This collection consists of three components: 6 tape recordings of an oral history INTERVIEW, 1 folder of RELATED PAPERS, and 6 PHOTOGRAPHS. The interviews are described below in more detail.
Interviews
Mrs. Jean Long, Route 1, Boyceville, in the summer of 1974 first suggested that I [interviewer Dale Treleven] ask Norval Ellefson about tape recording his remembrances of farm life and about his participation in community affairs and farmers organizations. I first met with Ellefson at his farm home on July 17, 1974, explained the purpose of the newly-created Wisconsin Agriculturalists oral history project at the Society, and outlined the general subject areas we might wish to tape. Ellefson agreed to participate and we decided to begin the interviews sometime after the first of the year, 1975. Prior to the interviews on January 16 and 17, I mailed a long letter to Ellefson, outlining the subject areas we might discuss, in order that he might prepare for the January as well as later sessions.
There were four separate interview sessions, held on the mornings of January 16 and 17 and April 10 and 11, 1975. On each occasion, we were seated in the living room of the modestly furnished, modernized, white two-story frame farmhouse, Ellefson in his favorite rocking chair; me on a nearby couch. At each of the sessions Ellefson, a tall, lean man with clear blue eyes and thin, whitening hair, was dressed in either flannel or chambrey shirt and bib-type overalls. He responded to my questions with much deliberation, and with an amazing recall of detail about events that took place on the farm and in the community. Occasionally, Mrs. Ellefson sat down in a nearby chair to knit and listen to the goings-on.
The subject matter of the interviews divides itself logically into several major categories or themes. These include: (1) Change on the farm and in Ellefson's rural community for more than six decades; (2) Events and problems during the 1930's depression; (3) Decisions and actions by the Dunn County board of supervisors; (4) Growth of and directions taken by the Farmers Union Central Exchange, Inc. (CENEX).
The researcher will welcome Ellefson's ability to recall and relate changes in crops planted, animals kept, farm technology, crop harvesting and storage, and milk marketing patterns, for well over fifty years. He recalls clearly the farmers' struggles during the drought-ridden 1930's, when prices fell so drastically that he and his neighbors were threatened by possible foreclosure actions. Ellefson details how he became involved in township and Dunn County politics, how he came to join the Farmers Educational and Cooperative Equity Union of America, Wisconsin Division (Farmers Union), and the manner in which he became increasingly involved with the Farmers Union Central Exchange, Inc., first at the local (Ridgeland) cooperative and later at the regional level. Ellefson's very modest demeanor explains much about why he has been little recognized in southern Wisconsin as the powerful community leader and agricultural spokesman that he became.
Abstract to the Interviews
The interview abstract below lists, in order of discussion, the distinct topics covered on each tape, and indicates the time-marking on the user tape at which point the beginning of the particular discussion appears. These time-markings are keyed to a time announcement, heard at five-second intervals, on the second track of each tape.
Thus, the researcher may listen to distinct topics without listening to all of the material on the tapes. For instance, the user who wishes to listen to the topic on “First Tractor on Ellefson Farm” should locate the place on the second track of tape one, side one, where the voice announces the 11:30 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “eleven minutes, thirty seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “First Tractor on Ellefson Farm” continues until approximately 12:20 at which point discussion of the next topic (“Ellefsons Build Sandstone Silo, 1911”) listed in the abstract begins.
Notice that in most cases sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the sentences underneath “First Tractor on Ellefson Farm” give further details on what appears on the tape between 11:30 and 12:20.
The abstract is designed to provide only a brief outline of the content of the tapes and cannot serve as a substitute for listening to them. However the abstract will help the researcher easily locate distinct topics and discussions among the many minutes of commentary.
