Mar 25th, 2011
by Craig Wenzel.
Robert S. Vessey - Wessington Springs - 7th Gov. SD 1910-1913
Robert Scadden Vessey Wessington Springs, South Dakota Seventh Governor of South Dakota 1910-1913
By Alan Budahl Reproduced from “The Making of a Community – A history of Jerauld County 10 1980”
Robert Scadden Vessey was born on May 16, 1858 on a farm near Oshkosh, Wisconsin. His parents immigrated to the United States from England in 1850. His father, Charles, who was a Methodist minister-farmer and his mother, Elizabeth Jane, had a family of 15 children. Vessey attended common schools of Winnebago County until he reached the age of thirteen. He then attended Oshkosh Commercial College for a brief period. At the age of 16, he went to the north woods of Wisconsin to be a lumberjack. Five years later, he spent a year working and roaming through Texas, Kansas and other southern states.
Mar 5th, 2011
by Craig Wenzel.
Enjoy this news from the Wessington Springs, SD Independent from June-1933 TD Independent 1933
Jan 5th, 2011
by Craig Wenzel.
- SCHAEFER SCHOOL ABOUT 1946 – left row: ? Mettler, Marilyn Buehler; middle row: ? Mettler, Joyce Thum, Betty Conklin; right row: Gary Thum, ?, Peggy Schaefer
BY CRAIG WENZEL
Many South Dakota school kids hiked back and forth to school during the days of the one-room country school house.
Our parents –and grandparents– talked about walking through a blizzard, uphill BOTH WAYS, to get to learn the “Three R’s”.
Great Depression kids –wearing tattered clothes and riding Ol’ Bobbin’ to school– brought lunches of homemade bread and dried fruit. Often the bread was without butter, sometimes spread with rendered lard in order to get it down. Life wasn’t easy at the one-room schoolhouse. Kids did chores before leaving home and were expected to run errands for the teacher… sometimes going for another bucket of coal for the stove that stood in the classroom. Lucky ones got to bake a potato near the old stove, serving up a hot lunch on a cold day.
I went to “town school”, so don’t have anything but second hand stories about the one-room days in the country. Most of the stories, especially the ones from now-gone parents, spoke of hardship, cold weather and a solid education.
We would enjoy reading your one-room school stories in the “comments” box of this article. — Craig Wenzel – True Dakotan Editor
Dec 17th, 2010
by Craig Wenzel.
Tim Dean found them in an old storage building that his Dad bought in the 1970s
BY CRAIG WENZEL – TRUE DAKOTAN EDITOR
A bound volume of copies of the Dakota Sieve newspaper for the years 1892-1893 was recently given to the Jerauld County Heritage Center by Tim Dean.
Tim’s father, the late Dr. R.E. Dean, had purchased the old Wessington Springs train depot in the 1970s and placed it on a site near Tim Dean’s home in the Wessington Hills overlooking Wessington Springs. “I was looking around in the depot and found the newspapers in there,” Dean said. “There is very little local news in them,” he continued, “but the advertisers go back into the 1800s so it is still quite interesting.”
Jul 14th, 2010
by Craig Wenzel.
A page from the 1910 Jerauld County history book - available on line FREE
This history book is quite sought after… since it was printed a century ago and includes all of the Jerauld County (SD) history up to that date. If you find them on local auction sales, they are a little “pricey”. This link is free and lets you read your heart out. We have a copy of the history book here in the True Dakotan office and we’ve often been asked about re-printing it and having it for sale. Now you don’t have to pay!! FREE DOWNLOAD (PDF) or read on line http://www.archive.org/details/historyofjerauld00dunh
