| Notes |
- The following is taken from the Ted’s book “WISCONSIN’S AMAZING WOODS then and now”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Theodore (Ted) F. Kouba, who was on the staff of the U.S. Forest Service for many years in Madison and in the regional office in Milwaukee, left that Service at the end of 1966 because the entire divisional office was moved to Pennsylvania and he wished to remain in Wisconsin. Thereafter for four years he worked on a temporary basis for the research and planning division of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. He now lives in Madison with his wife Marie.
Ted Kouba was born on a corn and cattle farm near Blairstown, Iowa, in 1902. The land between his parents' prairie farm and the Iowa River was heavy with woods which he studied like a book. In late autumn and all winter during his youth he relentlessly pursued his trap line three miles long every morning, starting well before daylight. As he proudly entered the one-room country school each day (later a larger high school in town) his success that morning as a trapper of skunk, raccoon, and mink was easily detected by his classmates. It seemed that a hurried bath and change of clothing didn't do what was necessary to counteract the fragrance of the wild fur bearers, especially that of the skunk.
Carrying home sometimes through deep snow from one to three skunks, averaging about six pounds each, and occasionally a raccoon, opposum, and mink, along with a lantern, flashlight, rifle, and extra steel traps made him such a thin boy he hardly cast a shadow. But this exercise during his youth along with chores and other work on the farm prepared him for athletics in high school and college and for walking in the woods after graduation.
Ted came naturally to love the woods and everything wild. During his early years he kept a number of wild animals as pets. His favorites were three baby skunks which he found wandering aimlessly in the pasture one summer day. Their mother apparently had abandoned them either intentionally or by death. They became such pets they followed him around the premises like pups, but his dog Tip, a great hunter, took a dim view of these pesky animals following his master. Wild animals to him should be "taken" - not coddled. Also as they grew older they kept Tip at a distance with some accurate sharpshooting from one end. These trying circumstances frustrated his dog to the point where the half-grown animals had to be taken deep into a neighbor's woods and released.
But Ted was not free from wild things. He kept a pen of snakes well concealed in the family orchard - hidden because his sister Helen feared snakes like a pious person fears purgatory. Those also were released, after a "happening" on the country school yard. Wearing a new suit that day (new suits in those days were purchased only when one grew out of them, otherwise it was patch over patch), he asked a girl classmate to "reach down in my coat pocket to see how deep it is." Inside he had a small, green, harmless snake not more than six inches long. When the young lady touched her warm fingers to the cold snake she let out a scream, jerking her hand from the pocket - not from the top where it entered but sideways, tearing the pocket open. At the same instant the one button of three on his coat that was buttoned went into orbit and has never been heard from since. (Losing one button of three from a coat today is not too serious. In those days it was a tragedy.) If his parents hadn't been so understanding the ruined coat could have been sufficient grounds for another exciting "happening."
His marksmanship with rifle and shotgun was well known by those with whom he hunted. Even when hunting alone it is said he never returned empty-handed. But his popularity reached its peak as a freshman at Blairstown High when he came down with diptheria and closed the school for three weeks. No one else in school suffered from the malady, thus all enjoyed a fine vacation.
A punishing but highly satisfying experience during his career was carrying a seriously injured person from the mountain wilderness of Idaho in the early 1920s out to a road sixty-eight miles distant when he was a college student working during the summer for the Forest Service on a mapping assignment in the wilds of Idaho. Starting from near the Idaho-Montana divide the helpless man was carried over game trails and mountain ridges to the nearest road sixtyeight miles away to Kooskia, Idaho. From there an ambulance took him to a hospital.
Ted and two other foresters with him worked seven days overall to accomplish the task - six days of carrying and one day of rest. Exhaustion overcame them at the end of the fourth day when their hands no longer could grip the two poles of the improvised stretcher made from poplar poles and a piece of canvas cut from their tent. "When darkness came upon us that evening we lay the injured man down on the ground and collapsed on the spot, being too exhausted to prepare and cook the two spruce grouse we had killed with rocks late that day. Our food en route was a steady diet of spruce grouse, popularly known as "fool-hen," a bird that has no fear of man, which we ate almost raw (as soon as the meat was warm), being too hungry to wait until the meat had completely cooked over the campfire. You could say we were living off the land but not very high."
There is no record of the number of times the stretcher bearers fell while climbing and descending the steep terrain but it was many. While two men carried, the third cut trail some distance ahead, then hurriedly brought along the bell mare and the ten mules. Despite the rough treatment en route the injured man slowly recovered in the hospital and was most appreciative of their efforts. He happened to be the packer who brought in canned food and other supplies from Kooskia every three weeks with his pack train. Ted received a commendation from his employer the Forest Service which carried an automatic pay increase of $5.00 a month - bringing his monthly salary up to a staggering $75.00 a month.
Upon graduation in forestry from Iowa State University in 1926, he joined the U.S. Forest Service and literally "took to the hills" on a Service assignment to buy worn out farmland in Arkansas for the Ouachita and Ozark National Forests. Living among mountain farmers and moonshiners was an exciting and educational experience. He continued his career on the national forests until he transferred to the Land Economic Inventory in Wisconsin in 1929.
During 1930 the rapidly spreading white pine blister rust was threatening to destroy the reproduction of this valuable forest tree in Wisconsin. Accepting the challenge to help protect this tree species from the devastating disease, Ted again joined the federal government and cooperated closely with state agencies, counties, pulp and lumber companies and private individuals to control the disease and to develop new control techniques.
He actively participated in research projects with federal agencies and with scientists of the University of Wisconsin and the Department of Natural Resources in developing white pines resistant to blister rust and in determining micro-climatic conditions favoring control of the disease. Both studies have provided major contributions to blister rust control work. In 1957 Ted was transferred to the regional Forest Service office in Milwaukee where he specialized in state and private forestry programs in the nine-state region. For the next ten years, still in tyre Milwaukee office, he assisted state conservation departments in forestation, forest management, information and education, and watershed management.
Ted's hobby over the years has been looking for Indian artifacts on the ground surface - a hobby which he started on the home farm "as soon as I was able to walk." Through the years he has developed special techniques for finding old Indian hunting grounds and campsites where artifacts can be found. His most prized “find” is one of the oldest Indian campsites in the Midwest, located in Dane County, used by nomad Indians intermittently some 10,000 years ago.
Not too strangely, Ted enjoys, with his wife Marie, ballet, opera, plays, concerts and circuses. They attend several each season.
Ted's wealth of Wisconsin woods information is the result of some forty years of observations and interpretations of activities throughout the state. He has been active in several conservation organizations and has served as president and on various committees of the Wisconsin chapter of the Soil Conservation Society of America, the Society of American Foresters, and the Charles E. Brown Chapter of the Wisconsin Archeological Society. He is also a member of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters and the American Forestry Association.
As satisfying as the past has been Ted looks only to the future. "It's what's ahead that counts," he says, surveying his happy moments with Marie and his work and hobbies.
From book #2 by Ted Kouba - Peter Kouba family comes to America, a Resume -
Peter Kouba (pronounced KO'-ba as in Czech), wife and three children, came to the promised land, the United States of America, by sailing vessel in 1869. Two girls were the oldest children, while Frank, the youngest, born November 25, 1869 became my sister Helen and my father. Two additional children, will and Emil were born in Iowa.
The sailing trip from Europe to America was difficult beyond comprehension, and almost proved fatal. Storms, frequent and overpowering, required masts to be lowered to keep boat from overturning and sinking, and then boat rode the wild waves and precious distance was lost. Able bodies (many were seasick) threw water from boat with pails to keep it afloat. Prayers were truly from the heart!
Neither grandfather Peter, nor this brother John who came earlier had farmed. Peter Kouba's had an Inn where meals, beer, and lodging were available. John apparently assisted a large landowner to protect his timber and wildlife as poaching and illegal timber cutting were common. Game in Austria-Hungary apparently was owned by the landowner, not the State.
Grandfather, farming for the first time, was totally helpless, as was brother John. It appears the Peter Kouba family came from Moravia, Austria Hungary, Province of Talice, village of Radlice. That portion of Europe is now Czechoslovakia.
The land grandfather purchased, apparetly sight-unseen, was forty acres on an unimproved road a few miles from Blairstown and Luzerne, Iowa, geographic location NWSW, Section 28, T.82 N. R. 11W. (See map album 1).
Father Frank grew up enjoying farming and fortunately so, as grandfather apparently could not adjust. Dad, over the years achieved extaordinary farming success. He ws a talented accordion player and called dances, and played at many Square dances apparently was the farmer's principal recreation.
In 1877, father married the most wonderful girl living, Emma Melsha, daughter of another Czech-American family several miles away.
Father realized to get farm produce more efficiently to Luzerne and Blairstown markets, one must live on a better road. He boutht land and a farmstead along a better road about a mile north from his parents farm. (See map album 1).
Grandfather Peter died apparently of cancer in 1909 at Luzerne where he and wife Frances were living. Grandmother died ther in 1916.
My father and mother were kind, proficient, hard-working farmers. Mother not only did the cooing and other work inside the home, but many times worked in fields alongside father. In a few years they acquired an adjoining ‘40' and so it went, concentrating on raising quality corn, beef cattle, and hogs. Then they hired a year-round farm hand who lived with them.
Father grew blue-ribbonquality corn and other small grain which he displayed at county and state fairs and won scores of top prizes. His winnings brought commercial seed company representatives to his door. Oftentimes they purchased at double market price his entire corn crop of several thousand bushels picked out the seed ears and left the remainder for him to use, without cost, for livestock feed. In cooking, mother also excelled, winning more prizes, (12 of them) than than father with grain, and occasionally jokingly reminded him that such a thing could happen.
Mother never refused a hungry person who came to the door for food, including homeless of unemployed men. The were given a nourishing meal which they ate sitting on the front porch. More than one offered to chop wood at the woodpile or perform other menial tasks for payment, but was refused. Ftahter gave grain to covered wagon gypsies who begged for grain for their horses. Women did the begging, carried grain in gunny sacks to the several wagons which seemed already filled – with kids!
Mother died of continuing heart attacks; deeply felt by her few relatives alive and her many friends, on October 19, 1935 at 60 years. Our dear father Frank died from malignant cancer at Helen's home where he was living on March 5, 1944 at age 75.
My precious sister ehelen was born in 1899 at the farm homestead where I came along 1902. From the beginning I was horribly sick for two years, requiring day and night care. Medical research years later recognized allergies and mine apparently was feathers. As baby, I as others in that era, slept in soft, warm feather beds and with down filled pillows. The sicker I became the more oove and feathers were piled around. After the doctor confided that one certain baby would have a short life, forks hired a photographer who came and while baby weakly standing in nightshirt and alone, took my picture. But the subject was out of fucus. Sister Helen about four years (old), who wanted to stand with here sick brother but was refused by the photographer, stood several steps back and came out in sharp focus. (See album 2).
My sister, always fortunately, was one of those never sick individuals. We came into a close friendship which has never weakened. She graduated in music from Coe College, became a strikingly successful high school music teacher, and strangely, began at Blairstown where she graduated, before she finished at Coe. Other schools where she taught included grand and high schools ate Belle Plaine, Madrid, and St Charles, Iowa. Many persons came to her for private lessons.
In 1925 Helen married Milo Kopecky in the prestigious ‘Little Brown Church in the Vale', continued teaching music as time permitted and later on worked full-time at Collins Radio which contributed notable to World War II effort. Milo's untimely death of a heart attack occurred a few years ago, and is buried in Cedar Memorial Cemetery at Cedar Rapids where Helen expects to be buried also.
Ted in 1926 graduated in forestry at Iowa State College, (now University) where he participated in athletics and bane. He became forester for the State of Wisconsin Land Economic Inventory where in 1929 at a university dance he was introduced to a beautiful and distinctly talented girl taking graduate work in English Literature from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. After her graduation in 1930, we were married in the Congregational Church at Madison, Wisconsin. During her school career she was awarded memberships in three honorary sorieties: Kappa Delta Pi, Kappa Sigma Iota, and Pi Lambda Theta. And at this writing, after several strokes darling Marie is in the Madison Convalescent Center in which we celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary August 3, 1990 to the tune of a fine orchestra, among many balloons, enjoying a large cake and which fed all other patients, nurses, and aides. Marie's parents Mr. and Mrs. Clinton Love are buried in Wildwood Cemetery, Salem, south Dakota. Marie and I will be buried at Forest hill where we have an inscribed small marble grave stone.
Father and mother, the Frank Kouba's, are buried on the hilltop in Pleasant Hill Cemetery, Blairstown, Iowa as are grandparents Peter Kouba'a and uncle Will Koubas.
Neither sister Helen and Milo have children nor do Marie and I, thus no continuing generations of the Peter and Frank Kouba lineage will follow. Thus ends a resume of the Peter Kouba family which migrated to the promised land, the magnificent United States of America in 1869.
Written by Ted Kouba July 1, 1991.
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1902 - 1993 (91 years)
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