#30

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#30 - Bradford-Mott-Wauda-Holz

Major Marion & Lt. Nate Wauda

"I first met Nate on Labor Day weekend of 1946 or 1947. Nate and Marian were both in the army during WW II, Nate as an officer with the 32nd Infantry, I believe, and Marian as a nurse. The war in Europe was over, and Marian was home, but Nate stayed for help with the Nuremberg Trials. Marian was expecting Nate, but hadn’t received a telegram saying when he would be home, so she came to Lake Julia with her Dad, Mayhew Mott. I was sawing wood in the back yard of Ernest Bradford’s cabin, and up walked a man in uniform, and he asked “Is this the Ernest Bradford cabin". I said yes, and he walked into the cabin and everybody let out a cheer!

He had come to Three Lakes from Neenah on the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, and talked someone at the depot into giving him a ride to the corner of Highway 32 and Lake Julia Road. From there, he walked to the cabins near the boat landing and said he was looking for the Ernest Bradford cabin. They told him he was in the wrong side of the lake, so he walked back to the Scott Lake Camp Road, as it was called then, and proceeded to what is now Bradford Lane and then to Ernest Bradford’s cabin.

I was born in 1936, so would have been 10 or 11. That was before I had been in the army, so I didn’t notice his rank or branch (infantry or ordinance). ... Anyway, he had a pair of the most powerful binoculars I had ever seen. We could look at people sitting on the docks on the other side of the lake in see what they were eating or drinking. He said the binoculars were used by a forward observer in the army, for artillery fire.

Nate and Marion were married at Lowry Air Field 30 Sept 1944, near Denver. The US Army Air Corps became the US Air Force in 1948, so it was the Air Air Corps then. Why they were at Lowry Air Field is a mystery to me, since Marion was an army nurse and Nate and infantry officer.

They both worked and retired from Kimberly Clark. They had three boys, Dick, Charley and Bobby. Dick and Charley are still alive, as far as I know. Charley brought Nate and Marion to our cabin the first year it was built. Dick lived in Bellingham WA the last I knew. I tried to look him up when I was in Seattle one time, but it didn’t work out. Charley was living in Appleton and working at Kimberly Clark, last I knew."

-- e-mail from John B. Snell, November 19, 2020

ANTECEDENTS

1879-1949

Harry Gray Smith

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20900502/harry-gray-smith

Brother of Ernest (ne Smith) Bradford. Father of Katherine (nee Smith) Snell. Grandfather of John B. Snell.

1874-1960

Wesley Mayhew Mott

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/94004343/wesley-mayhew-mott

Father of Marion Elizabeth (nee Mott) Wauda.

"It was Ernest Bradford and Mayhew Mott who, with their families help build what is now known as the Wauda cabin in the 1920s. After WW2 Earnest sold it to Nathan Wauda. In the Three Lakes library or the historical society there are 2 volumes: The Pine, Plow and the Pioneer. In Vol.2, page 103, is a history of the cabin and the Mott, Spicer, and Wauda families who built, used and love it still. It is important to note all those men helped build and maintain the 'Wauda' cabin: Bradford, Mott, Spicer, Wauda, Holz.

-- e-mail from Sara McPherson, 11/18/20.