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Family
Marriage: Children:
  1. Verna Angeline Regal: Birth: 19 JUL 1896 in Gottfried Regal Farm, Chase, Oconto County, Wisconsin, USA. Death: 23 AUG 1953 in Bellin Hospital, Green Bay, Brown County, Wisconsin, USA

  2. Ervin Albert Regal: Birth: 24 MAY 1898 in Regal Farm, Chase, Oconto County, Wisconsin, USA. Death: 18 JAN 1990 in , Lake County, Florida, USA


Family
Marriage: Children:
  1. Evelyn Althea Temple: Birth: 18 APR 1910 in Stohl farm near Beaver Lake, Oconto County, Wisconsin, USA. Death: 2 FEB 1997 in Two Rivers, Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, USA

  2. Audrey Neva Temple: Birth: 29 APR 1912 in Temple Farm, Oconto Falls, Oconto County, Wisconsin. Death: 28 MAY 1999 in Appleton, Outagamie County, Wisconsin, USA

  3. Ardis Elaine Temple: Birth: 29 MAR 1916 in Temple Farm, Oconto Falls, Oconto County, Wisconsin, USA. Death: 23 MAY 2007 in Aurora Hospital, Manitowoc County, WIsconsin, USA


Sources
1. Title:   1900 Federal Census, United States
Page:   Wisconsin, Oconto County, Page 1a
2. Title:   Pre-1907 Wisconsin Birth Index - Oconto County
3. Title:   Oconto County Birth Records
Page:   Vol. 24, page 600
4. Title:   1880 Federal Census, United States
5. Title:   Marriage Certificate, October 15, 1885

Notes
a. Note:   Navy Wilson 24 Aug 1876 Oconto 0322 DX0736 Born in a log cabin on the Henry Wilson property, Navy was preceded by two sisters who died young and two brothers, Andrew and Guy. Two brothers followed, Heber and Allen all of whom lived. So Navy was the only girl and the third oldest living child. A year after Allen was born, their Mother Angeline " Betty" Rymer died. Navy was 8 years old. (Henry Wilson remarried, had more children, was divorced and lived to be 80.) At Angeline's death her children were split up. Grandma Thomas (Althea Stewart Hall Wilson Thomas), took Navy and Heber. Grandma Rymer (Angeline "Anne" Tolman Rymer) took Guy and Allen. Apparently Andrew, who was 13 went somewhere else or went out on his own. He also might have stayed with his Father. Navy was a good student. She went to school in Chase; some of her classmates were the Owen and Cleveland girls. Navy was friends with them, but when they went to take the test to become teachers, Navy instead went to stay with her cousin in Chicago. Navy was sixteen years of age when she left. She stayed with her friend and cousin, Delight Witte. Delight was born Alice Delight Grosse in Little Suamico in 1870 so she was about 6 years older than Navy. Delight, who was called Dight (pronounced "Diet") by the family, had married Adolph Witte, a wholesale fish dealer, who bought fish from the Grosse family in Suamico. Delight and Adolph Witte had a home on the near Northside, just north of Lincoln Park and the business was nearby. Navy Wilson was there for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which was May to October 1893. This story has been told over and over again; this world's fair made a big impression. Ardis says, "There were some silver napkin rings" her Mother had from her mother as mementos. I have them now. She married Will Regal, October 15, 1895, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. She was nineteen. Their first child, my Mother, Verna Angeline Regal, was born, July 19, 1896 on the Regal homestead, near North Chase Corners. At this time Navy had her sister-in-law, Augusta Regal Gajafsky, to help in the household. Gustie's children, Sadie and Caroline Gajafsky, came along. Unfortunately, the children found some matches to play with upstairs and the house burned down. All the people got out safely, but all Navy could do was grab the baby and flee. The family then lived in the upstairs in the granary for quite a few years. Aunt Ardis reminds me that granaries where then built of materials we would now consider number one lumber and that they were often as big as the house and sometimes larger. The upstairs would be tight and dry and could be made quite livable. Ardis also said that there was little effort on Will Regal's part to replace the house, as the property was still owned equally by all five of the Regal siblings. A second child, Ervin Albert Regal, was born May 24th, 1898. Will Regal died of pneumonia in February 1,1905 when the children were 8 and 6 and Navy was 29. True to her husband's instructions, Navy tried to carry on with her life. Will had literally told her to look up over the casket for her next man. She met Al Temple at a dance, fell in love and married him October 30, 1906. I'm not sure whether Al was still married at the time they met, or if he and his first wife had already divorced. (Ardis says, "They had been divorced a long time.") Navy, her family and chattels moved to the Al Temple home near Oconto Falls at this time. In 1921 the Regal Homestead was sold. Krause was one of the subsequent owners and was the one who built the historic and unique barn which still stands on the property. The money from the farm was used to add 80 acres to the Al Temple farm, the parcel toward the river, I believe. I am not really aware of all the ups and downs of this, but there has been some contention over the inheritance of all the descendents; but all seem to be living peacefully with the outcome now. (Ardis Temple says, "Vernie got a piano with her 800 dollars, Ervin got a team of horses. The Perrigo forty was up for sale . Mother had a little bit of money and used it to buy that forty. Dad paid Ervin and Vernie back by getting the piano and the horses. Grandma Temple (Navy Wilson Regal) had about 2000 from personal Property. Al had an inheritance of 1000 gold. With that money they paid off the Dan Temple farm inheritors.") Al and Ervin got along well from all accounts. They played violin together while my Mother chorded. I have never heard Uncle Ervin say a cross word about Al, his stepfather; but my Mother saw him differently. Althea was born in 1910, Audrey in 1912 and Ardis in 1916. Pictures of them show a warm and close family. My Mother being so much older was sort of an "auntie" to the three girls, and her brother, Ervin, was even then an all-business person, helping on the farm and working additional hours as a trapper to raise extra money. (There were still beaver and muskrat to be had.) Since Alvin Temple had two children from his previous marriage, and Navy Wilson Regal had two from her marriage to Will Regal, they sometimes had all three parts of their family together at their farm. The kids sometime would get to fighting and the family legend is that one of the parents would say to the other, "Your kids and my kids are out there fighting with our kids". I remember her as an absolutely astonishing cook, an herbalist, and a gardener who had opium poppies growing in her garden. There was a 40-60 foot ash tree growing in her front yard and we nearly every year had a necklace of ash berries to wear around our necks. She grew leeks in Wisconsin, and I still have no idea how. The well water from this farm was Truly Pure, and from ours too; the best water in the world. Many of her remedies came from her garden. Before the advent of doctors in Oconto County, she was also the midwife. Many of the local babies were delivered by Navy Temple. I have no memories of disastrous births being discussed. Many discussions were held about health. Illnesses, deaths, pregnancies and deliveries were examined by my Grandmother and her daughters until they reached some agreement between them about what was going on. This may have been the way herbalists dealt with a base of knowledge and passed that knowledge on; but all the discussion of these things came to bother me. There also was a sort of Celtic belief in spirits, having "the sight", being able to foretell happenings and in the ability of hands to heal in Grandma Temple's world. (Ardis says, "Mother dreamed about Ervin 's barn raising the night before that during the raising a man would be hurt. She called Cassie, Ervin's wife, to be sure to have the barn braced good. During the raising, they were lifting a truss, and a footing pushed out from under them. A man on a truss fell and was injured, William Sly from Oconto Falls.") There were many stories like this. Navy's daughters could sometimes foretell events, too; I can personally attest to this. Navy was also a competent healer. One time when my brother and I nearly died from strep throat (way before penicillin) Navy came to our farm house with remedies. My brother was made to sweat, until he had to be more or less restrained. I remember the mustard plaster on my chest, and then being removed to the kitchen to live right next to the cook stove. People acted rather surprised when I survived. Brother, aka Zip, got up to conquer new worlds, had been fought for hour by hour. We did survive, however, and I remember that the first food I kept down was Grandmother Temple's potato leek soup made on chicken stock. When I was 10 or so, Grandma achieved one of her dreams. Grandpa built her a lily pond. It was by the well house and was very deep to help the plants and animals survive the horrendous Wisconsin winters. We were cautioned to stay away from it as we could have been drowned, but the lily pads and the giant carp/goldfish swimming around were too much for us, and every once in a while some cousin would fall in and have to be rescued. As I grew up, Ardis, who was just 4 years older than my brother, was at home with her Mother and Father after all the rest of the children had left. In fact she taught North Branch School for about 1 or 2 years when I was in the primary grades. Grandmother, by this time, had put on some weight and had swollen legs, what the locals called, dropsy, which we might now call congestive heart failure. (Ardis says, "She also had angina and all us girls did too".) However, she lived to be 83 and to be a force to be reckoned with in the family for all those years. Along with all her many good qualities, she could be difficult. Somewhere in the area where she grew up (probably in Sampson), there was a church which was very "hell fire and damnation" as we called it then. They had itinerant preachers, tent revivals and were baptized in the local lake or river by emmersion. Fundamentalist, judgmental, argumentative were all adjectives which might be applied to her, depending upon your viewpoint in religion. Many visits to the Temple household were taken up with arguments and "Bible thumping." She listened to H. V. Kaltinborn and Father Coughlin on the radio. Each week the ideas from the radio news and sermons were discussed. There is no getting around the fact that she thought that the Jews were responsible for most of the evil in the world and she believed literally in the second coming. But I need to remind all my readers that the present secular culture in the USA was not even dreamed of in pre-World War II Wisconsin. (Ardis says emphatically, "Mother was not anti-Semitic. There were several Jewish families in Oconto Falls whom we all knew and liked.") Later in life, she would have bouts of sickness, during which my Mother or Audrey would go and help out for a while. Sometimes Audrey and I would spend 3-4 days doing the spring cleaning, putting up fresh wallpaper, and getting the kitchen and pantry back in hand. Sometimes Grandma would spend days in bed; other times she would be up and about and doing well. My fondest memory of her during my high school years was a Christmas time at our house when she brought an English plum pudding. It was a real homemade authentic pudding. It was flamed and had hard sauce. My friend, Betty, and I couldn't walk for hours but eventually got all the dishes done as we listened to the storytelling and ribbing going on. Later, Grandpa Temple fired up his violin and Mom chorded and we sang to the ones with words and tapped our toes otherwise. Ardis tells the story that "when I went to high school Frances Boldt and Agnes Smith gave us clothes. Mother would tear these garments apart and make clothes for us three daughters. Mother made me a worsted wool gabardine suit with a bolero jacket, three quarter length sleeves, flared, decorated with muskrat over the shoulder. It was butternut brown and the fur was golden brown. The skirt was just below the knees, about two inches below." After Al died, Grandma came to live with Ardis two years before she died. She lived with Ardis or Audrey when she had shingles. One summer Ardis went up to Archibald Lake and took grandma up to Audrey's to stay for a while. All of her friends came to see her and she had a great time. She got a stroke and went to hospital (Oconto Falls) and died. Navy Wilson Temple (obituary) contributor: Richard LaBrosse (Oconto County web site) 1960 Rites Wednesday for Life-Long County Resident Oconto Falls - Funeral services for Mrs. Alvin Temple, 83, will be held at the Methodist Church on Thursday afternoon, the Rev. Cecil V. Dawson officiating. Burial will take place at the Volk family cemetery. Mrs. Temple died at the Community Memorial Hospital at 8:15 Monday evening, after suffering a stroke. She was born Navy Wilson on August 24, 1875 in South Chase and was a life-long resident of Oconto County. Her marriage to Alvin Temple took place in 1907 and he passed on in 1957. A daughter, Mrs. Augustus Zippel also preceded her in death. The body was in state at the Soulek Funeral Home from Tuesday evening until eleven o'clock Thursday when it was moved to the church. Survivors are three daughters, Althea, Mrs. Marvin Siegel of Two Rivers, Audrey, Mrs. Arthur Kasten of Gillett, and Ardis, Mrs. Rupert Framness of Two Rivers, a son Ervin Regal of Oconto Falls and Florida; 16 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren. Mrs. Temple was known as a good neighbor--and her family has the sincere sympathy of their many friends.


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