gentle piano music
children chattering
Kern's Corners was a one-room school, all eight grades.
school bell ringing
It was the small Methodist church down the road from us, but... the neighbors were all very nice. We would have things going on at the school, and everybody would come, and it was a nice community. We milked cows and had horses, and some pigs, and chickens.
geese honking
And we had some geese, too.
chuckles
My mother liked geese. My great-grandparents started it, and they're buried in the Pioneer Cemetery, and then my grandfather took it, and then my dad took it over. And that's where I was born.
birds chirping
We always went to town. That was a big thing. We banked in Prairie, and we went grocery shopping. Drugstore was there. My mother would sell eggs. I do remember if there was a little bit leftover, I got an ice cream cone. And that lasted me all the way home.
Narrator
With the coming of World War II in Europe and Asia, farm families on the Sauk Prairie would soon be called upon to make huge sacrifices. As Nazi air forces continued the bombing of English cities, President Roosevelt vowed to stay out of the war but called for massive amounts of military aid.
recording of Pres. Roosevelt
Narrator
The people of Europe who are defending themselves do not ask us to do their fighting. They ask us for the implements of war, the planes, the tanks, the guns, the freighters, which will enable them to fight for their liberty and our security. We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us, this is an emergency as serious as war itself.
Michael Goc
The announcement of the coming of the Badger Ordnance Works takes place on October 29, 1941. Ten thousand five hundred acres-- most of it is on the Sauk Prairie-- is going to be taken for the-- for the new plant. One hundred nine landowners, seventy four of those were farms, twenty six were cottages and residences in Weigand's Bay, three churches, three schools, three cemeteries, and a town hall.
Shirley Bass Hasheider
All the farmers around, they got together, and they wrote to the congressmen, and they were trying to urge the government to move it further north where there was more sand, instead of taking that good land.
President Roosevelt
December 7, 1941...
whistling sound
loud explosion
President Roosevelt
A date which will live in infamy. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, everything changes. And at that point then everybody's attitude changed 180 degrees. You know, we know-- we know it's needed. And just give us a fair price.
Shirley Bass Hasheider
So they came in, and they gave my dad a dollar to look over the land. As near as I can tell, I think they got reasonably close to market value. But market value was depression value. So, bottom line, they got nothing. And that hurts.
somber music
Shirley Bass Hasheider
But you really don't know what's going to happen until you get that letter that you have to be off. And that letter came in early January, and they had to be off by March 1st. So basically, they had a month and a half to clear their land-- to clear and move. And if they're going to continue farming, buy a new farm without money, because none of them had been paid. And to move hay and their equipment and the livestock. In spite of some of the bitterness, and there is-- there is bitterness even to the third generation-- those families should also be very proud of what their-- what their people did. You know, that was an impossible task, and they did it.
film projector reel clicking
Goc
The process of construction starts in the spring of 1942. First there's a couple thousand workers. Summer goes on, and there's 5,000, then there's 8,000. By the end of August into September, there's almost 12,000 construction workers out there.
Verlyn Mueller
By June, this is full of buildings, roads and buildings and railroad track. It just went up like mushrooms.
hammers pounding
Verlyn Mueller
Everything had to be done yesterday. So as soon as a building was ready to run, it was running. The principle reason for building the plant initially was smokeless propellant, which was used in ammunition for everything from the 30-caliber all the way up to propellant for the 8-inch howitzers.
howitzer firing
shell clangs
Narrator
With thousands of workers, the huge plant operated day and night, and brought about big changes in Sauk Prairie. At the edge of Prairie du Sac, the government purchased more farmland and built a trailer park to house hundreds of workers.
Michael Goc
The coming of the powder plant is bittersweet, kind of glad and sad. That plant ended the Depression, what was left of it in this area, not just here, but maybe for a 50-mile radius, because workers came from all over, a lot of people who need a place to live and a lot of people who are going to spend money. They're going to eat dinner somewhere. But if you're any kind of merchant doing-- providing any kind of service in this village, you can do pretty well. You can do well if you're working at the plant because the wages are multiple times what you could make doing anything else comparable.
Newsreel Announcer
Eighteen million women aren't enough. As more men are called for military service, their places must be taken by women.
Goc
World War II is the "Great Patriotic War," and the powder plant really brings that war home, obviously, literally, out the back door here. And it gives people who otherwise might not participate in that war an opportunity to take part. So, if you're a woman, you know you're not going to hit the beach at Normandy, but you're going to be able to provide the ammunition for that invasion. WOWs were Women Ordnance Workers. During World War II, they had over 200,000 civilians working in the Ordnance Department, and of those over 80,000 were women. Some of them were here producing propellant. Just about all of the processes, there were women working in there.
gentle piano music
Goc
I worked in the employment office there because I could type. There was a row of us sitting there. It was an interesting job, but it was mixed feelings, that's for sure.
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