Dorothy (Henke) Cottrell Pictures
|
|
Dorothy was the eighth child of Augusta Bruckner/Henke and the first child of Fred and Augusta Henke. She was born in 1915. Information about her life is included following the pictures.
|
|
 Annie and Dorothy Henke
by Fenner Lake about 1924
|
 Sterling & Dorothy (Henke) Cottrell
Wedding Picture, April 1935
|
 Sterling & Dorothy
Evan, Stanley, & Calvin about 1943
|
 Dorothy with Calvin, Stanley, Evan, Muriel,
and Bingo about 1948 at Poy Sippi home
|
 90th Birthday Picture with Children in 2005
(L-to-R): Evan, Calvin, Muriel, & Stanley
|
|
Dorothy attended the New Chester grade school through the eighth grade. Dorothy did not go to high school. Until she married she lived at home and in addition to helping on the farm, she worked at various local jobs such as house cleaning.
About 1928 Dorothy's parents bought a Model-T Ford so their children could drive them to church and to town shopping. Fred and Augusta never learned to drive and at first Lewis was the main driver. He was not supposed to drive the car without permission but he sometimes did. When Dorothy was 13 Lewis drove her out into a large field and taught her how to drive so she could also drive her parents places.
Dr. Robert Ingersoll was the family doctor and had a large house a few miles west of Oxford. Evelyn (Janke) Schroeder, sister-in-law of her sister Esther, was his head house keeper. The summer of 1928 Dr. Ingersoll agreed to take Dorothy on as Evelyn's helper for 50 cents a week plus room and board. Dorothy was only 12 but was used to hard work, she turned 13 in August of that summer. The doctor actually did not pay Dorothy as much as promised but she saved every cent, about $5, and that fall was able to buy herself a nice winter coat which she treasured and wore for many years.
In the fall of 1934 Dorothy attended a series of special youth church meetings. It was at one of those meetings that she met Sterling Cottrell from Poy Sippi which is about 50 miles east of Oxford. Sterling's brother, Forrest, had married an Oxford girl and Sterling went to the meeting with Forrest where he met Dorothy. He asked her where she lived but she would not tell him. Sterling found out anyway and showed up at her home the next week. The courtship continued with Sterling making frequent trips to Oxford. They were married in April of 1935 and went to live on the Cottrell farm near Poy Sippi.
In early 1937 they moved back to Oxford and rented a small farm just to the south of the Fred and Esther Janke farm. That did not prove to be profitable so they only lived there for less than a year. They also lived a couple times on the Clintonville farm of Sterling's brother-in-law Freeman Lunz. Otherwise, they lived on the Poy Sippi Cottrell farm in the original 19th century Cady farm house. Sterling's parents lived in a larger addition that had been built later on the south side of the original house.
Dorothy returned to the Oxford Bruckner/Henke farm house to give birth to her three sons so her mother could help her after the births. Her sons were delivered in the farm house by Dr. Ingersoll. Her youngest child was born in the hospital at Berlin.
A plane crash ended the life of Dorothy's beloved husband in July of 1946 leaving Dorothy with a baby girl and three boys under the age of 11. After the two oldest boys went off to the Wisconsin Academy boarding school Dorothy and the two youngest children went to live with Dorothy's widowed mother in Oxford. Her parents had bought a house in the villiage of Oxford after they retired from the farm. She continued to live there after her mother died in 1966.
|
|