YESTERDAY’S NEWS
MARCH 3, 2020
AMERY FREE PRESS
7
www.theameryfreepress.com
95 Years Ago March 12, 1925 Financial View of Community Hall On April 6th the question of the Community Hall of Amery will be decided by the voters. Before casting your vote for or against this proposition I wish to call a few facts to the attention of our citizens. I think you all agree that a building of this kind is greatly needed. Our City Hall, which houses our fire apparatus, is ready to fall down; our jail is condemned; we have no public comfort stations, which the law requires us to have; no council chamber, not even a place to hold justice court; and most of all, we need an auditorium where our school children can have basketball games, school plays, and if needed, maybe used for other school purposes. The building we have in mind should meet all these requirements and also help out our school situation for a number of years to come. The cost of this building should not exceed $30,000. In closing let me state that I consider a Community Hall a profitYesterday’s able investment for the News taxpayers of Diane Stangl Amery. It may not bring dividends in dollars and cents, but it will pay a greater dividend in bettering the Community Spirit, not only among the people of our town, but between the people of Amery and our farmer friends. We must bear in mind that as a city we cannot stand still, we must either go ahead or behind. If we wish to attract strangers we must make our city as attractive a place to live as possible. The improvements made in our city in the last ten years have cost money, but it must be remembered that if we want a good town, we will have to pay for it. – P. C. Amundson
90 Years Ago March 6, 1930 Butter Helps Ward Off Colds and Tuberculosis While most of us eat butter for its flavor, we are doing our bodies a good turn at the same time. Most of us like the flavor of vegetables when they are served with a golden sauce of butter. We like to add butter to our sauce for steak and we want to use butter in our cakes and many other desserts just because we like it. But, besides its delicious flavor butter adds tremendously to the value of foods, according to Miss Gladys Stillman, of the home economics extension department at the University of Wisconsin. Butter is a fat and so, of course, it furnishes our bodies with heat and energy, but for more important to most of us is the vitamin A, which butter contains.
Humphrey comes to Clear Lake This is a photo of the then Vice-President Hubert Humphrey at the Clear Lake dinner that launched a re-election campaign for Senator Gaylord Nelson. Vice President Humphrey was introduced as having served many years in the Senate as “Wisconsin’s third Senator.”
Scientists say that plenty of vitamin A in our food daily makes children grow better and gives adults more strength and vigor. In addition to all this, they emphasize that if we have enough vitamin A daily, we will be less apt to contract tuberculosis and we will be better able to resist the sinus and mastoid infections of which there are so many these days. Milk and milk products, especially cream and butter, are one of our best sources of this necessary vitamin. Most American families can easily increase the amount of butter they use every day, Miss Stillman, says that fortunately the body stores this vitamin in the lungs and liver. And that excess makes it possible for our bodies to have resistance to certain diseases.
Merchants Burn Oleomargarine Come to Plainfield and watch the oleomargarine go up in flames. That’s an invitation extended to farmers and townspeople in this section for Thursday night when merchants of Plainfield will stage a public bonfire and burn up their stocks of oleomargarine. Thursday also marks the first day of a Farmer’s Institute here. The dealers also will throw into the fire their oleomargarine licenses so that they will be unable to handle the butter substitute, in an effort to aid the farmer and the dairy industry. The bonfire will be held on the principal business street. Other attractions also have been arranged, with hundreds of persons from surrounding territory expected to be here.
85 Years Ago February 28, 1935 Eggs 50 Cents Eggs were only 19 cents the past two days, but the Free Press is still paying 50 cents a dozen for them to apply on subscriptions. Thus far farmers have brought in a total of
approximately 290 dozen. Scores of farmers have paid up their back subscriptions in this easy way and as many more have become new subscribers to the Free Press.
75 Years Ago March 8, 1945 We Knew it Was Bad…But For some time now, the housing situation has been more or less impossible in Amery. A fact that everyone more or less takes for granted. Few realize how really bad it is however. Last week Mrs. John Edman inserted a small 25 cent classified advertisement in the want ad section of this paper with a five room bungalow for rent. The first day the number of calls almost caused a minor riot at the Edman home. Twenty-six persons called the first day and many more called in the days following. Just think of it – 26 persons want a home other than the one they now occupy. Some of these calls came from parties whose homes in Amery had been sold under them, but the greater share of them, but the greater share of them came from persons from out of town seeking a residence here.
War Prisoner Gives $100 to Red Cross Recently the War Fund Chairman received a letter, which omitting names, is as follows. “You will please find enclosed a bank money order for $100.” “My son is a prisoner of war and has written me that he has received such good treatment by the Red Cross he wanted me to make a $100 donation to them.” This money was from the war prisoner’s own funds. He is a Polk County resident.
Site for Airport Purchased by Amery Individuals Saturday, March 3, marked the initial step to secure an air-
port for this community when four local residents purchased the farm of Art Wilberg with the intention of converting it into a flying field. The farm is located about 3½ miles northwest of Amery on county trunk highway H and has already been approved as a Class I and possibly a Class II airport by the Wisconsin State Civil Aeronautics Authority. Involved in the transaction were Robert Iverson, Chet Johnson, C. V. Anderson and John J. Burman who purchased the farm from Art Wilberg. Monday night, March 5, the student pilots in Amery held their first meeting and formally organized into a club.
50 Years Ago March 5, 1970 Merchandise Finds Way Back to Room “Someone had a guilty conscience,” Supt. D. K. Lien said following the return of several “hot” tape recorders to the Amery High School. During the Christmas holidays, tape recorders were stolen from the music room and library. Last week, the person or persons responsible for the act, broke back into the school and returned the merchandise.
35 Years Ago March 5, 1985 Two Amery Schools Vandalized Amery school district this week offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for vandalizing two Amery schools Friday night. Damage was discovered by Maintenance Supt., Art Kjeseth on Saturday morning. Amery police and Polk County sheriff’s deputies spent much of the morning itemizing damage and looking for clues. Supt. Ray Norsted said the damage would likely run between $10,000 and $15,000.
Norsted was optimistic that the culprits would be apprehended. He said that one or more persons suffered glass cuts and bled at both Lien elementary school and the Amery middle school. “You could say that damage was external at the elementary school and internal at the middle school,” observed Amery Police Officer, Tim Moore. Destruction at the elementary school included: 12, 44x77 double pane windows; 18, 21x44 double pane windows; 13, 21x44 screens; two porcelain drinking fountains located outside on the south side of the building were broken. Moore said that the entrance to the building was gained through the rear, east doors. Blood was found on the interior door handles indicating that one of the persons was cut. Once inside the building, the vandals apparently ran up and down the halls breaking covers to fire extinguisher holders, opening lockers and throwing relish taken from a food storage area. At the middle school entry was gained by breaking glass on a door in the 1956 portion of middle school. The door faced south. Extensive damage was done to the biology room, teacher’s lounge, art room, library and classrooms occupied by Ted Heathfield and Rick Buhr. Also destroyed by the vandals was a canvas tent and swing analyzer set, up in the 1929 building and used by the golf team. Moore said that the canvas was slashed, rendering it useless. Other damage included: Art room – paint thrown throughout the room; Teacher’s lounge – Apple computer, television set and pop machine all destroyed; Biology – specimen bottles broken; Heathfield’s room – Apple computer, monitor and Epson printer and a film strip machine with cassette were all destroyed. Window shades were ripped and books and learning materials thrown around the room; Library – an 8x4 ft. display case was broken when a wooden chair was thrown into it. A reclining chair was picked up and heaved through the library office window. A filmstrip projector and cassette were destroyed. Damage to Buhr’s room was pretty much limited to tipping over desks and throwing materials. In addition, a boy’s bathroom was also vandalized. Norsted said he expects other damage to show up once pupils and teachers report to school today. He said that nothing in the building was apparently stolen. Moore said that other details about the vandalism are not being released until several suspects are interviewed. In other activity Friday night, mailboxes were damaged on Griffin St. and a window in a pickup truck owned by Al Wheeler, Hawthorne St., was broken.
