My Stories and I'm Still Sticking to Them!: Fennimore...As I Remember. Volume Iv

By Tom Nelson

Some folks will often ask Tom what his columns in that Wisconsin newspaper are all about. He will answer, Do you mean the one in the Fennimore Times, called FennimoreAs I remember?As though there were any other. Then he will respond:
Oh, I write about a special place, friends and neighbors, happy times what ever. Like swimming pools and pool halls, town constables and chiefs. City parks, paper routes, pastors, parsons and priests.
I wont forget town and country schools and dedicated teachers there within. With tales of playground hi-jinksall to make you grin.
The old places called a Blacksmith Shop, Gus shoeing horses at the open door. Fred Doan the Harness maker, Bill Buri, Wagon builderthese craftsmen are no more.
The Fenway Theater packed with kids, admission one thin dime. A Friday double feature Roy, Gene and Hopalong, cowboys for all time.
There are neighborhoods and life long friends, creameries making cheese. Sparkys Saturday night dances, May I have this waltzPlease?
I claim my stories are but true, as best I can remember. And many do agree, but others shout Not in April, twas in November!
Best of all, even strangers come to me and say, I know this place and the stories that you tell. Just change the names, for then youll seeFennimores my hometown as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781467064590

Tom Nelson

Tom Nelson (DMin, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is president of Made to Flourish. He has also served as senior pastor of Christ Community Church in Kansas City for over thirty years. A council member for The Gospel Coalition, Tom is the author of several books, including Work Matters and The Economics of Neighborly Love.

Book preview

Chapter One

Main Street

These opening stories weave in and out of main street locations and set the introduction to small town Wisconsin in mid-twentieth century. From mortician Bill Lange’s funeral business, through the Texaco Oil Station saga and then a look back at Bill Buri’s Knowledge Hall, the chapter closes with the merry-music-makers of the German Band.

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Bill Lange.

Some of my favorite Fennimore people have had the first name of William. Bill to be exact. In my mind many of them would clarify as being a character. One such person that comes to mind from the past was Bill Lange; owner, proprietor and mortician of Lange’s Funeral Home.

It was at a time when there were three funeral homes in postwar Fennimore. Sulzer’s was located at Grant and 14th (later the long time home of the Ralph Moens) who also owned the furniture store between the Harmony Café and Ford Garage. Global-Wieden was housed in the original Parker estate on 10th and Grant and during the next 40 years would eventually evolve to be owned by Don Stokes, Tom Ristow, Earl Volkmann, and finally, Jim and Troy Larson. In the 1960s Earl and Marlene Volkmann would purchase both the Ristow and Lange businesses.

But, I’m getting ahead of my story.

The third enterprise, Lange Funeral Home was a light brown colored house with a good sized open porch located a block off main street on 10th and Madison–– the present site of F/S Bank. Being on the hill of Madison Street provided a lower level garage-like entrance to the house, allowing Bill’s hearse to be backed in for easy access.

In the 1940s, when I walked the main street route to Sunday school at the original St. Peter Lutheran Church, I would be somewhat leery passing Lange’s. As a youngster, I could conjure up all sorts of phantasms in my head as the result of watching too many scary movies at the Fenway Theater. I’d cross over to the Doc Tuckwood side of the street for that short block and then cut back to continue on…an obvious solution to my paranoia.

Short and stocky of stature, with thinning hair, almost bald, Bill Lange spoke with a Teutonic accent. He had a permanent stiff neck that required him to turn his whole body rather than just his neck to address you. Because of his accent and body motion, it was no wonder Bill reminded us ten-year-olds of one of the bad guys in a Frankenstein movie, a.k.a., Peter Lorie. We always steered to the other side of the street when walking past his place, even on a Sunday morning.

But, Bill was a fixture at St. Peter’s Church. One of those elders who each Sunday morning seemed to be waiting at the door to usher parishioners to a pew, even though the regulars knew darn well where they wanted to sit and didn’t need any help. Bill fit in well with the other senior deacons, Ernie Schuette, Grandpa Doeringsfeld, Gus Johnson and the like; all dressed in dark suits and starched white shirts. I’ve been told in recent years, the Lutheran church wasn’t Bill’s only affiliation. In fact, he maintained membership in other city congregations to assure a level of future mortuary business connection.

There were never any children for Bill and Bessie Lange. Bessie was a renowned piano player from the days of silent movies such as shown upstairs at the Govier Opera House. She also played for the live stage productions put on by Theater Bands. Her brother, Andy Allen, played the fiddle in those bands and was, equally entertaining with a repertoire of witty songs. Often he was enticed to perform up and down main street ‘where good friends were known to gather and everyone knew your name.’ During her last years at Good Sam, well into her 90s, Bessie could still entertain with a mean rendition of the 12th Street Rag on the piano for the residents.

Bill and Bessie lived up stairs above the funeral home. They also owned two buildings adjacent; a small house to the south, which housed brother, Andy, and a second structure between the old First State Bank and the Lange residence. Here Bessie had a hair salon in the front and Bill had a cemetery monument side business in the back. Those gravestones displayed out side, surrounded by dark shadowed alleys, were another good reason to detour when venturing down that street on the way to Sunday school.

As I grew older, I recovered from those scary movie phobias and recognized Bill Lange as my dad’s friend and customer at his Standard Service Station and garage. Then one late winter Saturday, when I was a senior in high school, Bill telephoned in his thick accented way and asked if he might hire me to do some driving for him the next day. He wanted me to drive his hearse to Madison, retrieve someone who had passed away, and return the body to Fennimore for a service and burial. Me driving a hearse, could this be a young Jimmy Spraggon doing a Bill Lange imitation and playing a trick on me?

But yes, it was the real Bill, and he explained further that he was in a bind as his regular helpers like Don Doeringsfeld had other commitments. And you see, Because of the crick in my neck, I can’t drive that big hearse safely in Madison, especially backing it down into the lower garage, as is the case at the Madison funeral home…and besides, knowing you’re a good driver, Tommy, I’ll pay you $20 for your trouble. Wow! That’s a whole week’s pay working for Art Brandt. I responded quickly, Mr. Lange, I’d be happy to help you out, and besides would you believe it’s always been one of my ambitions to drive your hearse?

Though it felt like I was driving a huge semi into Madison, Bill and I made the trip without mishap…or a lot of conversation, for he watched my every move. I backed the hearse into the lower level of the Madison funeral home, waited politely for a couple of hours upstairs while Bill did his business. Returning to Fennimore at a safe 55mph, I negotiated the backing down into Bill’s lower driveway and pocketed my $20 bill.

Whether any special driver’s license would have been required in those days, a chauffeurs license for instance, or, whether there was a minimum age for hearse driving didn’t seem to bother Bill that Sunday. I often wondered what would had happened if a State Trooper would have stopped us; me looking especially young, the foreign sounding guy wearing the dark suit with the crick in the neck–– riding next to me, and our pine-boxed passenger in the rear. You get the idea.

I’m not the only one who has a fond Bill Lange story, for Bob Bray remembers Bill storing the hearse in the Ford Garage during the winter time. One winter Sunday Bill called saying he needed to take it out of the garage as he had some business to attend to. At the garage Bill wondered out loud if Bob would mind driving it just around the block to Charlie Dixon’s home as poor Charlie had passed away. Bob said sure, and obliged. Bill was a good friend and customer. Upon arriving Bill asked if Bob wouldn’t mind helping him move the body from the house to the hearse. So why not, Bob thought, I’m here already and it doesn’t appear that any of Bill's regular help plans to show up.

After moving Charlie from home to hearse, Bill wondered out loud, Seeing how it’s only another short block back to my mortuary, could Bob drive there and then back down the driveway? When that favor was accomplished, and when asking if Bob wouldn’t mind helping unload and coming in to help attend to a few preliminary things, Bob suddenly remembered some commitments at home!

However, Bill wasn’t bashful about asking Bob on other occasions to drive and help him. One time Bob carried the deceased over his shoulder down a narrow farmhouse staircase to the first floor, from where the body could be properly transported.

It’s with fond memories that Bill Lange and Bessie are remembered. They are two Fennimore favorites from the past who served the community with grace and dignity, yet, at times, with a touch of eccentricity.

Want a Shoe Shine Mister?

I was having a cup of coffee in the atrium of the Milwaukee airport a couple of weeks ago, killing time, waiting to go to the boarding area––watching people come and go. Across the way the shoe shine stand was manned by two elderly African-Americans; lounging, waiting to grab a customer but not seeming to have much luck. Apparently the haphazard dress code of today’s traveler, had eliminated shine-able shoes from potential male patrons. Only tennis shoes or casual shoes strolled by, the kind that would scuff and wear out long before ever being polished. I wondered if they would have any customers that morning.

I got to thinking about my travel adventures a few years back when a stop at an airport’s shine parlor was a must at the beginning of a business trip and then how to bury the three bucks somewhere in my expense account. We always dressed for business in those days, none of this blue jeans and Nike shoe garb; we represented a respectable company and management demanded respectability, but just don’t put a shoe shine on that expense account. Usually the only dressed up males one sees traveling today are lawyers or bankers.

Anyway, it would seem that the shine business has been pretty slow in recent times. This brings me to remembering when I almost joined that same occupation 60 years ago. Here’s my story….

It was in the summer of 1947 or 48. For more years than I could remember I had been making my way down to Leonard Kreul’s barbershop for the monthly haircut. I’ve complained good naturedly in past writings about how I seemed to spend so much of my life waiting for Leonard to get to me as he clipped away on other customers; a snip here, a snip there, a pause and a chuckle at someone’s joke, then another snip. Never in a great hurry, for thoroughness was Leonard Kreul’s mode of operation. But if the truth were known, as the years passed I was beginning to enjoy the time I spent hanging out on the fringes of the adult conversations, listening to their stories and musings. If there had been no one ahead of me, making me wait, I’d have been disappointed. Yes, hanging out waiting for that haircut got to be down-right enjoyable.

Eventually I was big enough to climb up onto a special shoe shine chair Leonard kept in his shop to do my waiting. The seat was elevated and provided a lofty perch for a ten year old; up high with a birds eye view of all the action in the shop and out through the shop windows to watch farmers and shoppers walking by and cars traveling up and down main street. Then one day when working on another customer, Leonard stopped his scissors in mid-snip and said, Tommy, if you like that chair so much, you could be my shoeshine boy. We could put it out on the street and you’d make a lot of money at 20c a shine. What do you think? Gee, his question got me to thinking. That chair was always in his shop but I never saw anybody using it to shine shoes and besides I wasn’t sure I knew how to shine shoes either. I had only seen my dad shine his own shoes once in a while before he was going to church and my Sunday shoes hardly got scuffed before I out grew them on a yearly basis.

But Mr. Kreul’s suggestion set me to chewing on my lip and pondering, Gee, I’d been thinking of trying to break away from mowing Grandma Power’s lawn and being at her beck and call for all her odd jobs. I’d like to make some big money, maybe working for Mr. Kreul is the way, and, Wow, if I worked fast that could be a dollar an hour! I’m not old enough yet to get a paper rout, this may be the ticket. And I really like the idea of being able to sit outside his shop in this neat chair with a sign that read, Tommy’s Shines -20 cents…Heck, maybe I should raise it to a quarter. As I climbed into his barber chair and he began his snip, snip routine with those little hairs beginning to work their way down my back, I said I’d check with my dad and get back to him.

Well, my dad wasn’t against it but he did point out a few things for me to think about before saying yes to Leonard. (If we are going to be partners, I figured we should now be on a first name basis.) Dad pointed out that Leonard would expect me to be there a few hours most days, especially on Fridays and Saturdays. Once I had the job I’d have to forgo those summer afternoon ball games at the play ground and that I’d have to invest in supplies like polish, a brush or two and all the other paraphernalia required. Invest? You mean buy stuff at the store, Dad, I’d have to cash in my saving account at the bank? I questioned. Dad added, And what about Leonard’s share, after all you’d be renting his chair and space? HOLY COW, DAD, this is getting complicated!

The more I thought about this new job potential the more I worried about missing out on a summer time of fun. I rationalized that I was just a little kid and these were the years that I should be developing my ability to have fun and not to be working at any 9 to 5 job, or what ever the hours were. And besides what guarantees were there that anyone in Fennimore ever wanted their shoes shined anyway? The farmers that came into the barber shop always had those big work boots on and I sure wasn’t going to attack those clod-hoppers caked with mud and smelly-stuff for any 20 cents…maybe 20 cents per foot! And how come I never saw any of the older boys shining shoes from that chair? Maybe they had tried it and then got stuck with this invest thing and now had enough polish at home to last them for years!

I began to practice my speech, No sir, Mr. Kreul, thanks but I’m pretty busy this summer and I think I best not ‘invest’ in this job…maybe next year. Besides, Grandma Powers has a lot of projects for me and I really owe her my time. Sorry. Whew, I sure dodged that arrow…my whole summer could have gone down the drain. I hope he won’t be mad at me and still let me sit in the chair.

So I never entered the ranks of shine employment at Kreul’s Barber Shop that summer. By the next year, or so, I began to get into the newspaper business and was probably beyond the age of shine. When I gave Leonard some excuse for turning him down, he smiled and said maybe later. I think he and my dad had already talked. And I still got to sit in the chair.

Years later, every time I sat in a similar chair at an airport getting that $3 shine I often wondered what ever happened to my favorite chair in Leonard’s shop. A few weeks ago when I visited with Wilma Kreul at the Good Sam I was still wondering. This friend of old filled me in with the rest of the story.

She assured me that the shoeshine chair keepsake of so long ago still exists in the Kreul family and now has a prominent spot at son Dale’s home out in Iowa. The chair is still a memory of his dad’s shop and Leonard’s 38 year legacy on Fennimore’s main street. I’m sure there were some young boys long ago who shined a few shoes at that chair but I just wasn’t one of them. Darn, I should have been.

A postscript to this story later came from Duane Hofstetter who remembers:

"I had to chuckle when I saw your story on Kreul’s Barber Shop and the shoe shining bit. My older brother, David, and I had to carry a lunch basket to dad at the tavern next door nearly every day. One day Leonard stopped me and asked whether I would like to earn a little money by shining shoes? I believe I was probably 10 or 11, so it was 1952-53. I said I would give it a try and so on early Saturday evening he put the shine-chair out in front of the shop.

As you will recall back in those days the farmers came to town to shop and socialize. That first night after shining a few pairs of shoes for around 25 cents, a very tall gentleman came out of dad’s tavern and sat down in the chair. He had a black suit with black shoes and obviously wanted a shine. At the time I probably wouldn’t have noticed that he had already spent considerable time at my dad’s place. So I asked him to pull his pant legs up so I wouldn’t get any polish on his cuffs. I was using both paste and liquid polish and after I finished his shoes he looked down and said, That’s, fine, Duane, but they somehow don’t look right with the white socks."

Well, you guessed it; even at this tender age I knew the customer was always right. So he left with black socks, thanks to me, and decided he needed to return to Hofstetter’s Tavern to show off his new look. Leonard Kreul never asked me back to shine again! So much for my shoe shining career.

Texaco.

One should always be careful of what you wish for. A few weeks back when writing about the old and new look of Lincoln Avenue, I inferred to what I considered a distraction on Fennimore’s main street; that is the old Texaco Station. How great it would be to have that entire Parker Library block…well, looking park like.

A recent issue of the Times contains pictures of that station coming down on December 28th and notes St. Mary’s church will be making future use of the site. I’m sure the congregation will be judicious in their plans and the enhancement to main street will be a welcome change.

But, this leaves me with some remorse for things past. It is not just another main street east-side building from yesteryear coming down––this one too, has its memories. Here’s how I remember that corner from long back.

A picture of Fennimore’s business district taken in the early 1920s (except for the Model Ts) would depict a scene not much different than of the late 1940s or early 1950s; white-globed street lights, city hall belfry with fire siren, and, Lincoln Avenue lined with mature maple trees. The southeast corner of 10th and Lincoln would show the original oil station or service station, which ever nomenclature from those days you prefer. The station’s pillars out front outline the driveway entrance and if you look closely gas pumps are visible in front of the one room building. I’m not sure what kind of gas was pumped, Skelly brand seems to ring a bell. The building had been