Childhood Memories in Woodworth, Wisconsin

I was about 4 years old when we moved to Woodworth, Wisconsin to live at the New Tribes Mission headquarters. You see my parents had met while training to be missionaries, but my dad ended up having heart problems. So after some time in California where Dad had open heart surgery - a new thing at that time; and the birth of my brother Jimmy, we moved back to Wisconsin.

First we lived in a tiny apartment in Milwaukee. My brother Johnny was born there. I remember climbing stairs to get home and the smell of home baked cinnamon rolls. It's true that memory is linked to smell. I still love the smell of cinnamon to this day. I also remember my dad pulling us down a sidewalk in a wagon and pointing up to a window in a tall building and saying my mom was up there with my baby brother, Johnny. Families couldn't visit hospital rooms back then.

So on to Woodworth. This was the location of the printing operation. I knew they produced a magazine titled The Brown Gold. It had articles about missionaries who were sponsored through New Tribes Mission. I guess since Dad couldn't go overseas, then working on printing presses was the next best thing.

To the left, my dad is standing at the cutter which would cut all the pages in a book to be even. These were some very powerful and dangerous machines. They were all housed together in a big area. Typical of all children, we took what Dad did for granted. It was just work as far as we were concerned. In the picture to the right, Dad is looking at photos on a light table. I think he knew they were taking his picture and just can't help smiling. He was a happy, easy-going kind of guy. He used to sit back at the table after dinner and tell stories when we had company. He must have told good stories because people would always laugh.

Dad? overseeing the printing press.



Here my mom is also displaying one of the Bibles they had printed in a translated language.



Driveway with a circle at the end. I remember it as being wider.

Woodworth was huge to me. It was like a wonderland to kids. We pulled up in our Rambler station wagon where I was asleep in the back. I sat up to this sight of our new home. At first we lived in an interior apartment. We didn't have a television, but I remember going upstairs to another family's home to watch Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland. We would often go to other families homes for dinner or invite them over. Later we moved to a bigger apartment in the back of the building.

There were other kids to play with since there were more than 5 or 6 families living there. I grew up as a tomboy. The girls were all a few years older or younger than me. So I always wanted to play with the boys, but they didn't always want me around. We would play cowboys and Indians. The boys were the cowboys 'cause they wanted to win. So I had to be an Indian. I was the meanest Indians you ever saw. I would capture one of the boys and tie him to a tree. If he complained that the rope was too tight, I would tie it tighter!

Front view of New Tribes Mission in the autumn.

We had playground equipment. There was a swing set and teeter-totter. I think there may have been a merry-go-round too.  Mom told me that my dad was instrumental in getting the equipment for all the children. There were two trees close enough that we could run a rope between and drape with blankets to create a tent.

One night all of us kids were wanting to sleep out overnight. The older girls were in charge. One was Beth Ann Larson. She was a pretty blond girl. Anyway, they couldn't get us kids to settle down to sleep so they started telling us that if we weren't quiet the Hell's Angels were going to kidnap us. They said we would know those evil guys were coming if we heard bells. I swear I heard bells and so did everyone else. The next thing I knew, we were all inside in a large hall trying to bed down on the floor. The next day I found out a huge storm had blown up and that twisters had passed right over the property. Some the trees were even twisted apart. I must have dosed off between the bells and the storm.

We didn't have to worry about kidnappers really. We were free to wander as long as we came in by dinner. There were oak woods to the right and left of the photo above. We had red squirrels living there. One guy shot some once and my mom fried them up. They tasted like chicken; really. Behind the building was swampy land with a cow pasture beyond. We would pack a sack lunch and head out for a day of adventure. I'd pick wild onions and eat them. My mom always knew I had eaten them, but I couldn't figure out how. There were also crab apples which gave you a stomach ache if you ate too many. There were wild grapes and a ditch where we could catch crayfish. The crayfish would burrow into the clay banks. Or we would just play with the clay itself trying to make pottery and such.

The building which used to be a pill factory was set pretty far in from the main road. When you first turned in there were large grassy areas on each side of the drive. They would fill with water and then freeze solid in the winter. We would ice skate on the one that remained in shade, but not on the side that got sunny since it would melt early or be slushy. We didn't want to fall through the ice. I vaguely remember a house, but the drive curved around behind it where the community garden was situated on the left. Each family had a certain number of rows each. It was on a slight slope and our section was near the bottom. Then there was a pond which had snapping turtles in it. A culvert ran under the road for the stream that fed the pond. I stepped on the ice covering this stream one winter and fell through. Luckily it wasn't deep and I got out. It was still a very chilling experience. In the spring we could find wild strawberries growing around this stream.

As you continued down the drive it finally came to our home. I remember riding my brother Jim's new-fangled bicycle down this drive and taking a nasty fall. I started third grade with a big scab down my nose. I was so embarrassed. Later when we lived in California again, I fell off that same bike when a tire got caught in the groove of the railroad tracks. I had my own ugly green bike too. Once my foot got caught in the spokes leaving a scar on my ankle. Another time the chain caught my pants and yanked me off. I'm beginning to realize that I don't have much luck with bikes.

At night we would play Freeze, hide-and-seek and other fun games. I don't remember owning a lot of toys, but we used our imaginations. And everyone shared the toys they did have. There was a sand pile where we could play trucks or with plastic toy soldiers. We had freedom that kids don't have these days because there is so much fear of what might happen to them and they don't have the room to roam.

So these pictures that my Aunt and Uncle found in the archives brought back some memories that were really cool. As a disclaimer though, these are my memories from the age of 4 to about 8 so some of the details may not be all that accurate.