SOMETHING ABOUT WHITEHALL
from The Madison Democrat; January 23, 1916
Seventeen years ago this winter, I was principal of schools in Shawano. One of the speakers upon our lecture course was Miss Lutie Stearns, who was for a long time connected with the work of the travel ing library of Wisconsin. One thing in her talk impressed itself in particular upon my mind. She was speaking of civic betterment, and of some people who undertake to leave a community better off in some respects than they found it.
In this connection Miss Stearns told a story or two about the village of Whitehall, up in Trempealeau county. I had known in a general way that there was somewhere off in the western part of Wisconsin a place by that name, yet it did not in my mind occupy any definite place upon the map of our state or in its history. Really, what Miss Stearns told us was the first fact I had ever learned about Whitehall.
This was the substance of her story:
“There is a neat little village over in Trempealeau county that is fortunate in having two certain citizens who manifest a patriotic community spirit.
“One of them has given to the village the ground for a public park. Now, a village park is something that every community should have, yet comparatively few villages are so fortunate as to be in the possession of one. Too few citizens care about having a spot of ground set apart that may be beautiful and made fit for a public playground — a place for community exercises of all sorts for both old and young.
“But Whitehall has the right kind of a man — a man with a patriotic public spirit — an ideal citizen. This is a large piece of ground — I do not know how many acres — just close by the village, and adjoining the school grounds. The time coming when the people of that community will highly value their village park, and will make it a beauty spot.
“The other public spirited man in that community has an arch over the gateway in front of his house that has on it in plain letters, these words:
‘The best results of toil and care
Are those that we with others share.’
“I was told in Whitehall that the truth conveyed by these lines is verified in the life of the man who lives in the house upon which the gate opens; that he believes in the doctrine he has put over his gate, and is both a help and an inspiration to his community. It is a blessed good thing for the people in any neighborhood to have citizens with the spirit of those two men in Whitehall.
“I presume there are others like them, but I have in mind now the two whom I have just named.”
After Miss Stearns had delivered her message and gone onto some other appointment, we found ourselves saying over and over in school — my pupils and I —
“The best results of toil and care
Are those that we with others share.”
I do not know for certain whether it was the sentiment expressed in the couplet or the rhythm of it that so took possession of us. perhaps both had something to do with it; anyhow, it came to be a favorite quotation. We sometimes recited it in concert in school, and I think that the oftener we did so the better we liked it.
I have often thought since those days that I would like to visit Whitehall, and I was glad to be asked to come there last week to install the officers elect of the Grand Army post and to visit the schools as patriotic instructor.
-------------------- In the schools
I was met at the depot, on Tuesday afternoon, the 11th inst., by Comrade H. A. Towner, and, together, we went to the schoolhouse. We were joined there by Comrade N. L. Sweet, patriotic instructor of the post. Comrade Sweet is up in the 80’s, yet he takes a lively interest in all that goes toward the education of our little citizens.
Together we visited the primary and the intermediate grades and found there lively listeners to everything concerning our flag. I am glad to say that the teachers themselves seemed as much interested as their boys and girls were. One of the teachers is the patriotic instructor of the local Woman’s Relief Corps.
We visited the high school at nine o’clock on the morning of the 12th, and found there a fine lot of young men and women, intelligent and courteous.
It is one of those schools where good citizenship is taught in the most natural and effective manner.
By some sort of good judgement and tact on the part of the teachers, the boys and girls seem to have been led to play the part of citizens in a little school republic. Discipline in those schools there no doubt is, yet is seemed to me invisible. The boys and girls went about their business in a business-like way. I suspect that it is the policy of the principal. Professor F. C. Martin, to lead the pupils, all the way from the primary grades up to the high school seniors, into that attitude that seemed so apparent to his visitors that day. And it is ray positive opinion that the teacher — principal or any one of his helpers — who thus can lead his or her boys and girls to feel that they are citizens in a school republic is the best possible patriotic instructor. No one of us who is chosen patriotic instructor in one of our patriotic societies can do any better than to visit such teachers at their work and thank them for what they are doing.
Mr. Martin has for his assistants in the high school, Minnie Barron, Sigrid Esbenson and Cecil E. Long. There are 76 pupils enrolled, 26 of them coming as tuition pupils from adjoining districts. In the grades there are 170 pupils.
There is considerable difference in the personal appearance of the pupils as a whole in various schools. Those at Whitehall are a clean looking lot of boys and girls. They evidently come from homes where there is a good supply of soap and soft water, with a disposition to use them. Mr. Martin is serving his fourth year there as principal.
I asked one of the high school boys to point out to me the boundaries of the village park. I could not tell how many acres it contains — twenty, perhaps. it is set out to trees, yet it did not appear to me to be as well cared for as it deserves to be. The young man pointed out to me the fine large playground in that part of the park next to the schoolhouse. I wished, as I looked at it, that our high school pupils here in Madison had some such place on which to play games and run races.
At ten o’clock on Wednesday, the comrades began to gather at their post room in the basement of the Methodist church. At eleven, Commander H. A. Towner called the meeting to order, and the principal business of the session — the installation of officers — was attended to. Because of sickness and the snow storm, not all the twenty members of the post could be present. Old age is telling upon the comrades there, as it is everywhere else.
After the installation there was a big dinner of the sort that members of the Relief corps are wont to furnish on such occasions. Several friends beside members of the two societies came to dine there and be sociable. It was a most enjoyable occasion. As soon as the tables could be cleared away the installation services of the Relief corps were held. These, with a talk upon patriotic instruction, closed the exercises of the day. The Relief Corps has a membership of forty-four, but the blizzard prevented a full attendance. One old lady came afoot through the snow that day from her home two miles out in the country, bringing her basketful of rations on her arm. Her happiness in being there seemed to pay her for her march.
Comrade Towner told me many good things about Whitehall. He said that the man who gave the park to the village, had, several years ago, gone to his reward. His name was John O. Melby. Like the most of the people in Trempealeau valley, he was a Scandinavian. He did more than give the village the ground for a park. At his death he left $500 to every church in town and $1,000 to his old home church in Norway. He had been a very early settler in that region, and was both industrious and thrifty, as well as generous.
I will not tell the name of the man who put up, where everybody could read it, the arch over his gate, with the words: “The best results of toil and care are those that we with others share,” for he is still very much alive. I will say for him that he holds the respect of the people of the community. More than one person who knows him intimately, told me that. Were he not worthy of this respect, I would not now tell about him. I may say that the arch over his gate-way years ago is not there now. it has come to be the custom to take away yard fences and gates, and the arch has yielded to custom. It has, however, left its impression upon the community, and some of us out of it.
I was interested in particular in a visit, with Comrade Towner, at the court house — especially in the office of County Judge H. A. Anderson. The judge is secretary of the Trempealeau county historical society. He has a peculiar interest in the preservation of the early traditions of that part of the state and so is an ideal secretary of such a society. I cannot begin to tell all that I saw in his office in the way of relics, pictures of prominent men of that region, historic sketches, etc. Judge Anderson will — upon his departure — leave to the people of his county a good store of material for the future historian. I should have been glad to see him but he was not in his office when Comrade Towner and I called there.
I saw in the circuit court room the portraits of two judges who have been well known in Madison; Alfred W. Newman and Romanzo Bunn. Both were Trempealeau county men. H. L. Ekern, so well known here as a legislator — speaker of the assembly during one session — and in connection with the insurance department in the capitol, was a Whitehall boy.
The people there call him “Herman”. He is a son-in- law of Judge Anderson’s. I think his old neighbors rather regret that politics — or statesmanship, whichever it is — took him away from their community.
I was told that an old settler of that region — being so minded — spent his spare time writing up sketches of the early days there — biographical, geographical, and historical. When death in due time took the pen out of his hand, he had collected a rich mine of material for somebody by-and-by to compile and publish. His name was B. F. Heuston.
Comrade Towner took me to the public library. I am not so familiar with free libraries as Mr. Dudgeon is, yet I think that he would call this Whitehall library a model in every way. It is neat, well furnished and cared for, bright and well lighted.
The central office of the telephone is connected with this library. The place is kept open evenings as a reading room. I was told that the young people of the schools do no little reading there in connection with their school work.
We had time for a short call at the office where the “Banner” is published. The people who get out the paper and do the job work there are a good natured bunch; and their paper is a credit to the community,
Whitehall is a village of about 800 people. It has good buildings and neat, tidy-looking homes. One of the best things about the people there is the fact that they believe in Whitehall as a good home town. »
AND WHITEHALL IS DRY.
From the files of Judge H. A. Anderson, House of Memories, Whitehall
Copy courtesy Trempealeau County Historical Society
In this connection Miss Stearns told a story or two about the village of Whitehall, up in Trempealeau county. I had known in a general way that there was somewhere off in the western part of Wisconsin a place by that name, yet it did not in my mind occupy any definite place upon the map of our state or in its history. Really, what Miss Stearns told us was the first fact I had ever learned about Whitehall.
This was the substance of her story:
“There is a neat little village over in Trempealeau county that is fortunate in having two certain citizens who manifest a patriotic community spirit.
“One of them has given to the village the ground for a public park. Now, a village park is something that every community should have, yet comparatively few villages are so fortunate as to be in the possession of one. Too few citizens care about having a spot of ground set apart that may be beautiful and made fit for a public playground — a place for community exercises of all sorts for both old and young.
“But Whitehall has the right kind of a man — a man with a patriotic public spirit — an ideal citizen. This is a large piece of ground — I do not know how many acres — just close by the village, and adjoining the school grounds. The time coming when the people of that community will highly value their village park, and will make it a beauty spot.
“The other public spirited man in that community has an arch over the gateway in front of his house that has on it in plain letters, these words:
‘The best results of toil and care
Are those that we with others share.’
“I was told in Whitehall that the truth conveyed by these lines is verified in the life of the man who lives in the house upon which the gate opens; that he believes in the doctrine he has put over his gate, and is both a help and an inspiration to his community. It is a blessed good thing for the people in any neighborhood to have citizens with the spirit of those two men in Whitehall.
“I presume there are others like them, but I have in mind now the two whom I have just named.”
After Miss Stearns had delivered her message and gone onto some other appointment, we found ourselves saying over and over in school — my pupils and I —
“The best results of toil and care
Are those that we with others share.”
I do not know for certain whether it was the sentiment expressed in the couplet or the rhythm of it that so took possession of us. perhaps both had something to do with it; anyhow, it came to be a favorite quotation. We sometimes recited it in concert in school, and I think that the oftener we did so the better we liked it.
I have often thought since those days that I would like to visit Whitehall, and I was glad to be asked to come there last week to install the officers elect of the Grand Army post and to visit the schools as patriotic instructor.
-------------------- In the schools
I was met at the depot, on Tuesday afternoon, the 11th inst., by Comrade H. A. Towner, and, together, we went to the schoolhouse. We were joined there by Comrade N. L. Sweet, patriotic instructor of the post. Comrade Sweet is up in the 80’s, yet he takes a lively interest in all that goes toward the education of our little citizens.
Together we visited the primary and the intermediate grades and found there lively listeners to everything concerning our flag. I am glad to say that the teachers themselves seemed as much interested as their boys and girls were. One of the teachers is the patriotic instructor of the local Woman’s Relief Corps.
We visited the high school at nine o’clock on the morning of the 12th, and found there a fine lot of young men and women, intelligent and courteous.
It is one of those schools where good citizenship is taught in the most natural and effective manner.
By some sort of good judgement and tact on the part of the teachers, the boys and girls seem to have been led to play the part of citizens in a little school republic. Discipline in those schools there no doubt is, yet is seemed to me invisible. The boys and girls went about their business in a business-like way. I suspect that it is the policy of the principal. Professor F. C. Martin, to lead the pupils, all the way from the primary grades up to the high school seniors, into that attitude that seemed so apparent to his visitors that day. And it is ray positive opinion that the teacher — principal or any one of his helpers — who thus can lead his or her boys and girls to feel that they are citizens in a school republic is the best possible patriotic instructor. No one of us who is chosen patriotic instructor in one of our patriotic societies can do any better than to visit such teachers at their work and thank them for what they are doing.
Mr. Martin has for his assistants in the high school, Minnie Barron, Sigrid Esbenson and Cecil E. Long. There are 76 pupils enrolled, 26 of them coming as tuition pupils from adjoining districts. In the grades there are 170 pupils.
There is considerable difference in the personal appearance of the pupils as a whole in various schools. Those at Whitehall are a clean looking lot of boys and girls. They evidently come from homes where there is a good supply of soap and soft water, with a disposition to use them. Mr. Martin is serving his fourth year there as principal.
I asked one of the high school boys to point out to me the boundaries of the village park. I could not tell how many acres it contains — twenty, perhaps. it is set out to trees, yet it did not appear to me to be as well cared for as it deserves to be. The young man pointed out to me the fine large playground in that part of the park next to the schoolhouse. I wished, as I looked at it, that our high school pupils here in Madison had some such place on which to play games and run races.
At ten o’clock on Wednesday, the comrades began to gather at their post room in the basement of the Methodist church. At eleven, Commander H. A. Towner called the meeting to order, and the principal business of the session — the installation of officers — was attended to. Because of sickness and the snow storm, not all the twenty members of the post could be present. Old age is telling upon the comrades there, as it is everywhere else.
After the installation there was a big dinner of the sort that members of the Relief corps are wont to furnish on such occasions. Several friends beside members of the two societies came to dine there and be sociable. It was a most enjoyable occasion. As soon as the tables could be cleared away the installation services of the Relief corps were held. These, with a talk upon patriotic instruction, closed the exercises of the day. The Relief Corps has a membership of forty-four, but the blizzard prevented a full attendance. One old lady came afoot through the snow that day from her home two miles out in the country, bringing her basketful of rations on her arm. Her happiness in being there seemed to pay her for her march.
Comrade Towner told me many good things about Whitehall. He said that the man who gave the park to the village, had, several years ago, gone to his reward. His name was John O. Melby. Like the most of the people in Trempealeau valley, he was a Scandinavian. He did more than give the village the ground for a park. At his death he left $500 to every church in town and $1,000 to his old home church in Norway. He had been a very early settler in that region, and was both industrious and thrifty, as well as generous.
I will not tell the name of the man who put up, where everybody could read it, the arch over his gate, with the words: “The best results of toil and care are those that we with others share,” for he is still very much alive. I will say for him that he holds the respect of the people of the community. More than one person who knows him intimately, told me that. Were he not worthy of this respect, I would not now tell about him. I may say that the arch over his gate-way years ago is not there now. it has come to be the custom to take away yard fences and gates, and the arch has yielded to custom. It has, however, left its impression upon the community, and some of us out of it.
I was interested in particular in a visit, with Comrade Towner, at the court house — especially in the office of County Judge H. A. Anderson. The judge is secretary of the Trempealeau county historical society. He has a peculiar interest in the preservation of the early traditions of that part of the state and so is an ideal secretary of such a society. I cannot begin to tell all that I saw in his office in the way of relics, pictures of prominent men of that region, historic sketches, etc. Judge Anderson will — upon his departure — leave to the people of his county a good store of material for the future historian. I should have been glad to see him but he was not in his office when Comrade Towner and I called there.
I saw in the circuit court room the portraits of two judges who have been well known in Madison; Alfred W. Newman and Romanzo Bunn. Both were Trempealeau county men. H. L. Ekern, so well known here as a legislator — speaker of the assembly during one session — and in connection with the insurance department in the capitol, was a Whitehall boy.
The people there call him “Herman”. He is a son-in- law of Judge Anderson’s. I think his old neighbors rather regret that politics — or statesmanship, whichever it is — took him away from their community.
I was told that an old settler of that region — being so minded — spent his spare time writing up sketches of the early days there — biographical, geographical, and historical. When death in due time took the pen out of his hand, he had collected a rich mine of material for somebody by-and-by to compile and publish. His name was B. F. Heuston.
Comrade Towner took me to the public library. I am not so familiar with free libraries as Mr. Dudgeon is, yet I think that he would call this Whitehall library a model in every way. It is neat, well furnished and cared for, bright and well lighted.
The central office of the telephone is connected with this library. The place is kept open evenings as a reading room. I was told that the young people of the schools do no little reading there in connection with their school work.
We had time for a short call at the office where the “Banner” is published. The people who get out the paper and do the job work there are a good natured bunch; and their paper is a credit to the community,
Whitehall is a village of about 800 people. It has good buildings and neat, tidy-looking homes. One of the best things about the people there is the fact that they believe in Whitehall as a good home town. »
AND WHITEHALL IS DRY.
From the files of Judge H. A. Anderson, House of Memories, Whitehall
Copy courtesy Trempealeau County Historical Society