Vernon County Museum Notes: ‘The Bitter Neighbors’ depicts Liberty Pole of the early 1900s

By KRISTEN PARROTT | Vernon County Museum curator

Recently we came across an unusual little book on one of our shelves – “The Bitter Neighbors” by H. Guy Goodsell.

Published in 1961, it is a 40-page novel about a feud between two families. What is unusual about the story, though, is that is set in Liberty Pole, a village in the town of Franklin.

The author, the Rev. H. Guy Goodsell, was the son of the Rev. Henry Goodsell, who served as a Methodist pastor in Sparta and La Crosse in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He also was superintendent of the La Crosse District of the Methodist Church, which included churches in Vernon County. He and his family attended the Methodist camp meetings in Viroqua every summer at what is now Eckhart Park.

Guy also grew up to be a pastor. He entered the ministry in 1907, and his first appointment was in Vernon County, to the Springville Circuit, which consisted of the Springville, Brookville and Liberty Pole Methodist churches. He lived in Viroqua and drove a horse and buggy to each of the churches on Sundays: Springville in the morning, Brookville in the afternoon, and Liberty Pole in the evening.

Goodsell later served Methodist churches in Baraboo, Wis.; Platteville, Wis.; and Madison before moving West in 1921. He was retired and living in Portland, Ore., when he wrote “The Bitter Neighbors.”

His happy memories of visiting our county as a boy, and then of living and working here as a young man prompted him to set his novelette in Liberty Pole. In a letter to a friend, he wrote, “‘Liberty Pole’ always seemed to me an odd and rather appropriate name for a rural community.”

He also notes that “the story and the characters are completely fictitious, although I have used the names of one or two minor characters of 50 years ago in Vernon County and elsewhere”; e.g., names such as Bangsberg, Groves, and Honaker.

Describing why he decided on the subject matter, Goodsell told his friend, “For years I was haunted with the idea that I ought to write a story centering around the idea of the spiritual influence and power of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Well, I finally got it off my chest in ‘The Bitter Neighbors.'”

Goodsell sent copies of his book to the Lutheran bookstore in Viroqua in 1962. He also sent copies to old friends still living in Vernon County, and one of these books eventually made it into our museum’s library. You are welcome to come in to look at it.

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Remember that the deadline is approaching for the 2012 Century Farm or Home awards and the 2012 Sesquicentennial Farm or Home awards. If your farm or house has been in your family for 100 or 150 years, then you are eligible for one of these awards. Applications are available at the museum and must be mailed to the Wisconsin State Fair office before Thursday, March 1.

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 The Vernon County Museum, 410 S. Center Ave., Viroqua, can be reached at 637-7396 or vernoncountyhistoricalsociety.org.

 

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