THEIR STORIES WERE TOLD

(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 10^th and 11^th 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.

Saving The Stories

(This is a continuation of a previous post about

 “The People Remember” oral history project.)

The mission of this group of students and community members is to collect and archive the stories of area residents affected by the La Farge Dam Project so that future generations will better understand its history and impact.  The La Farge and Norwalk-Ontario-Wilton schools and the Kickapoo Valley Reserve are sponsoring the group.  The Wisconsin Humanities Council and the UW-La Crosse Oral History Program are providing funding and technical support.  The oral collection will be transcribed and archived at the UW-La Crosse for historical documentation.

- Mission Statement: La Farge Dam Oral History Project

            In September of 2000, the final plans and organization were being put into place for an oral history project to collect and save the stories of those affected by the La Farge Dam Project.  Two meetings had been held earlier that summer at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve offices on Mill Street in La Farge.  At those meetings chaired by KVR Executive Director Marcy West, the support of the project was secured from Ron Johnson, President of the Reserve’s management board, and La Farge superintendent of schools Lee Bush and N-O-W school superintendent Al Szepi.  In addition, through the efforts of Marcy and Fritz Cushing, a grant was received from the Wisconsin Humanities Council to help finance the project.  Fritz was chosen to coordinate the project and he soon had three professionals on board to help with the training.  With that support, the project moved forward and it was decided to team students with adult volunteers to conduct the oral history interviews.

            I was teaching a local history class at LHS that fall comprised of juniors and seniors who had an interest in the oral history project.  I “volunteered” the students in the class for the project.  Kristi Campbell and Robin Lee, who had interviewed James Daines about the dam project the previous spring, were joined in the local history class by Jessie Lee, Amanda Andrew, Deanna Ewing, Rene Widner, Kayla Muller, Shannon Thompson, Mary Beth Sarnowski and Ximena Puig.  Adult volunteers who would team with the students on the interviews included Brian Bufton, Chuck Reynolds, Geri Hall, Margaret Lee, Chuck Hatfield, Rosanne Boyett, Fritz Cushing, Deb Rolfe and Cyndee Baumgartner.

            Four training sessions for the students and volunteers, each lasting nearly three hours, were held at LHS in October and early November.  Harvey Jacobs, from the UW-Madison’s school of Urban & Regional Planning, talked to the group about land issues in general, giving an overview about other federal projects like the one at La Farge and how the federal government could take some people’s lands by using the power of eminent domain.  He also led discussions on the importance of land ownership and public vs. private land ownership issues.  With Jacobs’ leadership, the interview topic was divided into four areas - community, property, decision-making, and environmental protection.  From those areas, over fifty questions were developed that could be used for the interviews.

            Chuck Lee, a history professor with UW-La Crosse’s Oral History Program, trained the students and adult volunteers in interviewing techniques.  Lee taught the basics of beginning an interview, choosing a good place in the home for an interview and how to properly use the tape recorder. He provided samples of forms that included a confidentiality agreement form and informed consent form to be used with the interviews.  After the interviews were conducted, the tapes would be copied and transcribed by UW-La Crosse students so that they could be archived at the Area Research Center at UW-L’s Murphy Library.  In the final training session with Professor Lee, a student and adult volunteer interviewed me about the dam project and that interview was used in a discussion on interviewing do’s and don’ts.

            Stuart Stotts, a renowned storyteller and author (who also happened to own a vacation cabin on land adjacent to the Reserve), worked with the group on developing a presentation to the public after the interviews were concluded.  He asked the students and volunteers to listen for poignant stories and interesting quotes from the people who were being interviewed and to note those on the reporting sheets that were kept.  As the taped interviews came in, Stotts would glean those highlights for use in a public program to be given by the interviewing team.

            As the training sessions were being held, Fritz Cushing was compiling a list of people to be interviewed.  The former landowners of property taken by the government for the dam project headed that list.  But others in the La Farge community were added to get the impact of the dam project on the local school districts, towns, villages, and county.  Other people were included to show the social and economic impact of the dam project on La Farge.  As the list of potential interviewees was being made and contact was started with people on the list, one thing became apparent.  Some of the people would not consent to being interviewed!  As a matter of fact, several people said that they didn’t want to have anything to do with such a project.

            More on that next time as we continue to look at “The People Remember” oral history project.

My Presentation At Portage

            On Tuesday evening, July 29^th, I gave a little talk at the Historic Indian Agency House in Portage.  The historic house sits right next to the old Portage Canal and both are linked to a time before Wisconsin even became a territory.  The Agency House is running a series of programs this summer on “How Non-Traditional Research Helps Capture Our History”.  I was invited to present the story of the La Farge Dam Project and the oral history project discussed in this column.

            There was a nice crowd on hand for the presentation and I was particularly pleased to see some former residents of La Farge in attendance.  When Carolyn and I walked into the room of the Visitor Center, Becky Oliphant Goleuke, her husband Paul and daughter Gwen immediately greeted us.  Becky graduated from LHS and was an outstanding student in my history classes.  Later, two of the Vosen girls, Lisa Jernander and Lynne Clark (with her husband Wayne) came up to the front table to check in with their old history teacher.  Their Dad, Bob Vosen, had been very active in the village’s effort to get the dam project completed.  Lisa and Lynne said that their parents, Bob and Anita Vosen, had been in Wisconsin the previous weekend for a family wedding.  Another couple of former Kickapoogians joined the audience later – Cindy and Jack Heal.  Cindy’s Mother, Maxine Shird, was interviewed for “The People Remember” project and her interview was included in the book that was published about the project.  It was fun to catch up with some of those who had lived through those years of dam trouble in La Farge.