Jeanne - The Writer (of more than this blog)

Last fall I took on another assignment - freelance writer for Madison Essentials Magazine. It's a great quarterly publication that highlights unique local restaurants, shops, businesses, nonprofits, and attractions in the Greater Madison area. You'll read about events, entertainment, people, and places - all that's essential.

The writing assignments have been fun and interesting. Check out two recent issues that each featured two articles written by me.

February 2016 Cambridge Winery
One of 120 wineries in our state that opened a tasting room in Madison. The vineyard is located in Cambridge, WI to the east of Madison.

A friend and I visited the tasting room at 1001 S. Whitney Way last fall. It was a fun way to end an evening following dinner.

The tasting room is open Wednesday - Friday 4:00 - 9:00 p.m., Saturday noon - 9:00 p.m.,
and Sunday noon - 5:00 p.m. 

February 2016 Wisconsin Historical Society Headquarters Building
I worked in this building for 7+ years. I never got tired of going up its steps nor of promoting the Society to people throughout the state, especially to its members and donors, many of whom became friends.

I'm saddened to say that this image is definitely historical. With all the recent
construction at the lower end of the UW campus and on Library Mall, these beautiful
crabapple trees are relics of the past.

May 2016 American Provenance
A producer of personal care products for both men and women located in rural Dane County outside of Madison. The owner gave me a ton of samples which, in turn, I gifted to Rick and the men in his family. Along the way, I learned why deodorant is better than antiperspirant.

May 2016 University of Wisconsin Dairy Barn
Just in time for June Dairy month. A great deal of history was made in this space thus qualifying the barn for National Historic Landmark status.

Cows are still housed in the Dairy Barn, one semester at a time, so students
in the UW's College of Agriculture can get practical experience as part of their coursework.

Watch for future articles in the next issue that will be online in August. 

'Twas Three Weeks Before Christmas

We didn't wander too far from Rick's home this past Saturday. The occasion was the 31st annual Monches Artisans Holiday Open House. Monches is an unincorporated community in Waukesha County not even 10 miles from where Rick lives in the midst of Wisconsin's Kettle Moraine.

The Kettle Moraine is really a beautiful area in southeast Wisconsin created some 20,000 years ago when two lobes of the glacier that covered this part of our state collided depositing sediment in between. Kettles (ponds) resulted when glacial ice broke off, got entirely or partly buried in glacial sediment, and subsequently melted. Some of those kettles are now filled with lakes - Elkhart Lake, Geneva Lake, and Little Cedar Lake. Hills of glacial deposits rise between the kettles and lakes giving much variety to the area's topography.

The Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians is located at
Holy Hill - one of the largest glacial deposit hills in the Kettle Moraine.
The Basilica should be on everyone's list of must-see places in Wisconsin.
It's only a couple of miles from Rick's home.

Our first stop on the Artisan Holiday Open House tour was Monches Farm. Lots of people there, including a few free range chickens that greeted us on the way from the parking lot to the store with its many holiday items for sale.

The chickens were not in the least bit afraid of all the
people who came by.

When not outside, the chickens stay in this old barn.

Several artists were also selling handcrafted wares for the holidays at the Farm. Of course, I couldn't resist and ended up with a beautifully painted Christmas tree ornament that I gave to Rick's daughter-in-law the next day when we visited the family in Sheboygan.

On our way to our next stop, we came upon the Christmas Cookie Walk at St. Paul's United Church of Christ Church on the western edge of Richfield. (Richfield is a former township whose residents voted to become a village so the area covered by the municipality is 36 square miles of beautiful countryside.) We thought $7.50 a pound for a great selection of delicious cookies baked by members of the congregation was a bargain.

St. Paul's claim is that it's the oldest church of its denomination in Wisconsin and will celebrate its 175th anniversary next year. 

What could be more typical of a country church than
St. Paul's?

The chancel was decorated nicely for Christmas.

One of the stained glass church windows - more art
in the rural area.

We discovered that Richfield has a winery. It's attached to the Cold Spring Inn, a bed & breakfast that's been written up in Chicago Magazine. One of the winery's white wines has been named for Griffin, one of the goats that lives on the property. Jerry Munley, who owns the Inn with his wife, Kari, let the bunch of them out of their shed so I could take pictures.

Griffin is the big guy eating out of the hand of his owner.

Our friend, Greg, who lives in Highland Park, Illinois came to visit and joined us on the tour. He had never been to the Mineshaft in Hartford so we went there for lunch just so he could experience the busiest restaurant in Wisconsin. One of the features of the restaurant is an incredible game room on the second floor. A great way to keep the kids busy when a family is waiting for a table on a busy weekend. 

Our last stop of the day was to celebrate Christmas at the Mill. This yearly event, sponsored by the Richfield Historical Society, was part of the Christmas in Richfield Day. We enjoyed hot cider, cookies, and Christmas carols at the mill house.

A real treat was listening to Kelly Thundercloud as she sang Christmas carols accompanied by Clara Birkel, one of the board members of the Richfield Historical Society.

Merry Christmas wishes for the holiday season. And good cheer for all . . . 

Freedom Summer - 50th Anniversary

I didn't venture far from home earlier this month but the people who told their stories at an event I attended certainly did. I was at the Wisconsin Historical Society for a special program celebrating the brave students who collected civil rights manuscripts in the South during the 1960s.

The Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) owns one of the nation's richest archives documenting events of the civil rights struggle 50 years ago. The collection contains more than 1,000 boxes of unpublished letters, diaries, meeting minutes and memos, phone logs, photographs, audio tapes, and other documents obtained at the grassroots level. Much of the collection - 30,000 items - has been digitized and is now available at the click of a mouse. When the question is asked, "Why Wisconsin rather than Washington, D.C?" the answer is a handful of UW-Madison graduate students who braved the tumult and dangers of the times to collect this evidence of the civil rights movement.

"History is not long ago and far away," Michael Edmonds,
Deputy Director of the WHS Library-Archives, stated in
his introduction of the students who gathered in Madison
to share their stories.

In December of 1964, three of the members of the panel who spoke approached then WHS Director Les Fishel with a proposal to collect material of the civil rights movement that wasn't easily collectible - stories and papers of ordinary people. These students knew the people involved in the struggle because they had worked in the South to organize residents for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and register voters. Some were members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Freedom Summer panel members
Front row: Mimi Feingold Reel, Vicki Gabriner, Alicia Kaplow
Back row: Bob Gabriner, Leah Johnson Wise, Gwen Gollon

Back in the 1960s these students were being taught by such UW-Madison legendary professors as Harvey Goldberg and George Mosse. They believed that history was being made from the bottom up. Studying social action movements was a new approach to studying history at that time. These students helped regular people appreciate and respect their own work. 

Because I had worked for the Wisconsin Historical Society's Foundation in the past, I was familiar with the letter written on toilet paper from a southern jail. A facsimile of it was displayed in the Director's Office. But now I heard the rest of the story from the author, Mimi Feingold, herself. She managed to wrangle a pencil from the jail's trustee and wrote the letter to her CORE friend on the only paper available to her - toilet paper. Getting the letter out of jail was another matter. Mimi shared how her mother, who was not a good seamstress, had hemmed the skirt she was wearing - with long stitches. Mimi was able to roll up the letter and hide it in the hem of her dress once she was released.

Staff at WHS have also created a special exhibit, "Risking Everything," for students that is displayed on the first floor of the Society's headquarters at 816 State Street.

The WHS Press has released Risking Everything: A Freedom Summer Reader, edited by Michael Edmonds. Firsthand accounts of the struggle for civil rights is provided in this book as well as a broader understanding of the movement. Another fine example of the work done by the Wisconsin Historical Society, one of the great treasures of my state.

The Flora Of Florida with a Little History

Earlier this week we visited friends Mona and Jerry, originally from Pewaukee, who are now Florida residents for six months of the year. They have a beautiful home near Koreshan State Historic Site and treated us to a tour of this interesting place in Estero.

Cyrus Teed, head of the Koreshan Unity Settlement, started a utopian community movement in New York. He eventually moved to Florida (it was still a frontier in the mid-1890s) to avoid hostility because of his group's religious, scientific, and cultural beliefs. Teed took the name of "Koresh," a very loose translation of Cyrus. The word means shepherd or leader in Hebrew. (Maybe you recall another Koresh who called himself a shepherd - David. His compound in Waco, Texas was wiped out by the FBI back in the 1990s.) The Koreshans in Florida were a more peaceful people and believed in equal rights for women long before women won the right to vote in our country.

However, their science was a bit strange. Teed believed that the entire universe existed within a giant, hollow sphere. One saw the sun, moon, and stars by looking inward rather than outward.

The Koreshan community did reach out to the people living in Estero. The Koreshans put on plays and musicals and created elaborate Victorian gardens. Back in the day, the locals paddled down the Estero River and took in the Koreshan culture from their boats.

Unfortunately, when a community believes in being celibate, the only way to add members is by recruitment. Therefore, its future is somewhat doomed. And so it was with the Koreshans. By 1961 only four women remained and, wisely, they deeded their land to the state of Florida as a park and memorial. The Koreshan Unity Settlement is now on the National Register of Historic Places with 11 restored buildings.

Okay, that's it for the history lesson. Now on to the flora that is in the park....

This tall skinny tree is a Washingtonian palm or hurricane palm. It bends in the winds that oftentimes lash the Gulf coast of Florida.

The tree starts out life wearing what looks like a tutu. Not sure how long it takes for the palm to reach stratospheric heights.

Bromeliads are plants that attach themselves to other plants such as palm trees. At first glance it looks like this tree has a full crown of leaves. A second look reveals hundreds of individual bromeliads.

The blossoms on this silk cotton tree were a welcome sight in the middle of winter.

Another interesting tree was the sausage tree. Notice the brown "sausage" hanging about one third of the way down a little to the left of center.

While our tour was about the history and the trees in the park, we did see this gopher tortoise that came out of its burrow just for our little tour group!

The Florida state parks' tag line is "Real fun in.....the Real Florida." From what we've seen so far, the phrase is right on the money.

Holiday Cheer (with music and food)

One of the best things about the holidays is the music. During December Rick and I heard a terrific concert by Midwest Vocal Express at the Greendale High School auditorium. One of the members of MVE, an all-male a cappella chorus, works with Rick and invited us to attend. Not only did MVE sing great Christmas favorites, but the Milwaukee Handbell Ensemble and the Epix Quartet, a foursome from the Crosstown Harmony women's a cappella chorus, performed a few numbers as well.

The men of Midwest Vocal Express sported red and green ties - appropriate for Christmas.

Handbells are the perfect holiday musical instrument.

This quartet placed 25th in international Sweet Adeline
 (the women's equivalent of a barbershop quartet) competition.

The chorus must have heard my wish because they performed my favorite Christmas carol, Do You Hear What I Hear, as the final number. This brought back memories of singing in my high school chorus.

There were snowflakes both on the inside and the outside of the auditorium that day!

After the show, Rick and I went to Mazos for burgers. It's in a tiny storefront across the street from Leon's Frozen Custard. We were extremely pleased with the great value. For $20 (tip included) we both had burgers, fries, soup, and split a strawberry milkshake made with real strawberries!

We'll definitely return the next time we're on the south side of Milwaukee.

Drive-ins, Diners, and Dives on the Food Network has visited a few places in Wisconsin including Franks Diner in Kenosha. We met our friends, Greg and Laurie, there the weekend before New Year's for a late breakfast. 

That's Rick going in to find our friends.

The food was good, service was fast, and the staff was fun. Even though the line was practically out the door, customers did not have a problem waiting. Everyone was having a good time.

Diners like Franks have a sense of humor.

Customers need to obey the directives on the wall!

After breakfast we ventured to the Civil War Museum. The focus of the permanent exhibit is on the experience of soldiers from the Upper Midwest. Wisconsin sent more than 91,000 troops to fight in the Union Army. They fought in every major battle of the Civil War. Camp Randall (now the location of UW Madison's football stadium) was Wisconsin's major training facility. Confederate prisoners were also housed there. That's why 140 southern soldiers are buried so far north in Madison's Forest Hill Cemetery.

These were the lucky ones who returned to their families.

The Civil War lasted nearly four years to the day it began.
We are in the midst of the sesquicentennial commemoration
of that horrific war. 

Our day in Kenosha ended with a ride on the electric trolley - a loop nearly two miles long. Again we were entertained by a barbershop quartet singing Christmas carols. It was one of our warmer winter days and a splendid way to spend a Saturday afternoon with friends.

The holiday season is over but the memories remain. Happy New Year to my readers and to your families as well. May 2014 be a joyful, prosperous, and successful year!

The Chandelier Ballroom

A few weeks ago a friend of Rick was married. The reception was at the Chandelier Ballroom in Hartford WI. What a beautiful and interesting place. The Ballroom also held a few memories for Rick, but he'll have to tell you about those!

The Chandelier Ballroom opened as the Schwartz Ballroom on October 20, 1928.

Dance halls were popular in the 1920s because of the big bands. Their music was broadcast on the radio and soon the "new urban sound" became a craze of the nation.
     
The Schwartz Ballroom was designed by Milwaukee architect, Robert Messmer, and funded by local brewer Joseph Schwartz, Jr. The octagonal "Great Hall" rises 36 feet at its center. 

This one-ton wrought iron art deco chandelier hangs from the center of the ballroom.

The unobstructed dance floor can accommodate 1500 dancing couples (or about 350 people seated at tables for a wedding reception). 

From the entrance looking left....

and to the right.

Major performers of the time came to the Schwartz Ballroom and in 1931 local Milwaukee radio station WTMJ broadcast live via CBS, giving the Schwartz coast-to-coast recognition. Guy Lombardo (of New Year's Eve fame) and his Royal Canadians drew a record crowd of 6000 who jammed the Ballroom while several hundred more listened from outside. 
        
The ballroom was pressed into wartime service from 1944 to 1946, serving as a Prisoner of War camp for 300 or more German POWs. Prisoners provided labor at local factories, making up for labor shortages created by the war. Following the close of the war, the Schwartz went into bankruptcy. Marty Zivko, who had performed at the Schwartz with his "Polka Boys" purchased the building at auction and it became Marty Zivko's Schwartz Ballroom.  

Zivko brought rock 'n' roll bands to the Ballroom in the 1960s and the bands attracted thirsty young people from Milwaukee. The drinking age in Milwaukee County was 21 but only 18 in Washington County were Hartford is located.

The Ballroom had several owners after Marty Zivko until it was bought by the Hartford Rotary in the late 1990s. Rotary members planned to generate revenue from the Ballroom that could be returned to the city. They also wanted to ensure that the building would remain in Hartford for future generations. It was at this time that the Ballroom became the Chandelier Ballroom. The Ballroom was renovated and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. The Chandelier Ballroom is now owned by the Hartford Historic Preservation Foundation. 

Lights throughout the Ballroom reflect the design of the main chandelier.

Thanks to the vision of those 50 Rotary members more than a decade ago, the Chandelier Ballroom is a magnificent piece of history that still stands today. 

It's Threshing Time

That's right - time to separate the wheat from the chaff. And that was demonstrated at the Richfield Historical Society's 15th Annual Thresheree on September 21 and 22.

The Thresheree takes place at the beautiful Richfield Historical Park. 

The motto for the Village of Richfield is "Forward. Preserving a Country Way of Life." What could be more "country" than a re-creation of life on the land in the late 1800s?

One feature of the Thresheree that I always enjoy is the Tractor Parade. It's more like a fashion show. Owners drive their tractors around the grounds with an announcer giving the details of the particular piece of farm equipment they are driving.

Mostly red and green tractors in the parade...

with an occasional orange one for variety.

Some of the many tractors on display at the Thresheree.

Even the little garden variety tractors get in on the action.

Gehl Company (now a subsidiary of Manitou Americas) from West Bend usually has an exhibit of equipment at the Thresheree.

This year Gehl brought out the Blazer. It was billed as an all-season
fun-mobile. Two people could ride in it. Wheels for summer...with dune-buggy
applications. Skis for winter. Conversion from one to the other in minutes!

The centerpiece of the Richfield Historical Park is the Messer/Mayer Mill that has been standing on its original location for 140 years. It's only one of a few timber frame grist (grain) mills in the Midwest. The Richfield Historical Society is currently in a campaign to raise funds to restore the foundation so that the building won't collapse. Previously Society volunteers replaced the Mill's roof, siding, and windows and succeeded in placing the Mill on the State and National Registers of Historic Places.

Work has begun on the first phase to restore the Mill foundation.
Right now the soil next to this wall has been removed so the contractor
can repair the limestone mortar that is holding the field stones in the
foundation walls together. It's a big project.

I am always in awe of the dedicated, passionate volunteers who are involved in the Richfield Historical Society. The Society was organized a mere 15 years ago and, in that short time, its members have created a living museum of Richfield’s history at the Historical Park. The Park includes a pioneer homestead featuring log buildings that were moved from other locations in the village, the Messer/Mayer Mill, the miller’s home, and supporting buildings. The time period represented begins with the early settlers of Richfield prior to the Civil War, continues with life on the mill homestead, and carries on to the era of cash cropping and dairy farming. 

The Richfield Thresheree is always the third weekend of September. For a glimpse of our state's past when wheat was king, check out the Thresheree in 2014.

Knock, Knock! Who's there?

Doors Open Milwaukee. 

For the second year in a row Rick and I took a look behind the facades of several buildings in Milwaukee during Historic Milwaukee's most ambitious project, the third annual Doors Open Milwaukee. For 35 years, HMI has been increasing awareness of and commitment to Milwaukee's history, architecture, and the preservation of the city's built environment through education and advocacy.

Our first stop was the Milwaukee Fire Museum. We viewed pictures of major Milwaukee fires and learned more about how the conflagrations were brought under control. A retired fire fighter, who is a docent at the Museum, demonstrated the operation of a fire alarm box that could be found on Milwaukee's street corners in the past. Now those alarms can only be accessed by police.

A 1947 Cadillac ambulance is on exhibit at the Fire Museum.

Our next stop was Forest Home Cemetery. The cemetery takes up nearly 20 city blocks - 200 acres. A beautiful setting in the middle of the city. Of course, when the first person was buried in 1850, the cemetery was well removed from the hustle and bustle of city life. About 110, 000 people are buried in Forest Home. Many of them are the early movers and shakers of Milwaukee, like the brewers whose names we associate with the city. 

Valentin Blatz has the largest monument in Forest Home.
But ostentatiousness doesn't guarantee good beer!

Joseph Schlitz was a little more circumspect.
Still no guarantee of good beer.

One of the neat features at Forest Home is the Hall of History with more than 100 displays that honor the memories and accomplishments of more famous Milwaukeans who chose Forest Home as their final resting place. 

The chapel on the cemetery grounds along with the cemetery itself are both on the National Register of Historic Places as well as being Milwaukee landmarks. The 1896 crematory in the lower level of the chapel was the first in Wisconsin. 

An elevator would carry the casket from the chapel's sanctuary to the crematory
in the basement. It is no longer used today.

Bryant's Cocktail Lounge is one of the best preserved cocktail lounges in the country. Originally a Miller Brewing tied house, Bryant’s is now recognized for specialty cocktails. Velvet walls and dim lighting are its characteristics. 

A booth wall at Bryant's

And a ceiling light

Tied houses, in the past, were required to sell only the products of the brewery to which they were "tied."

But, Mike Brenner, an up and coming brewer, won't be limited when he distributes his beer. Mike opened his building, a cinder block parking garage built in 1980, to the public. He is converting the building into the Brenner Brewing Company and it will be Milwaukee's newest craft brewery when it opens in about four months. 

Mike has been a home brewer since the 1990s. Now he's
going commercial. Armed with an MBA, a diploma as a
Master Brewer from Chicago's Siebel Institute of Technology,
and past experience running his own businesses, Mike plans to open
a tasting room and art gallery next door to the brewery.

Mike told us the total project will have $1.6 million invested when
everything is up and running.

Mike will brew a specialty beer, more like a liqueur, that will be aged for 6 months in these barrels.

The Old South Side Settlement Museum is interpreted well. Several different ethnic groups settled on Milwaukee's south side over the years. Each room of this house museum shows how the furnishings changed with the occupancy of each group. 

The upside down Christmas tree is in the Polish living
room. Because homes were small, a tree hanging from the
ceiling didn't take up any floor space!

Children played in a room under the stairs that led to the upstairs. 

The Mexican family who moved into the house in the early 1950s was the first Hispanic family in the neighborhood. They were Milwaukee Braves fans as evidenced by Braves' banners displayed in one of the cabinets. Now Milwaukee's south side is predominantly Hispanic.

The kitchen is bright and cheery.

We're looking forward to next year's Doors Open Milwaukee when we will have an opportunity to knock on a door in the city and have it open for us.