LUCK - From his birth in a tent somewhere outside St. Louis, it seems Ike Joles Jr. was destined to lead an adventurous life.

Out of that humble beginning came an entrepreneuring spirit that has served him well throughout his life.

Mr. Joles, 83 and living in Luck with Florence, his wife of more than 60 years, has been known to try almost anything once.

For decades, he and his family made a living selling medicinal herbs picked from here to Florida and Christmas trees cut by hand from northern Wisconsin woods.

Over the years, he also served in two wars, worked as a landscaper, owned a bait shop, managed a hardware store, ran a youth Bible camp and worked as a newspaper printer, among other titles he's held.

But life hasn't been all work and no play.

That same tent in which he and three of his siblings were born sheltered the men of the family on frequent hunting and fishing trips.

Although he's slowed down a bit, Mr. Joles enjoys square dancing and reminiscing.

"It's been a beautiful life," Mr. Joles said. "I've done everything you could possibly dream about."

Even if he could, he wouldn't go back and change a single thing.

Tent life was 'wonderful'

Born in 1924, Mr. Joles lived in a 12-by-16-foot, two-room tent with his parents and three siblings until he was about 6 years old.

All but one of the four Joles children was born in that sturdy, simple tent.

Home was anywhere between St. Louis and Minneapolis as the family followed Mr. Joles' dad's profession as a horse trader.

"Our house was wherever we wanted to be," he said.

Even though they did without many luxuries - spending many subzero nights shivering by dim firelight in the tent and sacrificing much of their privacy - Mr. Joles argues that "it was the most wonderful life in the world.

"It was wonderful to be able to pull out of here when it was 20 below and go down (south) when it was 80 in the shade," he said.

When automobiles and tractors replaced most working horses, Mr. Joles' father exited the horse trade and sought a more permanent home for the family in Hallie.

They bought the Lake Hallie Park caretaker's home, then considered a local showplace, Mr. Joles said.

His dad and his uncle Richard opened what is believed to have been the first grocery store between Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls, and Eau Claire's Joles Avenue was named after the two men.

Ike Joles Sr. got into the natural herbs business, harvesting medicinal plants such as holly, sassafras, goldenseal and wahoo root bark to sell as part of a general tonic.

Many of the herbal remedies they used had been passed down through generations and came with his grandparents from Europe.

For many years, family members spent three months every winter near Orlando, Fla., gathering various herbs not found in Wisconsin.

Along the way, they collected herbs from road ditches.

"My dad, driving down the road, could look to the side and see things I'd never see," Mr. Joles said.

As he grew up, Mr. Joles and his brother, Leonard, took more active roles in the herb business and began a landscaping enterprise. Eventually, they had more than 100 accounts, many sent their way from area nurseries.

"They would get the job and we'd put it in for 20 percent of gross," Mr. Joles said. "Every plant job was a potential trim job the next year."

Christmas trees were good, but hard, living

Landscaping jobs usually ended in early October, and, in the 1930s, with a family friend they entered the Christmas tree business as a winter income source.

"He thought it was such a tremendous business," Mr. Joles said. "Two years later, he went out of business, and Dad took over."

In addition to buying trees from private, county and state sources, Ike Joles Sr. obtained what his son said was the first Wisconsin state permit to take trees off federal land.

He and his two sons harvested countless trees out of the Chequamegon National Forest, primarily near Gilman. At night, they retired to that familiar family tent.

Every December, they sold about 1,500 Christmas trees, mostly in the Eau Claire area, including the 20-foot fir that topped the NSP facility. They also sold some trees wholesale to other dealers.

But cutting the trees by hand and hauling them one by one out of the woods, the men earned every penny.

"My brother and I hated it, but it was life," he said.

They typically cut 50 to 75 trees a day by ax, Mr. Joles said. Although chain saws were available later, they continued to cut mostly by hand in the federal forest.

The men often were cutting balsam fir trees by late October. Because they don't shed, those trees could be harvested earlier than other varieties and stored.

"We would pile them with butts out ... so every bit of green was sheltered," he said.

Harvesting black spruce out of the sphagnum moss swamps of the federal forest wasn't always an easy task.

"Every time you stepped on that moss, down it'd go," Mr. Joles said. "The only way to get them out was two arms and manpower. It wasn't in the day of the snowmobile. My dear God, what I'd have given for one of them."

To make the job a little easier, men would stomp down the moss on November evenings before the ground froze overnight and place a layer of trees across it.

Scaling 30-foot trees in the federal forest to cut the top 10 feet off as Christmas trees wasn't for the faint-of-heart.

"Nature will automatically take the top limb, turn it up and put a new top on it," Mr. Joles said.

For federal-forest trees, the Joleses paid about 50 cents each. Trees from private landowners were taken on consignment. The Joleses typically paid 25 to 30 cents for those trees.

Average trees brought $1.50 to $2 each. Top-quality trees were about $5.

"On Dec. 23, when most people were broke in debt because they spent more than they had, we'd divide up that little bit of money," he said. "When you had $500 or $600, you thought you were John D. Rockefeller."

Mr. Joles' two sons and their cousins bundled up the leftover boughs and limbs to sell, using the money to buy Christmas gifts.

After Christmas through about mid-January, the Joleses cleaned up the forest floor and tried to sell the material as pulpwood.

"That was a nonprofit deal," he said. "You didn't make any money but got a lot of muscle, and most of it was between your eyes."

Reflecting on a life lived well

Although they didn't make a lot of money, the Joleses said they were rich in life experiences and wouldn't have put a price on their independence.

"I couldn't carry the dinner bucket and stick my nose in one place for years and years," Mr. Joles said, but "we had to make a lot of money in order to live from January through April."

His dad taught him many valuable lessons about appreciating what matters in life. The memories still bring tears to Mr. Joles' eyes.

"Wherever he could hear (a nightingale) singing, he'd stop and pray on his knees," he said. "That made a big impression on me and my kids."

His dad also loved unconditionally. His easygoing manner was put to the test one dark, misty fall evening in a Jim Falls woods when the family tent met its demise.

Tired and cold, Mr. Joles, his dad and brother built a fire with pine logs near the tent. As his dad and brother went to get water, Mr. Joles cut wood by the light of a lantern hung on a nearby tree.

The combination of pine pitch and gasoline sparked a fire that soon engulfed the hay-and-feather bedding inside the tent. Within moments, the tent was a pile of ash.

"That old man stood there and cried like a baby," Mr. Joles recalled.

As he sat a couple of weeks ago at his kitchen table, faded black-and-white photographs scattered in front of him, Mr. Joles recalled that day as if it was yesterday.

He's spent recent years writing a family history and compiling photographs for his sons, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

"I put everything down on paper for them," he said.

Spending his early childhood living in a tent gave him a unique perspective and the realization that material possessions don't matter.

An expensive house or car can be gone in an instant, but memories of loved ones and good times linger on.

"The sad part about life at this point is there's no horizon; the horizon is the cemetery," he said. "You always remember the fun things you do with your family.

"Dad taught me a few lessons that live forever," he said.

Heidi Clausen may be reached at clausen@amerytel.net.