The little wetland in the wheat field went silent before it went dry.
It had beckoned flotillas of noisy ducks, swans and turtles for as long as anyone in Sherry Witzel-Prong’s family could recall – a collective memory that stretches back to 1856, when the Witzels arrived here with thousands of other German immigrants. The area felt familiar; the county seat was called Berlin and, like much of the old country, the region was rich in groundwater.
Generations of Witzels paddled in the wetland, skated there, hunted there to a soundtrack of birdsong and lusty frogs.
And then it went quiet.
Starting in 2021, the pond shrank from its historical shoreline as if a great drain plug had jiggled loose. Sherry and her husband, Dave, didn’t know what to think.
The Witzels learned they weren’t alone.
