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. 

La Farge Organizes To Back Dam Project

“Emotions and tempers ran as high as a Kickapoo flash flood when it was learned here last week that Governor Lucey had set the date of April 27 for an intensive review of the Kickapoo Lake Project.” 

Thus began the coverage of the La Farge dam project controversy in the April 22, 1971 issue of the La Farge Enterprise newspaper.  The local weekly was full of news on how the people in the village and surrounding area were organizing to show support for the dam project.  Editor Arnie Widstrand wrote an excellent editorial listing several reasons to support the embattled project.  Jackie Thelen, the Senior Editor of the LHS student newspaper, The Windjammer (published each week in the Enterprise), wrote an editorial also supporting the dam project.  The village newspaper contained a press release from the Kickapoo Valley Association calling on all people in the Valley to support the dam project.  A huge ad in the newspaper shouted out, “SHOW YOUR CONCERN ABOUT THE KICKAPOO LAKE PROJECT”.  A group called “The Citizens For The Kickapoo Area” paid for the advertisement, which called for people to write letters to Governor Patrick Lucey to show support for the dam project.

The reaction to the announcement of the Governor’s “intensive review” of the La Farge dam project created immediate concerns in La Farge, especially among the pro-dam majority.  Within days after the announcement, a group called “The Citizens For The Kickapoo River” (later called “The Citizens For The Kickapoo Area” and eventually shortened to a more manageable “Citizens For The Kickapoo”) was formed to counter the opposition to the La Farge dam and lake project.  Arlen Johnson, who ran the funeral parlor in town, was chosen as the spokesman for the group and Robert Vosen, who sold insurance out of his home office on Bird Street in La Farge, was selected as the chairman of the group.

The new pro-dam group began by organizing an immediate letter-writing campaign that reached out to dam supporters in the Kickapoo Valley and throughout the state and beyond.  Everyone was asked to write a letter to Governor Lucey asking for his support for the project at La Farge.  Within weeks hundreds of pro-dam letters had poured into the Governor’s offices in Madison.  The new group also started to solicit donations for the public relations effort and $1,500 was raised in a matter of days to support the cause.  With the funds, radio and newspaper advertisements were purchased, spreading the message to support the dam project at La Farge.  Organizational meetings were held daily in the village as the pro-dam forces in La Farge continued to mobilize.  Letter writing sessions were held each day and evening to help with people getting the word out to support the dam and lake project.  A lady’s church group held a prayer vigil asking for guidance for elected leaders so they could support the dam and lake project.  School children made signs supporting the project as part of their class assignments and then carried the signs that read “Save The Dam” and “Save Lake La Farge” along La Farge’s Main Street after school.

At one of the first meetings of the La Farge pro-dam group, a surprise visitor was Congressman Vernon Thomson, who restated his firm support for the dam project at La Farge.  Thomson, a Republican from Richland Center, also castigated Governor Lucey for interfering with the project and said it was “callous of the Governor to deny rural America of benefits”.

The La Farge pro-dam group wanted more information from the Governor’s office about the review meeting scheduled for later in the month.  Blake Kellogg, Governor Lucey’s press secretary, spoke to the leaders of the La Farge group several times by telephone and then came to La Farge to meet with them.  He was faced with an angry group of fifty people at the meeting held in the basement community meeting room of the La Farge State Bank.  Kellogg tried to assure the people gathered there, which included all the leaders of the pro-dam group, that the review session would be a fair and open process and all sides would be heard.  He vowed that the review would not be conducted like a “kangaroo court”, that all sides and voices would be heard and that the purpose of the review was to “put the full issues out on the table, so Governor Lucey can see the pros and cons on either side”.  Kellogg, a professional at public relations, smoothed some ruffled feathers in the crowd that day, and left with a much greater appreciation of how important the dam project was to many people in La Farge.

On Saturday night, April 24^th, over 500 people gathered at the school gym in La Farge for a public meeting on the dam project.  Sponsored by the local pro-dam group, the attendees at the meeting were overwhelming in favor of completion of the dam and lake at La Farge.  Fifteen proponents of the dam spoke that night at the meeting and the rhetoric and emotion was heated.  The merits of the dam and lake were praised and the Governor’s interference was condemned.  “Professional panic-peddlers who call themselves ecologists” were vilified for stirring up the controversy.  Another speaker called for a “David and Goliath battle” as the Citizens For The Kickapoo took on the potent nationally financed conservation and environmental groups.  “These so-called environmentalists who don’t have to scratch a living out of these hills have no right to determine the future of these people”, said Arlen Johnson in referring to the anti-dam groups.  As the meeting wound down after several hours, more donations were collected to help finance the pro-dam cause, signatures were collected on petitions and instructions and addresses for writing letters of support for the dam project were distributed.

During that April of 1971, in the few weeks before the Governor’s review meeting, La Farge was a hubbub of various activities to show support for the dam project.  Posters appeared in most of the storefront windows on Main Street businesses.  School children continued to walk the streets of La Farge (sometimes during recess and noon hour of the school day) carrying signs of support and marching for the dam project.  The daily planning meetings often drew representatives from the Corps’ St. Paul office to further explain the merits of the dam and lake project.  After much agitation by the Citizens For The Kickapoo with the Governor’s office, Robert Vosen’s name was added to the list of those allowed to speak at the Governor’s review meeting.  Finally, a La Farge leader would now be able to relate a local perspective at the “intensive review”.

Next time, we will look at how that review session, held in Madison at the state capital, brought together the two opposing sides on the La Farge dam issue.  For the first time, the dam and lake project would be measured with the newly defined parameters of the emerging national environmental movement.  For the pro-dam backers from the Kickapoo Valley, the review session illuminated the landscape of the debate over the federal project.