Diary of Susannah Woychik, 1868- 6 New Home

Wszedzie dobrze, ale w domu najlepej

Everywhere’s fine, but best at home

Not having anything we need to do for the next day and a half, we have been exploring La Crosse. Several of those who traveled on the train with us had this as their final destination so we bid them goodbye, but hope to see them again before long. This will be our nearest large town, where we will no doubt need to go from time to time to buy supplies.

We are staying at the St Nicholas Hotel on Pearl and Second, right next to the steamboat office, run by Nicholas Hintgen, a very friendly sort who comes from Luxembourg and who was much moved by hearing of our difficulties. He can speak German and although his wife  who we found out was from New York couldn’t, I have not learned enough English to make myself understood, so we stuck to German.  . We have had excellent meals given us and all the hot water we need, so that we now feel half way human again. His son helped us move all our huge numbers of cases into a shed where we can store them until our boat leaves.

La Cross is a very pleasant town with a Catholic church. So first thing this morning, Moma made us all get up early and go to Mass. Nicholas gave us the instructions for getting to St Marys for the 9 a.m. service. After mass, the priest, a middle aged man who it turned out was  Bishop Michael Heiss, was out in front greeting the small congregation, as it is Monday and not many people felt the need to attend on a weekday. He smiled when he saw our family and overhearing Tom saying something to John, he then spoke to us in German, “Are you new to La Crosse? I have not seen you at Mass before.”

Moma was overcome to have been spoken to by a Bishop. She knelt in front of him and kissed his ring.

“My parents do not speak good German” I said, “but I was taught it in school. We are from Poppeleau in Silesia and have just emigrated here. We are awaiting the steamer to take us to our new home in Arcadia in Trempealeau.”

“One of our priest visits at Mr. Sura’s house in Burnside, which is very near there, once a month – I think the 3^rd Sunday so no doubt you will be seeing him then. I won’t keep you but I wish you every blessing in this, your new country?” He gave us his personal blessing and my mother again kissed his ring, while the tears streamed down her face.

We returned to the hotel and had breakfast. We really enjoyed Mrs Hintgen’s speciality – pancakes with maple syrup, neither of which we had tasted before.

“Maple syrup is one of our local products. You will have to have a go at tapping some yourself,” she said, “There are plenty of maple trees in Trempealeau. It takes quite a lot of sap for a pint of the syrup, but is well worth the effort."

About that time Uncle Simon came back. He had been looking to see what he could buy in the way of animals, and had bought a team of oxen and a wagon. So it was decided that he and his son, Philip and Cousin Louis would take all our luggage on the wagon.  My brothers wanted to go with them, and Uncle Simon agreed, as long as they knew it might mean sleeping rough over night. So the women and children and Pa from our family and the whole of the Skroch family were going with us on the river boat to Trempealeau the next day.  

My parents decide that since we had the whole day spare, they should spend sometime deciding how much money they had left (just over $100)  and whether they should spend some of it on things they could buy here. Pa went to the local hardware store to see what they had on offer.

“I want a cook stove,” said Moma

“We probably can’t afford that yet, but I will look and price one,” said Pa.

Moma and I with the two smaller boys decided to go the local food and sundry shop to see what we could buy for our first meal in our new home. She also was keen to see what fabric was available for making curtains.

We were amazed at the choice of food before us, and although we weren’t overly familiar with the new prices, it seemed to me as it if was not much more expensive than what we would have paid at home. We decided that a good piece of ham would do us well for our meat, and we bought some tiny new potatoes, new lettuce and radishes. We hadn’t had anything like a salad since last summer. She bought a loaf of fresh bread, which looked and smelled wonderful. It would be difficult not to eat it right away.

We had lunch at the hotel, and the spent some time washing out our clothing so that when we arrived in Arcadia, we would have that dealt with. Mrs. Hintgen said we were welcome to use her wash tub and to peg our things out on her back line.

Pa was full of stories about the wonderful things that he had seen too, but kept his purchases to small things that he knew we didn’t have with us, and would definitely need. However he had been unable to resist a rotovator, a one man plow, which he said we would need for making our garden. It cost $15. He also bought a hoe and spade and some seeds which cost another $5. Pa said the cook stoves were wonderful but even a second hand one was more than he could afford at the moment. But he promised Moma that he would buy one as soon as he had his first pay check. Moma was worried that he had already  spent too much money, but he said he knew what he was doing.

Later that evening, we walked around the town. It is a flat prairie for most of it but there are some 500 foot bluffs surrounding the city and make a most spectacular view. Then we went back to our lovely hotel room and marvelled at the lack of rats or fleas.

Tuesday

Our paddle wheel river boat is called The Belle of La Crosse and this is only the second month she has been operating. She is huge and our Poppeleau emigrants hardly made a dent in her capacity. The trip was only a few hours and a very beautiful trip it was too

A  Yankee boatman said, “You’ll find scenery between here and St Paul that can give the Hudson points. And higher up you’ll have prairies, and then the Thousand Islands, too beautiful for anything. You never saw foliage so green nor packed so thick. It’s like a thoroughly plush cushion afloat on a looking glass when the water’s still, and then the bluffs on both sides are rugged, just like a frame, which make the pretty pictures stand out even more. “

Finally we arrived and the man, who said his name was Samuel Clemens, added, “Trempealeau Mountain was sacred to the Ho Chunk and is the only island mountain in the upper river and has always been the landmark for river travellers, probably going back at least a couple of thousand years. The mountain and this area contain dozens of Indian mounds and many petroglypths.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means carved stone. You see, the Indians way back then, they didn’t have a written language as such, they made stories by drawing pictures on rocks."

When we got to Tempealeau, we were pleased to see that the relatives of our friends the Skroch’s had arrived to collect them. They took us back with them to their house, a small wooden cabin. Then they told us that a friend of theirs would be prepared to drive us to our relatives in Arcadia. So after some much welcome coffee and cake, we loaded ourselves into the cart for the last leg of our very long journey.

It was sad to say goodbye to the Scrotches, who had been so much a part of our lives in Poppeleau, but we knew we would be seeing them again.   

We didn’t know what the situation would be when we finally reached cousin Zeman Woychik’s house in Arcadia. He, his wife, Katarine and their three children, Hedwig, Bephal and Michael, had moved to Wisconsin a few years ago. They had undertaken to see what land nearby was available and to suggest which of us should go where.

It was a 16 mile trip  and on a very rough track – hardly good enough to call a road. We went through a small collection of houses at Pine Creek on the way.

We knew that Uncle Simon sold his land in Poppeleau so he has the money available to buy straight away, and if he can, he wants property with a house built and the land cleared for planting. He will pay Pa to help him put in a crop right away. We hope they will have found somewhere close to Uncle Simon for us to buy – a piece of Government Grant land, which can be paid for over time, because at the moment we have not got enough cash to buy. Moma and boys and I will have to plant a garden and hope that we can produce enough to feed ourselves over the winter.

Zeman will keep his brother Louis there to help him on his farm, but the rest of us have to go farther afield. There was an established farm with a reasonable log house and cleared land that might suit Uncle Simon, but it wasn’t in Arcacia – but eight miles away in Burnside – away from most of those we had travelled with and not very near any stores.

Zeman said that the best he could suggest for us was a piece of land which had been homesteaded, and then the owner had a fall before paying up on it. But he had built a dugout home, and a small garden patch. So all that was need was for Pa to do was some paperwork, and promise to pay the $50 within a year, and continue to work the claim for us to take over ownership of it. So it was a mixed blessing. My brothers were excited about the house being a hole in the hillside, but I nearly burst in tears when they told us and Moma didn’t look very happy either.

Uncle Simon took us with them when they drove their oxen and wagon with their luggage to their proposed property and said they would drop us off on route. Another man, Peter Sura, who’s been here 10 years will be living quite close to us, and he also was at the Zeman house today. We liked Peter, which is what he told us to call him, and he said his wife and children would come and help us out as soon as we got there. And it is at Peter’s house that the Bishop told us the priest will come to say Mass. That made Moma feel a lot better.

Pa said, “It is all we can afford and the best we can do for right now.” The dugout comes with 40 acres to till. Peter told us there was a well dug in the yard, and the river was only a stone’s throw away, which meant we shouldn’t have any problems regarding water.

Later

We finally got here. Maybe I should describe our new house a bit. It is literally dug into a hillside with the roof being the outside of the hill. It is about 16 feet long and 15 feet wide and 8 feet high – although the roof tapers down to about 4 feet in the sides – and it is all one big room. The man who lived here before had a fireplace, so there is a hole in the roof so smoke can get out. On the south facing wall there is a door and a window, and he left his wooden bed frame on the west wall. We knew we had to make a start straight away, so Pa and the boys gathered wood and made a fire, and we unpacked our kettle and put in on the fire to boil, so we could have some coffee as soon as we could. We then put the various packing boxes inside, separating the kitchen things from the clothing and bedding. Pa said that he with the help of Tom and John would use the rest of the day to make some makeshift beds for us kids, while Moma and I tried to make some sort of sense out of the place.

We were pleased within an hour or so later, we were interrupted by the arrival of Mrs. Sura and her children in their wagon with baskets full of food and a few other items. She said she had been out to visit the place a few days earlier and knew we would be short of things, so she had brought us a small table and two straight chairs, so at least Pa and Moma could sit down to eat, and the others of us could make do with the beer barrels and upturned packing cases. She also brought along lots of gunny sacks as she called them - roughly woven bags to put on the floor to add a bit of insulation from the cold of the earth.

Her basket was full of food, which we were so pleased to see – a couple of loaves of fresh bread, butter, cheese, ham and some lettuce and radishes she said just picked from her garden. We had our kettle boiled by then, so we put up her table and chairs and with us kids sitting wherever we could, we had our first drink with our first visitors in our new house. She also had included some cookies which we all declared were the best we had ever tasted. She didn’t stay long as she said she had lots of work to do at home,  but she said to pop in and see her soon and she would give us the lie of the land regarding where to buy food and such like, and her husband would have some tips for Pa about how to go about registering his land.