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Sources
1. Title:   Sauk Co Birth Records
Page:   v12 p456

Notes
a. Note:   t at his Dad's garage pumping gas from a "SunRite" 5 gallon glass top.
 When the family moved to the Sumpter Farm he went to the Stones Pocket School until the 8th Grade.
  In the winter he remembers sledding down the hill from the school just south of Witwen all the way thru town.
 On hot summer days they would roll in the mud by the creek and skinnydip in the cool water.
 Every Fourth of July at 4:00 am a cannon was shot off on the school hill and it was pointed right at his bedroom window - blasting him awake. He helped take care of their horse King.
  In his younger days he worked on the farm - for helping take care of the chickens his mother would give him 1c for every $1 in eggs sold. He still has some of those Indianhead pennies and he has given the kids some for keepsakes.
  In 1941 they bought a big snub-nose '41 Chevy truck and made it into a mobile home and and they drove out to California where Henry hoped to open a bicycle shop on Willshire Blvd in Los Angeles. A Boulder Dam postcard from Clarence to Milton on October 22, 1941 says they were in San Bernardino and will send an address when they get a place to stay.
 His father and him were both issued their SSNs while in California. They worked roofing and in home construction. Then Pearl Harbor was bombed. With planes flying all night, blackout rules, and everyone thinking California would be next they decided to come back to Sumpter and keep farming. It was quite a shock to come back to 40 deg below zero from California.
  Starting in 1944 he worked hauling milk in cans from the farms in the Sumpter area for the Nestles Creamery in Sauk Prairie. He used the '41 snub-nose Chevy truck and lifted the cans up onto the 14 ft bed in back. He was paid 11cents per hundred pounds of milk hauled into the creamery.
  These milk cans weighed about 30 lbs empty and it were filled with 80 lbs of milk for a total of 110 lbs. His truck would haul 125 of these cans.
  In 1948 they bought an insulated double decker Fox Milk Truck to haul the cans. Sometimes the farm driveways were snowed in and he would have to carry out the cans to the truck. He continued working hauling milk until 1951.
  Dad gave Dennis one of those original Nestles Creamery milk cans and it feels quite heavy even when empty.
  His daily routine of lifting those heavy milk cans into the wagon developed muscles that allowed him to perform amazing stunts: Pounding a spike thru a board with just his hand and piece of leather, hanging out horizontally from the top rungs of a ladder, and hand-standing on the bars of a rolling motorcycle.
  Once to save his hard earned money he made his own license plates for his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. When the fair came to town he would give rides on the back of the cycle for 10 cents.
  His 1920 Harley 61 Valve-in-Head V-Twin bike was so loud the cop in Sauk City would always stop him and ask if he had a muffler on and tell him to keep it down. Raced on the dirt track at the Sauk Co. Fairgrounds - spun the tire and slid around the corners. Raced a guy from Sauk Praire once that had an Indian bike - the early Indians were faster.
  Saved the Sumpter farm home place from burning down one day when he noticed flames flashing in an attic window while working up in the silo. The others were way out in the airplane hangar so he rushed up to the attic and splashed water on the fire from the attic water storage tank. The wood around the chimney fire threatened to erupt for many hours afterwards until all the sparks were out.
  Also used to have to salt the hay in the barn if it was a little damp to prevent spontaneous ignition.
  Big air show in 1938 featured Clarence racing against an airplane to and from the Morey Airport in MIddleton - proving an airplane could more than cut the time it took in half. He took the '35 Chevy and a witness along and drove as fast as he could, 70 mph and passing everyone. But the plane beat him down and was already back by the time he got there. Another spectacle at the show featured an airplane picking up someone riding on the hood of a car.
  He took flight instruction from Don Brittain, but after Don crashed tragically one hot summer evening in Monroe while crop-dusting peas, he gave it up.
  He helped his father in the construction of 3 homes in Baraboo (Seventh St).
  First saw Dorthy at the Shamrock Ice Cream Parlor in Baraboo.
 First met her at a Waltze Quadrille Wedding Dance for one of her neighbors above the Eagles Club on 4th St in downtown Baraboo. He took her home in his '35 Chevy.
 Later sometimes her would take her with him on his milk route.
  After Pearl Harbor was bombed, he remembers when the Badger Army Ammunition Plant was being built they were forced by the law to let a half dozen trailers of the workers stay at the farm and live. Sometimes the wild kids of these families would cause trouble like stealing or smashing eggs. He recalls some of his neighbors breaking down and crying when the Army came and bulldozed down their beautiful farms to build the new war factory.
  He farmed and ran his milk route until 1951 when he moved his growing family to 617 Fifth St Baraboo WI - a lovely 1931 Thayer built brick house with oak strip floors. The homes on the corner of the block were Ringling built and the area in between had been used for a grazing pasture for the circus animals. The barn behind the new Zech home had been used to shelter elephants years ago. The street just to the east was called Camp Street because the Circus would camp there in the summer.
  Worked for 35 years at Badger Ordinance Plant as the Maintenance Foreman in the Rocket and Nitroglycerine and Ball Powder Areas.
  Down the road from the old Cty C farm was the old Astle Race Track field where on Sundays they used to race horses and bicycles. Later this area would become part of the Birch Haven Ski Hill where he would take his kids to enjoy skiing with him. Sometimes he worked on the rope tow equipment and he would have to splice the broken rope together to pull the skiers up the steep hill. He created a neat Ski Rules sign with cartoons. Dorothy also skied and managed the ski rental equipment and the kids would have a great time skiing all day for cheap.
  They enjoyed travelling all over the country and climbed Pikes Peak in their Volkswagen Camper bus and went out to Yellowstone Park camping with the kids many times.
  In 1955 he help build a new Baptist Church on the eastside of Baraboo and he worked many
 hours mowing the lawn and maintaining the facility. His kids remember him drowning out gophers and everyone trying to hit them with shovels or something - usually they escaped. He planted all those pine trees around the border of the property which later was sold and became rental housing property.
  After retiring, they built a home at Lake Virginia near Reedsburg with a large garden for growing potatoes, strawberries, grapes, and sweetcorn to eat with his gold-capped teeth.
  He enjoys providing musical entertainment with his rhythmic triplet skill in playing the "bones" and gets around with the Senior Serenaders all over the State. He is one of an elite group of musicians who can play the rythyme bones with both hands. This is a skill he learned as a boy from Alfred Wagoner and others in the Sumpter area who played at barn dances. He made his first set of bones from cow ribs from the butcher in Witwen.
  It's been getting hard to hold onto the bones now with his old hands but he enjoys playing a wild new instrument called the Stumpf Fiddle now too.
Note:   He was born and went to school in Witwen until the 6th Grade. Helped ou
b. Note:   Witnesses Clara Wendt, Lester Zech


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