Author: Mabel Houle
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Inside the Gate
During our years of singing acapella quartet music, it was customary for our family to visit churches in the surrounding area. There was a Pentecostal church in Ladysmith we visited a few times when they were hosting a visiting revival pastor Pa wanted to hear preach. Most of the churches we visited had very traditional…
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The Manning Quartet
My sister Doris was born in 1944. She graduated from Flambeau High School in 1962, and started working at the school as a secretary. She lived at home, bought a car to drive to work each day and had money to contribute to the household. She would buy different food items from the grocery store…
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Larry Goes Missing
Larry left home when he was about 16, probably sometime during the year 1959. He was living in the country shack a couple miles from our home. After leaving home he worked for local farmers in the area as a farm hand. Once he had enough money to buy a car, he started working at…
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Larry Leaves Home
My oldest brother, Larry, was eleven years older than me. I don’t remember much about him living at home with the rest of us. He left home when he was 16 years old, so I would have been five years old. Back then, a student could quit school at age sixteen and not be considered…
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Where do Babies Come From?
My younger brother, Carl, was born in October of 1958 when I was four years old. The only memory I have about his birth, is that Pa took me and some of my siblings to visit Ole and Elsie Olson. Usually when we went to visit Ole and Elsie, our whole family went together, and…
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Wynken, Blynken and Nod
Or Wink-em, Blink-em and Nod as we called it. During my growing up years on the family farm, we lived in a basement house that Pa had built not far from the old house which stood closer to the road. The basement was built with the labor of Pa and my older brothers who harvested…
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Black Rubber Boots
I attended Wisconsin public school in the Flambeau School District. This was a large rural district covering many miles throughout the Rusk County villages of Ingram, Sheldon, Glen Flora, Conrath and Tony. During my twelve school years (from first grade to a senior in high school), Paul Krisik was my bus driver. Our farm was…
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Father’s Day
Each year on Father’s Day I experience this conflict deep within. Friends post amazing photos and tributes to their awesome dads on social media, and I sit silent. Silence has been a big part of my life. In my minds’ eye, my painful relationship with my dad began at the breakfast table when I was…
Confessions from the Sixth Child out of Seven 