Bio: Benedict, Rollie & Alice
Contact: Loyal Public Library

----Source: Excerpt from "The Centennial History of the York Center United Methodist Church, 1880 - 1980..

BENEDICT HISTORY OF WILCOX STORE From Rollie Benedict

My grandfather bought the store in Wilcox across from the church in 1898, and he kept it till 1902, then Will took it over. (Will was his son and Nyle's father.) The store had stood on the corner (Ed Voight's) until the early 1880's or 90's when it was moved. Grandfather bought it from Smith. A piece was built onto the store where they lived. Lulu, Neva and Nyle were born there. Morvin was born at the farm.

Will sold the store in 1918 to Melvin Lawrence., Melvin Lawrence sold the goods to H.C. Witte of Granton, and Abe Turner bought the building and tore it down and built that house out of it that is there at the present time. That garage there that comes out next to the road was the original wall of the store building basement, the front of it.

The store used to be the gathering place on Saturday night. The Woodman Hall was there at that time. They had a very active Woodman Lodge.

When Bill bought the store they had part of the building in back for rooms, kitchen, living room and bedroom, and then there was another part built over where my grandfather lived. He died in 1908.

LOG SCHOOL HOUSE

The first school in the town of York was the log school house that stood across the road from where Glen and Elizabeth Lavey now live. Before the church was built in 1880, circuit riders used to come and preach to those who gathered at the school for services.

HISTORY FROM ROLLIE AND ALICE BENEDICT

Adonijah Benedict came to Clark County in 1874 from Eldorado in Fond du Lac County. He came to Stevens Point on the train and with oxen and horses to Clark County. (Rolhe's grandfather).

There was just one school house in the town of York. A logging camp was close to a mile east of what was known as Wilcox. That was named after Silas Wilcox. He was foreman of the logging camp. Bill Wm. Price was the logger. Price County was named after him. Grandfather and father worked at that logging camp.

Grandfather felt the need of a church. They were meeting in the old log schoolhouse. Circuit riders came in occasionally, about once a month. My grandfather went to the Fox River Valley Loan Company, who owned most of the town of York, and asked for land for a church. They gave him the present six acres that the church is built on. Of course at that time, land was five dollars an acre, so the cash value wasn't too much. Land at that time could be bought with the pine on it for $5 an acre.

The church was built, as I understand it, in 1880. The east part of the present church was built with an entryway on the west; no steeple and no bell in the church at that time. The steeple, bell, and addition on the west was added in 1897.

As far back as I can remember the sheds for the horses were built to the west of the church. The first stall in those sheds was for the preacher. That was understood.

He (the preacher) came from Loyal with horse and buggy, Sunday School began at one o'clock and lasted for an hour. Then the preacher took over at two o'clock and he preached for an hour. Then they had what at that time they called Class Meeting. It was really a testimony meeting. One of the members would go up and down the aisles and ask what was the condition of their soul, or how they were fairing, and so on.

Kind of put some of them in a kind of a squeeze cause maybe you'd heard some of them getting their cows out of the corn in the morning, and it wasn't too peaceful.

Members of the church at that time were Campbell's, Lawrences, Rowes, Pease, Adams, Ben-edicts, Walter Graves, Lindsley, and Smithers.

Those people have been gone many years. There's very few of them around, outside of the Lawrences, the Rowes, and the Graves.

Our tribe was the Lawrences. Fifty percent of the people at York now are related to us. My mother was a Lawrence. I had two grandfathers in the Civil War. One of them got wounded and died soon after he came to Clirk County.

The second crop of those families went in (York Center Church) about the time we joined. Alice and I joined the church in 1917. We were members almost continuously, except when we were at Loyal and Mosinee for about seven years. I guess we're the only old members that are still active in the church. Mabel Turner (Schoenfelt), Freda (Frischman), George Mortimer, all joined at the same time, but they quit for some reason, and some are dead now. There was about ten or twelve of us. We've (Alice and Rollie) been members for sixty-two years. Nyle is the oldest continuous member.

Below is a picture of Alice and Rollie Benedict on their 65th anniversary, January 15, 1978.