Yearning to
be free, the seed was planted. Youthful exuberance and an almost
impossible dream drove young Axel Pearson from Sweden to the promised
land...America.
In 1906 Axel
was established in Nebraska, and he sent for his wife to be Bertha,
back in Sweden. Happily married, they had four children and frugally
saved for their dream home. Try as they might that dream home in
Nebraska was not to be. Farm and land prices were driven out of sight
by profiteering speculators. Axel had come a long way and did not
intend to spend the rest of his life a share-cropper.
1920:
Affordable land at last.
Axel and
some of his Nebraska neighbors took an exploration trip to northern
Wisconsin. The virgin pine forest had been cleared, but the land was
cheap. It was littered with huge stumps left behind by the lumber
barons who didn’t leave a tree for a bird to sit in. Not even the
Indians could survive there. Another reason for it being reasonably
priced was its isolation and total lack of infrastructure.
Axel saw
possibilities, bought, and began site preparation. He put up a
temporary two room shanty and sent for Bertha and their four young
children back in Nebraska.
The train
trip north: March 28, 1920.
Cold, bleak
and desolate. Axel went to Superior to meet the train from Nebraska,
that brought his wife Bertha and their four young children, their
belongings, included two work horses and even a new Ford car. Also on
the train were several of Axel’s Nebraska friends who were
emigrating to Cloverland and would be his neighbors there.
Maple train
station to Cloverland: The Ford had to stay at the Maple station, the
crude roads were to muddy. By the time the horses were attached to
the loaded wagon and ready to depart Maple darkness was near. They
were leaving the last vestiges of civilization, the train depot. This
nine mile wagon ordeal to their new home left everyone exhausted,
apprehensive, and motion sick. It was a jolting and seemingly endless
journey up and down hills and crossing creeks while hanging on for
dear life.
The end destination, their new home that awaited them
would be cold and provisional. No heat, no insulation, no
electric...until 1932, no indoor plumbing. A wood burning cook stove
that would be their only warmth required a constant fire. All hands
were needed, and rest would be a luxury.
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| Bertha and Axel, 1921 |
Bertha
cried, Nebraska had been luxury living, but she was the one that
would be the moral buster and see the family through the labor
intensive building of the farm and community.
There were roads,
bridges, and farm buildings to build, and a garden to plant. The
enormous stumps required dynamite and horse power. This plague of
stumps would haunt the farm for years to come. When Axel’s son Ed
Pearson, who was ten when the family moved to Wisconsin, had his own
farm years later, his daughter Jane, my wife, remembers in her youth
walking the fields behind the plow and picking up sticks,stones, and
tools left by the logging. The detritus of the big pine stumps
seemed to magically spawn from the red clay. This was before planting
could begin. The affordable land would be paid for in relentless toil.
Bertha saved
the day with chicken and egg production that saw the family through
the meager Hoover days of the Depression when banks and businesses
failed. Home foreclosures put over-spenders of the Roaring Twenties
out on the street.
A seed was
planted: Ed Pearson walked a mile to school and didn’t get to go to
high school...there was none. A burning yearn to learn would be his
goal in life.
It seems
like a miracle now, but those exuberant pioneers had an unstoppable
community building spirit. It would be more than thirty years before
there was a paved road to town.
1921: The
Town of Cloverland was created from part of the towns of Maple and
Brule, and Axel Pearson was elected town supervisor. In 1932 Axel was
elected to the board of Twin Ports Cooperative Creamery and soon
became president. These were just the beginnings of the Pearson
family involvement in community Building. Axel’s son Ed followed
in his father’s footsteps.
Ed Pearson’s
public-spirited career in community building plus his Northwestern
High history.
In 1931 at
the age of 21, Ed became Cloverland’s town constable and five years
later he was elected Supervisor. At age 29, in 1938 he became town
chairman. Ed became chairman of the Douglas County board of
Supervisors in 1942 and held a seat on the county board until 1947.
At the same
time Ed served as director on the Tri-Sate Fair Committee from 1938
until 1947.
1944, Ed was
made head of the State Forestry Board for Douglas County.
1960,
Governor Nelson named Ed to the Wisconsin Joint Committee on
Standards to develop a standard of care and treatment in Wisconsin's
38 county mental hospitals.
Not
mentioned in the above story are these additional community
involvements:
Board of
directors of the Douglas County Historical Society.
Member of
the South Shore Lion’s Club.
Member of
the Western Bayfield Historical Society at Iron River, Wisconsin.
Community
fund raiser for the Superior Memorial Hospital,
Chairman of
the Holstein Breeders association
Member of
the Farmer’s Union Grain Cooperative.
Organizer
with Floyd Carlson and leader of the Cloverland 4-H Club.
Active
Salvation Army contributor.
Regular
donor to the Douglas County Blood Bank.
Deacon of
the Nazareth Lutheran Church in Cloverland and Peace Lutheran Church
in Poplar.
Forty years
as trustee of the Parkland and Middle River Health facilities.
Member of
the Authorizing committee for the state nursing home standards.
Ed served on
the Douglas County Committee for schools prior to his involvement in
creating and building a new high school in Maple.
The Board of
Education elected three members, Edwin R. Pearson, William Kinnunen,
the Coop store manager, and Mr. Alberts to organize a high-school
building plan.
The Maple
Farmers Cooperative donated the land in Maple. The district was able
to bond $120,000, donations were made, and labor pledged. With
enthusiastic community efforts the school was ready to open by
September 1949 with 175 students enrolled. One important item
remained. There was no money to operate the school. Ed Pearson and
some of his school board colleagues drove directly to the office of
Wisconsin governor Oscar Rennebaum to ask for the needed funds to
open the school. Ed told the governor that he was not leaving without
the money to open the new school and was the last one out the door
that night. The governor granted the funds from the state emergency
fund and the school opened on time.
Ed was very
proud of Northwestern High School and the school fulfilled his dreams
except for one thing; he thought that the school should have a
swimming pool. He felt the money allotted for athletics should be
used to benefit all the students not just those who had the free time
to pursue team sports. At the time, many of the students lived on
farms and were needed at home and unable to participate in after
school hour activities.
Ed served on
the first school board of Common Joint District No. 1 of Maple when
Northwestern High school was built in 1949.
In 1976
after Ed sold his farm in Cloverland and moved to his new home in
Maple he was again elected to a three year term on the school board.
During this term the new Middle School was built.
Ed was a
very busy man and never passed a moment of idle time. Being an
amateur anthropologist and historian, he and his wife Eunice became
active in local historical groups and found many like-minded people
in the Western Bayfield Historical Society in Iron River, Wisconsin.
They prepared and presented programs and various tours that included
the Clevedon settlement at the mouth of the Brule River on Lake
Superior. Ed had his own little museum at home filled with historical
curiosities. He researched everything and published newspaper
articles that became a regular feature.
As a child
growing up in isolated Cloverland without electric, radio, or
television Ed’s love of music got him to make his own. Beginning
with a mouth harmonica, he next purchased a button accordion.
Self-taught, he became accomplished and was a big hit at community
gatherings accompanied by his neighbor friends. Ed said, “We didn’t
have any musical instruments in the house at all. So, I trapped
weasels and sold the hides until I got my first one, an old
accordion, and I had to go in the back forty and practice to learn to
play, but then I learned to play a little bit. I played for a few
dances. They would be in a home or hall or something like that.”
Ed’s wife
Eunice baked Scandinavian cookies and Ed distributed them every
holiday season to the community’s lonely and needy.
More than a
lifetime of dedicated service to the people of Douglas County,
Wisconsin, has made Edwin Pearson one of the most outstanding public
servants of all time...a marvelous and exceptional achievement for
anybody.
In the early
1900’s young Axel Pearson was looking for a new frontier and found
it. Axel's seed of community building would bear fruit for
generations to come.
In 1920
Axel’s ten year old son Ed Pearson walked to school hunting rabbits
along the way for the school lunch, the teacher would cook. Ed was a
studious boy, avid reader, and eager learner who didn’t get to go
to high school...there was none. A burning yearn to learn would be
his all-important goal in life. The seed that Ed planted, like his
father's, also took root, grew, and prospered.
Ed’s six
children graduated from Northwestern High School, two of his
grandsons, and four of his great-grandchildren have graduated or are
attending.
Over a
hundred years later, in 2018, Axel’s tree is still bearing fruit.
Ed’s great-granddaughter Katie Lundeen is graduating in May from
Northwestern High School with high honors and a stellar athletic
record.
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| Katie Lundeen |
