Leroy Gordon Cunningham 1891-1964

Presenting Bruce Brewster as his grandfather Leroy Gordon Cunningham...



Leroy Gordon Cunningham 1891 – 1964

I was born in Tomahawk, WI in the spring of 1891 to Frank and Clara Carpenter Cunningham. I had a sister named Hazel. My father died when I was only two and my mother never remarried.
After graduating from high school, I got a job with the railroad and ended up as a dispatcher in Wausau where I met my bride-to-be, Ida Newell, who was a young school teacher at the time. We were married in 1915 in her home town of Neilsville, WI.
Our first child, Howard was born in Wausau. We moved to Antigo, WI where I was a book keeper for a lumber company and our first daughter, Jean, was born. Two years later we moved to Post Lake where our youngest child, Beth was born.
In 1920 I brought my young family to Three Lakes where I took the position of supply manager for the Thunder Lake Lumber Company. I managed the supply depot and general store near Virgin Lake. We ordered supplies for the logging camps along the narrow gauge railroad that ran from Rhinelander, past our depot and out into the forest north and east reaching the upper peninsula of Michigan. Although we had a private telephone line along the train tracks, the sound quality was so poor, I missed the old telegraph I used in Wausau.
My two older children worked in the store summers, when the government passed Child Labor laws in the late 1930’s it was very embarrassing when they had to be paid more than I was receiving as manager. That may by why I began working for the U S Forest Service in 1939.
My duties with the Forest Service included being a fire tower lookout, working with the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) planting trees, surveying and cruising (measuring standing trees to calculate the amount of board feet of lumber that could be harvested) Have a Biltmor Cruiser stick prop
During this time a cousin & I had a fox fur farm. We raised red, black, & silver fox for pelts.
When furs went out of fashion and prices fell, tied raising chickens (so did everybody else), so out extended family ate lots of chicken that year.
After retiring from Forest Service, I worked one winter at a furniture factory in Gillit WI coming home weekends.
I also worked for the Pukal lumber company in their mill yard, scaling (measuring board feet of lumber) the saw logs as they were delivered.
In 1959 we sold our home near the old Thunder Lake Store near Virgin Lake and bought 300’ of frontage on Maple Lake for $15 per front foot, where we built our retirement home. I lived there until my death in 1964 while vacationing in Arizona.