Memories of Getting Electrified

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 Ralph Zagrzebski

Ralph talks about electricity coming to the family farm in the Town of Stockton in Portgage County about 1946, when he was very young. Before that his father had a Delco generator run by a windmill that powered electric lights in the barn and house.

 

 Edith Van Vuren Merriam

Edith remembers her father trying to persuade the neighboring farmers in the Town of Plover to sign up to get electricity in the 1940s. He had experienced the benefits of electricity when he lived in Indiana in the 1930s.

 

 Karl Block

Karl remembers family stories about his grandfather and father's farm in the Town of Easton getting electricity in 1928 because they were close to a power line. His grandfather built the farm house in 1918 and put in electrical wiring and plumbing, ten years before they could be used.

 

 Frances Worzalla Woytosik

Frances talks about the Wisconsin Valley Electric Company electrifying the family farm near Hatley in the late 1920s when she was a child.

 

 Brian Bushnell

Brian talks about when the family farm first received electricity in the early 1940s. They were located sough of Owen in Clark County. Earlier his father had tried getting electricity through a wind generator, which was not successful.

 

 LaVila Krueger Luedtke

LaVila was married and had left her family's farm in the Town of Maine before her parents got electricity in the mid-1940s. When she was a child her father hooked up a wind charger on the roof, which provided enough electricity to run a battery radio and Christmas lights.

 

 Bernice Ritchie

Bernice recalls getting electricity on the farm in the Town of Stettin when she was 12, in the mid-1930s, and the wonders of having light in every room.

 

 Lois Nass Jorgensen

Lois remembers coming home from school in 1926 and seeing the lights on in the house and barn. Her family's farm in the Town of Maine had been hooked up to electricity that day. The family didn't have indoor plumbing until 1944.