News: Nevins (5 Aug. 1943)

Contact: Crystal Wendt
Email:  crystal@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Kapusta, Rosandich

----Sources: The Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark County, Wis.) 5 Aug. 1943

Nevins - Helen Seman

Frank Kapusta was home on a few days furlough and returned to the Great Lakes Training Station Sunday.

Corp. Steve Rosandich Jr. came home Monday on a ten-day furlough to visit his folks, Mr. and Mrs. Steve Rosandich. The visit was a complete surprise.

Mrs. Steve Rosandich is getting along as well as can be expected with her right arm which she broke when she tripped and fell over the wagon pole on the barn floor as she was gathering eggs.

Here is an addition all my own. I am going to tell it in my own style as you will add and subtract as you see fit anyway. My mother was telling me yesterday that she noticed that something was eating our none too plentiful raspberries. She is an elderly lady and her eyesight is not as sharp as mine, but very good for her age. She said, as she put it, "Something fell as she was picking berries. Sunday she saw it again and caught it. She said it was a bird but couldn’t fly very well. It bit her with its bill and had such sharp claws! I being the kind that has to see before I believe, hide myself out to the berry patch to investigate. Sure enough there sat a bird as if transfixed, perched on a raspberry bush as if carved of wood. Near by was a raspberry half gone. It blended in peculiarly with its surroundings as much of the wild life does. As I came closer, so close I could have easily picked up, its head move slightly ever so slowly until it seemed to be looking into my face and them flew in a query way to the ground under the currant bush and was gone. Everything was quiet. I proceeded to pick a few more berries but curiosity got the best of me. I wondered what became of the bird. I brushed around the ground with my hand. There sat the bird on the ground. As I reached with my hand toward it, its bill opened and I had notion to poky my finger into the cavity but decided I’d better pick on someone my own size.

The bird was the exact replica of some Cedar Jays, only smaller in size, all feathered out, that I had seen earlier in the spring tugging and pulling with all their might on some string fastened on the clothes line and for which I tore rags to narrow strips and cut string and hung on the line for which they always came. They were strangely tame and yet quick on the wing to get out of reach. They built a nest on a low limb of lilac that we went by often during the day. A cat found them and they moved out before they laid their eggs. I saw nothing of them after that until a few weeks ago I saw one on our elm tree and now this one.