An article from the Glidden Enterprise, from the town of Glidden, WI. (pop. 650) located a few miles south of Mellen was passed on to the editor of the Hetald from that newspaper’s Dec. 1, 2004 issue that contained items that may be of interest to many of our own readers.

A JoeBarabe had written a nostalgic story of a young man he called “The Red Row Warrior,” who was a native of Mellen, and had graduated from the Ontonagon Township High School in 1937, worked in this town for a time, and then gone of to war.

To set the scene for the Herald readers, in the town of Mellen, Wisconsin, there was a large logging-lumber operation, the Foster­Latimer Company which had oper­ated out of that town from about 1909 until the mid 1930’s when the logs were gone and the mill was shut down. Foster-Latimer had brought prosperity to Mellen, with all the marks that prosperity brings.. cement sidewalks, rows of company houses, and full employ­ment for the residents. Foster­Latimer charged $7.00 a month for the rent of company houses.

The Moseler family lived in a company house on “Red Row,” so named because the company houses were all at one time painted red. Louis and Nettie Moseler had three sons, George (Red), Bob, and John, as well as daughters Julia, Marie, Dorothy, Margaret and Lois Ann. John Moseler born December 4, 1918, is the subject of this story.

Marie Moseler Kunsch, John’s sister, now in her 80’s living in Glid­den, recalled her brother’s dog, Nap, a black cocker spaniel. The Mack family gave John the dog. When he brought it home it was so tiny John carried it in his hat. John was in grade school. He sure loved that dog. Nap outlived my brother.”

John’s boyhood chums included “Wimpy” Kaseno, Ray Hoglund, Clarence Carison, Pete Tumey, and Louis Degiovanni. The latter recalled that John Moseler was called “Hippopotamus because he could stay in the water all day long. We had a swimming hole in Devil’s Creek by the sawmill.. he was a real good swimmer and a real good boy.”

Foster-Latimer sold their mill and equipment to an Ontonagon company in 1936... Lake Superior Lumber Company. John Moseler finished his junior year at Mellen High School, then joined his family who had moved to Ontonagon. In the 30’s several families followed the jobs to Michigan. Besides the Moseler’s, there was Lloyd Elliot, Tom Lockhart. Ted Fuller and the Bidgood brothers.

Louis Moseler had been the barn boss for Foster-Latimer and had supervised the care and feeding of 53 teams of draft horses in a huge barn at Mellen. Young John had spent a lot of time riding the big draft animals. After Louis and his wife, Nettie, took up residence in Ontonagon, son John was enrolled at the Ontonagon High School from which he graduated, as President of his class, in 1937. He was named captain of the new school football team under Coach Maurice Richards. Following graduation, John worked for the Lake Superior Lumber Company until he joined the army on April 2, 1941. He left orders to take care of his dog, Nap, and went off to the army, planning on being home for Christmas, but then came Pearl Harbor and his fainily never saw him again.

In all of his letters home, John would write, “Take care of my dog ‘til I get home.” He was in England by February of ‘42 and for the next 28 months was engaged in the preparations for the invasion of France. In June, 1944, he was with the 1121 Engineers combat Group that followed the D-Day invasion into Luxembourg, then into Belgium and finally to the Battle of the Bulge. John Moseler was killed by a concussion bomb on December 17, 1944. He had just turned 26.

At Mellen, Joe Barabe writes, there are 67 headstones in the sol­dier’s plot marking the final resting place of soldiers from the Spanish-American War to the Korean Conflict, John Moseler lies between the graves of Herman Bonitz and Eliason Eli, one of 544 men and women to wear the uniform in World War II from the Mellen area, and one of 24 to die in battle.

The old Mellen John knew as a boy growing up, is gone. There is no Red row of houses, no cement side­walks, no cavernous barn, and no Foster-Latimer.

What became of John’s little dog, Nap, that he cared so much for? A follow-up letter to the editor of the Glidden Enterprise, dated January 5, 2005. from Alfred Wilkinson, a grandson of Louis and Nettie Moseler, John’s parents. Wilkinson writes that Nap was given to him. He describes the dog as being feisty and would challenge larger animals. Shortly after being taken with the family to Ontonagon, Nap tangled with a chow and got the worst of it. After healing up, took on Dr. (Bill)

Strong’s St. Bernard who “took one look at Nap, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, shook him, and set him down.” At Ontonagon, the little black dog picked up the habit of chasing cars and even got stranded on an ice floe. “He’d be gone a couple of days. He came back all cut up. Probably a fight with a coyote.”

Wilkinson reports that Nap was later taken to Green Bay when the family moved and he lived to be 18 years of age, very old for a cocker. He added, “He was a great dog and a wonder­ful pal. He was my constant companion. I think of him often, along with Johnny, who was my favorite uncle.”

There are still several folks in the Ontonagon community who can trace their roots back to the Mellen, Wisconsin that once was and Joe Barabe’s tale of one soldier from Mellen who passed through Onton­agon in his short life’s journey was especially touching at this time of year, December 17th being the 61st anniversary of John Moseler’s death.