us children and the big mortgage onthe farm was father's biggest worry. That evening we all sattogether again at supper but we had to feed father. Our mainfood was soup or potato dumpling soup because there was nothingelse to eat. After father had been home a few days and he seemedmore like himself, a big car pulled up into the yard. Severalmen and women got out and walked right into the house. Theywanted to see father. One of the men happened to be our townclerk, Mr. & Mrs.O'Neil and some other strangers. After some

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conversation, they gave mother a bundle of clothing and anenvelope with some money. Father and mother refused to takeit but they coaxed and persuaded father and mother and theyfinally took it. Every day,- mother had to take father to townto the doctor. After she got this donation, mother and fatherwere going to pay the doctor some on his bill but to theirsurprise, the doctor told them that the hospital bill and hiswas all taken care of and paid for and he handed mother a checkof several dollars saying "this is what was left after the bakesale and your bills are paid, also your taxes are paid now".Father and mother were speechless! I wondered for several dayshow wonderful people are. Father prayed more and we all sanghymns before retiring in the evening. But, our next problemwas how were we going to do the farming. I had to go to schoolfor a year so a plan was made to rent the farm for two yearsuntil I was out of school and confirmed. An old friend, EmilSchimkoski, was the best one mother and father preferred. Theold farm we had sold some years ago had been foreclosed so thebuildings were empty and he was to live on that old farm anddo the farm work. After winter had gone and land work was tobegin,'our Emil turned out to be a very lazy farmer. He didvery little field work. Most of the time he would sleep. Wehad planted contract beans, pickles, beets and carrots. Wetook care of our truck farm. We also had a large potato field,and strawberries. This we picked almost every day, took themto 060nto Falls, and we went from house to house to sell them.At the fall of the year we had made quite a sum of money. Ourrenter treated our stock in a very inhuman way and was lazyin doing his chores so we had the contract cancelled. The secondyear I started to walk behind the plow and drag early and late.Father would~supervise and plan the work we all would do. Inall this while, father was receiving a few dollars each monthfrom a disability pension which helped very nicely. Thefollowing summer we increased the acreage of this contract -beans and pickles. Our work was done in due time. In 1924we bought a pick-up truck to speed up delivering our producein the fall of the year and we had this car paid for. We nowplanned to build a large barn which father had planned forseveral years to build. One winter Fred and I hauled gravelall winter. During the summer ~e made the cement blocks forthe foundation. That following winter we cut timbers, piledthem up, had the saw mill come and saw them up. That springwe started the barn. Later we improved the other buildings.Fred was strong and big now. Arnold and Paul could do a goodday's work. We blasted and pulled all the ugly pine stumpsfrom the land, built strong fences until I left home. Fromhere on you can now write from your own memory, Theodore.

SEE NOTE ON INTRODUCTORY PAGE.