Wayne Rouse

Ancestors

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Wayne Rouse [send private message]

Biography

On my dad's (Rouse) side of the family we think we come from Lunel Vieil, France. From there the Rouses moved to Canada in the Montreal region. Grandpa Rouse's birthplace was St. Come, Quebec, Canada and they belonged to the Catholic Joliette parish in that area. Grandpa, who was always called Pete Rouse by everyone even though his first name was "Joseph" spoke the French of Quebec Canada. I always thought it was beautiful and I could listen to it all day. People would give him letters they had received from relatives, written in French, and he would translate the letters for them. He would read them out loud, first in French and then in English. I was always told that grandpa knew five languages and used them in his daily business at the Rouse's Chicken Hatchery just a couple miles south of Coleman, WI.

He also kept honey bees and made honey, which he used to make whiskey. He would keep some in the hatchery and when customers came he gave them a drink. I think that helped his business. He also began drinking in the bars at about 4:00 pm. And whatever bars he went to he wouldn't allow anyone else to pay for their drinks. He paid for everybody else's drink. He did that until closing time at 2:00 am. Crowds of people followed him around to all the bars.

I think that every time we went to Grandpa (Pete) Rouse's home he told us about the latest argument he had with someone. He always dramatized everything. First he would give a little speech, telling his side of things. Then he would clear his throat, take a step away and then turn and face where he had been before. And he would act like the other person, stating his point of view sometimes in that other person's voice, This was a common thing in his home and I watched it take place many many times.

On my mother's side, my forefathers lived in East Prussia. They were among the German speaking people who went to the Baltic Sea area of Russia because they were promised land and also there was a promise that they would not have to serve in the military. In Prussia all men had to serve in the military. And sometimes a man would not get back to is family till he was thirty years old. The Russian rulers knew that the Germans were good farmers. That's why they drew them to Russia with the promise of land.

Eventually, (probably under Catharine the Great of Russia) they were again forced to serve time in the military and their lands were being confiscated. So, they came to the United states and eventually settled in Marinette and Oconto County of Wisconsin. My great grandfather Samuel Kaminski immigrated to the USA in 1888 and farmed land outside of Cheektowaga outside of Buffalo, New York USA. Finally he moved to Coleman, Wisconsin and bought a farm. He was also part of the first group of people who started My grandfather Max also farmed in Coleman (I don't know ifit was the same fann or not) and that is were I visited with my family many times.

My mother Goldie grew up in Coleman, WI and my Father, Lloyd grew up on a farm a couple miles outside of Coleman. My grandfather, Pete, owned Rouses Chicken Hatchery which was known by most people in the county.

Mom's (Goldie) mother Myrtle Mary Huebscher died when Goldie was two years old and she was raised by housekeepers who weren't always nice to her. When she approached her teenage years her father (Max) thought he had to choose between Goldie and his new wife (Loretta,

~--------

Ziemer). So Goldie had to move in with her grandparents (Huebschers) a few miles south of Coleman on highway 141. Max and his son Leonard married sisters.

For quite a while our family was estranged from both the Rouses and the Kaminski families. The Rouses were Catholic and the Kaminski's were Lutheran. And in those days you didn't mix religions. However, over the years they got over it.

I was born during a blizzard on March 20, 1947 at The Evangelical Deaconess hospital on the South Side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My mother had to walk to the hospital by herself. My father, Lloyd Rouse, wanted to start his married life away from his home in Coleman, Wisconsin (Rouses Hatchery). At the time of my birth he and mom were living with his brother, Alvin and wife Jane on the South Side of Milwaukee. Even though dad had a decent job, he missed the small town life and moved to Oconto Falls, Wisconsin about 15 miles from the place he grew up. There he got a job at Scott Paper Company and stayed with them for the rest of his working life.

After a short while at that place we moved to South Meade Ave where we lived in a home made hunting trailer. It was about 8 feet wide and 20 feet long. At night the rats would come in through cracks in the wall. They would come into the bed where my sister Carolyn and I were sleeping. We would know the rats were coming either because we hear them squealing or because we saw them when they came through the cracks. At any rate, when they came into our bed they would crawl over our legs. And I would hold really still because I knew that when they went over sister Carolyn's legs she would wiggle around and attract their attention. She got bit more than one but not very hard.

Mom told dad this was happening but he didn't believe rats could get through a crack in the wall. One night she made him sit down in a chair in the dark until he saw them do it. After that he believed her.

While we were living at the trailer my dug the basement to his permanent home next door at 151 South Meade St. He dug the basement of the house with a horse and some type of scoop. I can still see him with the reins in his hands and around his neck, going down into that hole and then coming up on the other side. Dad was having trouble at first because the horse came from a farmer on the other side of the road where we lived. And every time the horse came out of the basement and he saw his home he wanted to go there. Soon dad learned that instead of scooping out dirt in both directions he would only go in the direction of the farm and then lead the horse around the hole and go in that same direction again. That way the horse worked really hard.

While mom and dad were building the house together we lived in the basement. Dad poured most of the basement floor, except for a narrow strip of dirt near the south wall. He left this open because we were later going to have indoor water. During the first years we only had a pump

Wayne Rouse Biography page 3

- ------------- -----------------------

outside. When he poured the cement, he also had us kids stand in the cement and wrote our names by each pair of footprints. Probably he and mom did this project together. I don' remember.

It was while we were living in the basement that I had my first religious awakening. I remember mom sitting in a kitchen type chair and it was next to the furnace. I was kneeling on the cement floor and saying my prayers to her with my folded hands on her lap. As I was doing this, the thought struck me that one day I was going to die. This thought terrified me, and I told mother about it. She explained to me that death was not a scary thing anymore because Jesus paid for our sins and rose again into heaven. I appreciated it very much that she gave me an answer from the Bible and not some psychological babble. By the grace of God, I have remained that way all of my life, so far.

Dad also had a water well dug outside, right near the house. For the first years we didn't have water in the new house. I think the reason for that was because he built the septic tanks last of all. We didn't have city water and sewer till years later. And then after that we had to hear dad stomping around the house yelling, "First we have to pay to have the water brought in, then we have to pay to heat it, then we have to pay to run it down the sewer". We always looked forward to those speeches from dad.

I was glad to get out of the rat infested hunting trailer. As a matter of fact I took a little hammer which I had, and I threw it through the windows. I would throw it through one window. Then I would go inside and get it. And I would throw it through another window. I continued in this fashion until all the windows were put out. I remember my dad coming home from work and asking mom how all the windows got broken in the trailer house But I don't remember any repercussions because of it.

At the time of this writing (April 2017 we have Six children and seven grandchildren. Children are Adam (Gracie) ,Sarah (Devin & Josh), Jodi (Ella), Tim (Ethan & Evan), Jesssica (Macy) & Peter

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Wayne Rouse at registration.