Laura Faivre was born in Laona in 1910, the daughter of Charles and Laura (McHugh) Faivre . She was delivered in her parent’s house by Dr. Dawley.
Her grandparents, Patrick and Laura McHugh, came to Laona in 1900 on the old Military Road with their belongings on a wagon pulled by horses.
Laura’s father worked in logging camps all over the state as a blacksmith. There is a picture of him and his team of oxen in the Logging Museum in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.
Laura went to Laona schools and graduated in 1928. Laura said her class were the ones to start the first school forest in the United States located in Laona, Wisconsin. She said Mr. Robinson thought it would be a good thing to teach the children how to take care of a forest so most of the older students carried to the designated spot and planted them.
For entertainment as a young girl she loved playing the piano. She would play at the school house and for her first job without pay she played piano for the silent movies at the Mallow Theater.
Laura said that the first time she rode in a car was during the 4th of July parade and it was, “snowing like pitch forks and ax handles.”
Laura worked for the phone company in Laona located on Highway 8 in the green house next to the Presbyterian Church. The house used to belong to John Majnarich. She started there in 1933 and worked as chief operator for ten years. She started at 19 cent an hour and moved up to 29 cents an hour for eight hours a day. This was very good pay for the depression era. Laura said there were girls working there but all had different shifts so each girl had to handle it on her own. She said it got hectic when there was a fire and they would have to ring the bell until someone would answer, also she had to run the switchboard at the same time.
After working for the telephone company, Laura and her husband moved to Indiana and lived there until 1951. She worked for Ball Brothers making jars in Indiana then she moved back to Laona.
Laura showed us a letter from her father when he was in Florence at a camp. In his letter he said he just bought a pair of shoes and a shirt for $2.00, this was on September 3, 1937.
~ End of Story ~
Interview With Laura (Eggebrecht) Faivre
from the research project "Memories of Forest County" with minor corrections
