Walking the Rails: My Childhood in Whitehall

For Ethel Erickson Radmer, a child of the 1930s, life in Wisconsin was an adventure filled with imagination, fun, and curiosity. Hers was a simple life, without computers and cell phones. It was a time when people in a small town dropped in on each other to visit and paid their bills in person. It was a time when folks honored courtesy and neighborly affection. If you knew someone was in the hospital, you brought them flowers—from your own garden.

Ethel grew up in a railroad town that bustl...