Gottit.
"As she was aging, I used to take her for rides back 'home'. My ancestors were something like the second wave of 'founding' families of Kewaskum, settling in around 1850."
You're very German, then. ;^)
It's such a beautiful area. The nicest small super clubs here & there, lakes large & small and lovely rolling hills.
And the old farm houses one sees everywhere?
Under the white clapboard siding lies a log cabin.
I can't imagine what it was like to be among those early settlers. While the ground's incredibly rich & fertile soil, ideal for farming about anything? It's also full of so many rocks it's not funny, evidence of the last glacier's retreat I'm told.
But the millions of deciduous trees had to be cleared, then the rocks removed before a single seed could be sown. Absolutely in the top 5 insofar as back breaking work goes, all executed by hand by mighty tough people, that's all I can say.
No longer live in WI, GL?
Mostly "German", but kind of a mutt. I also have Mayflower ancestors, with the whole New England Colonial deal, mostly Maine, but New Hampshire, Massachusetts & Connecticut. Also have some involved in the second wave of immigrants in Waushara County, Norwegians & a Swede, also in the 1850s.
Those in my family that settled in the area were from Prussia, in an area that went to Poland after WWII. I almost think the family was Slavic instead of Germanic, because many of us have brown eyes, passed down from that part of the family.
It's such a beautiful area. The nicest small super clubs here & there, lakes large & small and lovely rolling hills. And the old farm houses one sees everywhere? Under the white clapboard siding lies a log cabin.
Granny was third generation & oddly, I never thought about tracking down the original homestead. Have to put that on my to do list. I know where the original immigrants are buried & the general area of their farmland, but never looked for their house.
I can't imagine what it was like to be among those early settlers. While the ground's incredibly rich & fertile soil, ideal for farming about anything? It's also full of so many rocks it's not funny, evidence of the last glacier's retreat I'm told.
Just north of there is a very cool, informative park about all of the glacial formations in the area. Used to camp in the Dundee area when I was a kid & climbed "Mount Dundee" a couple of times.
I'm sure you're right about the earliest settlers & all of the work they had to do to start their farms. It's hard to imagine & on top of prepping fields & building homes, they built a school & churches. Granny remembered getting their windmill, financed by the Federal government, to bring up water for their cows.
But the millions of deciduous trees had to be cleared, then the rocks removed before a single seed could be sown. Absolutely in the top 5 insofar as back breaking work goes, all executed by hand by mighty tough people, that's all I can say.
It's called horsepower, but yeah, a whole lot of backbreaking man labor also went into it. Must have been putting something extra in the beer. LOL
No longer live in WI, GL?
I'm still in the general area. I grew up about an hour south & now live kind of in between.