Ms. Kreul’s Class Blog

By Evangeline

Good day to you! I am one of the workers on wagons, I came to the Wade house because I was poor, and couldn’t take care of my wife, Margaret. As a wagon maker I heard a costumer talking about a small place called Greenbush, were you could live at an inn for fifty cents. So there I moved, I rented a small room with only a chamber pot, a pitcher, and a bed, at a nice inn called the Wade house.

Mr. Wade loved all the wagons I made, often I would have a free wagon drive me down to the forge, and ask to have a curtain size wheel made. I soon learned that people would pay more in a place were only one person was making wagons than in a place were lots of people made wagons. Soon I had enough to stay at the inn and much to have a good life. One thing that helped was that not many things were close together.

Some rooms concern me more than others, at first I was amazed that it costs three cents to get a whiskey, and five cents for lemonade! I wonder why my wife was delighted with the parlor? Lots of the time I wish I had a larger room and bed, I’m cramped in this teeny, tiny room!The rooms on the floor below me are a ton better, I wish I had one of those nicer rooms.

But I’m not the only one suffering, the chamber maid cleans out the chamberpots, cooks, and cleans for a meal and a roof. That must be hard to live with! Poor girl! That I come to think of it, life here is fun but nobody here has an easy time living here. But it’s almost midnight so I must conclude.

By MH

Good morning my name is Elizabeth I am 33 years old. I am here with my husband John (32 years) and my daughter Samantha (2 years.) There are 27 rooms in the Wade House.

My family has been here for 5 days and 4 nights. We are only here until the weather clears up.

My family moved to Wisconsin in 1848 which is when Wisconsin became the 30th state. The Wade House was built in1850 which is 2 years after Wisconsin became a state.

The rooms are very small but you just have to live with it. My daughter and I have the biggest room of all the guest rooms because I have to be with her. John is in the room next to me. It only cost 50 cents a night. The ballroom is attached to the guest rooms and sometimes they have Cotillions (dances) which makes it hard for Samantha to sleep.

My husband is usually in the tap room (barroom.) Which I am not allowed to go in neither is Samantha.

It cost 25 cents a meal. In the dining room are 2 long tables and the walls are white.

Everybody in the Wade family helps out. Hollis is the youngest but he was drafted into war. So Mr. Wade paid some other young man 300 dollars to take Hollis’s place that is called commutation. Well’ the weather is clearing up I have to go.

By EH

Good afternoon, my name is Elisabeth White. I traveled to the Wade House from England with my husband, Mark and my 4 children, Sasha, Isabelle, Jamison, and Mark.

Now let me tell you a little about my life at the Wade House. We had an earthquake in England and our house got tore down, all the houses in our state were hurt.

We had to make a decision either to move to a different part of England or to move to WI Greenbush. We decided to move to WI Greenbush.

We moved her the day that WI came a state in 1848. Now we live hear here with all out friends and family.

By Annie
Good morning! I am Caitlin and I’m going to tell you about my stay at Wade House. I have two kids; Lucy who is going to be 11 and John jr. is 10 months old. My husband John is a black smith.

Sometimes he helps in the sawmill at 5:00 am and 11:00 pm. He gets paid 50¢ when he does both Jobs and 40¢ if he works in the blacksmith shop.

We moved because we heard howling in the night. On our way we got tired so we stopped at the Wade House.

Did I mention I work in the kitchen? I make lunch and dinner, I get paid 140¢ a week or 1dollar and 40¢. Each day I go to the parlor and read my book. We have two rooms, and a crib. Lucy and I sleep together, John sleeps in the other room, and you can guess who sleeps in the crib.

Lucy makes candles, we keep some and sell some. Two for a penny. She makes 3¢ to 8 ¢ a day. She buys candy with some of the money and pay the rent with the rest. John goes to the barroom anytime he can. Women never go in the barroom.

I have to go! I’m going to make colored candles with Lucy. Goodbye!

By DW

Good day, my name is Dylan. I am the blacksmith at the Wade House. I’m 33 years old. I have a nice sized room on the second floor. My pay for a ten hour day is 35¢

The first floor has the barroom, dinning room, and parlor. The barroom is for only men, thats why it is my favorite. You can play cards, other games, and drink. The parlor is like the barroom exepet it’s for women. They like to read and talk. There is also a piano in the parlor, people rarley play it though. But when they do beautiful music fills the Wade House. Last but not least the dinning room. It  my favorite food, pork, corn, and rhubarb pie. The noon meal is all I eat but it’s 25¢, thats most of my pay!!!

Now onto the second and third floors. To sleep on the second floor you must pay $2 a week! It makes sence because they are bigger. The second floor is were I sleep. Mr Wade lowers my rent to $1 a week.    On the third floor is were the guests sleep for 50¢.

by: TV

Good day, my name is John and I am a Blacksmith here at the Wade House. My story is my home town back in England had a war so we got on a boat to come to the United States then we found the Wade House and decided to stay  here.

First off lets go to the Barroom. This is where the men play cards and gamble or play checkers or they just hang out. If you want a Whiskey it costs 6¢. If you want a lemonade it costs only 3¢. Now lets move onto the Parlor.

Women stay here while they are waiting for a meal to be made. They usually either read a book or listen to some music. Now lets move to the little rooms right up the stairs.

These are the rooms witch people stay in. They cost 50¢ to rent for only one night. Did you know that there is a total of 27 of these rooms in the Wade House.

This is the dining room where you eat all of your meals. The main meal costs 50¢ to eat, it is pretty much lunch. They will you stew and some pie if you would like some.

If you come to the Wade House come visit me at my Blacksmith shop I’ll be there. I hope you if you come you’ll like it as much as I have. I had liked it a lot also doing my years at the Wade House.

By Hannah

Hello, Welcome to the Wade House in Greenbush Wisconsin. My name is Elizabeth White. I came here a few years ago with my family. My daughters name is Mary White and my husbands name is Robert E. White. We came here to the Wade House from New York in our carriage. We had a Cut Under Basket Pea. We barely all fit. It’s was a very tiny carriage. I work here as a cook and my husband works in the Blacksmith shop. For every night we stay here at the Wade House, we have to pay 50¢ for each of us to stay in a room. We have to pay 25¢ for meals.

The mattresses we sleep on are made out of straw. Mary and I share a room together to save money. Mary sleeps on a mattress on the floor. Something else I do besides cook is make candles. Mary helps me make them. The candles we make are made of cow fat. We make them ourselves because there to expensive to by at stores. The Wade House has 27 rooms and 12 of them are for the Wade family. Every once in a while there will be a dance in the Ballrooe a dance called Cotilion. When I’m not working I will go to the Parlor and read or go to the Blacksmith Shop to see my husband. (The Parlor is for women only).

The Wade House doesn’t have bathrooms so under our beds we have pots called chamber pots. I’m glad I’m not the maid here at the Wade House! The Wade House is on a street they called farmers highway. They called it that because farmers would come on the road and stay at the Wade House. In the Wade House there is a Barroom. Robert would go in the Barroom with other men. The Barroom is for men only like the Parlor is for women.

4K is currently working on the last round of Literature Circles for the year. The genre is mysteries, and students are reading and discussing these wonderful books – The Mystery of the Phantom Ship by Laura E. Williams, The Mystery at Miss Abigail’s by Lois Gladys Leppard, Key to the Treasure by Peggy Parish, and The Mystery of the Haunted Playhouse by Laura E. Williams.

Students worked together to set up a reading schedule for the number of pages to read each day, depending on the number of days available. There are always 2-3 additional days added to the schedule to write book reviews for publication online.

Fourth graders are assessed on their participation in Lit Circle discussion groups, their written responses to daily reading assignments (similar to homework reading logs), and an independently written book review.

By Sam

Hi, welcome to the Wade House, I’m Mr. Wade I’ll give you a tour of the house. I did rebuild the house, And now it has twenty seven rooms.  For the bar room it would cost 25¢ for a meal. Only men could go in the bar room. It would cost 6 ¢  for a lemonade  and 3¢ for a whiskey. The only time a woman would go in there was to clean. The ladies had to sou there own dresses. We didn’t have any electricity to work with.

We all had straw beds. It would cost 50¢ to sleep there. We usually had tools under our beds, We had a bathroom in side or out side. The bathroom out side was a shed and you sit on a hole. And the bathroom in side, there is a pot under every bed, and a hole is in the bed. It wasn’t comfortable. Well the saw mill is very cool, the blade moves up and down, but not side to side. And the black smith is always working, hes working with iron, horses, oxen, so you know the black smith is busy. And thats the end of the tour.

By CR

The Wade House is located is Greenbush, Wisconsin. John Walker became a blacksmith. A blacksmith makes things out of iron like horseshoes. To do so the blacksmith would make a fire. Then put the iron bar in the fire for a little while. Then take it out and hammer it to the shape they want. After that they let it cool in water.

I came to the Wade House as an immigrate from Germany. My family is very poor. So we came to America. As I grew older I became a blacksmith. If my father ever needed  anything he would say “ John can you get me a couple of Oxen shoes?” Once in awhile I would burn myself,boy that hurt.

My brother Jake he helps my father at the sawmill. I get 23¢ a day 30¢ if I’m lucky. My brother gets 18¢. My Mother helps Mrs. Wade in the kitchen. My father works in the sawmill. My brother and   I     sleep in the same room. My mother and father sleep in the rooms across from us. Our lives can be hard at times but we will have to keep our heads high until things change.

4K student blogs on Class Blogmeister will be available over the summer and during 5th grade for students who are interested in continuing to blog. I will check articles and comments several times a week over summer vacation and hope to see lots of articles from 4K alumni.

4K has enjoyed working with K4 Book Buddies in Mrs. Kubicki’s class this year. Fourth graders have been excellent role models as they read books aloud, then talked about the books with their buddies. Thanks, Book Buddies!!!

By Jacob

“HI”, My name is Jacob. I just got back from the Wade House in Greenbush, Wisconsin a week ago. a week ago. When the trip first started, I decided to take along my wife, my son, and my brother Henry. This was my experience that I had at the Wade House.

When I first arrived at the Wade House, I had to pay ¢25 to buy a small bed on the third floor of the house. My family couldn’t afford to buy a nice room because I was poor. I had to wash my hands with a pitcher because the Wade House had no sinks to wash your hands. My floor had lots of small bedrooms just like mine.

I liked to hang out with my brother in the Barroom. We got to have a nice drink and relax. But I still missed my wife and son because they weren’t aloud in the Barroom. Instead, they were aloud in a place called the parlor.

In the Dining room, I liked to eat some pork and rhubarb pie. It was the perfect place to talk and have a laugh. When I left the Wade House, I missed the Dining room the most.

I liked to go to the blacksmith shot to see what my friend John the Blacksmith was doing. John the Blacksmith was very nice. I watched him put a piece of iron in fire, and then twisted it into a horseshoe. Watching John the Blacksmith was very cool.

In the kitchen, I saw lots of pots and pans. I even saw a water well. To cook food, we had to use a fireplace.

I thought that the sawmill was important because all of the wood in the wade House was made in a sawmill. I hope that you can go to the Wade House so you could have fun.

By Deana

Hello partner, I am Mr. Wade. I have ten pleasing children. I am happy to say the Wade house was built in 1850.

You should know before the Wade house was built there was a Half way house. My family and  I there before I built the Wade house, (our new house.) The Wade house isn’t only our house. Many people rent rooms for 50¢  a night. Some stay for one or two nights,but others they sometimes stay for a couple of weeks. The barroom is for adult men only, no wives and no kids. The men don’t just have there own room. Woman and kids go to the parlor. I am sure the parlor isn’t as loud as the barroom, but it is still an enjoyable room. The dinning room is open to all people for a nice meal. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day. Each meal cost 25¢, there are three meals a day, breakfast, lunch, and diner.

Beside the beauty of the house, the jobs are great. One of my favorite jobs is the blacksmith. It’s been awhile since I have seen my friend, Jim the Blacksmith. Jim works a lot with metal and iron. He fixes things with iron and makes things with metal. My wife’s favorite job is the cook, Lucy the cook. She loves to help with cooking. Sometimes she goes down and help in her spare time. A lot of people come to the Wade house so there is a lot of cooking to be done. Mary the Maid is super nice, but also has the worst job in the house. Mary cleans the chamber pots. I feel bad for Mary she is such a good friend.

4K has begun a short unit on Wisconsin in social studies. Among other activities, teams of students will be reading about Wisconsin’s history, geography, government, and people, then presenting WI facts to classmates using posters, songs, maps, or other formats of their choosing. In other words, they are the teachers for this unit!

By PM

Hello, my name is Joseph and I am the Blacksmith at Wade House. I’ve worked here for many years after leaving my home in Indiana.

One morning in May, I woke to the sound of…gunshots!  I knew right away that I should leave right away with my family. It seemed that my wife heard the noise and was already packing her bag and getting ready to leave home. Ten minutes later, my whole family was crammed in the back of our rickety,  old wagon, and I was hitching up our team of horses. A week later, we rode into Greenbush, Wisconsin. There I met Mr. Wade, and he invited me to the Wade House. When the Wades learned of my mettle working skills, they hired me as the new blacksmith. I the had my dream job!

I think this job is as good as it gets. The clang of the hammers and the roar of the forge. There are all sorts of things that I make in the forge, for example, horse shoes, Oxen shoes and wagon wheels. If you’re wondering what a forge is, it’s a stove that burns coal instead of wood that has a large bicycle pump on one side, Generally speaking.

Sometimes I go down to the sawmill to go see my friend Tom. He runs the sawmill and makes wooden boards  out of trees. In the mill, there is a huge saw powered by the water pressure pushing down on a turbine that operates the saw. It impresses me even today!

Now to the house itself. You can see that we are in the barroom. Only men were allowed in the barroom, so the room next door is the parlor. It is meant for women, but children can go there too. If you to go upstairs, you would see a room were a wounded soldier stayed during the Civil War. In the third floor, there is a ballroom with small rooms on the side. Man, those dances must keep you up all night!

I guess this is all I can tell you about the Wade House and Greenbush and it’s history. Remember, even though times change, the past is still important.

Students have completed their Wade House essays, based on their field trip to Wade House in Greenbush on May 11. They used the field trip packet work, the notes taken on the field trip, and their experiences at Wade House to take on the role of a person who lived at, worked at, or visited Wade House in the 1860s.

Students were assessed on their essay in several language arts categories: writing process (packet work, notes, graphic organizer, and illustration), content (accurate information from the time and place), organization (sentences, paragraphs, and essay), conventions (spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and usage), illustration (from the Carriage Museum), and presentation (overview of the person’s life).

By VK

Good morning, my name is Vlada, I am the blacksmith here at Wade House. Coming here wasn’t easy! I rode on horse to Wade House with my family from Sheboygan, Wisconsin because of the war. Being a blacksmith is an important job here because the town relies on me to make horseshoes, wheels, and other things. Before, people made just plain, old, wooden wheels. But that didn’t work so I put iron over the wheels so nothing happens to them. The owner of the sawmill will make the wheels, and give them to me to finish them off.

Let’s take a look at the Wade House. In the barroom, men drink whiskey which is 3cents and lemonade, which is 6 cents. Only men are allowed in this room! You would usually see a spit pit, a bar, tables and chairs, and a lot of cards. The men would sit, talk, and play card games. Only women and children are allowed in the parlor. You would read a book, or just relax waiting for the men. Around you, there would be books, tables, chairs, and paintings!

Wow! Isn’t the dining room huge? After a long day at work, the men would come home here just in time for supper! You would pay 25 cents per meal in just one night. While you were having your meal, you would see many doors, lift out walls, long tables, chairs, paintings, maybe china in glass, and maybe a bell hanging on the wall. The women would cook a variety of foods, from Rhubarb pie, to mashed potatoes and other delicious foods! I can just imagine the aroma of this room

The 2nd floor is all about the soldiers, and is filled with uniforms and other artifacts. All of it is about the tragic moments of the Civil War. Let’s go ahead to the merry 3rd floor! We are in the ballroom, to the sides are the extremely small bedrooms. That is called the sleeping area. In the ballroom there could be gatherings, or just dances! On the small tables of the bedrooms, there are water pitchers where you wash your face, and underneath there are chamber pots (bathrooms).

Thank you for visiting Wade House! I hope you enjoyed your visit.

4K has been composing poetry using the poetry templates on the wonderful web site ETTC’s Instant Poetry Forms.

After experimenting with the many different forms, students chose one to complete on the online form. Next they copied and pasted the poems into Open Office Writer documents. Then they saved the documents to the server and printed copies to use to practice for podcasting.

After several days of practice, students recorded their podcasts using Audacity on the teacher’s iBook. The teacher saved the .aup files as .mp3 files and added the podcasts to the class blog.

Elle’s poem is titled “Excellent Birthday”

Hannah’s poem is titled “Me and My Shadow”

Tommy’s poem is titled “I Am”

Dylan’s poem is titled “Dylan’s Ice Cream Store”

Annie’s poem is titled “Now I Am a Kid”

They hope you enjoy listening to their poetry!

Poetry Podcast #4 May 2009