Bio: Frantz, George (1865 - 1953)
Contact: Dolores Mohr Kenyon
Email: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org
Surnames: Frantz, Sontag, Nelson, Neff, Elwell,
Becker, Roethe, Hetland, Goddard, Volkman, Roehrborn, Schwarze,
Georgas, Borde, Bennett, Hewett, Hunzinger, Kountz, Bachman
----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville,
Clark Co., WI.) 1953
Frantz, George (28 April 1965 - 15 May
1953)
Was
son of old George Frantz whose log cabin was burned by Indians
--
The
passing of George Frantz has cut another strand in the tie that
binds modern Neillsville to the ancient days. George died last
Friday at he age of 88. He came into the world just 12 years
after Clark County was legally organized. As a boy he played
across the country road from an old Indian Camp.
George loved to fish and hunt, and it was highly
fitting that his end should come on a fishing expedition. He
and his brother Rudolph had gone with Elmer Georgas over into the
Hixton country to fish. They had seen conservation men dump
legal trout into the stream, and were moving toward a spot where
George wanted to fish. George was telling Elmer about his advocacy
of a short season, and was telling how the game warden agreed with
him. He was sitting on the front seat at the right of Mr.
Georgas. As he was telling the story, his head fell over on Mr.
Georgas’ shoulder. He made no response to a
question. The car was stopped and Mr. Georgas examined
him. There was no sign of life.
Mr.
Georgas drove to Merrillan and found Dr. Schwarze. "Dead," was the
word. And so George Frantz returned from his last fishing
expedition.
The
end came instantly and without pain. He had not even breathed
hard. One second he was alive and talking and the next instant his
voice was stilled and he was gone.
Final rites were held Tuesday at the Georgas
Funeral Home.
Pallbearers were George Frantz, Elmer Frantz,
Harry Frantz, Robert Frantz, Ben Frantz and Lawrence Becker.
Flower girls were Sandra and Janice Frantz.
Persons attending the services from out of town
were: Mr. and Mrs. George Frantz and Mrs. E. J. Roethe, Fennimore;
Mrs. Victor A. Hetland, Jefferson; Mr. and Mrs. Sam Goddard, Mr.
and Mrs. L. T. Becker, Fort Atkinson; Mrs. Paul Volkman, Western
springs, Ill.; and Mr. and Mrs. Harry Roehrborn, West Bend.
George was born in the old log cabin which had
been built by his father, George Frantz, as a home for his bride,
Barbara Sontag. Before marrying her in Jefferson
County, the elder George had made his start in Clark County.
Coming here as a bachelor in 1848, he had made a little stake by
making shingles by hand, and had built a log cabin on the land
which became known as the Frantz farm in Section 23, Pine Valley, a
place owned in recent years by the Borde family.
After the wedding George started north with his
bride in a covered wagon. As he approached his forest home he
learned that his cabin had been burned down by the Indians.
So the couple went to a lumber camp, he to cut timber and she to
cook. They thus retrieved their slender fortunes, until
finally they were able to go to his 100 acres and to put up the
second log cabin. There the children came, nine of
them. In these last years Neillsville has intimately known
three of them, the brothers Rudolph, 84, George, 88, and Conrad,
96. The death of George cuts into a record of
longevity.
The
story of these brothers was in 1950 written with much appreciation
by Keith Bennett, local writer then on the staff of The Clark
County Press. From that article excerpts are printed below as
fitting biography of a modest man who had humbly built himself into
the Neillsville community.
"George began his working years as a roustabout,
a logging man. Like Conrad and Rudy, he did farming with
steam engines. He ran the engine for the old
Neillsville drying plant, a forerunner of modern-day
dehydration. He did carpenter work on about 15 houses in the
city; worked in the canning factory for a time.
"He
lives in a pleasant little house on Court Street, with is wife
Mary, fishes with his brothers, and plays cards with them.
Last hunting season he brought down a fine little buck when he and
Rudy hunted together.
Hundreds of Indians
"George began discussing the Indian movements
along the course, of the Black River. Occasionally hundreds
of them seemed to be passing the Frantz farm, he said, and often
they’d come inside to examine the home and its
contents.
"George recalls suffering from a skin ailment one
year. An elderly Indian lady announced that she could cure
the trouble and George agreed. She gathered some cranberries,
mashed them, and bound the paste around George’s arm in an
old pillow case, and lo, he recovered.
"The settlers themselves found a considerable
amount of their medicines growing wild in the woods. Each
fall they collected wild herbs, boneset, catnip, lobelia,
bloodroot, peppermint, and wild mustard. And each spring, the
kids got their does of sulphur and molasses.
"Those were the years, in George’s boyhood,
when Father Frantz would often build a fire by firing cotton
batting from his shotgun, and use the blazing wad for a
match. And they’d sometimes load that faithful
blunderbuss with gravel and shoot ducks on the farm
pond.
First Circus
"When George was 10, he went to his first circus
at Neillsville. It wasn’t big, but it was a circus,
with bareback riders, fine horses, and acrobats. There was even a
menagerie, consisting of one tired and somewhat mangy
buffalo.
"The traveling packmen were another trademark of
those times. They came through the spring, the summer and
into the fall, dispensing needles and ribbons and cloth and other
oddments for the ladies.
Logging Horses
"James Hewett was building big bateaux in the
logging times, capable of handling 14 or 16 loggers as they went up
and down the river on their various jobs. And in the spring
the good townsmen of Neillsville would gather along
Neillsville’s main street to watch the logging horses being
brought back from their winter’s work in the camps to the
north. There’d be 10 or 12 of the powerful draft
animals going south perhaps as far as Sheboygan to fatten up and
get into trim for another northern winter.
"George remembers that he served in the A Company
here for 25 years. When the Spanish-American war broke out he
boarded the train for Milwaukee with the rest of the Neillsville
servicemen, looking forward to seeing the tropics and Cuba.
He made it as far as Milwaukee. Sgt. Frantz was drilling his squad
one day at that city when the news came that he was being sent
home. They weren’t taking married men, and George
didn’t see Cuba.
A
Wild Night
"He
remembers when they came back, the company crammed into the
Merrillan-Neillsville train and spilling out the windows. It
was a wild night in Neillsville. They wanted the boys to
march up to the armory, but no soap. The Neillsville Company
was home and it was through with the army. The servicemen
went to the Armory as a small khaki-clad trickle in a flood of
well-wishers. They stacked the rifles there for the last time,
turned in their equipment, and went home.
"Getting back to his logging experience, George
recalled the big Hatfield jam. There were four million board
feet of lumber caught in the narrows where the Hatfield dam now
stands. Dynamite and peavey poles wouldn’t break the
locked timbers, though George and a host of "jacks" fought to clear
the towering jam.
"The old Dells Dam, now gone, and the Hemlock Dam
were opened and the flood lifted the mass, ripped through it, and
carried the tons of timber clear and southward toward the
Mississippi.
"George had more tales of merrymaking in the old
days; the masquerades at the Armory. George went as Uncle Sam
several times, and again as a lumberjack, but never took a prize in
the packed hall that was shaking with the tread of perspiring
schottischers, waltzers and square dancers.
"At
least one enterprising Neillsville citizen came a cropper in one of
these joyous occasions when he attended attired as a good knight in
full armor. The good man was resplendent in bright armor
fashioned of stove pipe, sheet iron, and other metallic
paraphernalia. He arrived at the "Opera House" in good form
and began clanking up the steps. It was here he met his
bi-metal waterloo. The joints in his stove piped legs refused
to operate and down he went, clattering like an exploding boiler
factory.
"He
eventually got through the door, but he was traveling horizontally,
motivated by sympathetic bystanders.
The
Cyclist
"And there was the cyclist. It was either
Frank Hewett or Fred Hunzinger who possessed a wondrous cycle which
had a gigantic front wheel and a small wheel in the back. It
was his custom, whichever of the two it was, to mount his bike atop
Hewett’s hill and then race at suicidal speed down into the
city while strong men paled and ladies screamed to see this
exhibition of rocket-like velocity. Somehow he always arrived
safely at the bottom, but his trips were considered a local
event.
"Recalling the cycle reminded George of the early
autos in the city: Dick Kountz’ "two-lunge" steam car, and
Dr. Bachman’s high-wheeled gas buggy. Their cheerful,
if not powerful, chucking noises could be heard for considerable
distance as they grunted up and down the roads of the
city.
"George purchased his first in 1915, a model of
1912 Ford. Mary said he could buy the car if he could also
swing the purchase of a house, and George managed both.
"And there was the old fire horse, George
remembered. The horse was normally the motive power for the
city dray; it hauled freight from the depot, etc. But let the
fire bell ring and the animal saw her duty and she did it.
Dray and all, she’d go tearing off for the firehouse to be
hitched to the city fire pump. The firehouse was known as
"Firemen’s Hill" then, and was on the present site of the
Armory.
"George refers to Mary as his ‘Right
Hand’ and says his wife is a great fisherwoman.
She’s been beating him hollow for years now, he
added"
Born April 28, 1865, George was a lifelong
resident of Clark County with the exception of two years spent in
the state of Washington. There he worked in logging camps and
saw mills. His last logging winter was
1906-1907.
He
received his education in the rural schools of the county and
worked in logging camps and drove logs down the river in the early
days.
After his marriage to Lottie Nelson of
Neillsville they moved to Washington. One daughter, Elsie,
was born to them. His second marriage to Mary Neff of
Neillsville took place April 11, 1907. One son, who died in
infancy, was born to them. They farmed in Pine Valley for
seven and one-half years until 1914, when they sold their farm and
moved to Neillsville. Mr. Frantz was employed for several
years in the canning factory and at the city park. He retired
about 20 years ago and had enjoyed excellent health, not knowing
sickness. He was a great outdoor enthusiast and enjoyed
hunting and fishing.
He
was a member of Company ‘A’ for many years prior to
1898.
Surviving relatives include his wife Mary, and
one daughter, Elsie, Mrs. Earl Elwell, Evans, Wash., and two
brothers, Conrad and Rudolph, both of
Neillsville.
Three brothers, Dave, Henry, and Fritz, and three sisters, Julia, Sophia and Minnie, preceded him in death.
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