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William Kersey Writes of City
and Memories
Grandson of Mrs. Mary E. Schaub.
03 16 1948
William Kersey, Milwaukee, grandson of Mrs.
Mary E. Schaub of this city, has written a little essay on Watertown which he
recently submitted as part of his classroom work in Milwaukee.
The text follows:
Why am I writing about Watertown? Well, maybe because my grandparents lived
there all of their lives. Maybe because it holds many fond memories of
my early youth or maybe because it's just an average town. I don't know.
But suddenly an irresistible urge befell me to
forego my usual fast, humorous style of writing for something simple, peaceful.
Watertown isn't a roaring metropolis or a
beehive of industry. In fact, the only
marked thing about it is the fact that it is the half way point from Milwaukee
to Madison. Somehow, it strikes me not as a town, but
rather as a living symbol of faith and happiness handed down through the
generations by the fathers to their
posterity.
Whenever I visit my grandmother, I page
through her scrapbook of memoirs. The
faded, curled up pictures seem to spring to life, as if recalled from the dead,
and suddenly, as if in a trance, I am transported back 100 years.
I see dark gabled houses leaning perilously
toward each other over narrow cobbled streets.
I see my grandparents
portly home, and I hear the February wind holding carnival outside, wrenching
at the window fastenings, whooping around the corners of the house and roaring
bawdy melodies down the chimney pipes.
I see the main street of the town, stolid,
inviting.
I see the old timers chatting with the firemen
in front of the firehouse.
My glance shifts to an old man and a young boy
fishing off the bridge.
Trees, old and withered with age, but with the
proud majesty of a regular guard, stand with their arms reaching toward
God.
My eyes pass over the butcher shop with the
red front, where the pleasant German butcher gives free samples of bologna to
the children.
I see the women gossips in the bakeries
comparing notes, and the old men smoking cigars and passing the time of day
away at the hardware store.
I hear the fire siren announcing the location
of a fire to the people, two long and one short.
I smell the odor of fresh pumpkin pie
emanating from the house next door.
These are the things I see, and awakening from
my reverie, I notice that things haven't changed a bit in the last 100
years. I guess time doesn't pass
there. You know, perhaps it is a refuge
for God when he sees the trouble, confusion and evil going on in the rest of
the world.
Maybe that's why I wrote about Watertown,
Wisconsin.
History of Watertown, Wisconsin