Sofronia LaFave Grandow Remembers
[Direct descendant Jessica’s notes :
The interviewee was the wife of Antone/Antoine
Grandow. Antoine was the son of Basil and Sophia Grandeau, and the brother
of Mary Grandeau Deau.
Mrs. Grandow was named Sofronia LaFave at
the time of the fire. Her father's name was Louis LaFave. I am guessing
that their surname was a corruption of the name LaFavre.]
Charlie House, a Milwaukee newspaperman, interviewed Mrs. Antone
Grandow when she was 95 about her experiences as a girl of
12, and he kept his notes of the conversation. She and her father
had gone out to a log cabin near Peshtigo to go partridge
hunting in the fall of 1871.
Sofronia LaFave Grandow
"I was afraid of it. I was only a little girl. It was terrible.
It smelled hot and it hurt you to smell that air, it was so
sharp. My daddy didn't go hunting because the smoke got in your
eyes. The stuff in the air got to be like snowflakes, there
were so many. And it blowed. I tell you it blowed. It blowed like
anything."
Charlie House
The owners of the cabin had gone off to visit someone in Peshtigo.
House asked if they came back after the fire.
Sofronia LaFave Grandow
"They never come back at all," the old woman said. "I never heard
of them again, not in all these years. They was
burned--but they was never seen dead, neither."
Charlie House
She remembered that before the fire a man came out of the woods
carrying a box of what she called "draw line things,"
presumably surveyor's instruments.
Sofronia LaFave Grandow
"He was scared. The draw line things was very important. He said
to us that he would sink the draw line things in the mud
and if any of us gets out without dying he will know where it is.
He said he don't think he can make it.
"We prayed and prayed and prayed. And then it come. [Oct. 8, 1871]
And we prayed all the time until we got into the water
and we prayed. But it was too hot and we went in the cabin and covered
us with wet blankets and clothes--a big pile of
them, all wet."
Charlie House
"Do you remember how long you were in the cabin?"
Sofronia LaFave Grandow
"A long time. Then finally it went away. My daddy, he asked the
man to look out for me and then he went off to get some
help and some food because we was hungry. My daddy tried to get
to Peshtigo but he come back and he sat down and cried
because he wouldn't find the way out. The roads, they was all covered
deep with ashes and trees and my daddy got lost so he
couldn't get out. We had to stay there until somebody came and helped
us."
Charlie House
"Were you or the man or your daddy burned?"
Sofronia LaFave Grandow
"Our skins was all bright red and we had burned places on us from
burnings things the wind blew on us. Daddy was the worst
of all from going out into the hot woods."
Charlie House
"Was there something to eat in the cabin?"
Sofronia LaFave Grandow
"It was all et up when the fire came. They was some turnips in the
garden and some carrots, I think. They was cooked in the
ground. We ate them. We didn’t have no water. The well was dried
up and so was the river. The mud was baked hard. We didn't
have no water. We found a poor cow, though, and we got a little
milk."
Charlie House
"Do you remember any more?"
Sofronia LaFave Grandow
"I saw some big piles of burned people--you couldn't tell they was
people. In Peshtigo, I think. Everything had dried up
from the hot."
Charlie House
"The man with the draw things--was he alright?"
Sofronia LaFave Grandow
"Well, he went away and said he would come back for the draw line
things, but he never come back."
Charlie House
"And the draw things?"
Sofronia LaFave Grandow
"They must be there yet."