PUBLISHED BY URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY INC. “IN THE TRADITION OF JANE JACOBS” JUNE/JULY EDITION Milwaukee Neighborhood Forum is a bimonthly newsletter that highlights assets, history, events, and resources for and about Milwaukee neighborhoods. Residents and neighbor- hood organizations are encouraged to submit press releases on their events and successful programs. See back page for details. Nationally recognized religious Milwaukee’s Triangle neighborhoods were a leaders that once lived in Mil- hotbed of political activism for over a century waukee neighborhoods Fourth of a ten-part series on celebrities Whether a stop on the Underground Railroad, or under the names of WAICO, Lindsay Heights, or Walnut Way, local heroes have be- Roman Catholic bishop in Walker’s Point neighborhood stowed honor on these northside blocks Milwaukee’s Triangle and Fabian Bruskewitz (1935-) grew up on Triangle North neighbor- th hood pair are roughly 15 and Mineral in bounded by North Ave. to Milwaukee. He was the north, Walnut St. to the a graduate of St. south, 8th St. to the east Lawrence Seminary and 20th St. to the west. High School in Mt. The area has a deep his- Calvary and St. tory of resident heroes Francis Seminary in whose surnames have Milwaukee. been institutionalized in He rose to be- street, park, and neighbor- come an American hood program names. prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. Samuel Brown and the Underground Railroad Retired in 2012, he became the eighth Bishop of Lincoln, Ne- Samuel Brown’s farm was located in today’s Triangle neighborhood near the braska and was known for taking conserva- Milwaukee County Transit System Administration Building on N.17th St. The tive stands on social issues. farm served as a stop on the Underground Railroad during the escape of Car- oline Quarlls in 1842 from Missouri. She became the first documented freedom Civil rights activist priest in the Bay View seeker traveling through Wisconsin. Despite the danger of being caught and neighborhood prosecuted, Deacon Samuel Brown believed in the right of Quarlls to seek safety and ultimate emancipation. Brown housed the young woman overnight James Edmund Groppi was born in the Bay at his farm and shepherded her 20 miles by wagon and horseback to another View neighborhood to Italian immigrant par- safe haven as they were being chased by bounty hunters. A Wisconsin Histor- ents Giocondo and Giorgina Groppi. One of 1 Continued on Page 4 Continued on Page 2 Page NOTED RELIGIOUS LEADERS IN MILWAU- Martyred Christian missionary in Story Hill neighborhood KEE NEIGHBORHOODS Continued from Page 1 One of three chil- dren, Theophilus Ed 12 children, Groppi worked in his father’s grocery business, McCully (called “Ed) known as “Groppi’s.” (1927 - 1956) grew He became a Roman Catholic priest and noted civil rights ac- up on W. Wisconsin tivist based in Milwaukee. Groppi was particularly known for his Avenue, the son of a work with the NAACP Youth Council on fair housing issues. He bakery executive later left the priesthood and married. and church elder. The family attended Religious leader for International Society for Krishna Con- a Plymouth Brethren sciousness in Valhalla neighborhood assembly that is now called the Wauwatosa Bible Chapel. Jayapataka Swami (1949-) was born Gordon John Erdman II to Ed became one of four missionaries to Ec- Gordon John Erdman and Lorraine Erdman (Golich). His father uador who were attempting to evangelize the was in real estate and the Huaorani people of the rain forest. They were family eventually settled on attacked and killed by a group of Huaorani Caldwell Ct. on Milwaukee’s warriors after they had established reciprocal northwest side. contact. As a student at Brown University, Gordon was in- fluenced by a guest lecture on the life of Buddha. After Ten-part series continues on that, he lost all interest in his celebrities that lived in Milwau- studies and began search- kee neighborhoods ing for a spiritual teacher, eventually deciding that he Have you ever wondered who might would have to go to India to find his teacher. There he became have lived in your Milwaukee neighbor- a Vaishnava swami and a religious leader for the International hood? For ten issues, Milwaukee Neigh- Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and a senior dis- borhood Forum will feature nationally ciple of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Today he is recognized celebrities that once resided one of the initiating spiritual masters, (ISKCON Gurus), divisional on our city’s blocks. trustee for the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (BBT), and a member of the Governing Body Commission (GBC). Themes of Articles The order follows: Catholic archbishop in the Lower East Side neighborhood (1) Political/Activist leaders (December Albert Gregory Meyer (1903-1965) issue), grew up on Milwaukee’s Lower East (2) Military leaders (February issue), Side. He was the fourth of five chil- (3) Writers/Journalists (April issue), dren to German immigrants, Peter (4) Religious leaders (this issue), James and Mathilda (née Thelen) (5) Scientists, Meyer. He received his early educa- (6) Artists, tion under the School Sisters of (7) Musicians, Notre Dame at the school of St. (8) TV/Film stars, Mary's Church (today’s Old St. (9) Sports heroes, and Mary’s). After attending Marquette (10) Corporate leaders. Academy, he entered St. Francis Seminary. In 1922, Albert was sent by Arch- bishop Sebastian Gebhard Mess- Catholic bishop in Muskego Way/Burn- ham Park area mer to continue his studies at the Pontifical North American College in Jerome Joseph Hastrich (1914-1995) grew Rome. Eventually he rose to become the Archbishop of Roman up on W. Mitchell Street (today’s Historic Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago where he served from 1958 un- Mitchell). The son of George and Clara Has- til his death in 1965. He was appointed a cardinal in 1959. trich, he attended Marquette University High School. Hastrich was ordained to the priest- Photo attribution: Albert Gregory Meyer Continued on Page 3 2 Page NOTED RELIGIOUS LEADERS IN MILWAU- General authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Lower East KEE NEIGHBORHOODS Side Continued from Page 2 Keith Karlton Hilbig (1942 -2015) was the son hood on February 9, 1941, for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. of Karl Herbert Hilbig who’d lived in a room- On December 22, 1945, he was incardinated into the newly ing house on Cambridge Ave. in 1940 before created Diocese of Madison. Pope Paul VI later appointed him Keith was born. The elder Hilbig was from auxiliary bishop of the Madison Diocese (titular bishop of Gurza), Zwickau, Germany and had joined the LDS and he was consecrated bishop on September 3, 1963. He also Church before immigrating to the United served as the second bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of States. Gallup, in Gallup, New Mexico. Keith Hilbig served as a missionary in the LDS Church's Central German Mission, Catholic Cardinal in North Division neighborhood while a young man. He later became the gen- eral authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 2001 until his death. Catholic bishop in the Juneau Town/East Town neighborhood Francis Schinner (1863-1937) lived on Ju- neau Ave. in the Juneau Town neighbor- hood. He was educated at St. Francis Semi- nary in Wisconsin. Schinner was ordained to the priesthood on March 7, 1886, by Archbishop Michael Heiss of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. He served as pastor of St. Huber- tus parish at Hubertus for one year. From 1887 to 1893 he served as a faculty member of St. Francis Seminary. He was then ap- pointed by Archbishop Frederick Katzer to the post of chancellor and vicar general of the archdiocese of Milwaukee between 1893 and 1905. As an American prelate of the Ro- man Catholic Church, he served as the first Bishop of the Diocese of Superior between 1905 and 1913 and the first Bishop of the Di- ocese of Spo- kane, Spokane, Washington be- tween 1914 and Aloisius Joseph Muench (1889-1962) (above) grew up on N. 10th 1925. Street. He was the son of Joseph Muench and Theresa Kraus, the oldest of seven surviving children. Muench served as Bishop of Fargo between 1935 and 1959, and as Apostolic Nuncio to Germany between 1951 and 1959. He became the most powerful American Catholic and Vatican representative in Allied-occupied Germany and then in West Germany from 1946 to 1959 as the liaison between the U.S. Of- fice of Military Government and the German Catholic Church in the American occupation zone. In 1959, Muench was elevated to the cardinalate. Photo by Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F007416-0008 / Unterberg, Rolf / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5449197 3 Page TRIANGLE NEIGHBORHOODS: A HOTBED OF SOCIAL A group of immigrants from Holland arrived and founded a Dutch Reformed church. But the largest ACTIVISM number of newcomers that reached the neighborhoods Continued from Page 1 before the middle of the twentieth century were the Jews. ical Marker at the site of the former farm, is Jewish era located on N. 17th Street, just south of its in- tersection with W. Fond du Lac Ave. Brown Jews, mainly from Poland and Russia, began settling Street, an east-west road in the center of the in the Triangle area before the turn of the twentieth Triangle neighborhoods was named after century. At the time, Germans were migrating further Deacon Brown. west and northwest into newer regions, leaving Jews as the dominant population in the neighborhood by the Triangle neighborhoods’ populations 1920s.