Diversion III – Dickeyville Grotto

Our North Woods destinations usually take us due north into the Driftless Region, crossing the Mississippi River at the old city of Dubuque, Iowa (founded 1765) and through nearby Dickeyville, Wisconsin. Here stand a Grotto and Shrines conceived and constructed nearly a century ago by a tireless parish priest.

"[O]n Holy Ghost Parish grounds are the works of Father Matthias Wernerus, a Catholic Priest, Pastor of the Parish from 1918 to 1931. His handiwork in stone, built from 1925-1930, is dedicated to the unity of two great American ideals — love of God and love of Country. These religious and patriotic shrines were constructed without the use of blueprints."

Alan and Donna consult with the docent and prepare to enter the central maw.

A staggering quantity of colored stone was donated to the work from quarries in the Dakotas, from Iowa, and nearby in Wisconsin. The stones and shells and glass and all else are attached expertly and almost invisibly with very little obvious weathering or aging. The docent told us that when pieces come loose or fall away, they are very quickly reattached.

It is a relaxing and contemplative place.

The constructions include huge pieces of petrified wood, such as this incredible specimen.

The fencing and railing were especially impressive from an engineering standpoint – very stiff concrete constructions for being so slender, and with so little spalling at the many sharp edges. That priest had a good sense of strength and proportion.

Some House and Farm History

We're fortunate to have a neighbor across the road who grew up on the property that we now manage. Ron is descended from the family that established this farm in c.1868, and he and his brother were still on the place a hundred years later. He is a great storyteller and source of information about the farm and all the little quirks we identify as we get to know it better. When he and his siblings were growing up, the farm had a small dairy herd and a hog confinement shed, and they grew apples and tomatoes and strawberries among other crops.

Ron and his sister were generous enough to find us these old photos of the place, dating from when their parents took over here. As you can see, the house was pretty dilapidated, but has been beautifully restored and enlarged and updated.

Then.

Later.

Now.

Here are some additional treasures, showing the farm in the 1970s. So many changes even since then. What is now the pond was pasture. Between the shop and the corn crib was a hog confinement shed. Much of the woods had not grown up and was still used to run cattle.

Wildcat Den Heritage Day

Saturday morning we drove a few miles east of Muscatine along the river road to Wildcat Den State Park where the annual Heritage Day was underway, a celebration depicting 19th century life in this area. Hundreds of folk had turned out to see many others in period costume, and demonstrations of rope-making, basket weaving, looms, and other vital crafts from the bootstrapping years first following settlement by white pioneers in 1837.

Beneath a large shade tree were performances of old time music by an evolving all-comers band of guitar, fiddle, bass violin, autoharp, harmonica, and voices. Children nearby walked on stilts and played 19th century games with hoops and sticks. Troops of Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts wandered about. One of the local 4-H (head, heart, hands, health) chapters sold homemade ice cream and pies. It was a marvelously happy and wholesome occasion.

We enjoyed talking with this blacksmith and his daughter apprentice as they fashioned needful items from simple and elegant tools: converting coal to coke; making steel from iron; and the delicate control of heat at every step of the process.

Behind the smith is the Pine Creek grist mill, the first of many hundreds that were built in the Iowa Territory and the only one to survive the passage of time.

The mill was in commercial operation until the 1920s. The Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression began restoration work in the 1930s but it was not until the 1970s that the volunteer Friends of the Mill group got the structure and machinery back into operating condition. It's an extraordinary relic.

We entered the building and were flabbergasted by the complexity of the beams, shafts, wheels, belts, gears, bins, and elevators filling the entire volume of four levels. Unable to make sense of what all was going on, we asked at an information desk for a tour and were handed over to an excellent docent as our personal guide. This gentleman was the park ranger here and since retirement has been active in the Friends of the Mill.

Benjamin Nye first built a sawmill on Pine Creek about a mile upstream of the Mississippi River, furnishing lumber for the first homes and barns as the area was settled. As agriculture took hold, he then built the grist mill to process the first crops of corn, wheat, buckwheat, and rye. The millstones were imported from France in small pieces then cemented with plaster of Paris and bound with steel straps.

This sifting machine produces two grades of flour from a rotating, screened barrel into bins.

The first power source was an overshot waterwheel installed in a race between the mill building and the dam. It was eventually supplemented by construction of a penstock that dropped water into this 20-horsepower turbine.

During low water conditions, and of course during winter when the creek was frozen, the mill couldn't operate. So later yet, the owner bought a worn-out steam packet (a small craft used for trade goods, mail, and passenger transport on the Mississippi) and installed its steam engine so the mill could operate full time.

The restoration is a work-in-progress and these power sources aren't operational at present, but an electric motor drives all the machinery. When the shafts are turning and belts whirring and elevators rattling, it nearly overwhelms the senses.

It was a different breed of human that first displaced the Blackhawk nation, carved into the wilderness, designed and built and operated this machinery, and founded modern communities. It's nothing less than hubris to imagine that today we are smarter or more clever or resourceful.

Tired Iron

I traveled with our good old Mom east of Columbus, Ohio through Franklin County, past signs to all the little places around which Dad and Uncle were born and raised – Reynoldsburg, Etna, Wagram, Pataskala. Then into Muskingum County where the land begins to lift and roll and hardwood forest closes in on the highway. Outside of New Concord live longtime family friends George and Helen. George and Dad met at Muskingum College in about 1947 and only later realized that their grandmothers were sisters.

George collects, restores, displays, and operates antique traction engines, the early versions of which were essentially railroad locomotives without the rails and which eventually became the modern farm tractor. Most of his collection is steam powered – external combustion.

From the operator's station.

Power take-off has always been an important feature of traction engines. On modern tractors, a PTO implement is connected with a steel shaft. These old engines powered belt-driven implements of all sorts from a rotating drum PTO.

The boxes behind the rear wheels hold water for the boiler and wood for the firebox. These engines typically were rated in the 10-40 horsepower range.

A belt driven sawmill. The red section houses a flywheel.

This is just a portion of the belt drive mechanism for a threshing machine that separates grain, chaff, and straw.

Another threshing machine.

 This Aultman-Taylor has an early gasoline engine – internal combustion.

An early portable gasoline powered engine.

A little later gasoline powered garden tractor, with a cultivator attachment.

The steam engines are really beautiful examples of 19th century manufacturing.

Whistle and steam vent.

Governor.

One of George's everyday tractors.

Back home, everything is growing big and fast.

Middens and Grave

I have a better appreciation for the problems of archaeologists – we've established a couple of our gardens on middens. The word literally means "dung heap" so little wonder such sites are later used as gardens. Every soil stirring operation brings more to the surface. The layers get mixed and the contents removed and replaced. We collect and sort it for...something, our Fred Smith project. As Fred said, "... for all the American people everywhere. They need something like this."

An elderly neighbor, Ron, who grew up on this place, told us there was a house fire long ago. We'll have to ask him where they disposed of the debris. That might account for the hinges and nails, maybe some of the ceramics, probably not the crowbar or bicycle chain or who know what that other stuff is. Some of it is big. Ron says they kept a small dairy herd, grew apples and strawberries, and tomatoes for the Heinz plant in town. At that time everyone grew tomatoes for Heinz but now they're trucked in from out of state.

Ron's brother Robbie died in infancy. His headstone is back behind the gardens. Baby grave. When anything mysterious happens around here, the explanation is: baby grave.

Before we met Ron, Donna had done some detective work and discovered the rest of the story. Baby Robbie wasn't buried on the farm but in a cemetery in town. When a family plot was established there, a uniform set of headstones was placed, and the baby's original stone brought back to the farm.