John Bloodgood of Bloodgood’s Island, as it is known to all on Armour Lake, traces his family directly back to the original Foster family from which Fosterville originated. J. J. Foster, who came to the Northwoods from Greenville, Michigan, in 1905 to survey the area, saw the abundance of the huge, virgin white pines and soon established and served as president of the Vilas County Lumber Company. The community which grew as a result of his lumber mill was named Fosterville. J. J. Foster was the cousin of John Bloodgood’s maternal grandfather, Fred A. Foster. Fred Foster served as the accountant and lawyer for J. J. Foster’s mill. He had graduated from UW Law School in 1898 and was practicing law prior to moving to this area to work for the Lumber Company.
The community which grew up around the saw mill consisted of a general store and a boarding house. The mill workers were paid in script which would then be cashed at the general store, also owned by the mill. There was a railroad spur which came from Mercer to what is now the intersection of W and B, trains being the form of most long-distance transportation at that time. The current walleye rearing pond, now in downtown Presque Isle, was then the mill pond.
John Bloodgood’s mother, Katharine, and her brother, Frederick K., (children of Fred A. Foster and Katharine Kimble Foster) would come up on the train with their mother and would live here for 6 months of the year. In 1910, the mill was sold to William S. Winegar, who had been until then the mill manager. Soon after that the community name was changed from Fosterville to Winegar.
The following memories and information were shared by John and Sharon Bloodgood in the late summer of 2005:
“Even after the mill was sold, my mother’s family kept coming from Fond du Lac to the area via train to spend their summers. By this time, they had left the main street area and were “squatting” on what became Morris’ (Petrilli) Island – actually a peninsula on Armour Lake. After arriving at the spur station at the intersection of B and W, they would take canoes kept in a shed at the depot. They would proceed with the canoes to Little Horsehead, on to Horsehead, and then to Armour Lake. My mother’s family would then tent for the summer on the north end of the island on wood platforms. The peninsula became an island when fishermen cut an opening between the peninsula finger and the mainland.
Charles Morris, of the island, was a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. He and his wife, Gertrude (“Trude”), became true friends of our family. Their daughter, Sally (Petrilli), and Sally’s daughter, Sydney (Morris), still own the island/peninsula today. They were our closest friends and acquaintances on the lake over the years.
In 1921, my grandfather, Fred A., bought our island, known today as Bloodgood’s island, from the widow of a man named “Reed.” In 1925-26, the cabin was built. The original cabin was the same footprint as today, but ended at the kitchen corner with a lean-to. The main room had few windows, open studding, and porches with screens and canvas curtains. Windows were put in over the years beginning with the kitchen.
I was born on June 23, 1938 and have been here every summer with the exception of my first year, 1938, and 1961 when I was in the service. We may have also missed 1964 which was the year our first daughter Mary was born on May 16, 1964. Our other daughter, Ann, was born April 16, 1968.
My memory of the downtown facing north included, on the west side of Main St., one general store (Red Owl) with Clarence the butcher, a tavern (now the Yacht Club), the hardware store – Chet Dumas (now an antique/consignment store). Chet sold it to an elderly couple who sold it to John and Kathy Sitkiewitz (she is now town treasurer, he was first an Evinrude dealer, then did fulltime county road work). There were also two gas stations. As an aside, my parents were good friends of the Spracklings who had a place on Crab Lake. They had strong opinions about a couple living together but not being married. They found that the owner of one gas station was living with a woman but was not married so they bought their gas at the other station. They later found that the same situation existed at that station so they went clear to Marenisco to buy their gas. (Larry Johnson later bought the Mobil station and Larry Thoma bought the other – now Thoma’s). The grocery store mentioned above was owned by Curly Eschenbauch who sold to Sherman who couldn’t make a go of it. It subsequently caught fire and burned and was not replaced. There was also a Laundromat. A K-8 grade school was located near the location of the current Community Center. The Post Office operated by Mae Prosser was a little blue house north of the current Outpost building. The house had a closed-in porch with the mail boxes and a window for stamps and mailing articles. (Mae and Lucille Eschenbauch – who died at 94 – were sisters).
My FISH Story….
“After World War II, Fred Wolter, from Stevens Point, who had sold parts for war machinery, came here and bought 3800 acres of land with 10 lakes on it (the current Nature Conservancy) and built a homestead. He then built dirt roads to connect the lakes. Fred was soon elected town chairman and would hold “court”, so to speak, at the Post Office. It became his little fiefdom.
Fred would allow people to fish on his property for a fee of $4:00 (in 1951) Rudolf Lake, however, was his special private lake. (Eisenhower even came up to fish with Wolter on Rudolf.)
Now my father was big on fishing and wanted me to love it. He would take me out in the boat. Mother would also come with a book. I would cast till my arms fell off, but no luck. Well, Fred Wolter had guaranteed anyone would catch fish on one of his lakes so my father took me fishing on one of Fred’s lakes – still no luck.
So my took me back to Fred at the Post Office and confronted him while he was holding “court”. He was so embarrassed he agreed to allow us on Rudolf Lake but only I could fish. We bought 3 dozen minnows and off we went. I caught several nice sized walleyes but ran out of minnows by mid-afternoon.
My father then handed me a jointed pikey minnow to try. On the 3rd cast, a musky engulfed my lure. I was NOT prepared and did not have any of the proper equipment. My father said, “We’ll just row around the lake once and tire it out, then we’ll beach it.” We proceeded to do so, but after the full trip around the lake, the musky still wasn’t tired, so around we went again. Finally we were able to beach it. There was a 40”, 20 # musky. First, biggest, and last one I ever caught. We mounted the head. And that was the end of my fishing career. I truly didn’t like to fish.
Grandfather, on the other hand, did enjoy fishing. Armour was originally a pan fish (bass and bluegill) lake. It was my grandfather who introduced muskies to Armour – and now we have many.”
Circa 1950
The Storm in August of 1952 ….
“I was here with my mother, grandfather and a friend. My friend and I were staying in a tent. Late one afternoon after having rained all week, the ground saturated, it seemed to clear a little. South of what is now Gresham’s island, the sky turned yellow and the wind picked up and began to blow across the lake. The cabin windows were open. Mom called to me to help her quickly lower the windows. Then a blast of powerful wind, lasting only about 30 seconds hit us. That blast took down almost every tree on our island and then moved on to Morris’ island. There was little damage done to our cabin, but most of the trees were gone, pulled out by the roots. The cabin on Morris’ did sustain some serious roof damage. The electric generator we had ran all night until it was out of gas. Grandfather was so upset at the loss of the trees and the devastation of his beautiful island that he never returned. Morris’ island never completely recovered; ours and Gresham’s healed over time and returned to the shelter and beauty of native trees.”
August 1952
Sharon & John on the Island ….
Sharon and John were married in 1962 and spent their honeymoon on the island. Sharon remembers the first boat ride to the island in the dark. She was amazed that John was able to navigate right to the island when she couldn’t even see where they were going.
There are many memories of their life together associated with the island. Their daughters, Mary and Ann, spent time every summer with them building that special bond Armour Lake holds with all who meet her. Those are their favorite memories.
Sharon remembers the summer they had 15 people stay on the island when the girls were growing up. They were families from their neighborhood. The girls stayed in the cabin and the guys were in tents. They canoed and swam and had a wonderful time enjoying the beauty of the lake.
A sad time at Armour ….
Sharon’s most difficult memory was the summer of 1964. “That was the year,” Sharon related, “when the lake was divided into lots and the development began. At that time, I could still see over the trees from the cabin, and the noise and the equipment as it tore down trees and wounded the land surrounding the lake was devastating. The pileated woodpeckers I had enjoyed watching vacated the area. I cried and cried at the destruction I saw and heard on “my” beautiful lake. I thought it would never return to the beauty I had known, but time has healed it and the beauty and peace and solitude of this treasure have returned.”
A funny time at Armour ….
There was a time when it became necessary to acquire a second gas refrigerator for the cabin. Frank Jirikowic, a local general “fixer-upper” had one available. The challenge was in getting it to the cabin. After much deliberation, it was decided to take their 17’ canoe and Morris’ 17’ identical canoe and place a saddle over the two of them. They then managed to get it from the truck, down a ramp to the “canoe-catamaran concoction” at Harvey Bartsch’s landing. This brigade was crewed by John and his father, Frank, and Clarence from the Red Owl store. You can picture the “rest of the story” as the 4 of them proceeded to tow this unstable watercraft invention across Armour Lake and literally drag the refrigerator up the hill to the island cabin. If you use your imagination, you can just hear the “smooth” conversation and picture the effort it took to put the unit in place, even with 4 big fellows – all of whom had their own idea of how to accomplish it. Sharon still laughs as she looks back and remembers the ordeal. (Frank Jirikowic III, the grandson of the above-mentioned Frank, still does work for John and Sharon to maintain the cabin.)
Almost an Oops ….
One time when Sharon’s parents and sister came to visit, they brought their clothes over in garbage bags to avoid the chance of them becoming wet. When they were ready to leave, however, John in his enthusiasm to help tidy things up, took the bags to the garbage dump area at the resort when they were leaving thinking they were trash. Fortunately, someone realized they were missing their clothes bags before leaving town and they were able to rescue the bags just before they were taken to the local dump. (We now call that a “Transfer Station” – a tidy term wouldn’t you say?!)
Miscellaneous Information ….
The resort (property now owned by Tom Weigand) was opened in the 1920’s by Steener Fremstead (originally a logger).This was where mail and supplies were delivered (originally by horse and wagon by a local – Billy Sipps) for the Armour and Crab Lake owners. It was a gathering place, so to speak, for the people as they picked up their mail and ordered supplies. It was later sold to Jacob Decqualudas as a fishing camp where fishing guides were generally used. It was last owned by a family named Ruff.
The resort was where John’s family docked on their journey to the island. This generally had to be by daylight as there were no lights on the island at that time. Loons were always present, however, to be their escorts for the crossing.
Originally, there were only a few people on the lake. The resort had a few and the others were mainly on the islands due to the danger posed by animals and the fact that transportation was by water. There were few roads. Shiescerts were originally on what is now Gresham’s island, and there was a squatter on Bill’s island. John and a friend of his found the squatter’s cabin on the island around 1949-51 as they were looking for downed trees to make a raft.
Bill of “Bill’s island” had come up to Armour Lake before World War II and loved the lake. He was killed in World War II and the island was named after him. In the 1950’s, all islands that were not already privately held became part of the public trust and could not be sold.
Circa 1953
General Information on John and Sharon ….
★ John – graduated as an electrical engineer from Univ. of Michigan
★ Sharon – graduated in nursing from University of Michigan (BSN);
★ University of Wisconsin – Madison (MSN)
★ John – First worked at the U of Michigan-Ann Arbor in research on a government grant
★ Worked in Milwaukee for an electrical equipment mfr in systems design from September, 1966 to June 1970.
★ Then to Fond du Lac in the electrical machine tool division until 1983
★ Began his own company and is still consulting
★ John has been to Europe at least 200 times. Paris is his favorite stop there (50+ times); He has been to all 7 continents of the world and 6 of the 7. His destinations have included all of the European countries except N. Ireland and the Baltic states; Russia, Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Argentina. New Zealand is his favorite country.
★ Both John and Sharon have traveled extensively on many interesting and educational trips. They hope to enjoy many more.
★ We all know them as a cornerstone of Armour Lake and very much appreciate the foundation they have laid for all of us. They are a large part of the treasure we know as Armour Lake.