Wisconsin Good Neighbor Day papers and films, 1951-1952
Creator :
Przedpelski, Boleslaw Jozef
Content Description :
Films documenting Wisconsin Good Neighbor Day, an event in service of the farm of Frank Flees and his family, organized by Dr. B.J. Przedpelski, the associate county agent for Marathon and Portage counties, held on September 11, 1951. Mr. Flees and his family were in need of assistance on their farm after an accident left Mr. Flees blind in one eye and a farm loan he applied for was refused, and when Dr. Przedpelski heard of this need he organized the farm project known as Wisconsin Good Neighbor Day. With the planning assistance of Extension Division staff, the Farmers' Home Administration, and local government agencies, in a single day over 12 hours, hundreds of neighbors descended on the Flees farm in Frazen, Wisconsin, a community about 120 miles north of Madison, to erect a house, large barn, garage, milk house, granary, and machine shed. Additionally, a local horticulture professor designed a U-shaped drive to circle past the buildings, volunteers built a pond for livestock, a local garden club built a circular stone wall, filled it and seeded it, and busloads of schoolchildren arrived to clear stones from the fields. To serve the volunteers, the county health department set up a first aid station and the home agent for the county assembled a committee from the local Polish community to feed the more than one thousand people who showed up to help with the project.