Diary of Susannah Woychik, 1868- 12 Winter's on the Way

Nie zawracaj  mi glowy,  ze jestem zajety

Don’t disturb me, don’t you see I’m busy? 

October 25^th

The weather is warm again - like an Indian Summer. We are worried that our meat will get too warm and spoil We got some pails of water from the stream, which felt very cold, and placed them on top of the meat with newspapers all around to keep the heat out.

Fanny suggested that we might try gathering wild rice - which she says grows along the edges of the river, and was planting originally by the Ojibwa and Menominee Indians. It's really a sort of grass. 

“How do you eat it?”

“It’s boiled, just as ordinary rice would be. The Indians ate it with corn, beans, or squash. Meat, a small amount of grease, or maple sugar was often added for seasoning. As a treat, it was occasionally parched like popcorn. Have you tried making popcorn yet?”

“No, we didn’t have a very good crop of corn, and we ended up feeding it all to our pig.”

“You must come over to my house one day, with your brothers, and I will demonstrate how to make it, and I am sure you will all enjoy finding out how to eat it. Anyway, back to wild rice. The Indians had a clever way of storing it.  If a family wished to leave some rice in an area they would return to later in the year, they buried an upside down dugout canoe full of rice on the sunny slope of a hill, so rain water would drain off and not spoil the grain. It was said that rice cached this way would keep as long as two years.

“How do they pick it?”

“I think they go along the river banks with their canoes, and drag the ripe plants into the boat, and beat off the grains, which are the rice.  Then they clean  it of extraneous material - twigs, pieces of stalks, small stones, and worms - it is spread out on sheets of birchbark, blankets, or canvas to dry in the sun. When it was dry enough, the women put several pounds of rice in a big iron kettle or galvanized iron washtub and parch  it over an open fire. To keep it from scorching, they stir  it constantly with a wooden paddle. This parching process cures the rice and also helps loosen the outer husks. Final removal of the husks is accomplished by “dancing the rice.” A man puts on special moccasins with high cuffs that were wrapped around the ankles which prevented the rice from getting inside. He then steps into a hole in the ground that had been lined with skin or into a wooden tub sunk in the ground. Leaning on a diagonal post for support, he tramps on the rice, moving first on one foot and then the other. This process further loosens the husks from the rice, preparing it for the last step.

The final chore is to separate the rice grains from their chaff, and this is done by the women on a breezy afternoon. Placing a quantity of rice into large birchbark winnowing trays, they flip  the rice kernels into the air. The chaff blows away and the heavy grains sink to the bottom of the tray.”

“It sounds a great deal of work for perhaps not so much food.”

“Yes, but if you were starving you would be very pleased to know that the wild rice was there for your use. Why don’t you see if you can find some next time you walk by the river?”

“Yes, I'll do that, and we can at least try a small amount of it to see if we like it.”

October 30

We had a heavy thunderstorm today and a large amount of rain. Too much rain and the place is muddy and very unpleasant.

I have been spending time with Mrs. Markham again, and also with the Captain, who although he is ailing, quite likes to chat with me about the olden days. Here is what he told me today.

“He was born in 1797 and at 13 entered the British Navy. As a young cadet he served on a ship which guarded the great Napolean I who had been banished, after defeat at Waterloo,  to St. Helena Island in the South Atlantic. He returned from the Navy in 1835 because of failing health. He had been having seizures and was no longer fit for active duty, so was retired on half pay.

November 3 

 Election day today. Pa hopes that Grant will get in. He says he’s a Republican. He can’t vote yet, until his five years of probation are over.

I realise that I haven’t got very far in describing our neighbors - seeming to concentrate on the Markhams. But now let me mention a bit about Mr. Cripps - whose house it is where the boys go to school. And they have progressed very well, both being on the Third Readers now.

Giles Cripps is head of the second family that settled in Burnside Township, Trempealeau County, preceded only by the John Markham household. He was born in England , and was but three years old when he was brought to New York State by his parents. In 1843 the family moved to Waukesha County, Wisconsin, where they raised sheep. The next move was to Dane County, Wisconsin, where the family bought a 200 acre farm. There on June 9, 1853 Giles married Harriet Wood. There they continued farming for four years. In 1857 the Giles Cripps family came to Trempealeau County and selected a homestead and built a log house. He started  with Noah Comstock of Arcadia, the grain elevator and farm implement business.. He served as township chairman and justice of the peace. His home is also the post office for the area.

They have five children: Charles, who is 14 like me, Emma, who is 13, Frederick who is 9, Ellis who is 12 and Giles Eugene (Gene) who is 7. Fred and Ellis are good friends with my brothers.

November 9^th

Pa went hunting deer with the Uncle Simon and Peter and the older boys today. They shot one, and wounded another. Pa didn’t get one, but he says he will go out tomorrow and see if he can find the wounded one and finish it off.

November 12 

Pa got his deer today. The snow is 6 inches deep. The air is clean and frosty and every sound travels a long distance. Pa plans to go with Uncle Simon up to the Lumber Company at Eau Claire this weekend (hopefully after they have built us an ice house and dealt with the deer) to see if they can sign on for work there over the winter.

Later

With all of us hauling big pieces of ice, we have finally made our ice house. It is the entire of the root cellar, and I remembered how to put straw between the ice pieces to insulate better. Pa and Moma together managed to get the venison cut in useful pieces and packed away in the ice. That should make good eating for us for a good part of the winter.

November 15

It rained all night and of course the snow is gone. I don’t know whether our ice will stay, but it looks pretty secure.

Pa and Uncle Simon managed to get jobs at the Eau Claire Lumber yard, and will go up each Monday and back each Saturday afternoon. They will earn $10 a week. The loggers all live together in the woods and have their supplies brought out to them in a wagon from Eau Claire. It will be hard to get used to Pa not being around here during the day, but John is very good at taking responsibility for men’s jobs now - and keeps the wood chopped and ready for the fire.

November 26

Today is Thanksgiving Day, our first public holiday in America since the Fourth of July. Pa and Uncle Simon were here for four days this week - but of course, they will have to forego the extra money. We went to the Suras and had a huge meal of prairie chickens and potatoes and squash and pumpkin pie. That was something new to us. We will try to grow pumpkins next year.

Time for another story about our neighbors. Samuel S. Cooke and Ledowska Gardner Cooke came to Dover Township, Buffalo County, Wisconsin in 1856. Mr. SS Cooke came to this area in September 1866 and according to him, he has "the best bear dog, the closest shooting rifle, the biggest tom-cat and the hardest fighting roosters of any many in the country." He told me that when he settled here his nearest neighbor was six miles on one side and 27 on the other. As he put it, "I got my land broke so late in the season that I raised three tons of grass per acre on it the next year, consequently had to buy and haul most of his provisions for two years from Fountain City, a distance of 30 miles, which was also my post office for one year. Hauled in six thousand feet of lumber from Durand to build my house, distance of 30 miles, laid in my winter stock of provisions at Fountain City, and got home just as the snow commenced falling. Took my rifle next day and killed three deer, threw the hindquarters to my dog expecting to have no trouble in supplying myself with the luxury of fat venison steak all winter. But the snow commenced to fall, piled up four feet on the level and the result for no more venison that winter.

“The elk frequently came in sight that first winter, but all efforts to get one failed”, he said, “because my horse would mire in the deep snow. In February, using a hand sled, and having tied some boards to my feet, I started for the hay stack. On the first slope, the sled ran over me and pushed me deep into the snow. My children dug me out.

“The next day me and my wife, with a shovel and maul, made a road to the stack. That night a snow storm closed it and we had the whole thing to do over the next day.”

“But you finally got out,” I prompted him to carry on.

“In April, I was able to get to Fountain City, and found much to my surprise that whiskey and slavery were victorious and that J. Buchanan was president.”

“Did you do much hunting Mr. Cooke?” I asked.

“I am a lover for the chase,” he said, “and my record so far is having killed 21 bears, a large number of elk, deer, and wolves. But my favorite is elk hunting which I learned to do after the first winter when we needed them desperately for food.

“With the first snowfall,” he related, “plans got underway for elk hunting. Rifles were cleaned, moccasins, blankets and provisions for men and horses were tied onto the sled along with a plentiful supply of tobacco and pipes. Then we were off. When someone spotted a herd of elk a signal was given and the hunters bounded off but the wagon never slowed down. The idea was that the elk would keep an eye on the moving wagon and team and never even notice us, the hunters, who by now were taking aim. At a given word everybody fired, then the herd stampeded and everybody fired to get another while they were in sight. It’s a mystery to me how we ever got so much meat back on one sled! Anyway, the kill was dressed down then and we built up a fire, roasted the hearts and had a bountiful supper, after which the tobacco which I call "Indian leaves" was passed around, and the day was over.”