Oscar and Caroline Strand
(Strand family photo)

In 1889, three forties located on what is today known as Sherlock Road were
sold to Nathaniel (Newt) Eytcheson. The logging camp which developed was
a busy place for a time, but in 1909 was sold to Oscar Strand, who moved 
into the area with his family, living in the old camp buildings until he
built his own home which is presently owned by George Sherlock.

All that time, there were many buildings on the property, including a 
saloon which was some distance away from the main house.  Oscar's daughters,
Mrs. Nan Stevens and Mrs.Mable Maddocks, recall with a shiver the wolves
howling in the woods around their home!

The Strand family had the first telephone in the Hauer area, and their 
home became a stopping place for loggers coming through from Rice Lake to 
their logging jobs.  Their horses were put up in the barn and fed, while 
the men slept in the bunkhouse and had their meals in the Strand home.
Oscar and his family farmed this land from 1909 to 1918, and did some 
logging as well.

Art Strand remembers the night that a bear invaded their property, after
visiting the Langhams earlier, first bothering the cows and calves, then 
getting into the chicken house.  Art went outside with a gun and flashlight,
and not ten feet in front of him, just off the front porch, the bear stood
on his hind legs.  He made a pass at Art with his huge right paw, and Art
said the claws were really something to see.  He was lucky that he had the
flashlight on, for it blinded the bear at that particular moment, or he is
sure he would have been killed.  Instead, he was able to get off a quick
shot and kill the marauder.

Before the town of Hauer had its own post office, the Strand boys went to
Reserve to pick up the mail.  It seems in those days one could flag down
the Blueberry train (called that because it stopped ot allow people off to
pick blueberries along the tracks) and ride, with the mail it carried, up to
the LaRonge Post Office at Reserve.  The boys would then jump off the train,
run up to the post office and wait for the mail to be sorted, hoping the 
engineer would wait a couple of extra minutes for them so they could ride
back with him.  Many a time he left them there, and they had to walk the 
seven miles back home!

In 1920 or 1921, the LaRonge Post Office was closed, and the Claude Howard
store and post office in Hauer became the official post office.  When 
Claude Howard applied for a post office for this area, it is thought that
somehow his application was misread by someone, and the name given the post
office was "Hauer" quite by accident.  Had it not been for that mistake, the
little community would probably have been known as Howard, Wisconsin.

Here is the STRAND Family Tree:

Oscar and Caroline STRAND

Children:

Henry married Florence BAXTER.

Harold married Helen SCHEEL.

Mabel married Donald MADDOCKS.

Nan married Henry STEVENS.

Arthur remained single.

--Transcribed from the "Historical Album of Stone Lake, Wisconsin", 1977
pages 22 & 23.  Used by permission of the Stone Lake Area Historical Society.