(This is a conclusion of previous entries that
tell the story of “The People Remember”, an oral history project about the La
Farge dam project.)
In the end,
after nearly three months of the teams of La Farge High School students and
adult volunteers conducting interviews, nearly fifty stories had been told
about the La Farge dam project. Some of
the interviews had been illuminating for the students and adult volunteers, while
others were not – but it was important that the stories had been gathered. The interviews began in November of the year 2000
and continued for the next three months.
After each interview the students sat down to listen to the audiotapes
of the story and wrote a log or outline of what was said in the interview. Copies of the tapes and logs were made and
sent on to UW-LaCrosse, where students in the UW-L Oral History Program would
transcribe the interviews. Those
transcriptions and the tapes were then archived in the Area Research Center at
the UW-L Murphy Library.
As a
conclusion to the oral history project, a presentation to the public was to be
made in the spring of 2001. Stuart
Stotts, a well known and respected educator, author and storyteller in the
state, worked on pulling segments from the interviews that could be used in the
dramatic telling of the dam stories in the public presentation. Using the interview logs compiled by the
students and listening to the tapes himself Stotts started to compile a
collection of excerpts from the interviews that could be used for the
presentation. To organize for the presentation, he grouped the chosen excerpts
into three categories that followed the general organization of the questioning
that had been used for the interviews.
He was looking for what had been said in the interviews about the
history of the dam project and the stories about community and change when the
land was taken, the stories of influence and power as demonstrated by federal
vs. local government control, and finally the stories of the people’s
relationships to their land and the environment.
After
compiling the excerpts from the interviews, Stotts fashioned them into a choral
reading to be conducted by some of the same students who had conducted the
interviews. The students who were chosen
for the choral reading part of the program included Amanda Andrew, Deanna
Ewing, Jessie Lee, Robin Lee, Ximena Puig, Mary Beth Sarnowski and Rene
Widner. Kristi Campbell continued her
job as video recorder and taped all of the presentations. Kayla Muller, who had served as scribe for
the oral history project throughout, continued to write articles for area
newspapers about the upcoming presentation.
On April 25, 2001, the program was
presented three different times. In the
morning the LHS students were bussed to Brookwood High School where the
presentation was made to seventy-five 10th and 11th
graders. The first program was a good
rehearsal for the later performances and brought out some parts that needed to
be improved. After returning to the
Reserve offices in La Farge (this is before the Visitor Center was built), the
students went over their morning performance, made some changes in the readings
and formulated plans for the upcoming presentations. After a pizza lunch, the group made their way
across the street to the school to perform for the LHS students. That show went much better, transitions were
smoother and the attention to the show by the LHS students was excellent. A robust question & answer session
followed the performance for nearly an hour, again showing the interest by the
LHS student body.
That evening, the presentation for
the public was held at the La Farge Community Temple. It was a packed house as most of the people
who had been interviewed for the oral history project attended. The presentation also drew many others from
the community who were interested in the oral history project as well as the
adult volunteers who had helped the students with the interviews.
Marcy West, Kickapoo Valley Reserve
Executive Director, welcomed the large contingent to the evening’s
presentation. I followed Marcy in the
program by introducing the project and making presentations to the students and
adult volunteers who had helped make the project such a success. Harvey Jacobs, University of Wisconsin
professor, then gave an overview of the presentation and introduced the first
topic of the “La Farge Dam Project History and Stories of Community and Change”. The students then started their choral
readings from the stories told in the oral history interviews.
I had settled into a corner off the
side of the stage where the students were making their presentation and I was
facing the audience. As I gazed out over
the large group of people, I made eye contact with Kayla Muller, who was sitting
in a center seat taking notes for her next article. She nodded her head to her right to point my
eyes in that direction. There seated to
her right was a woman whose farm had been bought by the federal government for
the dam project. As the woman listened
with rapt attention to the students’ performance, tears were streaming down her
cheeks. I looked two seats over and there
was another lady with tears running down her face. I shifted my gaze to another portion of the
community hall and saw a man, eyes misting over, straining to hear the words
spoken by lifelong friends. It was
amazing – you could have cut the emotion in that hall that night with a knife!
Professor Jacobs introduced two
more sections of the presentation and the LHS students, performing with
excellence after their two earlier rehearsals, read their excerpts about
“Stories of Influence and Power: Government/Local Control” and “Stories of the
Relationships to the Land and Environment”.
The stories were being told!
After the last of the student’s
choral readings, Jacobs said that there would be a ten-minute break and then
everyone would break into small group discussions. But before anyone could move, Olive Nelson
stood up to speak. Olive, who had been
interviewed for the oral history project, said that the presentation that had
just happened had been the best thing that had ever happened to all the people
who had to sell out for the dam project.
Her observation was met with spontaneous applause and shouts from the
audience and the whole assemblage broke into a huge group hug.
More tears flowed and then laughter
erupted as the older times were remembered with fondness. The student presenters received enough hugs
and pats on the back to last a lifetime.
The stories had been remembered and the stories were told.
I would like to finish this with a
few of the excerpts that were read by those LHS students that night. Remember, these are the words of people who
were interviewed for that oral history project.
They
said I had to be out in 30 days, this was March; I had 225 head of cattle. Where was I supposed to go?
I
graduated in 1937, from La Farge. The
flood was in 1935. And in 1937 the
government had made their study and recommended an earthen dam. Now I am 82 years old this year. My entire adult life and the adult lives of
many people have been spent involved in this one issue – your entire adult life
– on one thing.
It
was a depressed area, but we didn’t know it.
We were happy.
Neighbors
fighting neighbors, families split, hard feelings.
Afterward
people were scattered. These were your
close friends, it was sad. People used
to gather at the store, and after – no place for us all to get together again.
The
government had made us a promise, and my feeling is when you promise something,
you follow through. When I left the
farm, I felt some bitterness; not for myself but for the way my friends and
neighbors were treated. The government
had betrayed us.
Up
until this time, all our elected officials favored it, but the Sierra Club went
the political route. Our elected
representatives changed their positions.
The Sierra Club had the money and the influence; they forced our
representatives to change their positions.
Our little community, we are poor, no money, no influence, we didn’t stand
a chance, and the project got stopped.
Most
people, around here were pretty handy, can fix a tire by yourself, but here was
a tire we couldn’t fix.
The
people loved the land. It was a terrible
place to farm but a beautiful place to live.
So, we will finish this story where
we started it by hearing the words of James Daines, a man who wanted the
stories to be heard.
The land’s not mine anymore. I don’t hunt it. But I do stop and get a drink from the well
every time I drive by.
Their stories were told.
