Page 82

82                 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
   LATE PURCHASE BY RAITWAY, LIGHT & POWER
                       COMPANY
   A few weeks ago the Chippewa Valley Railway, Light &
Power Company decided to buy from the Chippewa Lumber
& Boom Company the water power at Chippewa Falls and the
dam sites up the river and on several tributaries of the river,
the purchase including the office building at Chippewa Falls
and some lots they owned on both sides of the river, and the
lands that have been secured at the different dam sites, as well
as some land on the east side of the river that is not platted.
The lands that go with these different dam sites and what we
got at Chippewa Falls amount to something over five thousand
acres. The purchase includes all of the flowage rights for
these dam sites, and in all amounted to $315,400.00. This mat-
ter had been under consideration for some time. The improve-
ments necessary to make the property available will require a
good deal of thought and attention, so you will see from what
I have already written that it is not easy with the interests I
have in all of the different concerns I have been writing about
for me to unload very much of the work that devolves upon
me, and will, I suppose, while I live.
             ASSISTED BY YOUR MOTHER
   In all of the different things I have mentioned in this auto-
biography your mother was always a great assistance, and I
feel that I am indebted to her for the success I have made, if
mine may be called a successful life. We always talked mat-
ters over together. For the past few years she advised me not
to take on more work, feeling that I ought to devote more of
my time to matters of greater importance to me personally
than all of these enterprises, and get them in shape as soon as
possible for others to manage. No other realizes as I do the
great help she always was to me. She passed away, as you