Bio: Jackson, Walter & Mary

Surnames: JACKSON OLSON CASPERSON MARTIN

---------Source: ABBOTSFORD, WIS. CENTENNIAL BOOK - 1973

--------- Jackson, Walter & Mary

Walter Jackson, born in Neenah, Wis., grew up working in a barrel factory making staves.

He then became a cigar maker, having learned his trade in Neenah as an apprentice. He moved to Medford and was foreman in the Dumpke Cigar shop where there were eight employees working as cigar makers.

Shortly after his marriage to Mary Martin of Lake Isadore, the Jackson’s with their three children, Miles, Katherine, and Frances, moved to Abbotsford and opened a cigar shop with six cigar makers and three girls to strip tobacco. Among the employees was Laura Olson, who became a long time resident of Abbotsford. The names of the various brands of cigars manufacture in the shop were “The Northern Real”, “ The Wisconsin”, and “The Anything.”

He had shops located at various places during the next sixty years. One was over the old print shop, after which he moved upstairs over the post office. He purchased the big brick building on Main Street that housed the bowling alley and conducted his cigar business upstairs and the bowling alley and ice cream parlor downstairs. Later he built a shop near his home which was the last move. He saw the cigar business go down with the advent of the cigarette.

When the family first moved to Abbotsford they rented the Denny house about two blocks from Scharf’s store, which is now Abbotsford Hardware. They moved to a home owned by Carl Thompson on Highway 13 and 29. Mr. Jackson then purchased a home northwest of the school which remained the family residence the rest of their lives.

Mr. Jackson, interested in Abbotsford’s welfare, was treasurer on the school board for many years and was instrumental in the construction of the annex to the school.

He was assessor for sixteen years until he died in 1953 at the age of seventy-six. Mary had preceded him in death in 1948. His two sons, Mile and Otto, are deceased. Otto remained in Abbotsford until his death in 1968. Surviving are the two daughters, Katherine Olson of Neenah, and Frances Casperson of Neenah. Frances opened and operated the first beauty shop in Abbotsford in 1930.