By MYRNA FAUSKA
Have you ever wondered how this column got the name “South Side News”? Wonder no more. In 1927, my mother-in-law, Marion Fauska, started a homemakers’ club about six miles south of Kendall, and the women decided to call it the South Side Homemakers.
Several years later, one of the members, Agnes Schumann, started a neighborhood news column for the Kendall Keystone newspaper and named it after the homemakers’ club. When the Elroy Tribune bought the Keystone and added the name to its paper, the column stayed with that paper.
Later, the Elroy paper became the Messenger, and the column continued there until new editors took over and dropped it. However, Karen Parker agreed to add the column, along with Alice Brandau’s South Ridge News, to her newspaper, the County Line. These columns continued and were also printed in the Tomah Journal and the Sparta Herald until Alice had to quit due to declining eyesight. Recently, the Hillsboro Sentry Enterprise added our news, and just a few weeks ago, the Tomah Journal printed its last issue (it has been relaunched as a free newspaper, The Journal).
And that’s the history of our weekly neighborhood news, and as long as I am able and these newspapers are willing to include my twaddle in their papers, you will be reading the South Side News, or as it is labeled in Sparta, the “Southeast Monroe County News.” Thus ends your history lesson.
Due to the escalating pandemic, our neighbors are spending more time at home. However, I had a busier week than usual. On Tuesday I was at the Kendall Public Library book club meeting, where Nevada Barr’s “High Country” was discussed. On Wednesday evening, I joined the Glendale Township election crew for the public test at the town hall. On Friday morning, I picked up my Amish neighbors Elizabeth and Lavina Swartzentruber and took them to their chiropractor at Chicken Hollow in Vernon County.
Last Monday, Randy Parkhurst was up from Orfordville, Wis., to help his parents Jim and Mary. On Sunday morning, Randy’s son Guy of Janesville stopped in and lunched with his grandparents, as the excessive wind was not conducive to bowhunting that morning.
Ron and Arlene Garvens spent most of the week at home, until Thursday, when they went into Elroy to work at the food pantry.
At the west end of the neighborhood, Lynette Vlasak and Sally Dana always manage to keep active while staying safe despite of Covid-19, beginning with book club on Tuesday, and then Wednesday takeout lunch from the Fireball Bar and Grill with Carol Fronk, Cheryl Neitzel and Luann Huber. After the library closed Friday afternoon, Lynette and Sally shared pizza from Hidden Inn with Judy Herrewig. On Saturday evening, it was back at the library to pass out Halloween treats to the hobgoblins of Kendall.
Sunday was Reformation Day in Protestant churches celebrating Martin Luther’s nailing of his 95 theses on the church wall. He had no intention of starting a new religion, but just wanted to correct heresies that were infiltrating the Christian churches.
Although the various Christian churches may have individual worship preferences, there is one thing they can agree on, and that is Jesus Christ the Son plus the Holy Spirit in the Trinity with God the Father. It was God in three persons who created the world several millennia ago, and He is still in control despite our current health crisis. Keep praying for a cure and the end of this tragic time in our lives.