WISCONSIN
By Sarah Costello

We found Uncles Tom and Jim well established and well to do farmers. Uncle Tom had a fine farm of 1500 acres and Uncle Jim had a larger farm. They had spacious homes, gardens, pasture, and much land under cultivation. They also had fine orchards. With the help of other settlers, they had built a nice church and a school. Mostly, the people of that area were Irish and German. Uncles were also stockholders in the local bank. This was generally a prosperous community.

However, all the nearby free lands had long since been filed on, and so we rented a nice farm from Uncle Jim. We lived there for three years. Michael was born there.

Several of Uncle Tom's children had gone to St. Paul to work. St. Paul was then a booming town. Martin and John, who were by this time grown into fine looking young men, decided to join their cousins in St. Paul. They got good jobs. Mary was also induced to go there and live with her cousin, Julia, who owned a fashionable dressmaking shop. Mary had always liked sewing. Father finally decided to go to St. Paul, also. It was a hard decision to make, and not an altogether wise one. We were not alone, as Uncle Tom's family had preceded us there.

Uncle Tom lived to be ninety years old in spite of having been turned down on account of bad health when he tried to enlist in the Civil War. His last years after the death of his wife were spent in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. His youngest son Martin went to California and became a wealthy contractor.

Uncle Jim married Kathryn Kneeland and raised a family of five children to adulthood. There were other children born to them who died in infancy. The oldest boy, Steve was a baseball player and he lived to be only nineteen years of age. The two girls married, but Mary Anne was the only one who had a family. The boys, Pete and John (Dote) lived on the farm and after their father died, they ran the place. After Mary Anne's husband died in Dakota, she returned to the farm with a large family to raise.