History, Wisconsin History
On Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 1914, British, German, and French soldiers on the war’s western front disregarded explicit orders from their superiors, and threat of consequences including court marshal and even execution. They rose up out their trenches, put down their...
History, Kitchen and Culture
“Alice and I always walked home from school for dinner at noon. Sometimes there would be a blizzard and Emma would call us in for Cornish pasties. That saved us a long walk in the storm, since she lived about halfway to our house.” – From High on the Bluff...
History, Wisconsin History
When Metis fur trader Augustin Grignon built a Greek Revival-style hotel and trading post near the marshy Fox River at present-day Butte des Mort, Wisconsin in 1848, the waterway hadn’t changed much since early French explorers came across it in the seventeenth...
Farming, History, Wisconsin History
In Bittersweet Harvest, Will O’Shaughnessy convinces dairy farmers in his Wisconsin River community of Willow to organize a cooperative. It’s the 1930s, the Great Depression era. “If we organize, we can buy in volume. We can sell in volume. We’d get better prices…I’d...
Farming, History, Wisconsin History
If you grew up on a Wisconsin farm prior to the 1950s, you probably had work horses. The day that your family finally sold them, and replaced them with gasoline tractors, might be a vivid childhood memory. “Will, did you ever consider that they might think your...
Heirloom recipes, Kitchen and Culture, Wisconsin History
“Sadie reached deep into a bush and nimbly fingered three berries into her hand. ‘My mama says there’ll be no blackberry cobbler this winter if I don’t fill these pails.’” – Aubrey’s Attic At the start of Harold William Thorpe’s children’s chapter book, Aubrey’s...
Harold William Thorpe novels are now included on Goodreads! 