1980 April 1

INTRODUCTION.

GOOD ELECTION TURN-OUT ON DAY OF INTERVIEW
Scope and Content Note: People already waiting at Sun Prairie town hall when Isabel Baumann drove husband August, town clerk, to polls. Heavy traffic past Baumann house on Town Hall Road also good indicator of strong turn-out.

COMMENT ON TELEVISION CREW PRESENT LAST TIME

BAUMANN'S EARLY BACKGROUND
Scope and Content Note: Born July 28, 1906, east of Stoughton. Parents then lived with her Norwegian great-grandparents in Town of Rutland. Can't remember farm herself. Mother recalled that her husband and Norwegian-speaking grandfather had trouble communicating about work they did together. Isabel raised in Town of Dunkirk, came to Sun Prairie area to teach school in 1925, moved to Sun Prairie area in 1928.

FAMILY CONSIDERS ITSELF NORWEGIAN
Scope and Content Note: Mother's grandparents and parents came from Norway; father's parents from Lincolnshire, England. Grew up in Hanerville, a predominantly Norwegian community.

CLARNSON GRANDPARENTS MIGRATE FROM NORWAY AROUND
Scope and Content Note: Name originally Clauson, but mother and her sisters changed it. All remained in Stoughton area.

ALMOND GRANDPARENTS MIGRATE FROM ENGLAND AROUND
Scope and Content Note: Baumann, named after grandmother Belle Anderson, the oldest child, followed by two brothers, then a sister and a younger brother.

GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH ON MOTHER'S FAMILY
Scope and Content Note: Learned that grandmother Almond had daughter from earlier marriage who became an actress. Grandmother had worked in a circus at Chicago; at time of Chicago fire, saved her black stallion by riding him into Lake Michigan. Later worked for Janesville family, the Tallmans, who gave her cemetery lot where maternal parents and grandparents are buried. Genealogy interesting but time-consuming work.

OLDER BROTHERS AND SISTER STILL LIVING
Scope and Content Note: Younger brother and his daughter killed in 1968 train accident.

RAISED A LUTHERAN
Scope and Content Note: Baptized and confirmed a Lutheran. First Catholic acquaintance was fellow boarder during high school. Became Catholic herself when she married Dan McCarthy in 1928. Irish Catholic settlement between Rutland and Dunkirk then insignificant in dominant Norwegian settlement.

ALMOND FARM AT HANERVILLE CROSSROADS
Scope and Content Note: Schoolhouse across the corner; Almond house former Hanerville post office. Landmark oak on corner a popular gathering place for young people.

MISSES FIRST SEVERAL WEEKS OF HIGH SCHOOL TO HARVEST TOBACCO
Scope and Content Note: Tobacco harvest a farm family ritual; delay resulted in postponement of catechism and confirmation for a year.

TOBACCO FARMING A FAMILY CHORE
Scope and Content Note: Planted ten to seventeen acres annually. Setting plants dusty, dirty work, which Baumann did from age eight or nine until age twenty-one. Hired help too expensive to consider seriously.

TOBACCO A “13-MONTH JOB”
Scope and Content Note: Stripped tobacco leaves on winter evenings. Sprouted seed for next crop before current crop sold. Prices then 8 to 10 cents per pound, compared to $1.15 range today.

EIGHTY IMPROVED ACRES ON ALMOND FARM
Scope and Content Note: Later rented additional 40 acres. Raised tobacco, oats, corn, hay; also cattle and hogs. Tobacco only cash crop in Stoughton area; barley, peas and sweet corn cash-cropped in Sun Prairie area.

STOUGHTON TOBACCO WAREHOUSES PROVIDE EMPLOYMENT
Scope and Content Note: Women employed all winter sorting tobacco.

PARENTS REMAIN ON HANERVILLE FARM UNTIL

ENTIRE FAMILY WORKS ON FARM
Scope and Content Note: Bought Rock County farm in 1930. Boys helped with livestock, plowed and disked. Baumann hated daily job of washing cream separator; cream delivered to nearby creamery. Families without sons expected daughters to carry boys' workload. Hired help unusual.

BEGINS HIGH SCHOOL IN
Scope and Content Note: Sarah Leslie, home economics teacher in local rural schools, stressed need for high school education. Baumann's mother wanted children all to go on to high school, but brothers refused to go. Isabel went to high school and one-year teachers' training course in 1924 at Stoughton High School; sister Mavis went to Whitewater after high school.

TEACHERS' TRAINING CLASS LAST AT STOUGHTON
Scope and Content Note: Seventeen of eighteen still alive and meet annually. Baumann credits health and longevity to strong Norwegian background of most classmates.

END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1

INTRODUCTION

CLASSMATES' LIFE PATTERNS SIMILAR
Scope and Content Note: Sixteen of eighteen taught school; eight or nine until retirement age. All married men with rural backgrounds; most stayed in Dane/Walworth County areas.

LIVING ARRANGEMENTS DURING HIGH SCHOOL YEARS
Scope and Content Note: At first, boarded in Stoughton during school week; drove horse and buggy daily from Hanerville for much of sophomore, junior and senior years. Boarded in town during teachers' training course; housing expense difficult for family.

MANY RURAL STUDENTS ATTEND STOUGHTON HIGH SCHOOL
Scope and Content Note: Few problems among rural and city students, although one city friend once refused to arrive at school in horse and buggy. Baumann's Hanerville classmates, acquaintances from church, and aunt two years older than herself eased her transition.

TEACHING EASIEST PROFESSION FOR WOMAN TO ENTER
Scope and Content Note: Took preparatory curriculum all through high school. Hanerville class- mate took office skills courses and entered state civil service. Speculates there would have been little office work available in Stoughton; nursing would have been her other occupational choice.

STOUGHTON CLASSMATES TEACH IN EASTERN DANE COUNTY
Scope and Content Note: Esther Krakow, Sun Prairie supervising teacher, encouraged class to seek jobs in that part of the county. Three hired just in town of Sun Prairie; Baumann at Oak Lawn school. Enjoyed teaching.

FARMHOUSE DURING CHILDHOOD
Scope and Content Note: No water or bathroom. Huge living room with high ceiling; long narrow kitchen-dining room; summer kitchen addition across back. Downstairs bedroom former post office. Four bedrooms upstairs. Long front porch and many-windowed room in which mother raised flowers. Baumann remembers constant window-washing chores.

FARMHOUSE NOW REMODELLED
Scope and Content Note: Former Hanerville teacher moved in and made improvements; rear addition removed.

HEATING HOUSE DURING BAUMANN'S CHILDHOOD
Scope and Content Note: Hard coal stove in living room; pipe carried very little heat upstairs. Wood-burning kitchen range.

NO ELECTRICITY ON FARM DURING BAUMANN'S CHILDHOOD
Scope and Content Note: Used kerosene and later, Aladdin lamps. Fragile mantles but good light. Cleaning lamps a miserable job. Wires not installed until 1935.

NO HOME ELECTRICITY IN COMMUNITY
Scope and Content Note: Recalls no one had Delco units in community, not even progressive, well-to-do neighbors, the Augustines. Augustine children inseparable playmates of younger Almond children. Augustine farm, as well as Olson and Hansen farms, still owned by family members.

NO RUNNING WATER ON FARM
Scope and Content Note: Water for house pumped from well or carried from cistern. Water tank in barn heated to prevent freezing during winter; windmill provided adequate power.

WATER. INSTALLED ON TOWN OF SUN PRAIRIE FARM IN
Scope and Content Note: Windmill there operated until 1936; electricity installed in 1932. Dan and Russell McCarthy planned water system with barn addition and silo project. Surprised Isabel by asking where she'd like to put the bathroom. McCarthy's father doubted wild plans of sons.

HANERVILLE FARM TYPICAL FOR AREA
Scope and Content Note: General farming probably still prevalent, although less livestock and more cash crops raised than in earlier period. Comments how business-like attitude has led to unwillingness of today's farmers to be tied to daily livestock chores.

BAUMANN'S PARENTS TIED TO FARM RESPONSIBILITIES
Scope and Content Note: Took two long-distance trips from Hanerville, one to 1933 Chicago World's Fair and another time to visit son before his army air unit shipped out in 1942.

FAMILY VISITS COMPRISE MOST OF PARENTS' RECREATION
Scope and Content Note: Immediate family all nearby in Stoughton and Dunkirk. Neighborhood school activities and picnics provided main entertainment.

MOTHER ENCOURAGES READING AT HOME
Scope and Content Note: Attended school lyceums and Stoughton Chatauqua activities. Regretted her own lack of education; read novels, history and many magazines.

MOTHER NOT INVOLVED IN WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS
Scope and Content Note: Travelled by horse and buggy. Shopping in Stoughton her only regular weekly travel.

SARAH LESLIE INVITES WOMEN TO SCHOOL HOME ECONOMICS PROGRAMS
Scope and Content Note: Forerunner of extension home economists.

END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2

INTRODUCTION

PARENTS RENT LARGER FARM FOR TWO YEARS
Scope and Content Note: Isabel and Wilfred walked one and a half miles to Hanerville school while living on McCarthy farm. After two years, returned to crossroads farm, rented from someone named Nicholls.

FARM PRODUCTS SOLD NEARBY
Scope and Content Note: Creamery in same location east of Hanerville for years. Stockyards and tobacco companies in Stoughton and Edgerton. Tobacco buyers came out to farms to check crop.

GRAVEL-SURFACED TOWN ROAD BETWEEN HANERVILLE AND STOUGHTON
Scope and Content Note: Other local roads also in good condition.

TELEPHONE INSTALLED AROUND

FATHER BUYS FORD AUTOMOBILE IN EARLY
Scope and Content Note: Two-seater with side curtains.

BAUMANN BUYS ROADSTER WHILE TEACHING IN

MEDICAL CARE IN STOUGHTON
Scope and Content Note: Few family emergencies or hospitalizations until father developed sclerosis in 1949.

STABLE, CONGENIAL NEIGHBORHOOD
Scope and Content Note: Remembers many happy childhood experiences. Few antagonisms among neighbors. Many families still there. A few new homes today alter community's rural character. Augustine, Olson, Fosdahl, Hansen, Hall farms all within half a mile.

CHILDREN'S ACTIVITIES IN NEIGHBORHOOD
Scope and Content Note: Spent lots of time on “fantastic” swing at Halls. Gathered wildflowers along railroad track every spring. “I guess I was a tomboy most of my life.”

SHOPPING IN STOUGHTON AND ALBION
Scope and Content Note: Shopping day and washday in Albion, Seventh Day Adventist community, was Sunday. Baumann's father did not work on Sunday; instead, sometimes shopped in Albion, sometimes made horse-and-buggy trip to church in Stoughton.

AUTOMOBILE PURCHASE CREATES GREAT EXCITEMENT
Scope and Content Note: Brief driving instruction when dealer delivered car contrasts with lessons today. Wealthier Augustines and Olsons already owned cars. Almonds “very, very average” economically.

“MOTHER WAS THE FARMER.”
Scope and Content Note: Mother wanted to own farm; father wanted to be carpenter. Purchased 200-acre farm in Newark (Rock County) in 1930; able to pay off mortgage for about $20,000 shortly afterwards when former owner died. Baumann's older brothers bought farm from parents for $40,000 in 1960 and sold it for $240,000 in 1979.

BAUMANN'S DEEP ATTACHMENT TO OWN FARM
Scope and Content Note: Farming rented land hard for her to imagine; selling farm means “you may end up with nothing.” Brothers old for their ages and physically could no longer farm; could have asked higher price but seemed pointless.

BROTHERS' OLD FARM TO BE CROPPED ENTIRELY WITH SOYBEANS AND CORN
Scope and Content Note: Distant owner now renting it. One hundred eighty acres to be planted in soybeans and corn.

BEGINNING TEACHERS' SALARY $125/MONTH
Scope and Content Note: “That was big wages in 1925.” Sun Prairie area predominantly German and Austrian Catholic. School, two miles from Sun Prairie, is now farm home.

END OF TAPE 2, SIDE 1

INTRODUCTION

TEACHES GRADES ONE THROUGH EIGHT
Scope and Content Note: Teacher responsible for everything, including janitoring. About 33 students in class; first-graders from first class all still living in community.

DESIRABLE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT IN RURAL SCHOOL
Scope and Content Note: Present consolidated schools don't offer same lesson in getting along together or broad exposure to subjects that eight-grade classroom could offer interested student. Recalls student, now a farmer, who listened to every science class regardless of grade level.

GENERAL EXERCISES BEGIN SCHOOL DAY
Scope and Content Note: Teacher arrived early to start stove. Instruction began at 9 a.m. with general exercises (pledge of allegiance; group lesson or singing). Reading with each grade followed, then recess, then arithmetic. Also taught Constitution and government, languages, spelling and history.

DETAILED PLANNING KEEPS TEACHER BUSY
Scope and Content Note: Daily plans outlining each lesson's objective and content sent weekly to county supervisor's office. Esther Krakow, Essie Christiansen, Mary Meyer all excellent supervisors.

MOTHERS' CLUBS PROVIDE EQUIPMENT FOR PREPARING HOT LUNCHES
Scope and Content Note: Children heated food from home in 18x24-inch steamer on stove top or hot plate.

STUDENTS HELP WITH SCHOOL CHORES
Scope and Content Note: Assigned chores considered part of school day; done without question. Instruction ended at 4 p.m.; teacher's day ended at 9 or 10 p.m. after preparation for next day.

UNSTABLE FAMILY LIFE CAUSES SCHOOL DISCIPLINE PROBLEMS
Scope and Content Note: Remembers difficulties with students whose family life was source of school problems. Profanity less common then, but problem of antagonism and disobedience when behind grade level, same as today.

FAMILY AND NEIGHBORHOOD STABILITY PROMOTES SCHOOL DISCIPLINE
Scope and Content Note: Students expected to work, not play, at school, and to respect teacher. School board support, student peer pressure, and parent interest helped to resolve individual problems. Teaching was a “great experience.”

YEAR-ROUND DANCES AT SUN PRAIRIE AND WATERLOO
Scope and Content Note: Summer dances at Angell Park featured big band music.

MEETS DAN McCARTHY AT SCHOOL BOX-SOCIAL
Scope and Content Note: Came to Oak Lawn school box-social to meet Isabel because neighbor said she resembled his last girlfriend. Baumann's landlord vouched for Dan's good character.

LIVE MUSIC AT DANCES
Scope and Content Note: Town dances and Stoughton summer barn dances mixed popular music like Charleston with old-time music. Big bands at Angell Park in Sun Prairie in twenties. School dances usually had only violin and guitar; played schottische, waltz, hop waltz and polka. Baumann's son now plays with group of musicians in Sun Prairie.

MADISON A FOREIGN PLACE DURING
Scope and Content Note: Travelled there for teachers' conventions and institutes. Shopped and went to movies in Sun Prairie and Waterloo. Many Sun Prairie stores now closed; believes Madison's east side shopping center [probably means East Towne shopping mall] close to Sun Prairie should have been built in Sun Prairie.

PLAN TO FOCUS ON McCARTHY FARM AT NEXT INTERVIEW SESSION

END OF INTERVIEW SESSION