Wisconsin Journal

Number 7

26 October 1997



I just got back from a plane trip this afternoon, and was greeted

by snow.  I think the same front that blew through Denver has made

its way on east.  The gate agent had built a small snowman at the

end of the jetway while waiting for our flight--peanuts for eyes and

mouth, coffee stirrers for arms.  There was over 3" of snow on

my car. It's two dollars extra a day to park in covered parking,

and I thought I was safe parking outside.  Once I drove into town,

there was a lot less accumulation. The weather forecast says 3-6"

through the evening, but it seems to have stopped for the moment.

Geez. The leaves aren't even off the trees.



At the end of September, the kids had a Wednesday off from school,

so we headed down to New Glarus for the day.  New Glarus showcases

its Swiss heritage, which is legitimate, but the Swiss style in

the architecture is of relatively recent vintage. During the Great

Depression, someone figured out that pushing the Swiss ties of New

Glarus could attract tourists, and so much of the construction

and renovation since then has been given a Swiss look. They have

also been doing an enactment of the legend of William Tell every summer

for many years, with performances in both English and German.



New Glarus in somewhat unusual for pioneer settlements in that the

original immigrants all came from virtually the same place at the

same time. The canton of Glarus, in Switzerland, was having economic

problems. It is one of most mountainous cantons, so it his little

farm land. Its many streams and river were harnessed for textile mills,

but there were just more people than jobs. So, the government of Glarus

created the Glarus Emigration Society, which offered to loan money

to people for 10 years to help them move to America.



A group of 193 people accepted the offer, and Nicolas Duerst and

Fridolin Streiff were chosen to be advance scouts, with $2600 for

the purchase of 1200 acres of land. The idea is they would leave

in March of 1845, buy land and build some cabins, with the rest

of the people to follow a year later. Duerst and Streiff tromped all

over the place--Illinois, Missouri, Iowa--before finding a tract of

land on Little Sugar River in the Wisconsin territory, which they

bought at the Mineral Point Land Office, along with a stand of trees nearby.



Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the natives were getting restless.

(How's that for mixing tired cliches?) The other 191 in the party

decided that instead of waiting until the next spring, they would

take off right away. They had heard such wonderful stories of the

New World and they figured time was awastin'. Let's go now! So the

rest of the party set off in April.



There were just a few minor hitches with this plan:



1. It takes a while to get here from there. It's not like you just

hop a jet in Zuerich and fly on over. It's more like you take boats

to Rotterdam (May), charter a sailing ship to Baltimore (now it's

the end of June), take the train as far west as you can (somewhere

in Pennsylvania) and continue by river to St. Louis (late July).

It's getting a little late to put crops in.



2. They didn't actually know where Duerst and Streiff were. They

probably didn't understand the scales involved. The whole of Switzerland

is about as wide as Wisconsin is tall. You don't just show up and

hope to run into them. Nobody in St. Louis had seen the two before.

A couple of the party headed out to Galena, Illinois, where they

found out Duerst and Streiff had been several weeks before. Finally,

the search party got to the Mineral Point Land Office, and learned

of the purchase.  From there, it was a mere 32-mile walk to the

new tract. The main body made it to New Glarus in mid-August.



3. The settlers didn't have any money. The prospect of emigration

appealed most to those deepest in poverty, without land. Many had

to quit the group along the way, because they ran out of money

for food and transportation. So only 108 of the 193 actually made

the whole trip, though some others showed up in later years.



4. Only two of the crew had ever farmed before. Most knew how to

tend cows, but didn't have any. The first winter was pretty bleak,

with many of the men working in lead mines, and the women hiring

out as domestic servants.



Otherwise, no problems.



The most interesting thing in New Glarus is the Swiss Village Museum.

It is a cluster of about a dozen original and reconstructed buildings

from around the area, furnished with antique implements. A guide

continually takes a group from building to building to explain things,

and you just join the group wherever it is when you arrive. Our guide

was very good, having seen a lot of the furniture and articles

at his grandparents' house and owning similar things himself.

There was a reconstruction of the original wood church, since replaced

by a stone and then a brick structure. The original communionware

was on display, made by the town tinsmith and painted silver. They

had gravestones on display from the original cemetary, which were in

good condition because they had been stored in the church basement

for 50 years. The print shop had much of the type and presses

that had been used for the town's German language newspaper. One

of the original cabins had survived, embedded inside a larger farmhouse.

It was very common to start with a one-room cabin, and add rooms as

you added kids and servants. My favorite building was the bee house.

The house had about 20 small lockers covering one wall, with entryways

to each on the outside for the bees, and a door for each hive on

the inside for the bee keeper. The hives had color-coded landing

boards, so bees wouldn't enter the wrong hive. Having all the hives

together, and as part of a building, made it easier to keep them warm

in the winter. It was also convenient for the bee keeper, who could

smoke the hives one-by-one, harvest the honey and process it all

in the same little building. Still, I would find it disconcerting

to work with 20 hives of bees right next to me.



I also learned on the tour why Babcock has a building named after

him on the UW campus. Farmers sold their milk by weight to cheese

makers. It was very tempting to top off the cans with a little water.

Babcock was a professor at UW who invented a field test for the

fat content for milk, so the dairies could pay for milk fat rather

than water.



"Old" Glarus and New Glarus still interact. One of the main activities

of cultural exchange seems to be that officials from the two places

trade rocks. We got to see some of the many large rocks from Glarus that

had been presented to the mayor of New Glarus. I guess it's easier

than trading cows.



In town, you can find many lovely Swiss souvenirs from Taiwan.

The bakery serves a nice lunch upstairs, with wonderful desserts,

and there is a sausage shop with many unusual varieties of brats,

such as pineapple and jalapeno pepper. (That's two different flavors.)

While we didn't visit it on this trip, New Glarus brewery is produces some

of our favorite Wisconsin microbrews, such as Edel-Pils and "Uff-da".



We have also managed to get out to some restaurants and performances.

In addition to The Dardenelles around the block, I've been to the

Wilson St. Grill (smoked pork chop), Kabul (scallion-filled dumplings

in spicy meat sauce) and The Dried Bean Smokehouse and Saloon (smoked

duck).



Both plays we've seen have had some exceptional actors in them. One

was "Beast on the Moon." It is by a Wisconsin playwright, and takes

place in Milwaukee in the early part of the century. It's about

an Armenian immigrant, and traces his life with his wife, who

is married to him by proxy at age 16, and then comes from Armenia

to join him. Both come from families savaged by Turkish persecution,

but they deal with it in different ways. The plot revolves around

the tensions of not being able to have a child. It was pretty good,

but it was a little wearing to watch another couple's marital stress

for three hours. The play was at the arts center downtown, put on

by the Madison Repertory Theater. The other play was much lighter

fare--"The Nerd", by Larry Shue. We took the kids to that, and

they both had a good laugh--lots of visual humor. I thought the

set designer did a good job of capturing early 70's apartment

decor.  Lots of "Burnt Orange".



Kaye, Sarah and I also went to see the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico

when they were in town.  We had great seats, about 6 rows from

the stage. It is a substantial troupe, with around 40 dancers and

18 musicians. Wonderful costumes and masks. My favorite were these

multicolored, crocheted dresses worn over black shifts. It looked

like each must have taken 100s of hours to make. The dances were

riveting in their variety, being based on folk dances from all different

regions of Mexico, including Native American dances. The music was

mainly violins, guitars of all sizes, and trumpets, but one number

featured a marimba played by four musicians at once. During the final

number and encore, the performers through handful after handful of

serpentine into the audience. I wore a few streamers home, where

they currently grace the banister, and Sarah gathered up an armful.

Kaye and the kids also went to see "Stomp", but I was out of town.

(I had seen it in Portland with Kaye last spring.) It was nearly sold

out when Kaye got tickets, so they all ended up with seats apart,

but each with a pretty good view. Both groups performed in the Oscar

Mayer theater. (Guess what company has its headquarters in town?

I noticed in a play preview in the paper that one local actress has

a day job as Oscar Mayer's Wienermobile Design Consultant.)



For all you Packer fans out there, I have been keeping track of

kinds of Packer merchandise that probably don't exist for other

teams.  Recent observations include:

   Bird feeder

   Cribbage board

   Wall paper

   Cheese tie

   Birthday cards

   Nutcracker man

   Fishing lures

   Door draft stopper

   Knit sweater for Barbie doll.



Also, a few more excerpts from the wedding announcements page:



"At the ensuing reception, the best man secretly gave a number of

women keys, which they returned in front of everyone at the reception,

explaings that they had to give the keys back now that the groom

was a married man."



"At the reception, Lisa's sister and brother-in-law dressed up as a

Chief and a Packer and paraded around the dance floor to overwhelming

cheers of 'Go, Pack, Go!'"



"They brought their pigskin rivalry to their wedding, with some of

the groomsmen wearing Packers vests with their tuxes and others

sporting Bears vests. The bride wore a Packers garter, and her family

ended their toast with an anti-Bears taunt, followed by a rebuttal from

the groom's family."



"At their reception at the Speedway Restaurant and Bar, where they first

met, the groom and his groomsmen decided to do the 'Underwear Dance' in

their shirts and undies."



All for now,

Dave



PS: A couple of numbers ago I mentioned The House on the Rock, and

all the strange rooms and collections there. For those of you who

watch music videos, keep your eye out for the recent 10,000 Maniacs

recording of "More Than This." It was filmed at THOTR, in the Carrousel

Room and the Red Room, and you can see some of the automated instruments

in it. (Though it's tricky to tell what is what, as the band members

are made up to look like automata as well.)