Farm homesteaded in 1858 receives Century Farm status

Laura Schiermeier, Staff Writer
Posted 7/31/19

VIENNA — There’s a heart-warming story about the day Clifford Wyss came home to his young wife and Maries County from World War II. He was just about flat broke, but he had a paycheck in …

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Farm homesteaded in 1858 receives Century Farm status

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VIENNA — There’s a heart-warming story about the day Clifford Wyss came home to his young wife and Maries County from World War II. He was just about flat broke, but he had a paycheck in his pocket that he felt he had to keep a good eye on for fear someone might try to take it from him. 

He’d served from 1944-1946 in WWII in the Calvary in Burma, India, and China. He has a story he tells about the mules that they cut their vocal chords because the mules brayed when supplies were brought to where the army was. They couldn’t have mules giving away their location. Wyss did what soldiers do and served his country in defense of freedom and fought against tyranny. When it was time for him to come home from the war, he had that check in his pocket while he rode a bus from St. Louis to Rolla, and then another bus took him to Vienna on its way to Jefferson City. It was late and dark the night he arrived in Vienna. There was nobody around. He finally found a phone booth near the courthouse and called his neighbors the Duggans asking them to tell his bride, Mae Wyss, that he was home in Vienna and needed a ride to their farm on MRC 621. Mae got his brother, Raymond, to bring her to Vienna in his logging truck so that she could pick up her husband. He finally was home safe from the war. What a happy moment that must have been.

The farm Clifford and Mae Wyss came home to that night is the one where Clifford was raised. It was homesteaded on May 3, 1858 by Clifford’s great-grandfather, Wilhelm F. Isenberg. The Isenbergs built a log cabin on a ridge high above the Big Maries River southeast of Brinktown. Their son, John, eventually built a one-room, log home where he raised his four sons and a daughter. Clifford’s mom, Wilhemine Pauline, was the daughter and she married   Monroe Wyss. Over the years they acquired the farm and several more parcels of land to total about 200 acres. 

After he came home from the war, Clifford and Mae lived in the log home built by his grandfather. Their children Gary and Marilyn were born in that log room. As the family grew so did the home, but the log room remained in the center of the house and it does today. 

The farm made money with market hogs, milk cows, beef cattle, and a strong team of horses. Clifford farmed full time and supplemented his income with a portable saw mill. He would take the saw mill to someone’s property and saw the logs and boards they needed to build barns, homes, and whatever they wanted. He became a very good estimator of how many boards it would take to build something. To this day, he can pass by places and say how close he got with the number of needed lumber. 

Clifford wanted to show his family an old time craft from the past. In 1991 he and Mae planted sugar cane with the intent of showing their children and grandchildren the craft of molasses making. Each year they invited family, friends and neighbors to join them for a day filled with hard work, a great meal, and a lot of reminiscing about “the good ole days.” The annual molasses making became a family tradition that continued until 2006. One year students from the University of Missouri came and other times there were residents from a local nursing home brought to watch the process as well as a local newspaper reporter. 

Clifford and Mae spent 76 years together. She passed away in January 2018 at age 93. His daughter said he sure misses him wife. Clifford will be 99 years old in November and he continues to live in the original home. Both of his sons built new homes on the farm. The oldest son continues to raise cattle and farm the land of this Century Farm.