James Rork Revisited - Badger Liniment and other Tales

Way back in 2011 I put up a brief post on a certain James E. Rork and his rather eye catching bottles full of "Rork's Badger Liniment".  Since then more sources of information have become available so I felt a revisit was in order.  It also seems a good story on which to base another historic geocache.  First of course, the artifact that draws us to the quirky tale of Mr. Rork.

James Rork was born in 1828 to Irish immigrant parents who had moved to New York.  Of his early life I can say no more, but he moved to rural Dunn County Wisconsin circa 1860.  He turns up in local history for the first time in 1862 where he seems to have helped set off the comical "Indian Scare" that gripped Eau Claire in August of that year.  At that time the Sioux, or as they would prefer to be called Dakota, were involved in a violent uprising against settlers over in  Minnesota.  When smoke was sighted a mile west of the Rork farmstead (supposedly from a vat of soap boiling over) Rork rode into town to sound the alarm.

In many ways James Rork lived the life of a typical pioneer farmer.  He married a woman named Sarah.  They had 9 children together.  He was involved in local politics.  He raised and apparently treated horses, becoming enough of an expert to serve as a judge of same at the Dunn County Fair.  He built a grist mill.  "Missionary and Temperance" meetings were held at his house.  Rork was a busy guy.  From the 1880's a moment when he stood still long enough for a picture:

I think I see a fun loving twinkle in those eyes.  But perhaps something else as well.  Because his life was not without hard times.  Those nine children?  The newspaper was often reporting one or more of them being ill.  Diptheria.  "..prostrate with billious fever".  Why in one single local news column it was reported that Jimmy Rork had erysipelas of the face and that his brother Seth had been injured playing with a cap gun and might lose the sight in one eye.

Even the joyful moments had their dark side.  In March of 1879 it was mentioned that the Rork family had new twins.  There must have been something earlier about another set of twins in the area because the correspondent mused "Is it possible that Elk Creek water is the cause of all this, as Mrs. Grant used to say..."   Five weeks later it was announced that one of the twins had died.*  And even in June Mrs. Rork was said to be "slowly recovering". 

Rork was at least a local figure of prominence.  The bridge over Elk creek at his homestead was called "Rork bridge" long after his death.  And I suspect the nearby school house also had a nick name.  From the Dunn County News:  "Several boys trapped skunks under the Rork school house on Saturday March 10, and as a result school had to be closed on Monday."

Sometimes early settlers of an area are long remembered, their names living on through generations.  Sometimes not.  James E. Rork died in 1900, his wife in 1905.  One of his older children, Cora died in 1906, of pneumonia.  I'm not surprised, she was often reported ill over the years.  At that point the newspaper mentioned that several of her brothers were living on the old homestead, but it seems much of the family had scattered.  Grace, a school teacher, presumably into the anonymity of a married name.  Two of the brothers Earnest and the possibly one-eyed Seth set off for Montana in 1892 to find their fortunes.  Brother Ralph may have joined them, as he fell off a horse to his death there in 1904.  At that time he was said to leave behind 5 brothers and 3 sisters.  Several of them I have had no luck tracing.

Oh, and the patent medicine business.  It remains the great oddity of James Rork's life.  He seems to have had no formal training in medical matters unless you count mention of him sometimes being called to treat horses.  Maybe the liniment was of the "For Man or Beast" variety.  If so it was likely harmless stuff, unlike the opioid filled nostrums taken internally and liberally in that era.

The bottle design was copyrighted in 1893, a reasonable starting point for the venture.  This is backed up by the following 1893 ad:  

I've always suspected that Badger Liniment was put up in association with a local druggist and this seems to establish a link between Rork and Will C. Johnson of Eau Claire.  Confusingly a later ad - one that gives the official name of Badger Liniment - is placed by a different pharmacist, a man named Playter, also of Eau Claire.  Perhaps the brand was transferred from one establishment to another.  It may have survived as late as 1905, out living its creator.

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* It is not my intent to dive into the particulars of the Rork family tree, but my count of siblings suggests that the report of the girl twin dying may have been in error.  This seems likely to be the often ill Cora, who lived long enough to marry, have two children and move out West like so many of her siblings.

The original Bat Man

Bats remain on my mind today.  I have been advised to relocate one of the bat houses off of the tree - evidently there are predators that will actually eat little brown bats - and also to modify the slats inside the units.  It's good to have lake projects.  Otherwise, when the grands are not on hand, I just read a lot of British short stories.  And of course that leads to etymology posts.

Of late my reading fare includes Dorothy Sayers.  Her great creation is "Lord Peter Wimsey" an aristocratic amateur sleuth.  But how great would he be without his faithful manservant Bunter, who had been at his side throughout the Great War, serving as his batman.

I of course knew the term batman.  These were the personal servants for British officers.  They ran messages, dug the officer's foxholes, kept his uniform immaculate, served tea....and acted as personal bodyguards.  It chafes a bit on our American egalitarian sentiments but fit perfectly with the British class system.  I mean, it would hardly do to have an officer in the King's Army seen polishing his own boots!  Revolution and Bolshevism would doubtless ensue.

The term is an old one and has nothing to do with the critters besieging my cabin porch.  

It is recorded as an informal description as far back as 1775.  A batman was among other things in charge of his officer's "bat-horse" and its load.  A "bat" was a pack saddle, the term coming from bastum a late Latin word that wandered in from Greek and meant "to lift up or carry".  By a side route it also gave us baton, a badge of office carried by the highest ranked officers.  So eventually the batman would be packing the baton into the bat on the bathorse.  It gets a bit confusing.

Apparently the official term used in The Great War was "servant soldier", although everyone used the unofficial term and so in the interwar period it was made official.  So much British fiction, especially of the detective variety, was written in that era that the term seems as if it was universal and eternal.

So, how does the more common meaning Bat Man fit in?  

He first appears in a comic book in May, 1939.  This was on the eve of the Second World War and matters relating to the British military would have been on our collective minds.  Bruce Wayne incidentally was very much in the mold of Lord Peter Wimsey, a wealthy man-of-action crime fighter with a loyal side kick.  I strongly suspect that his creators Bob Kane and Bill Fingers, read Dorothy Sayers!

But the name lacks an obvious connection to the original version.  He's hardly a servile type and indeed he soon acquires a guy to take care of his uniform....and who would willingly step up to dig a trench and serve tea in it if necessary.  Alfred the butler, so conspicuously British, may well be an indirect nod to the batmen of the British Army.  The Alfred character was created in 1943, a time in which the military tradition was very much front and center.  He has been called "Batman's batman" on more than one occasion.

Were the batmen of World War I all imperturbable, efficient, tireless and worthy?  I will continue to believe so because this belief comforts me.  Of course there is the one notable - albeit fictional - counterweight to this concept.....Private S. Baldrick, inept and disgusting batman to Captain Blackadder!

Life at the Lake - Bad Natured

It's beautiful at the lake in mid summer.  Everything is green and growing.  Critters everywhere.  But some of the latter have it in for us.  I guess I can see their perspective, it was their home before we came along.  So we generally have a live and let live attitude....but there are exceptions.

1. Mice.  Industrious little chaps, a few are always finding their way in.  They are oddly inclined to collect great hoards of acorns collected from far and wide, then accumulated on a specific bookshelf.  Solution:  we trap 'em.  As part of our ongoing educational program for the grands I set up one demised rodent outside with the automatic "trail cam" pointing right at him.  I figured we'd see some small predator ambling along for a midnight snack.  But the mouse vanished without a trace or a photo.  I wonder if the little blighter was just faking.

2. Bats.  My first task on arrival to the cabin is always to sweep off the front steps.  A gang of bats has been using it as a social club for years.  They swoop around eating bugs, which we appreciate, then alight to squeak the latest news of the night and to defecate all over the place.  I've been tolerant so far, but recently they have started actually living in the rafters of the overhang.  

Good news really, bat numbers have been crashing in recent years due to White Nose Syndrome.  Maybe this suggests a comeback.  But really now, does it have to be so messy?

Solution:  Put up a couple of bat houses.

My grandson named "Batville", I came up with Gotham City.  We have a third unit I'll dub Batavia when we see how the first two work out.  Here's the little niche that is home to the messy squeakers, I'll seal the area after a respectful interval.  (Addendum:  my contacts in the bat world tell me this is a roosting colony of little brown bats.  Great news as they have been hit so hard by disease in recent years.  Probably some baby batties up there so they get to stay until fall.)

3. Carpenter ants.  Oh, we've had dealings with this bunch before.  We'd sit on our enclosed porch watching the lake and be amused by the industry of black ants that popped their heads out of various nooks and crannies  Here our live and let live attitude came back to bite us, the ants had been stealthily gnawing away at the wood in several sites.  A considerable amount of damage was done and had to be repaired/rebuilt.  At that point we hired a service that comes and sprinkles granules of Death to Ants about at regular intervals.   Their local rep is a cheerful man named Ray.

Our grandson was fascinated by Ray "The Ant Guy".  It was agreed that Ray would treat the outside and that any ants found inside the house would be given The Stomp by the youngster.  It seemed to be working out until we went up for the Fourth and found this:

Yes the ants are back.  A particularly industrious batch of invaders is digging away, dropping granules of sawdust out of that little hole up above every few seconds.    Well we called Ray the Ant Guy.  Hopefully he comes with fire in his eyes and a vengeance in his heart for this gang of wreckers who defied his treatment just a couple of weeks earlier.  And to make sure he found the spot right away...

Spray 'em Ray.  I had considered the more classic "Nuke 'em from Orbit" but I would not want Ray to take me literally.

I wish ill to very few life forms but am eagerly awaiting The Big Stomp for these guys.  

Best Fourth of July Ever?

Well for sure at least a contender.  It could have been made better only be having more of the extended family on hand, but at least we've seen them all in recent weeks.

Fabulous weather.  Here's a view of the lake.  I tried to catch a pair of loons that had just appeared off the starboard bow, but they seem to have ducked back under.

Oddly there were no fireworks, unless you count a few sparklers by the oldest grandkid (his first btw).  But fishing, games, good food, cross generational silliness.  All the good stuff.  

Early on the 4th proper three generations of guys went to another, isolated nearby lake to explore/fish.  We bumped up and down on a road where mountain goats were expected immanently.  As it turns out the fishing was not great.  But the boat landing was literally hopping with lots and lots of what my grandson and I call "microfrogs".

If my fingerprints are not enough of a clue to their size I shall point out that those granules of stuff on the little guy are actually grains of sand.  The Junior Herpatologist and I disagree as to the ID on these critters.  Either American Toads or Grey Tree Frogs.  But in either case they are small, cute and very soon will turn into something totally different and then hop away.  

sniff, sniff....

I'm talking about the microfrogs of course.

More Tombstones from the Great Depression.

A few weeks back I put up a post describing the reuse of tombstones as part of a flood control wall. This is called "spolia", the reuse of older things in new structures.

Well, when out for a walk recently I realized that there was a bunch more of this about half a mile away.  And from the look of things I'd say they came from the same source, which I presume was a mason/monument carver who went out of business in the latter 1930's.

The neighbor who has this as a boundary wall knew what it was made of.  There are no "names and dates" showing but perhaps they have been tastefully turned inward!

Captured by Muggles! A Geocache's Adventure

Geocaching is a new subculture to explore.  It's a bit nerdy, but has many fun elements.  Think of it as an organized way to be a "treasure hunter" while getting some exercise.  And of course like all subcultures it has it's own lingo.  Some of it is abbreviations.  When you sign a log it is considered polite to say TFTC, or "Thanks for the Cache".  And then there are the Muggles.

Taking a page from Harry Potter, muggles are the "outside world" that sometimes stumbles across things.  Magic....or more commonly geocaches.   Mind you the muggles who find caches are doing so without any GPS coordinates and without hints.  Just random chance.  Or a bit of curiosity that makes them peer into odd nooks and crannies.  I actually entirely approve.

But when a cache is "muggled" it causes problems for people trying to follow their GPS to the target.  Caches get swiped, moved, the log book gets scribbled on.

I had something along these lines happen with one of the first caches I placed.  I put it out a week or so ahead of it being published, just to see if it would "stay".  A few days later when I checked.....Gone.

Ah well, I replaced it in a somewhat better spot.  But some confusion ensued.  It seems some geocachers were finding the previous "lost" cache nearby.  Eventually I got the initial cache back...it had been hidden elsewhere in the little cave (F.X. Schmidmeyer's).  

The log book of this cache had some interesting entries.  A few of the early ones are legitimate geocachers.  How they found it in the wrong place I'll never know.  The rest are casual finders.  Have a look, here's what happens when a cache is "Captured by Muggles"!

Aw.  These are kinda sweet.  Best of luck in troubled times Cassidy and Jonah!  The abbreviation TDC and the scrawled nature of the lower signatures are harder to explain.  And is that bottom word "covid"?   Moving on....

I've put my thumb over the name of the nice family who were just out for a fun walk in the park.  But the 6/13 entry is almost a slogan for the weirdness that is 2020. 

"BLM  we dont Have The Bong!!"*

* Alternate translation:  "We dont Have The Rona" This is not significantly less weird.

CCC Camp Cable Revisted

I've been revisiting some older posts and the locations associated with them.  Sometimes it is just a desire to do a better job with a write up.  Sometimes it is that and the placement of a history oriented geocache on the site.  As in today's tale.

I first discussed CCC Camp Cable way back in 2015.  At the time the remains of the camp were quite visible, although in part this is a matter of visiting on a nice spring/fall day when the underbrush is not too thick.   Going back in 2020, and looking for the perfect "hide" for a geocache, it seems as if there is less definition to the remains.  Every year frost and thaw nudges those stones just a little further away from where they were placed in the 1930's.....

But mostly I want to take a closer look at the men of the CCC.  In the five years that have passed I suspect the last of the guys in these photos have left us.  So....who were they?  As I mentioned in the initial post Camp Cable was built by a special company, V-1676.  The V designation indicates that they were all First War Veterans.  Older, smarter, tougher than the young recruits who would follow them. 

When you see those guys, the one with tattoos in particular, you realize that they looked at what we now think of as The Greatest Generation and thought: "What a bunch a punks!"

Company 3653 is the best documented of the CCC groups that lived and worked at Camp Cable.  Here's a few pictures of them at work and play.  These probably are from an earlier camp near Ashland,  but are quite representative of activities at all such places.

The 3653 baseball team was good enough to win a sub-district pennant in 1935, the year before they moved to Camp Cable.

Most CCC companies posed for group shots.  These two were probably taken at Camp Cable.

The men, but sadly not the cute dog mascot wearing sunglasses, are identified by name.  Curious as to whether the stereotype of these guys all going on to Greatest Generation greatness were correct, I spent a little time searching for traces of them.  Obviously those with generic names were usually lost.  Even the oddball names often come up blank.  But consider:

The commander of Company 3653 was the oddly named Lauris Martin Eek.  He was a Great War pilot and flight instructor with the 470th Attack Squadron.  This photo is from later in life when he went into politics.  He had two sons who served in the Second World War.  I suspect that both Lauris Jr. and Nathanial Eek spent part of their youth happily roaming the woods around Camp Cable.  Lauris Jr. passed away earlier this year, and with him perhaps passed the last direct memories of life at Camp Cable...

The camp's second in command, 1st Lt. Hermann Bieritz rose to the rank of Major, serving in the Pacific with the Signal Corps.

And the rank and file?  In no particular order:

Clarence Vanderschaegen moved to Hurley after service in the Navy in WWII.  

Peter Karabas seems to have moved to the Madison area and run a restaurant.  Because versions of this name appear with and without an s on the end I can't say if it is an odd coincidence or a hidden mystery, but a Peter Karaba was slain by a robber in June of 1931...at Moquah Wisconsin, not far from Cable.  Was the young man in the CCC photo a local lad left orphaned?

Jude Wray has a tragic story.  Originally of Ocanto Wisconsin he was a private on leave in March of 1941 when he was involved in an automobile accident.  He was said to be "critically injured" when he was caught under the wheels of a "slow moving train".  I wonder if he was left disabled.  The next mention I find of him is from 1950.  He was living with his mother and went fishing on the Wisconsin river.  When his tackle was found abandoned on the bank the worst was feared.  After 30 hours lost in the woods he made it out just as the search was about to be called off.

It would be possible to trace more but I think in general we can assume that most of the "CCC Boys" took the skills and discipline they learned in camp and put them to good use in military and civilian life.  They were the kind of people who just went out and got necessary things taken care of.  And did not make any fuss about it.   Perhaps that was the true Greatness of their Generation.