A century of memories
Posted 5/18/01

By Arthur Thilquist
I miss Jim Pearson, who wrote about Milacaís early days. Iíd planned to show him my antiques this spring, but he passed away this last winter, leaving the newspaper without a columnist, and my antiques, unexplained. While I certainly canít ever replace Jim, Iíd like to share some of my old stories of Milaca, in his honor.
Today marks a milestone. 100 years ago, May 17, 1901, to be exact, my grandfather Andrew and my grandmother Johanna arrived here by train from Rockford, Ill. They brought their five children, ranging in ages from 12 years to 18 months, and all of their worldly possessions. Gust Lundberg, a friend of the family, met them at the Milaca depot with a wagon pulled by a team of oxen. This took them the six-and-a-half miles northwest of Milaca, a trek which began on road, but quickly became simply trails, finding the lines of least resistance, keeping out of the swampy land, keeping to higher ground. They cut across the old Warolin farm, now north of the Abdon Peterson farm, over toward the Nels Swedin and John Rosin farm (now Oscar Andersonís), up past the Chase Brook School, first begun in 1898. Then they went northwest to the Larson farm and the Lewis Johnson farm, now the Leona Lee farm, and then east to a forty acre farm belonging to Grandmother Thilquistís brother, J. August Berglund. At the farm, they found a house and a log barn. They lived there for six years until they built another house in 1907, across the road on their own eighty acres.
When checking the records of the Berglund forty acres at the Mille Lacs County Courthouse, I read that in 1882 it belonged to Rebecca Deau, a widow. Weston Hammons and Andrew Todd bought it from her that year and the Mille Lacs Lumber Company owned it in 1900. August Berglund bought it from them in October 1900. Rebecca Deau and her husband must have built the house and barn back in 1882. Mr. Deau might have been a lumberjack cutting the pine forests. The logs were hauled by sled to the Rum River, where they were floated downstream to the Milaca Mill.
The land had been a pine forest until the lumber barons came along. What was left were the stumps and the rock. For this they charged $50 an acre. Of his eighty acres, my grandfather cleared and broke about thirty-five acres into fields.
To supplement their farming, they kept cattle. By 1912, they wanted to improve their herd, so several farmers bought some registered Holsteins. These farmers were the Nesvants who lived one mile south, the Hans Lees who lived a half-mile south and one-and-a-half miles west, and Otto Odeluis, who lived one-and-a-half miles northwest of the Thilquists.
Grandfather was a strong believer in the cooperative movement. He was a charter member of Farmers Co-op Creamery and assisted in the organization of the Milaca Livestock and Produce Company. He served as its manager from 1913 to 1916. For many years he was active in civic and community affairs, serving on the town board and school board. One of his many projects was a small cemetery, just down the road from the school.
Such small regional cemeteries were located throughout the countryside because of the poor roads that challenged transportation. Grandfather co-founded the Chase Brook Cemetery with another man, Mr. Nelson, in 1904. Itís still located south of the Chase Brook School on County Road 18.
People didnít run to town for milk in those days, either. As all the rest of the small farms then, Grandfather had a few cows. Without a creamery, they churned the milk into butter. They took their eggs and butter to town to trade for staples. To round out their diets, they kept large gardens, and raised chickens, pigs, and cattle for meat. They used an old cast-iron kettle for rendering lard; this kettle now sits by my back door, and was one of the antiques Iíd intended to show Jim. I have more of these antiques hanging in the barn. These symbols of the past now also remind me to "make hay while the sun shines," so to speak, and to share my stories as so many people have urged. I think my grandfather and Jim would approve.