Hello Clam Lake!
COMMUNITY CLUB MEETING – On Thursday, October 10th the Clam Lake Community Club will be holding their monthly meeting beginning at 5:00 pm. After the meeting there will be a Pot Luck followed by some rousing games of Clam Lake Style Bingo (Small Bucks Bingo) led by Master Bingo Caller Ace Griffaw. Time to come out and visit with neighbors and friends and learn what is going on in the village. Hope to see you there!
FOREST SERVICE NEWS – RETURN OF THE CHIEFS – Last week the Forest Service played host to several retired Chiefs of the Forest Service whom came north to visit our mighty Chequamegon. Due to this event, even the current Chief of the Forest Service, Randy Moore of Washington DC, made a one day return trip to our area to spend time with the former Chiefs. Including him, there were a total of six Chiefs both past and present, in our forest! As part of their visit, the Forest Service asked to use our Community Center to hold a meeting and small luncheon in their honor. We were happy to comply. I had the pleasure of meeting three of the retired Chiefs, one of whom had connections to Clam Lake. This was Mike Bombeck whom served as Chief from 1996 to 2001. Mike shared memories of being a young boy growing up in our area and being the only altar boy for our St. George Chapel when our Chapel was under the direction of the Cable parish. This would have been during the mid-60’s. He remembered serving as altar boy for Father Szyma whom was a priest from Poland whom had been held in the Dachau concentration camp during WWII. Father Szyma is listed as the parish priest for St. George on a poster dating from 1965. Mike recalled serving for the popular Hunter’s Mass that was held on opening day at 5:30 in the morning at our Chapel. This Mass was to bless the hunters and their hunt. Mike, very graciously, opened his cabin for the visiting Chiefs to stay while here. Was great to meet some of those that had cared for our forest in the past.
REMEMBERING THE FORGOTTEN – As many of you may remember, our Clam Lake Cemetery had seven white wooden crosses marking the graves of people from our past whom had passed away. Bill Bruns (former funeral director of Mellen) purchased the area where many of them rest with the intent that there would be a place for those that had no one. The crosses were simple with only the last names and first name initials of the people they represented. As with anything wooden, they slowly began to disintegrate. Around 2017 they were replaced by a member of the Community Club with simple name plates purchased by the Club for them. This time birch bark was used, which felt the pull of returning to nature even quicker than the old white crosses. Name plates were hanging by one nail or had totally fallen off. I spoke with Todd Rongstad of East Twin, whom is a historian and runs a business called “Evermore Life Stories” which does personal documentaries about the lives of a person’s family, about replacing the crosses. Todd immediately began working on this project and just by luck found some discarded monument stones that had been thrown away when a company down in the southern part of the state had gone out of business. He also collected a couple boulders from our area to set into the ground for some. He, along with his ever faithful helper Roadie, attached the name plates to the new memorials giving these long ago forgotten people of Clam Lake a lasting remembrance. We thank him and Roadie for all their hard work in honoring our forgotten souls of the past. Thank you!
ON THAT NOTE – We wish to thank the Glidden VFW and Legion for coming out and replacing our cemetery flag that had gotten itself twisted around the ball at the top. Thanks to them, our cemetery is now sporting a new flag! They were very prompt attending to it and we are so very grateful!!!
The old souls are smiling…..
Until next week….
Pictured is Todd Rongstad and Roadie working at the Clam Lake Cemetery.
