Counties of Wisconsin; 33; Trempealeau County

The name of today's county of Wisconsin came from the early French explorers. They called a bluff above the Mississippi. Lamont tanuki tumbled over the mountain that is steep in water. From below County it is located in West Central Wisconsin. In April of the bus centennial year University of Wisconsin Extension staff County residents and series producer Ralph Johnson. Let's talk about the extension programs on from Flo County first. Johnson asked the office chairman Peter beery if he would give a description of the county. I'd like to describe temple County actually were an ambassador for Temple County and it's unique it's rural in nature we're 100 percent

rural are we're all all our cities and villages are under 25 are the largest ones about twenty three hundred that's Arcadia but Temple County is in the four hundred seventy six thousand acres and it's in western part of Wisconsin. And only the uppermost tip was glaciated. So where in the NT glaciated area. Well all that water running through over the terms a million years created to cool the region so we farm the the tops of the hill the side of the hill and of course the very fertile valleys This is our prime agricultural land takes a special person to farm in this area. He has to be very careful and despite the fact they're careful occasionally we have accidents with tractors usually rolling away or rolling down the hill or forced to roll by the heavy load in back. But we've been very lucky indeed and we're blessed with good soil. But our major problem

as you noticed is that we have to keep it in place so we spend a lot of time on conservation our county is about 18 miles wide 65 miles long we have 15 townships in the county we have 11 cities and villages. They they are two ethnic groups really the Norwegians and the Swedish people on one side and the Polish people on the other side of the kind of western side. You can tell that by the names of the cities Arcadian independence and. So it's very interesting to work in this county and the people are real and cooperate. It's apparently basically every cultural situation 100 percent of your culture and we do have some industries but they're related to our culture pricing. Is there any substantial tourism that's developing for a long time sort of like to keep all of our tourism to

ourselves. We've we've had to develop in order to encourage people to come in and spend their dollars and we're sleeping giant on tourism. We have the natural attributes of beauty we have game we have fish but we still haven't developed it to its potential. We we're working on that. We have a snowmobilers Association now where establishing state trails. Of course the money ran out and the state had to cut us back they pro-rate it is back to twenty seven percent of our application that's not very much but we're going to try to make do with what we can on that. They have groups now that are interested in getting skiers to come into our car in other words we're swinging from an all season recreation. Even with your description of the agricultural base and we sit here recording what I've been hearing trucks some are ruling by the court house here continuously.

I take it that simply because of the location of the highway. Yes but also weight all the way whole packing company and they roll in something over 300 animals every night which are slaughtered in the next day they are brighter then the siRNA are no all in Arcadia that's all broilers and they slaughter a whole lot. Many many runners every day and their trucks roll by here right now at this particular time of day to be going on empty but at midnight they're coming back and the feathers are flying along the highway and we'd rather have feathers and industry than nothing and we really enjoy this because co-operative started out with butter. Way back when I can remember a long time for my time and now they're concerned and it

is the largest employer in Arcadia and they have an interview from there. From that chicken all the way through the feet they furnish everything and the net to the left is sent back out to the producer and they have their own hatchery. They have their own mail they have their own processing works. It's a tremendous organisation I would say you know you've been here and they're working for expansion. Oh I've been here since October 23rd 1950 and it seems like a long time but I don't know where the time went. What kind of changes have you seen over the years. Well this is very interesting of course. Everybody know as we've seen in the end this is rather sad to see this small farming change into a larger farm operation. The first change was from the house. We had to have a milk house and many of our did and we used to store the milk in the

well area where the head pump shed and we had to have milk cause we have built houses and then they changed to the bulk tanks and we've seen our farms grow from a small farm into a larger farm we've seen a lot more people working in the industry we have people driving from triple coming to an older lacrosse milk bar you see the cars parked on the side of our highways. They pool their right. We lease seen a reverse in the trend. On migration we used to lose our people for the first time now we're gaining in population we gained a 4.2. But that isn't very much but that is something compared to our record we've always been exporting our children to Janesville. Milwaukee Minneapolis and people now we've got more industry. That's not because I

have been working at it but the people have been working at it and this is been very interesting to people who've had a chance to live here maybe on their folks place or on a relative's farm or an extra house out in the country and they become part of the local industry. But I will be around. So we don't like to do when I go into town to find there was a parking meter before this is correct and you can look for a stoplight to a highway stop by. We just don't have them yet. Now one final question what is the unemployment picture. Well right now this is been improving but we are right at seven point two percent unemployed. This year has not been our worst year we've been up as high as 9.4 unemployed and this is mainly due to the fact that we've had a pretty mild winter and our employment hasn't hit its peak like it had in January of last year which

kind 9.4 percent unemployment. The people have been able to do some outside work particularly contracting which when you have bad weather you cannot do in this area. Next a conversation on dairy farming in this rural county. Amid all straw they are culturally Egypt in trouble County and I'm talking here with never heard this was a dairy farmer just outside a white hole. And we've got Everett away from his spring work today to come in and how's it going. Well we've been sitting were done with the later ground we have a little little bit left on the heavy ground to seed I did notice some of the oats that I planted first is now sprouting. What your conditions have been pretty good. Getting a start in farming is an expensive and complicated business. We asked Everitt how he had begun his own farm.

About 12 years ago I purchased the farm that I am presently on. I did purchase some cattle from my father I have I believe it was 15 he had a purchased and registered cattle in a few grade cattle. I did use a little bit of his machinery to start with plus purchasing some at the present time we have a herd of 57 registered Holsteins. I do fire my father's farm which is one hundred twenty acres. My farm is 260 acres and I also farm a neighboring farm of another hundred acres. The labor situation is kind of critical if it wasn't for the fact that I've got three boys one on 13 one of them will have been helping me I would really be seven. But with their assistance we make out all right we put in some long hours especially during spring's work and paying in the summer. Peter beery asked Bill urban for a progress report on an unusual education project

using cable TV. The progress report so far of western Wisconsin communications cooperated was that we still have a little paper work to do but eventually we feel what the summer there will be off the ground and we will start our construction for our two way cable connection between eight schools in the colony and also to bring in commercial TV and to travel or actually western Wisconsin. Probably to give a little brief history of this project and how this was started a few years ago Gordon Mason manager Trumbull County electric at Arcadia was caught and. Presented to the trouble I took more of the idea that. Cable television could be an asset to a rural area. Much of the same way as rural electrification started in the rural areas of the United States. And made that the

board which was trying to elect Rick gave him the right permission to pursue this. He brought this idea to the. Superintendent of Schools and. In this vicinity with the idea of having or using cable TV to interconnect schools to bring additional programs and share resources between schools as you know of the school districts of Blair Whitehall Kaylor independence Arcadia. Are part of the trampled Valley cooperated that we've been sharing programs and vocational and special education and also an academic program for the last. Eight or nine years. When this idea was presented to us we became quite excited because we could see a new breakthrough in education also. Sharing the resources of the individual schools and possibly in the long run to cut costs in one I can ask you a question this brings up an interesting point. You mentioned Mr. me stand in the temple actually kuat the

capital counties had an association of cooperatives for a long time was really active in the 50s and then it sort of stopped and Mr. Austral our agricultural agent got it going again. And what is the rule that the association of coopt is playing in this new organization and the role that the County Association of properties is playing I guess you could probably. Compare it to our guardian angel because Trump was a colony it was for a county of a size rural area has about thirty two active cooperated with us and the association of cooperated has brought the squads closer together and we started a working relationship. And they have been a sponsor of ours in the sense that they have given us support not only financially but moral and have. Give us a public safety and encouragement I guess would be another word to use in here.

And without their support I think that Providence probably one wouldn't be where it is right now. And to add Astro and the officers of the. Association. I think a board of directors of western Wisconsin are very appreciative of their efforts. Those engaged in this project foresee many benefits such as the sharing of special educational courses uptodate reports on crop conditions and alerts on special weather conditions which are often of crucial value to farmers. Next for Agent Lundy talks with Mrs Kenneth Geesey one of the things I see happening and with foreach in the county is much more parent involvement the last couple of years. Yes I think it's just greet our club. I know. The parents are asked to help when the children join and I think this is how they know that they're expected to help. I think it's good for foreach members and parents to work together in that way the parents know what's

going on too. Not just we don't. I shouldn't say babysitting but I know sometimes this happens parents send their children to 4-H clubs and meetings and comment probably pick them up but we'd like to have our parents become real involved and help us we need help with different projects. Yes we've got several new clubs this year and that's one of the things that the new leaders have said it's been most important to them was to get help from all the parents that they were working with and you know each time they did a special activity well like a music festival a while back that there were parents that got involved in it. Talking about our music contest I think that was real good. There were 13 clubs I thought of 24 in our county that took part.

It's just fantastic to see I don't estimate I suppose you know me we had 650 people there and the enthusiasm amongst those kids. To see 9 and 18 year olds working together for something like that are just fantastic. It's really great. Our club has a square dance group that we had entered and a group that had a vocal number. And we didn't really know where to draw the line with our square dancing because we thought just the younger children but we ended up with 24 of them square dancing because they all wanted to know what's going on with the bicentennial. But we haven't really done too much in our club yet but I know there are a lot of clubs that are working on it there. There's one club that's going to have a reunion this summer with members from way back I don't know just exactly how old the club is but several more formed like when the 1920s and 1930s. I know of a club that I am a leader of is a combined club of two that were just

two years ago we combined there was a white willing workers and no luck went off lucky clover club but they were both small and we had problems getting leaders in the sort of things that we combined. And from that I think we have a much better club and a much more active club with a lot of involvement with the point expressman came down through the county the last two weekends too. Yes this they took air picked up scrawled on each town village in the county and then carried them on through the county which is a long County so of course there were many children involved in that. Each of the community says ceremony that pointed out the rededication at this point expressing was showing and will have people time in with the wagon train when it goes through across something a little bit different for the horse project members to do anyway than just exhibiting at the fair and I think we are very fortunate in our county.

Trample county to have a foreach camp a camp was given in memorial a few years math was not. Yes. One of the families in the county had had a fortune youth agent that was killed in a car accident and they donated a parcel of land to the county to be used as a youth camp. And if it works out terrifically well it's located along the trampled river. And it's it's one of the better outdoor nature centers that I've become familiar with in the state and it really gives our kids whether they're from city or farms an opportunity to get out for a couple of days and do some things that they'd never think of doing even though they're right in their backyards anyway. Yes. And it also is a reasonable camp it isn't something that you have to pay a lot of money to it can and I know my son had to choose between two camps last year and he chose for each camp and he just loved it. The need for housing particularly for low income and many retired persons is national in

scope. Here's how one county undertook to fill this need. We became very interested in housing in 1970 when we found through a survey conducted in cooperation with other agencies who called it the great need for housing for elderly and low income. And of course we proceeded and the county formed a housing authority I guess. We're going to discuss housing with today. Great hearing he's also chairman of the temple County Housing Authority. Rain could you give begin with your very much how he got into housing. Well prior to 1970 several of the cities small cities in Trumbull County were running into problems with housing for low income elderly and families and had established housing authorities and a ploy of promoting through. But however since every community was so small in itself it

was suggested by HUD that perhaps it would be well to combine into a county wide halting authority and apply it as such. Consequently the county board did establish a County Housing Authority and appointed the members to it and I was on the point of the German of this outing authority. Consequently we are speaking for housing for the entire county and not reach individual community. Public only being bought 23 dollars in people and a good 20 percent of them are elderly bit over 60 since the people are like to retire in the rural areas such as troubled County. We faced a situation for the future do that we're going to continue to be above average and elderly population. Those days when we first started on housing were you sure we were going to develop and house the complexity of a government program program sometimes that makes a person wonder if we can ever

accomplish the goal we knew was before us. Well being optimists when the programs are set out to say yes there is a there is a federal program which will assist with housing of this nature. I guess if we weren't optimist we would have bright but being optimist we did and we made our application and we started out. As I recall the boiling down the needs from about 250 elderly units needed to 80. We made an application to have Brady units of low income housing and we were actually making pretty good progress until our application happened. Reached the stage where they said it will be approved you are next on THE LIST your eligible. Then on Jan. 8 1973 if I remember the time correctly that's a long time ago by the way. You know the

president prose of puns. Just when we thought we were going to get funny for 80 units of new housing. Well that stopped us for many months until they came out with a new program and he said since the grumbler County was eligible and had reached the stage where you were ready to be funded we'll give you first priority so again we're back in business and our optimism bias is still working. But then they change the situation over to a Section 8 instead of No. Do not do section 23 first right thing 23 which is an old number but I know anyway we went through the bit again and for another what you're not happy to hear it until that program and that and primarily I think because we are so small. We have 11 communities in the county that range from

200 to 22 hundred in population. And the housing authority we are responsible to some to get some good housing for the elderly in his community and not centralize it trying to get something spread out over 11 communities everybody throw their hands up and say no that's too widespread you can't manage it in spite of but of what they say that would get be done which building can be done. We keep on growing. You know all the problems that we had there were not all bad because we couldn't get the funding immediately from God. We decided to form a couple County homes Incorporated where it became your name you were elected president of that and now you make the announcement that you have been replaced. Monday night this week. But anyway through the trap of county homes we were able to get a firemen home development loan a

grant got a grant and we were able to it was a hundred thousand dollars. And that kept the gutting homes was able to start self-help. Holmes. Maybe you could point out some of the progress that we've made sense that very well that particular program through farmers women ministration has become perhaps the the one successful housing project that we've been in and this has been going on I think we're in our fourth year. We have up to date completed or will be completed within the next couple of months. Ninety five houses built by a low income families with their own hands through a loan from the farmers on the ministration and with the technical assistance grant which we received from farmers all ministration or through farmers all of ministration to supply the expertise

to these people in order for them to do this. This means that the housewife may be up on the roof shingling her own house and they bring the rooms inside and doing their own painting and everything from the ground floor up. These 95 homes have been built in gumball County and I have I think almost entirely by people who would today not be living any even in a good respectable adequate house without this program. Right and it's been a wonderful program. And right now we have the problem and not finding enough applicants because we have more or less built some houses in each village and city. This is true but the the big problem right now is that there are still a lot of young families that need this program but because of inflation you can no longer build a house for the

18 the 19 20 dollars that we did four years ago. It now cost 25. And because their income the income limits applied to the program are so low that it restricts anyone with an income a reasonable income that A can afford to pay the loans from building a house. So here we are squeezed on to nothing if I have better dollars. Adjusted income for a family of four or five people limit. It isn't very much and most people know are earning a few hundred dollars more than even even a hundred dollars more than that. They're all part of being able to borrow the money to do the job. And still they get that person earning as an example of $9000 total isn't in a position to go up and buy and won't dirty dog in order to build off this kind of program.

This is correct and I I know in a telephone call from you that we're going to put this on our agenda. Of course that doesn't take care of the problem. We're going to try to figure out what we do about this at our next meeting and I'm certain we will be contacting some legislators. Congressman probably to help us with our problem and if we can get some help and support from other areas of Wisconsin and I know they have the same problem maybe we can get this minimum base raised. Actually both the husband and wife work and we're set at this figure. We can't. Let them go ahead with their self-help home. I'd like to comment a little bit takes an extraordinary individual to work 40 50 hours a week at a regular job and then come home tired and start working on his own power and other people's House and the way this self-help self-help program works. Everybody's house and that unit has to be built

before anyone can move in. Because if you let one move in he wouldn't care about finishing help in his group. They're home so it takes a very good coordinator and we've been very lucky in having Mr. Aaron Harnick as our coordinator he's a full qualified carpenter and also has acted talents for keeping these people working under very tired conditions on their own home and the net result is some beautiful home there. They also take care of the home that they helped build. The complexities of financing and building homes has experienced in one of the counties of Wisconsin. This program was produced in service of the University of Wisconsin Extension.