A portrait of Thor Helgeson donated by Mitch Taylor was presented to the Iola Historical Society at its July 27 meeting.
Thor Helgeson is a great-grandparent of Lee and helped Malcolm Rosholt with the book From the Indian Land. Thor wrote the book in Norwegian and Malcolm translated it into English. The family farm was recently sold, and the family wanted to know if the historical society would like to accept the portrait.
Thor was an itinerant (travelling) teacher, where the students would come to his house. He was religious and usually told stories of a moral nature. The photo was taken around 1862 or 1863. Thor was born 1842 in Norway. When he was 20, he came to Detroit, in 1862 he lived in Racine and in 1863 he was in Dane. After that, he spent the rest of his life in Portage and Waupaca counties, dying in 1928. The portrait may be displayed in the schoolhouse.
Historical marker program
Greg Loescher discussed the historical marker program. Marker #15 / #16, for the old Iola hospital and former cancer sanitarium, will be set by Chet Krause Dr. and dedicated Aug. 19. 5.
Markers planned for 2021 are: #18 Clifford Thompson, #19 Bridging the South Branch, and #20 Rural Schools of Waupaca County. Greg’s plan is for a couple markers a year until 25 of them are done in 2024 or 2025.
Flatbed railway car
Photos of the flatbed railroad car move from Scandinavia to in front of the Iola depot were presented. The Scandinavia Booster Club donated it. The move was paid for by the Central Wisconsin Tractor Club.
Charlie T. first took down the shack used for storage of the speeder in order to make room on the tracks. Gary Otterson helped to move the caboose. Del Mork helped with a bearing issue.
A heavy equipment moving company called Cons Trucks, out of Stevens Point, had the trailer to transport the RR car and they charged a very reasonable price. It worked very well because the RR car never needed to be lifted. It was a “Trail-eze” trailer, and the wheel axles could hydraulically move back and forth to change the turning radius. As they were trying to load the 43-foot flatbed RR car July 15 onto the trailer, they found that the king pin was no longer in place and the flatcar bed was shifting off the wheels. That is when the group realized that there was probably never any intent to move the RR car after it was initially set in Scandinavia. The flatcar bed was shifted back and secured for the move. King pins may be installed at a later time. The rest of the move did not have any issues.
Scandinavia had acquired the flatbed RR car 10 or 15 years ago to go along with their caboose, but were now desirous of removing it, offering to donate it to the Iola Historical Society. The Iola Northern RR that served the area was primarily for passenger service and produce hauling, so no flatbed was part of that operation. We now are looking for suggestions on how to use the flatbed RR car. One person suggested musical performances, which the group liked.