This episode spotlights two small towns you probably have never heard of (1) Sycyna, Poland, and (2) Fall Creek, Wisconsin. These locations are featured in Flower in the River (and Fall Creek is called Falling Brook).
Sycyna, Poland, was home to my great-grandmother, Bertha. She was in the middle of a love triangle, an arranged marriage, and an ex who just couldn’t quit her and followed her across the ocean. And they say, “Nothing much ever happens in small towns!”
Bertha’s mother (and yenta-wannabe), Maria, also left Sycyna but immigrated to Fall Creek, Wisconsin (population around 1,200). The residents of this rural community worked the land, built up the town, established schools, churches, and a lot more.
Fall Creek was a happening place in the late 19th century thanks to the railroad and the thriving lumber industries. Then, in the early 20th century, many farmers specialized in dairy farming, and the village became a hub for dairy production and processing. Oh, and they came together and wrote a book-- a 140-page history of their village. That book, Sights and Sounds of the Valley, a history of Fall Creek, seemed to wait patiently for me in a kiosk inside the Fall Creek Bank. I drove there when I realized I had unwittingly moved very close to an ancestral hotbed (or Mothership, as I’ve often called it).
I wondered if every small town in Western Wisconsin came with a book, but so far, Fall Creek is the only one. And, if there’s such a thing as “family historian/writer DNA,” I think I inherited that from this branch of the family tree.
Music from Artlist
The BOOK and more