January 3, 2007

The hills of Crawford County, are old, but their underlying rocky foundation is much older still. All of the southern portion of the state was covered by a shallow sea at various times in the geologic past, and this sea deposited layers of sandstone, shale and dolostone (limestone).

Nearly a half billion years ago, during what earth scientists know as the lower Ordovician Period, a 250-foot-thick layer of dolostone, the Oneota Formation, formed in the area under tropical, reef-like conditions, and although most of this dolostone is barren of fossils, there are a few places where fossils are locally abundant.

Phil Burgess, who lives in Prairie du Chien, has been combing the rugged bluffs and ravines of Crawford County for years collecting fossils, and one day this past November, while in a steep dry run in the eastern section of the county, he discovered a 25-pound block of chert (a tough, flint-like rock) on a hillside that was studded with embedded fossils.

Elated, he packed out the promising boulder and took it back to his home where he proceeded to painstakingly prepare and expose the fossils with hand tools. Days later, when he had finished with this task, he was amazed with what he had unearthed . . . inside the boulder were an array of mollusk fossils. For those of us who have no background in biology, mollusks are a large phylum, or group, of invertebrate (no backbone) animals.

The diverse mollusk fossils included numerous cephalopods (a type of squid), several species of gastropods (snails), and borings made by soft-bodied marine ñwormsÍÍ. But the most incredible fossils were those of polyplacophorans (a plated, shelly, snail-like organism). Although polylplacophorans are known from the Oneota Formation, the particular variety Burgess found have not been described from Wisconsin, and they may well be new to science. All of this in one chunk of stone!

Burgess also says that this boulder is now the ugliest specimen in his collection, even though it might be the best invertebrate find ever in the county. The rare treasures it contains donÍt really stand out, like a T-rex does - you have to really search to see them hidden in tiny recesses in the ancient chert. He will not divulge the exact location of his fossil find, out of respect for the property owner.

The Prairie du Chien Police Department is seeking information about the whereabouts of Shannon L. Fischer of Prairie du Chien. Fischer was last seen in Prairie du Chien on Dec. 20, 2006.

Fischer is a 23-year-old, Caucasian woman, 5-3 and 135 pounds with brown eyes and brown hair.

If anyone has information about Shannon Fischer, they should contact the Prairie du Chien Police Department at (608) 326-2421.

According to a Prairie du Chien Police Department report, Fischer last talked to her mother Diane Bouzek of Wauzeka on Dec. 16.

Fischer was last seen with her boyfriend on Blackhawk Avenue on Dec. 20, according to police. A search has since been undertaken.

Fischer had apparently planned to spend Christmas with her boyfriend and his relatives. According to the police report, the boyfriend, whom police would not identify, told officers that Fischer had become annoying and was told to leave.

Police Chief Mike King said the police department has not ruled out foul play. King said that there is no concrete evidence of foul play but that due to the unusual nature of FischerÍs disappearance, it has become a high-level case.

King said that his department will continue interviewing FischerÍs boyfriend, friends and acquaintances. The Police Department also plans to notify the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a nonprofit organizatin that assists law enforcement agencies.

Fischer is a lifelong Prairie du Chien resident and is the mother of a son and a daughter, both younger than 2. She did not have a job and is believed to have no or little money.

A new year offers a chance for a new beginning, a chance to start over. Few know more about starting over than former McGregor resident Gertrude Henderson. As a 13-year-old girl, Gertrude had to start her life over after losing nearly all of her family to a house fire in 1936. The fire was undoubtedly one of the most deadly in McGregor history.

In 1936, the Anderson family, like a lot of other Americans, were simply struggling to survive another winter during the Great Depression. Father Jay Anderson, a veteran of World War I, had found work as a woodcutter for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA had set up a camp in town and was working on improvements at PikeÍs Peak and other projects. The family had lived in Prairie du Chien before moving to McGregor.

His wife Lydia, worked at home raising their children. The youngest child, Richard, was two, little Stanley was four, Erwin was eight, Betty Belle 10, Gertrude 13 and Alice, 15. The coupleÍs oldest son, Cleophus, (also called Andy) was 18 and was living and working on a nearby farm. Mrs. Anderson was originally from Giard, and had a sister, Ethel, who lived with her husband in McGregor.

Jay Anderson was in the process of building a house for the family on a piece of property that Lydia may have gotten through her family, that was located in what was called CraneyÍs Addition, now Garnavillo Avenue. He had completed a simple two-room wooden structure by the time winter came around. The house had few amenities, and was heated in part by a woodburning range which Mrs. Anderson cooked on.

The winter of 1936 was a particularly cold. Lydia Anderson arose the morning of December 8 and began to stir up the fire in the stove to warm the house. To speed things up, she poured a little kerosene on the fire. The resulting explosion started the little house on fire. The smoke and flames spread with deathly speed. Gertrude, who had been sleeping on the couch in the main room of the house that night, managed to crawl through the thick smoke, amid the screams of the family, her nightgown on fire. When she got outside, she rolled in the snow. She wanted to go back in to help save her brothers and sisters, but the smoke and heat were too much, and she was too overcome. Several neighbors,Theo Gerndt, Frankie Curriel and Harold Duball, arrived to try to help, and they managed to drag Erwin and Alice from a window in the burning house. But nothing more could be done to try to save the others, and the house had completely burned down within about 30 minutes. Gertrude, Erwin and Alice were taken to McGregor Hospital, where Erwin and Alice both died about noon the same day as the fire.

Gertrude found herself as the lone survivor of a tragedy almost too terrible to bear. Her brother Andy (Cleophus), was all she had left.

Forward was the only direction she could look.

Gert was in the hospital several weeks recovering from burns on her right side and a bout with pneumonia. While she was still in the hospital, GertÍs Aunt Ethel and Uncle Vern Washburn agreed to take the girl. Gert was a favorite of EthelÍs, and she had once offered to take the girl from her sister to ease her burden.

Gert was soon to learn why her mother had declined EthelÍs offer. Ethel, Gert remembers, ñtried to make a show" of her generosity publicly by giving her a home. But it was just a show, and as Gert remembers, Ethel was a selfish woman who had little patience for a girl struggling to overcome a terrible loss. Gert worked for her aunt in the kitchen of the hotel she ran in town. (Later the WashburnÍs ran the hotel at McGregor Heights).

Two years later, at age 15, Gert left Ethel and VernÍs house permanently, and began life on her own. She was taken on for room and board and a small wage (about $6 per week) by a family in Garnavillo, and later by a family in Guttenberg, and then in Elkader, where she graduated from high school. Gert says the families she stayed with treated her with kindness, and she had many friends at school especially in Gutt-enberg. When she travelled from place to place, Gert carried all of her belongings in a paper sack.

After graduation, Gert knew she needed to get some job skills, and that she could not afford to go to college. So she went to secretarial school in Elkader, learning to type and take shorthand.

World War II was underway, and jobs at a munitions plant near Baraboo, Wis., brought Andy and Gert to nearby Sauk City. Andy decided that the munitions factory was too rough a place for his sister. So Gert got a job at a hamburger joint that was ñjust a little bit of a place," and then at the ice cream shop at the bus depot. As she was walking to work, she would pass by the ball park. The players of the Sauk City semi-pro ball team would be finishing practice. One day she met the teamÍs pitcher, Don Henderson, at her brotherÍs trailer, next to the ball park. The two sparked a romance that led to their marriage in June of 1943. Not long after, the couple moved to DonÍs hometown area of Mount Horeb, to begin dairy farming, and Gert went to work as a secretary at an insurance office in town until the birth of their first child.

The couple has two daughters and a son, Karen, Connie Jo and Tom. ñThe Lord took my family, but He gave me a new family," Gert said.

Andy, GertÍs brother, worked on the AlCan Highway during World War II, and later ran heavy equipment and did dynamite work while raising his family in Marquette. In the 1950Ís he also sold and repaired boats and motors at his shop, AndyÍs Marine, which was located where McGregor Landing is today.

AndyÍs daughter, Sandy Hanson, of Prairie du Chien, remembers that the two families were close while growing up, visiting almost monthly. Sandy remembers that is was a big trip to go to the to Mt. Horeb farm with her parents and brother Richard.

Gert said that Andy would always call her when he was feeling sad. ñWe kept in touch all the time," she said. Andy passed away in 1976.

Gert worked on the farm until she and Don retired from farming, and then she started a second career as senior outreach and homecare worker. She made strong connections with the people she worked for. She was named one of the top senior care workers in Wisconsin in the 1980Ís. She also remained active in her church and community, always helping others. She also made peace with her Aunt Ethel. Aunt Ethel and Uncle Vern visited her and Don on the farm, and went to see her in the hospital before her death. ñI forgave her," Gert said.

Gert says that the thing that always kept her going through the tough times was the kindness of others, the many people who helped her along the way, People who took her in and gave her a job, a place to live, friendship. ñI wanted to give back to others because people were kind to me," she said.

To this day, she harbors a sense of guilt about surviving the fire, and tears are not far away when she talks about the ordeal of 70 years ago. December is still a time of sadness for her.

Despite the sadness that is tied up with memories of McGregor, Gert still has a fondness for the town and the people she knows and remembers there. She still has many family and friends in the area. ñItÍs halfway to Heaven," she said.