VOICES OF Westmorland

AN ORAL HISTORY OF A NEIGHBORHOOD

Published by the Westmorland Neighborhood Association Voices of Westmorland: The Oral History of a Neighborhood Published by the Westmorland Neighborhood Association, Madison, Wisconsin

Contact: WNA President 2014 Emily Feinstein, [email protected], 608-232-0502 www.westmorland-neighborhood.net

Copyright © 2014 by Westmorland Neighborhood Association Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form.

ISBN: 978-0-9847276-6-7

Front cover photos, clockwise from upper left: Jim and Bud Crawmer, circa 1940 (page 26), Clifden Drive block party, circa 1966 (page 19), Mary Miller, 1944 (page 83), Will Murphy’s first birthday, 1957 (page 106), Neighborhood boys, circa 1953 (page 3), Ken and Mary Quinn, 1971 (page 96).

All images appearing in this book are from the collections of the families interviewed or the Westmorland Neighborhood Association unless otherwise noted. Images from the Wisconsin Historical Society are used with permission and designated by image number. Map on page xi was created by Bill Martinelli. Photo on title page and back cover by Tom Martinelli.

Additional writing, editing, and book design provided by Sarah E. White, First Person Productions Cover design by Bill Martinelli Printed by Silverline Studio, Madison, Wisconsin Contents Donors and advertisers ...... vii Introduction ...... ix Westmorland Location of Interview Narrators . . . . . xi Donald, Gary (Butch), and Tim Meyer ...... 1 Ice wagons ...... 1 A bad errand boy ...... 1 Tim goes to the dentist ...... 2 Fourth of July ...... 2 Sliding on Toepfer Avenue ...... 3 Babysitting foils vegetable caper ...... 3 Mom’s punishment ...... 4 Baseball ...... 4 A burn gets out of hand ...... 5 A shack of our own ...... 5 Movie night in the parks ...... 6 Glenwood Children’s Park, Glenway Street ...... 6 Grandpa Henry Meyer ...... 7 Their father’s death ...... 8 Polio ...... 8 Hanging out or dating? ...... 9 Career aspirations ...... 9 Love and marriage ...... 10 Marian (Spahn) Drolsom...... 12 Selling produce ...... 12 Golf ...... 12 Country school ...... 13 Radio ...... 14 Childhood play ...... 14 Sports ...... 14 Career and family ...... 14 Family celebrations ...... 15 Lorene (Shea) Schultz...... 16 Remodeling ...... 17 Westmorland’s early development ...... 17 Our Lady Queen of Peace School ...... 17 House’s former resident ...... 18

i Voices of Westmorland

A sociable neighborhood ...... 18 Picnics, potlucks, and play times ...... 19 Activities for children at Westmorland Park ...... 20 Our transportation was the buses ...... 21 Holidays ...... 21 “Everybody shared everything” ...... 22 Firebug ...... 22 The ice storm of 1976 ...... 22 The tornado of 2004 ...... 23 Lorien (Bud) and Jim Crawmer...... 25 Dudgeon School buddies ...... 26 A hobo jungle and a fire ...... 27 Ghosts and the cemetery ...... 28 Dad and the dynamite business ...... 28 For kids, this was close to heaven ...... 30 Professor March’s family of readers ...... 31 “Everything was homemade” ...... 32 Early bus service in Westmorland ...... 33 World War II on the home front ...... 33 The end of the dynamite business ...... 35 Cora (Nelson) Christensen...... 36 Courtship and marriage ...... 36 Stay-at-home mom ...... 37 Before Westmorland annexation ...... 38 Activities ...... 38 Fourth of July celebrations ...... 39 Marzo Bliss...... 40 Coming to Westmorland ...... 41 Kids’ education ...... 42 Kids’ activities then and now ...... 42 A “Bliss-ful” Fourth of July ...... 42 Church and social life ...... 43 Working on State Street ...... 44 The Vietnam protests ...... 44 Changes ...... 44 A more welcoming neighborhood ...... 45

ii Contents

Ardith (Ellis) McDowell...... 46 Fine children, fine schools ...... 47 A Japanese family shared their culture ...... 48 My husband was Secretary of Agriculture ...... 48 A family’s teacher, nurse and domestic engineer . . . . 49 Leading Cub Scouts, 4-H ...... 50 Pulled away from Westmorland ...... 50 Ronny (Stodolar) Saeman...... 51 Building and landscaping a home in Westmorland . . . 52 Activities in Westmorland Park ...... 53 Gately Terrace: a front-row seat for the Fourth of July . 54 After dark came the fireworks ...... 56 Summer vacations and pastimes ...... 56 A growing interest in ecology ...... 56 Volunteering as a poll worker ...... 57 Longtime WNA volunteer ...... 57 My greatest contribution: the Westmorland Park rock garden ...... 58 A few bad things happened in Westmorland . . . . . 59 A wedding and an anniversary ...... 60 Gale VandeBerg...... 63 Our kids raise pigeons ...... 64 A career in agricultural education ...... 65 Our boys played sports ...... 66 But our girl was into dramatics ...... 66 4-H Club: The Diligent Doers ...... 67 Church and Sunday School ...... 67 Challenges: riots on campus ...... 68 School pairings ...... 68 Ellen (Luentenmayer) and Howard Cross...... 70 Progress!? More curbs and gutters, fewer dynamite trucks . . 71 Ball player, war veteran, decorator, state worker, retiree . .71 Getting around town ...... 72 Social clubs for all ages ...... 72 Trolleys ...... 73 Active children ...... 73 Girl Scouts ...... 74 Notable neighbors ...... 74

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Curling ...... 75 Time passed … ...... 76 Betty (Scribner) Skowlund...... 77 A neighborhood fills with families ...... 78 Betty goes to work ...... 79 “A lot of neighboring back and forth” ...... 80 Building and equipping Midvale School ...... 80 Remembering Edgar “Pop” Gordon and Roland Johnson . 80 Mary (Wenger) Miller and Dale Miller...... 83 Coming to Westmorland ...... 84 Remembering Our Lady Queen of Peace Church . . . . 84 Mary cooked ...... 84 John delivered dairy products ...... 85 Dale recalls a Westmorland childhood ...... 86 Madison Recreation Department baseball ...... 87 Mary and the WWN ...... 87 Some things change, others remain the same . . . . . 88 Looking forward ...... 89 Joanne (Jackson) Thuesen...... 90 A teen with jobs ...... 90 Edgewood High School, teen parties, and driving lessons . . 91 A WNA Scholarship leads to UW Nursing School . . . 91 Family changes ...... 92 Young mothers together ...... 92 At the Fourth of July Festivities, a volunteer nurse . . . 93 Parties ...... 93 Volunteering with the WNA ...... 94 Thinking of moving out ...... 94 Four generations in Westmorland ...... 95 Ken and Mary (Alderson) Quinn...... 96 Kids’ games circa 1966 ...... 96 Madison Recreation activities in local parks . . . . . 98 Go-karts at Glenway Golf Course ...... 98 Fourth of July remembered ...... 98 Queen of Peace School ...... 99 Modern nuns ...... 100

iv Contents

Eighth grade: best friends ...... 101 Fun with the Murphys ...... 101 Ken and Mary, love and marriage ...... 103 Moving away, moving back ...... 103 Joan (VandenBerg) Murphy...... 105 Moms “coffeed” while kids played ...... 105 Fourth of July meant guests ...... 107 Activities with family and friends ...... 108 Kids’ jobs ...... 109 Growing families, expanding homes ...... 110 A funny story about that carpenter ...... 112 1976 ice storm ...... 113 Shirley and Stan Inhorn...... 114 Coming to Westmorland ...... 115 Frederick Circle: good neighbors ...... 116 Children, in school and out ...... 117 The children were musical ...... 119 Attending and volunteering at First Unitarian Society . 119 At first, money was tight ...... 120 For Shirley, memberships and volunteering . . . . . 120 For Stan, playing in the orchestra until career intervened . . 121 A laboratory view of polio ...... 121 Family vacations ...... 122 Elinor (Martin) Moore...... 123 Meeting my husband ...... 123 Raising three girls, sharing a love of music ...... 124 For teens: cars, dates, and church ...... 125 Area churches and businesses ...... 125 The Vietnam era remembered ...... 126 Wild weather ...... 127 Leaving Westmorland ...... 127 Kent Liska...... 128 Eating out of the garden year-round ...... 128 A woods instead of neighbors ...... 129 Wiffle ball in the street ...... 129 Organized sports through school and city programs . . 130 Earning money to play golf ...... 131

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Decorating bikes for the Fourth of July ...... 132 For Safety Patrol captains, a trip to Washington, DC . . 132 High school hangouts ...... 133 Between high school and college, Europe on Five Dollars a Day ...... 133 The edge of town ...... 133 Attending the UW in the Vietnam era ...... 134 Kurt Meyer ...... 135 Remembering a familiar neighborhood ...... 135 Christmas ...... 137 Fourth of July ...... 137 Kid’s lore ...... 138 Schools: Midvale, Van Hise, West High ...... 138 State Street in the Vietnam era ...... 139 A newsboy’s view of current events ...... 139 Majoring in Economics, working in Information Technology ...... 140 Events: ice storm, Dutch Elm disease, tornado . . . . 140 A new generation in Westmorland ...... 142 Afterword ...... 143

vi Donors and advertisers The Westmorland Neighborhood Association extends its thanks to everyone who donated to this project.

Sandra and Jim Adams Julie Horst and Darren Schoer Kimberlee O’Donahue Edith Ann Anderson Leslie Ann Howard Michelle Reis Olsen Helen and Brian Apel Midge and Jim Hrncirik Sharon Palmer Steven Barczi Beth Hubert Jerry Pasdo Warren Bauer Lorrie and John Hylkema George and Barb Perkins Sue and Harold Bergan Barbara and Len Jacobs Sue and John Reddan Virginia Bores and Charles James Earl Reichel David McCormick Pamela and Scott Jameson Marla Ryowiak and Jeff Deacetis Katherine Bowie Catherine Johnson Louise Schadauer Dorothy and John Brugge Sandra and Thomas Jordan Mark Schimke Richard Bruins Cyrus and Cole Kampa Dolores and Ned Schmitt Joyce and Ed Clapp Mark and Karen Kampa Jean Tretow-Schmitz and Kevin Conlin Mary Keller John Schmitz Ellen and Howard Cross Robert Keller Mary Ann and Emmett Schulte Bonnie Cubalchini Marilyn Klement Lorene Schultz Betsy Draine and Sarah Klemme and Paul Guse Theresa Sheldon Michael Hinden Gundega Korsts and Suzannah and Gary Sisler John Evenson James Holden Sylvia Stalker Janet Faulhaber Jane and Peter Kosolcharoen Claudia Standorf Emily Feinstein and Joe Kaufman Irene Kringle Jesse Steinberg and Ellen Fisher Amy and Aaron Lee Erica Throneburg Diane Frye Tom and Lisa Leuker Corrine Stoddard Patricia Gaitan Ann Libert Tom Taborsky Claire Gervais and Dave Blouin Elaine Lohr Jerry and Ralph Tarr Carole Goodhue Kathleen Luker Dinean and Darryl Thelen Raelene and Ralph Goodwin Mary Ann Lynch James Thomack Ronald Goral Ruth Manning Joanne Thuesen Donna Grahn Ann and Tom Martinelli Amanda Tollefson Eileen Hannigan and Chris Dolan Carolyn May Mary Treman Janet Beach Hanson and Wayne Julie and Gary Meyer Julie Verban Hanson Mary Miller Terri and Bob Vetter Sheilah Harrington and Walter Miner Joyce Watson Mick Roszkowski Maureen Mullins Kathleen Welhouse Betsy Hauser Joan Murphy Jane and Richard Westley Dennis Herling Astrid Newenhouse and Mary Williamson Jane Coply Holveck and Kurt Meyer Myrna Williamson Randall Holveck Jeff Hamlett Ocupop Virginia Zwickey and Cheryl Gursoy

The following advertisers in The Westmorland Courier generously contributed financial support to the Voices of Westmorland oral history project. We gratefully acknowledge these contributions and apologize if we have inadvertently omitted the names of any contributors. Alvarado Real Estate Group Luigi’s Moore’s Towing and Service Budd’s Auto Repair Mallatt’s Pharmacy & Costumes New Morning Nursery School Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream The Market Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Christensen Construction Tom McHugh AIA, Architecture/ Church Douglas Art and Frame Interiors Regent Market Co-op Grocery Edward Jones Melissa Grace Gallery Photography, University Houses Preschool First Unitarian Society LLC The Village Bar, Mark & Karen fit 2 eat Midvale Community Lutheran Kampa formecology llc Church Waterstone Studio Glass Nickel Pizza Co . Monroe Street Arts Center Wingra School Hybrid Salon Monroe Street Framing

vii Acknowledgments As we said in the acknowledgements in Westmorland: A Great Place to Live, a good book requires a good team. The Westmorland Neighborhood Association thanks the History Committee members: project manager Tom Martinelli, interviewers Barb Perkins, Jan Murphy, Carole Vincent, Carolyn May, and Jean Tretow-Schmitz, and interview narrators (see Contents, page i). We also thank grantwriter and editor Sarah White, oral historian Troy Reeves, and reviewers/advisors Anna Andrzejewski and Ann Waidelich. We appreciate the support of Westmorland Neighborhood Alder Chris Schmidt and Dane County Board Supervisor (District 11) Al Matano, and the board of the Westmorland Neighborhood Association: President Emily Feinstein, Vice President Christopher Tall, Treasurer Chris Gunst, Secretary Erica Throneburg, and Members-at-Large Christopher Harrison and Dave Blouin.

Special Acknowledgment This project is supported in part by the Dane Arts with additional funds from the Evjue Foundation, charitable arm of The Capital Times .

viii Introduction

“As far as kids go, Westmorland was maybe as close as we’ll ever get to heaven .” – Jim Crawmer

The Westmorland community has a strong sense of time and place. Whenever current or past residents meet in or around Dane County, someone always has a story to share. Children who grew up in Westmorland in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s are now raising children in the area. Our roots go deep, and our branches continue to grow. The Westmorland Neighborhood Association (WNA) was founded in 1941, and has been a major force in the neighborhood ever since. In 2011, to commemorate its 70th anniversary, WNA published Westmorland: A Great Place to Live. Much of the information in that book originated as articles written by WNA History Committee members and published in The Westmorland Courier . Encouraged by the warm reception given Westmorland: A Great Place to Live and concerned that we are losing the memories of our oldest neighbors, the History Committee undertook an oral history project. Voices of Westmorland is the result. How did it come to be? Through generosity. Individuals volunteered their time, and funders agreed to underwrite its costs. We are grateful to all involved. Between May and September 2013 the WNA History Committee conducted training for interviewers, then collected interviews with longtime Westmorland residents. Our interview team consisted of Barb Perkins, Jan Murphy, Carole Vincent, Carolyn May, and Jean Tretow-Schmitz, assisted by project administrators Tom Martinelli and Sarah White. Troy Reeves, University of Wisconsin–Madison’s resident oral historian, provided the training. Over the course of the summer the team collected the 19 interviews that appear in this book in condensed form. The interviews were transcribed and presented to narrators for approval. Each narrator received a copy of his or her audio interview and transcript. Meanwhile, family photos were collected from the narrators, scanned, and archived with the oral history project. Some narrators provided many old family photos for consideration in the book while others had few or no photos available. Then we began preparing to publish Voices of Westmorland. Sarah White edited the interviews and recommended their sequence, a process requiring thousands of decisions small and large. (Text in parentheses was not spoken by the narrator but added later for clarity.) The sequence roughly reflects the chronology of the narrators’ arrival in Westmorland over time. Some redundancy has been allowed, reflecting

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the fact that all 19 of our narrators were recalling the same place and cast of characters, seen from the perspective of their particular decades. For example, almost every narrator related memories of our glorious Fourth of July celebrations, which began in 1941 and continue to this day. At some point you may feel you’ve heard enough about decorated bicycles, pony rides and dunk tanks, fireworks and flag raisings. That’s the point at which you’ll be getting the true flavor of Westmorland. It really was close to heaven during the period recalled by our narrators (roughly 1930–2000). While our narrators, editor, project managers, and reviewers have tried for accuracy, memory is an inaccurate tool at best. Multiple points of view as well as factual errors will be found between these covers. Judging by the preponderance of positive recollections, life in Westmorland has been good. Bad things rarely happen here and when they do, the community is quick to come to each other’s aid. The purpose of this collection is to help us remember that—and to carry Westmorland’s history with us as we move forward in time. For a comprehensive factual account of Westmorland’s development from prehistory to the 21st century, read Westmorland: A Great Place to Live . To hear the voices of the people who lived its recent history, dip into Voices of Westmorland.

– The Westmorland Neighborhood Association History Committee

x Westmorland Location of Interview Narrators

xi

Chapter Donald, Gary (Butch), and Tim Meyer 1 The three Meyer brothers, Don, Gary, and Tim, were interviewed by Carolyn May at Gary’s home at 3906 Winnemac Avenue . Don was born in 1930, Gary (known as Butch) in 1938, and Tim in 1945 . Their grandfather, Henry Meyer, was one of the first homebuilders in Westmorland .

Don: We moved to Westmorland when I was 2 years old. My parents bought the house that my grandfather built at 3814 Winnemac (1928). That was in 1932.

Ice wagons I remember the ice wagon that delivered ice for the iceboxes that all the homes had. There was a large card you placed in the L-R: Tim, Gary, and Don Meyer, July 2013. front window, which had the numbers 25—50—75—NO in four positions. Whichever number you put at the top was the ice amount you wanted that day. The wagon was pulled by a horse. We would gather around the wagon, and finally the man would give each of us a chunk of ice to suck on. He would just come in the house and call, “Ice man!” He would go into the kitchen and put the ice away. This was before and around 1937 at the latest.

A bad errand boy Don: My mother would send me to the IGA for groceries. It was on Mineral Point Road (next to the Village Bar). And before that she sent me up to Herling’s Tavern, which used to be a general store plus the bar, where the Village Bar is now. One of the big things about the bar was that no women were allowed in. They could be in the general store but they could not go to the bar.

I was probably about 6. Mom sent me up there to get something; to this Vintage ice card courtesy of day I don’t remember what it was. I went up there and I couldn’t remember Ann Waidelich what it was I was supposed to buy. I bought a can of soup or something and I came back. “Don, this isn’t what I told you to get. Now, you get so and so.” Okay. Well, now, I forgot it every time I got up there and I came back with something—a loaf of bread or something and “Donald!” she said, and she pinned a note on me. I went up there two or three times before I got the right thing.

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(The IGA was located at 3817 Mineral Point Road from 1951 to 1956. It then became the Sentry Grocery Store.)

Tim goes to the dentist Tim: When I was only 4 or 5 or so, Mom was taking me to the dentist. She got me dressed and she was running a little bit late so everything’s kind of rushed. We get uptown and we’re rushing to the dentist’s office, and Mom said that I was just dragging behind her. She’s having to drag me along. She kept scolding me saying, “Come on. Hurry up, Tim. We’ve gotta get going. We have to get to the dentist’s office. Come on, Tim. Let’s get going.” Well, we finally got to the dentist’s office, and she sat me down and she looked at me—one pants leg was empty. She told me, “I remember thinking to myself”—because she said there were some people up on the Square looking at her because she was scolding this little boy so much. And she said, “They must have thought I was the worst mother in the world. I had a one-legged child who was trying to keep up with me and he could only hop with one leg.”

Fourth of July (Paul Olson was the principal at Midvale School (1951–1973), and lived in Sunset Village.) Don: Paul was instrumental in planning the Fourth of July celebrations. He asked us, the “Westmorland Commandos,” to keep the “Briar Hill Gang” out. Briar Hill was the area south of the railroad tracks, west of Glenway Street, north of Monroe Street, and northeast of Percy’s Gas Station. When the three or four guys in the Briar Hill Gang came, we had to tell them they couldn’t come in—this was Westmorland’s private gathering. They just watched from the field for a while and then left. Gary: In 1945, the Fourth of July parade was USA-oriented. My brother and Don Herling, who was a good friend of his, pulled a wagon with three pillows in it with “Mussolini” painted on one, “Hitler” on one, and “Tito” on another. Two of the pillows were knocked down and the sign says, “2 down, 1 to go .” Tim: As soon as you got up, it’s “Mom I need money.” The parade was in the morning. We were always in the parade riding our bikes. Then you usually came back at lunchtimes because you spent all your money on tickets. “We need money for hotdogs.” By midafternoon we were back again asking for money for more tickets! After the day at the park you would go home for supper and do the dishes. Then about dusk it would be time to head back to the park for the fireworks. Mom, Dad, kids with blankets and lawn chairs. Most everyone walked and the sidewalks were full of people. After the fireworks you went home, and if you were lucky enough to have your own firecrackers, you’d set those off until you got in trouble with your parents or your neighbors.

2 1 – Donald, Gary (Butch), and Tim Meyer

Sliding on Toepfer Avenue Don: Westmorland was in the Town of Madison back when I was small. During the wintertime they would block off all the side streets on Toepfer Avenue, which only went to the corner of Winnemac Avenue here for us to sled on. We’d slide all the way down Toepfer, make the corner at Winnemac here and go down almost to our house at 3814. Sometimes Boys sitting on back porch of 510 Glenway Street (Gundlach’s home) L-R: Dave Gundlach (7), Timmy Meyer (8), Gary Gundlach (10), Philip Smith (8), circa on icy days you’d get down 1953. to the golf course at Glenway Street. They would come with cinders or sand mixed with cinders to make it safe for driving but they wouldn’t do Toepfer or Winnemac unless it got really bad. Of course we didn’t like that.

Babysitting foils vegetable caper (The Felton Vegetable Farm occupied 20 acres at the corner of Mineral Point Road and Midvale Boulevard from about 1913 until the early 1950s.) Don: One night we planned to go up to Felton’s and steal some watermelons. Early that evening after dinner, Mom says, “Don, you’re going to babysit tonight.” “What?” I said, “I can’t! We’re all going to do something.” I said, “Can we get …” “Donald, you are going to babysit Butch.” I was so mad. The guys came over and they said, “Come on! We’re gonna go!” I said, “I can’t. I gotta babysit.” “Oh, you’re gonna miss …” Well, anyway, about an hour or so later, I hear a commotion outside. And here are the guys—Don Herling was there, kind of crying, and another guy—and I said, “Hey, what’s going on?” “We got caught.” They ended up having to go to Felton’s for a Saturday or something like that and help pick muskmelons or watermelons. Felton gave them all they wanted, so it was kind of anticlimactic.

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Mom’s punishment Gary: If I had misbehaved, my punishment was to sit on the chair in front of the clock. I had to sit there for 15 minutes. I couldn’t read a comic or do anything. You would just sit there, and it would be a long time. Tim: That was my punishment, too. And I knew when my Mom was mad at me because she’d just get this very, very disappointed look. And she could do that. And boy, it just crushed you. Maybe because of the trouble she had in her life. It really upset me when I got her upset.

Baseball Don: Kids played sand lot baseball. There wasn’t organized Little League as such. There was some roughly organized groups until Paul Olson started a baseball team. Paul Olson said, “It’s going be called the Wasps. It stands for Westmorland, Arlington Heights, Sunset Village, and Pilgrim

Parents Frank and Ethel Meyer with son Don Ethel Meyer Wallstad 3814 Winnemac Avenue, Meyer, circa 1933. 1999. Ethel died in 2014 at 106 years old.

4 1 – Donald, Gary (Butch), and Tim Meyer

Village.” He says, “The other ‘s’ I just added because we’ve got to have an ‘s’ on it.” I had to catch and I hated catching. I guess I was the worst catcher in the world.

A burn gets out of hand Don: Westmorland Boulevard ended a little ways into the park, and there were fields from the eastern corner all the way south to the railroad tracks—there was nothing. Every year during spring vacation, our gang would burn a section of the field. We always had stuff (rakes and other tools) to work on the fire. We’d take care of it and we did a pretty good job of it. One year, this was about 1939, this one guy from Briar Hill, Doug Moss was his name, was laying on the dry winter grass there and it was windy and he said, “Boy, I want to see this burn.” “Well jeez, don’t be starting any fire,” we said. “It is really windy. We’d have to get stuff together.” About that time he struck a match, and my God, this thing just WHOP! … like that! Oh jeez! And we said, “Get some gunny sacks from home and get them wet. Come on! We’re going to get a shovel and a rake.” We’re busting our butts. This thing really got going. It was way ahead of us but two of us went up a ways and started a backfire. It wasn’t me. It might have been Graff and Stacey Clarke went up and started it. Anyway, we just about had it out, and here comes the fire department. It burned everything from the field all the way up to the railroad tracks, and we had a heck of a nice fire. There was no problem, nothing to damage because there were only the two houses on that side, and we had it out before it got to Westmorland Boulevard Well, we’re in the Town of Madison. We got in real trouble for that. Oh, jeez, we were yelled at by our dads because this added onto the taxes. My dad said, “We have to go see the county attorney.” He said, “You guys have got to go.” All the five of us went in there, and the attorney said, “You boys got yourselves in a lot of trouble.” He said, “You know, you could go to jail for this.” My heart was in my throat. He was really awfully serious and he says, “But I tell you what: I’m going let you go, but we’re going monitor you guys, every single one of you.” “What do you mean?” And then he said, “You get in any trouble, you’re looking at jail time.” Oh! Jeez! I was so scared for a year.

A shack of our own Don: We built a shack behind Graff’s house. There was a gully there that became a creek in the spring. We built it right at the edge of that. It started out as one room and we ended up with another room. We stayed there at night and we’d have meetings in there. We had a telephone pole,

5 Voices of Westmorland

made a basketball court out there. We brought junk from the sand pit. We fixed it up pretty nice. We had it there for years. We were in it, and someone knocked on the door. It was Otto Toepfer. He said, “You guys own this?” We said, “Yeah. We built it.” He said, “Well you built it on my land and you owe me rent. How long have you been here?” “What do you mean rent? This is just a shack. This is not a house.” “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “This is my land.” He says, “That’s a house. You owe me money for rent.” “Wait. Well jeez, we haven’t got any money.” He says, “You can get out. Tear it down, or buy the land or pay the rent.” “Well, how much does the land cost?” He says, “I’ll sell you this land for $150.” “Well, what does it cover?” This covered everything from the corner of Glenway Street at the rail- road tracks, north to Westmorland Boulevard and south to the backs of the houses there and west down into the field where the golf course was—all of that—$150. Well, why don’t you ask me for $10 million right now? So Don Herling went home to his dad, and I went home to my dad and I said, “Dad,” we could buy the land down here for really cheap.” He says, “Well, what’s cheap?” I said “$150.” “$150!!” he said. “That land isn’t worth 25 cents.” Oh, little did we know! But Don Herling’s dad said the same thing: “Now that land ain’t going to be worth nothing.” We had a chance to own it! There’s a lot of houses there now.

Movie night in the parks Tim: Once or twice a summer they used to have movies at the parks on Friday or Saturday nights. Just about everybody brought their own paper bag full of buttered popcorn and everybody smelled of DOPE, the army surplus mosquito repellent full of DEET. I was about 5 to 9 years old. Don told me he remembers running the movie projector. Gary: The movies were in black and white. Before the movie they always showed a short episode of a serial that would continue for a few weeks. I remember one serial was about the U.S. and Germany during the Second World War. I don’t recall if they were shown at Westmorland Park or Sunset Village Park. Maybe both on different nights, or they may have switched from one to the other. I’m pretty sure I went to both parks for the evening movies. After the movies we’d walk home in the dark—that was fun.

Glenwood Children’s Park, Glenway Street Tim: In summer, a fun thing for us was to go down to the glen. Back then there was another rock-covered pathway for water to go underneath the railroad tracks, a sort of tunnel. That’s all blocked off now. That used

6 1 – Donald, Gary (Butch), and Tim Meyer

to be the greatest thing, to go down there, especially during a rainstorm Don and Tim Meyer, because then you had lots of water rushing through there. circa1949. When I was little I had three real good friends. Two were the Gundlach boys, Gary and David. They lived in the house on Glenway next to Grandma and Grandpa’s old house. And then Kenny Larson, he lived in a house next to them at the corner of Winnemac and Glenway. Gary was Kenny’s age, which is about two to three years older than me, and David was about a year younger than me, but the four of us hung around. We were the Glenway Gang and we played a lot in the glen. We played army in the glen. We’d go down to the duck pond a lot. We’d go down to Lake Wingra and fish. Gary: I remember Rusty Fuss lived by Dudgeon School on Gregory Street. They had a Shetland pony and he brought it up, gave everybody a ride for a nickel. That was on St. Clair Street while it was still being built, about 1946 or 1947. Roy Gustavson built a golf course across the street from us. This was just a little “pitch and putt.” Gustavson charged us two cents to play golf.

Grandpa Henry Meyer Don: Grandpa Meyer was just like you’d think of people from that generation. He was probably at that time only 60-some years old but looked 160 to me. He always had a stick in his hand; he was always poking at the ground. One day, I would say I had to be 6 maybe, we were sitting beside the old barn, and he’s in the shade and poking on the ground. He dug an angle worm up. He said, “Don, would you eat that?” I said, “Oh no.” He said, “Would you bite it in two?” “Well I don’t know.” “Would’ya for a nickel?” “Oh yeah!”

7 Voices of Westmorland

So I bit it into two, and he gave me a nickel. I really liked him, but he was very old school and disciplined. When you were told to be quiet, you shut up.

Their father’s death Gary: (Frank Meyer) was shot in a hunting accident in Montana (1946). Timmy was just a year old. I came home from school, and my mother and my two aunts and Grandma were there and they were crying. I asked, “what’s wrong?” They said, “Well, your dad got shot but it will be all right.” That’s all they knew. My mother flew out there, and he lived for about a week. We were sent to stay at Aunt Jessie’s. Jessie got a phone call the night before saying that they should know in the morning if he’s going to make it or not, and I remember the phone rang and Jessie answered it and she broke down and started to cry. So I knew what had happened and then I started to cry. Don: I don’t know if it was even a week. When they finally got him to the hospital every vein in his body had collapsed. He completely lost all the blood in his system. They never thought he was going to make it. Because of the massive influx of blood they had to give him, they sent to the University of Wisconsin here for a new drug they had, which Henry Meyer with grandson Don Meyer, circa would help the kidneys handle this influx of new blood. Well, 1936. it didn’t work. Nowadays I think he would have made it.

Polio Don: The doctor would come to the house; Dr. Brindley was our doctor. When I was 16, I got polio but I didn’t know it. Mom didn’t tell me till I was 21. Evidently I was just very sick. I can remember this one day, and everybody was at the house—people all over the place. The minister was there. “What’s he doing here?” Then I got better. One day, my aunt and uncle came up from Milwaukee. They asked, “Can Don go uptown yet?” “Oh, yeah, yeah, take him up.” So I went with them. When Newspaper article, October 23, 1946. I got out of their truck, my foot just flapped and it didn’t do that before. When I left the house, I just walked. When I got out, it flopped down. And I said, “What’s wrong with my foot?” Everybody said, “Is it asleep?” I said, “No, it won’t do anything.” I hobbled around after them complaining about my foot. But that was polio, evidently. I went to the doctor many times, he measured my legs each time, and I kept asking,

8 1 – Donald, Gary (Butch), and Tim Meyer

“What are you doing with my legs?” “We want make sure you’re growing up like a normal guy and check your legs out, see how they’re doing.” I finally said, “Look, I’m having real trouble keeping up with the guys playing football. I can’t run and now they won’t let me play ’cause I can’t run fast enough.” And he said, “I don’t want you running like that.” He says, “You can be there but don’t run.” I said, “How can I play football without running?” And I said, “Well, what about skiing this winter?” “Oh, no. No skiing.” And I thought to myself, “Okay, I’m skiing.” And I did and by the next spring I didn’t know which leg had been affected.

Hanging out or dating? Tim: I had a girlfriend in high school. She went to Edgewood. There was a whole group of us around here who hung out together. The Buechners had a lot of kids, Gallaghers, there’s a couple, one Zimdars, Rick Skowlund, Ted Perrish. We all knew each other. If we went bowling or to the movies I’d take my girlfriend Pat with me and the whole bunch of us would go. It wasn’t necessarily a date specifically. The group of us played a lot of cards at the Buechner’s (502 Glenway Street), which was my Grandma and Grandpa’s old house. Then we were always working on cars so our girlfriends would also be there watching us.

Career aspirations Don: I was so interested in deep sea diving when I was in high school, just really interested. I read every book the library had on it and I thought that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to go down to Florida and buy one of these sponge boats and be a sponge diver. I don’t know, I must have read a story on diving. We made our own diving helmet out of an old five gallon cherry can. We found out that it had to be tied on because the can would float off your head. The face mask we made leaked like a sieve, even though we used an inner tube around it and about 40 screws and everything. The tire pump wasn’t the answer to keep air in it. We didn’t do it too well, but we tried. I ended up being an art teacher. I started out teaching for the State of Wisconsin in what was called a Wisconsin Home Craft program. I traveled 13 southwestern counties and taught crafts to severely handicapped adults so they could make something and earn a little bit of money. The Easter Seal Society opened shops for these people’s stuff and they would give them 100% of whatever it sold for. Then I taught at East High School and then I was a pharmaceuticals salesman. I did those two jobs for five to ten years each and then I bought my own business and we had a little shop, a little home arts and crafts store. Then I ended up running ski schools and I did that for another eight or nine years. Then Donna said, “Don, you’ve got to get a real job.” So I went back into teaching.

9 Voices of Westmorland

Tim: I wanted to go into the DNR because I liked being outside. I liked trees and I liked animals. Mom told me, “Go on and talk to Paul”—Paul Olson—because he was big in conservation. She said Paul would know. And he says, “You’d have to go to the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point because they have the best program around for getting into the DNR.” But he said, “I don’t recommend it.” This was probably in the mid to late 1950s, and he said, “It’s way too political. You don’t want to get into that.” Now I volunteer for the DNR! I got my first real job from Don Herling. He ran a muffler shop. It’s all welding, and I learned it. One day he said to me, “You know, you’re doing pretty good.” And he said, “The Madison Vocational School has a real good two-year technical course for welding. I think you should go to it.” So I completed my two-year technical degree and I didn’t know at the time but Don had planned that I was going to come back to work for him when I finished school but I didn’t. I got a job with Lockheed Missiles and Space, welding out in California. And then Uncle Sam offered a much more permanent job. So I worked for him for four years and then I went back into welding. I retired from a company in Lisbon, Wisconsin called Walker Stainless Steel. Gary: For a while I wanted to be a pilot, why I don’t know. Apparently it was the thrill of flying. Maybe from Uncle Harold. I remember when he took us up in the plane. “Oh yeah, let me fly it.” He held on to the stick. But it never developed into anything. I started with the State Registration Board of Architects and Engineers Gary (Butch) Meyer, West and then from there I went to the University. I had a job with the Alumni High graduation, 1956. Association and then with the Registrar’s Office, and that’s where I retired.

Love and marriage Don: In 1953 I came home from service after I spent a year up at Iceland. Roy Gustavson and I were good friends from the old gang. One night he came over and he says, “Don, you want to go on a blind date?” I said, “I don’t know. The guys and I, we’re going to go up drinking and well …” But then I said, “What’s she like?” He said, “Well, she’s short and cute.” I said, “Now what about the up and down parts. Is it wide or is it narrow?” “Well she’s pretty nice.” I said, “Okay.” I hate to be late for anything but we were an hour late picking them up. She and her girlfriend were just going out the door. That’s where it started. And then in October ’54 Donna and I got married in Prairie du Chien. On our wedding day I almost passed out because I changed religions. I couldn’t have married her if I didn’t, because her father wouldn’t let her marry anybody who wasn’t Catholic. The day before the wedding the people didn’t deliver the flowers, and I was supposed to take them down to Prairie du Chien with me. I called

10 1 – Donald, Gary (Butch), and Tim Meyer

Donna up and I asked, “When are those flowers supposed to come?” She said, “Aren’t they there?” And I said, “No.” “You’d better call them up and tell them they’re supposed to be. “ It was the night before but anyway I called the floral shop. “Well, that’s not until next week.” I said, “It’s tomorrow,” and they said, “Oh wow. Okay, we’ll have them there first thing in the morning!” Well, they got them to my house early in the morning, and I got my convertible all filled up with flowers and I “fly” to Prairie du Chien. Just as I was crossing the Wisconsin River, there’s a big clunk and the car dropped down and started going toward the side of the bridge. What the heck? I got it under control but every time we hit a bump we had a bang. The whole front right frame busted, and the Don and Donna Meyer with baby Kurt, 1958. spring fell through. I had to have that fixed while we’re at the wedding. The wedding was interesting but that was really interesting. (All the Meyer broth­ ers currently live in Wiscon­ sin: Don in Baraboo, Tim in Arkdale, and Gary in West­ morland at 3909 Winnemac Avenue.)

502 Glenway Street, Henry and Mary Meyer’s family home, July 2013.

11 Chapter 2 Marian (Spahn) Drolsom Marian was interviewed by Carole Vincent on July 1, 2013 at The Towers in Oakwood Village .

I was born in Madison in 1925. We lived on Speedway Road, which is now Mineral Point Road. I probably lived there three years. My father was a truck gardener and he had owned all the property in what became part of the Forest Hill cemetery, from Hillcrest Drive up to the Glenway Golf Course. The city wanted the property, and so you don’t have any choice. You’re told to get out. We had a house. They moved the whole house down to (3702) Hillcrest Drive. We were all happy. I can’t remember ever being un- happy.

Selling produce We had a big strawberry patch. My mother and I would go up and pick strawberries, and then she’d put up a stand. That’s what we sold from the yard when my brother and I were at home. My father had a melon patch and cantaloupe, and beets, carrots, everything. Marian Drolsom at home, summer 2013. We’d have to load up a wagon and go walking house to house selling produce. We’d go in Westmorland because that was the closest. And some days, we’d go over to where my aunt lived. When we’d get there, our two cousins would say, “Oh, good. Let’s go sell.” So, they would go and sell, and we could play. They were salespeople, but my brother and I hated it. We didn’t have any choice. We had to do it. That was during the Depression. With my father losing his job (as a truck farmer), we did the best we could. It was okay.

Golf The area wasn’t built up at that time. There were vacant lots and the weeds were very tall, and we could hide in them. We had a putting green in the vacant lot which we owned. My father put in some holes, 3702 Hillcrest Drive: the house that was moved from Forest Hill and then we could putt. And that’s how we cemetery.

12 2 – Marian Drolsom

The Westmorland Golf Club, Inc. was in- corporated in 1928 and opened in 1929. It was located on 69 acres of former farmland bounded roughly by Holly Avenue on the east, Felton vegetable farm on the west, Mineral Point Road on the north, and Tokay Boulevard to the south The Speedway Golf Driving Field was constructed on 14 acres at the northwest corner of Mineral Point Road and South Owen drive. Both properties had formerly belonged to William Doerfer. Glenway Golf Course opened in 1927 and still operates at its original location south of Speedway Road between Glenway Street and Forest Hill Cemetery. (Source: Westmor- land: A Great Place to Live)

.started golfing when we were very, very young. We always had golf clubs 4125 Mineral Point Road. around. I still golf. My father (Hubert Spahn) became the greenskeeper at the Westmorland course. (The family lived in a house at 4125 Mineral Point Road, built in 1931.) I can remember lots of golfers. After dark or when people stopped golfing, my brother and I would go looking for golf balls. That was when I was probably 8 and then he was 6 years old. I don’t know what we did with the balls we found. We did play golf ourselves, we putted a lot. We had a nice place to putt. The Speedway Golf Driving Range was across the street from us. Peo- ple would go there and just shoot buckets of balls off. When we moved down to Hillcrest Drive, my brother would caddy at Glenway Golf Course but I didn’t golf down there. That was too expensive. That was 25 cents.

Country school I had a sister who was six years older than I and a brother who was two years younger. We went to the country school. The one-room school house, Hillcrest, which was on Mineral Point Road near Hill Farms (near the current UW Research Park). We walked in all kinds of weather. When it was really cold, my father would take us, but that was very seldom. There were eight grades. I remember doing phonics, and then sometimes if some of the younger ones had trouble with their schoolwork, we would help—the older ones would help them as much as we could. There weren’t too many in each grade, that’s for sure. We’d stay there all day. We would eat lunches we brought from home. My mother packed us a lunch every day. At recess, the boys and girls played together. We played Anti-Over, which was throwing the ball over the schoolhouse. So many children were

13 Voices of Westmorland

on one side and so many on the other. And if they caught the ball, they ran around and tagged us. And the other game was Steal Sticks, where we had an imaginary line and bunch of sticks on one side, and you had to go over and steal one. And then if you got caught, you had to go to jail and be out of the game.

Radio When I was a bit older, I’d hear Amos and Andy and Fibber McGee and Molly on the radio. Those are the two that I can remember. And later on when I was older, I listened to a lot of baseball. I was a real Cubs fan and always listened to them. Why the Cubs? That’s all we had. There weren’t any Brewers then. They were closest to home. My one chore Hillcrest one-room schoolhouse on Mineral Point was to iron, and I’d iron and listen to the baseball games. Road west of Segoe Road, We didn’t have a radio on when we ate. That was suppertime. But we circa 1875. did listen as a family to the radio shows. I’m sure my parents listened to them, too.

Childhood play My brother was an active one. The way I remember him, he liked to dig holes. My mother would make him fill them up, and then he’d start another one. We girls used to make dollhouses. There were rooms we cut out of the catalogue. We cut out pictures of furniture and the models and that’s what we played with. We always had a nice birthday cake. Of course, the Fourth of July, we’d all have a picnic. Labor Day was a picnic, too. One place we would go was Angell Park in Sun Prairie. We would go there with an aunt and uncle and their two boys. We’d meet out there. That was quite a trip, by car, to Sun Prairie.

Sports When I was at West High, I learned to bowl and that was great. After high school (1943) I played baseball on a team that was called Madison Milk Maids. It was just girls. Some of them were girls I knew in high school and some I met when we tried out. I played left field. I could hit. I don’t know how good I was. They didn’t fire me. I played there for about four years.

Career and family After high school, I went right to work. I started at the telephone company as a telephone operator, and they would put me on a 3–11 p.m. shift. That was not good because I had to take a bus, and the bus went just down to Regent Street and Speedway Road, and then I had to walk up past

14 2 – Marian Drolsom

the cemetery and that was not very good at 11 o’clock at night. My mother used to meet me, and the cat would go with her. We had a big cat and it always followed her. After that, I went to work for the Madison Drug Company. It was on Wil­ liamson Street. And there I started filling orders that would come in from the drugstores. And then I went into the office and took the orders over the phone. And Kennedy Dairy’s 1940 team, from there I went on to the accounting department. from an article on women’s I think I was working at the drug company when I heard that World softball published in The War II was over. I was on the bus. There were quite a few young girls that I Capital Times, July 1–2, 1995. Kennedy Dairy’s Milk Maids worked with, and we all met up at the Capitol the next day. There was a big were Madison’s first women’s parade and celebration. Everyone was around. Everybody seemed to come softball team to capture to the Capitol. a women’s state softball I decided that I wouldn’t get anywhere at the drug company, so I took championship. L-R, back row: Tyke Ley, Rusty Reese, Marcy an exam for a typist and I ended up working at the Capitol. But they could Bennett, manager-coach not keep me there because there were other people ahead of me. And so then Leo Peterson, Jan Kubicek, I ended up at the university. Betty O’Brien. Middle row: Bud Bennett Carey, Mary I worked for the Dairy Husbandry department. It is Dairy Science now. Jane Statz, Corky Kubicek, I stayed there but then I went into key punching. I went to Milwaukee to Teenie Soderstrom. Front: learn to keypunch. Then I came back and went to work keypunching at the Betty Rowley and Katie Long. university. Marian Drolsom played for this team in the mid 1940s. It’s similar to a typewriter, only it punches holes in a card and then somebody verifies them to make sure you had the right data on that card. And then it goes to a bunch of machines and gets printed out. This informa- tion was on cows—milk production. It was interesting. I met my husband there. He was a student helping in the same office where I was. And that was it! We were married 57 years. I have two children, both girls. They went to West High.

Family celebrations My brother had two sons, probably about four or five years older than my daughters. But they got along great. We’d get together for every Christmas, Fourth of July, or any holiday. We’d always get together on Memorial Day. My mother was a widow then, and we’d go to her house. She had a nice side yard. We had a picnic table out there and a grill. That was mostly before the girls were born and before my brother’s boys were born. My brother and I were very close in adult life. 15 Chapter 3 Lorene (Shea) Schultz Lorene was interviewed by Carole Vincent on June 12, 2013 at 453 Clifden Drive .

When we came here, there weren’t many houses for sale. There were great big houses around Blessed Sacrament Church and there was nothing on the other side of the belt- line except a few streets. Some people were building past Midvale Boulevard, but very few. Really, Sunset Village and Westmorland were about the only choices that you had at that time if you wanted a smaller home. We started looking for anything that was available and decided that even though this house needed a lot of work that we would buy it and it would suit our needs. Which it has—it has grown with us and it has shrunk with us. We had four children, all born before we moved to Westmorland. Kathy was the oldest, born in 1955. Ginny was the next one, born in ’56. John was born in ’58. And Mary Jo was born in ’61. Lorene Schultz at home, summer 2013. We moved here (453 Clifden Drive) in December of Schultz children, L-R, back row: Kathleen and 1961. We had four little kids and that’s why we had such John; front row: Virginia and Mary Jo, circa a hard time finding a house. Every house we did look at 1962. had three small bedrooms. They never had one big one. And when we looked at this, we said, “There’s our big bedroom with two big closets.” And so, the three girls were going to be in that one. There was another good-sized bedroom that we would take. And then, the professor that had lived here had used a den as a library. It was a cute library and I said, “That’s going to be our son’s bedroom.” I had it all plotted out the minute I saw it. I remember driving by this area when we used to come to Madison. A friend of mine had an aunt who liked to take us places. She had a grandson up here in Madison. So she would drive us up, and I remember coming by Westmorland Park. She said, “Here’s a pretty little park.” We got out, and it had a little bridge. We went up to it, and it had a little stream running through there. And we said, “Is this ever pretty.” I knew it was Westmorland because there was a Kroger’s up at the corner and there still was a Kroger’s when we moved in. I thought, “I wonder what happened to that little brook that ran there.” (See “Clifden Canyon story,

16 3 – Lorene Schultz

sidebar to Ronny Saeman, page 61).

Remodeling The first thing we did was add a double garage. We had a single garage and after the first winter of one car being out when it was a real snowy winter, my husband said, “That’s the end of that!” So, in the spring, we had another garage built on. 453 Clifden Drive, winter And then we quickly realized that the porch that we had was just a summer 1962–63. porch, so that was ripped off the next spring. We built on an addition that would be a family room and also be part of the dining room when we needed it. Through the years, we changed all the windows, added a deck, probably remodeled the kitchen three times, and just tried to keep up with everything that needed to be done.

Westmorland’s early development The older people, the originals, told how they lived in the Town of Madison because Westmorland was in the township of Madison. They said that they would try to get the city to annex them because they needed the services. Eventually they were annexed. A woman down the street said that there were a lot of houses going up on Winnemac Avenue and Meyer Avenue. The men of the neighborhood got together, when they saw the lots were real small, they said, “We don’t think that’s going to be good for Westmorland if all those lots stay that small.” So, they bought up the lots, and they made three lots into two lots, so that they would be bigger. And then they would sell them. She said, otherwise, that part of Westmorland would be just full of small houses on small lots. And I appreciate now the forethought that went into that. It’s probably one of the prettiest neighborhoods around. You come down Holly Avenue and you turn right on Clifden and, at that time, you’d see these big, big yards and really very pretty houses. It still is that way. The houses now are bigger than they were then. Every house, except a couple on this block, has been expanded. Now there are more fences. We didn’t have any in those days, but that was wonderful for the kids because they had a huge playground.

Our Lady Queen of Peace School All but the first of our children went to Midvale for kindergarten. And then they went to Queen of Peace. Kathy by that time was in first grade, so even though it was in the middle of the year, we asked the Monsignor at

17 Voices of Westmorland

that time if they were accepting any more children. And he said, “Oh, we always take anybody who wants to come here.” So she got in there and she did wonderfully. The teachers were so good. Coming in midterm, that’s not easy for a child. It worked out real well. All the kids, when they go to a Catholic school, participate in every- thing. They’re just part of the bunch. Even though they can’t run, they play football; and if they can’t sing, they still are in the choir. They just had a wonderful time. And everybody’s a cheerleader. All the girls in eighth grade were cheerleaders. They take turns.

House’s former resident The person we bought our house from was a professor, a physicist (Professor John Roebuck, UW Physics Research) and he didn’t care about the house. He and his wife lived in a big house down by the university, but they both couldn’t go upstairs because they were in their 80s. So he bought this house, and it hadn’t really been finished by the builder. The builder lived downstairs as he built the first floor above him. And then, when the professor needed a house to live in, he sold it to him. The professor moved in with this huge furniture and this house did not go well with huge furniture. He played golf inside. He had a miniature golf course in the living room and dining room. So, when we looked at the house, we had to step over the blocks that formed the golf course. And then, he putted into the garage. He would stand in the driveway and smack the ball against the kitchen wall. He finally put up a piece of protection wood and it got big holes in it where he had hit the ball. He had a cottage up north. Every summer, because he had hay fever, he and his wife would just leave. They didn’t arrange for anybody to mow, spray, do anything, and the people who lived around here said it was just a sea of dandelions! The neighbors would spray every now and then. They said, “Oh, my gosh. That house looked awful.” We bought it in the winter, so the snow covered it up. We probably wouldn’t have bought it had we seen what was underneath.

A sociable neighborhood We always saw the neighbors socially, especially in the beginning years when all the mothers were home. We always had coffee klatches every Mon- day morning. We would take turns. And if we still had little ones at home, they came along. There were always playmates for them. As people started to go to work, we still had our parties. If there was a dance, we all got to- gether and had a party beforehand. We all went to the dances together. In the early days, the dances were at the old Elks Club (120 Monona Avenue, now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard). That was a wonderful place. The floor shook, and everybody had such a good time. But then, they started building a new Elks Club, and it wouldn’t be done for quite a while and the old one was demolished. So we had to find a new place. Well, we

18 3 – Lorene Schultz

used the Four Lakes Yacht Club (711 Jennifer Street) for a couple of years and then we really couldn’t find a place that was very suitable for us. So the dances kind of died out. There were bands that played for these dances and we always had prizes. You didn’t have to do anything. Your name was put in a hat, and people always donated things. If you were lucky, you won a prize. I never won one. Queen of Peace always had a big party on New Year’s Eve. We all went up Clifden Drive block party, circa there. Someone always cooked steaks for I don’t know how many hundred 1966. people that showed up there. That was always a good time. I volunteered on the Westmorland Association board. We planned all the events. When you’re on the board, you’re in charge of everything. I ended up being the secretary for a couple of years. I think I was on there for two terms. We judged the holiday decorations and we put on the dance and we did the decorating for the dance. We met once a month and planned out what we were going to do. I still like the way it is. We have the friendliest people, I think, in the world. The new young families that have come in are just wonderful, and the little kids, I love to watch them. Oh, it’s so fun. I just never want to live anyplace else.

Picnics, potlucks, and play times Everybody knew everyone, and the kids all played together. The adults would sit in their lounge chairs, and if we wanted to have a picnic, somebody would say, “Let’s get the picnic tables.” And we’d round them up and we’d put them down in the backyards, and everybody would bring something. Usually the day before, they’d say, “Well, let’s have a potluck tomorrow.” And so, we had huge variety of food, and they were wonderful. We had our own theater across the street. Our neighbor’s daughter was an only child and she loved theater. (Frank and Agnes Schmitz and daughter, Anne, 454 Clifden Drive.) Her parents had part of their basement devoted to old clothes and hats and you name it. A couple of times a year she would put on a big performance using all of the neighborhood kids. We would all bring our chairs and line up in the backyard, and they’d serve us Kool-

19 Voices of Westmorland

Aid, and we would watch the wonderful performances. They were quite entertaining because everybody had a part. I think back on those years—those kids had so much fun. They would practice these plays for weeks, practically all summer long, before they put on a play. It was quite fun because they had wigs and hats and fur coats and—it was just unimaginable. None of the other kids would have ever had anything like that.

Activities for children at Westmorland Park Dress-Up Day: Clifden Drive girls in formals, circa 1967. When our children were little, West­ morland Park had so much to do. When we first came, the estmorlandW board ran a bus down to Vilas Park twice a week for the younger children to learn how to swim. The water was just as pure as could be. I think the bus ran twice a day. It took maybe the 5- and 6-year olds one time, and then, the little ones—3 and 4— later. The mothers went along most of the time. They all learned how to swim down there, and I thought, “Oh, my gosh, this is just a wonderful way for them to learn how to swim.” There was really so much to do in Westmorland Park. If they wanted to go down and be in the theater there, they could, and they’d come home all painted up. And of course, I have enough lanyards to last me until I die. In the wintertime, they would come home and they’d have to do their John Schultz’s third birthday party with Grandpa Shea, 1961. homework. After that, they’d take their skates and they wouldn’t come home until 6 o’clock. Every night, every single night, they loved to skate. At that time, the city built the ice rink and all that, and so the neighbors didn’t have to volunteer. The one thing that we really missed after it was discontinued (in 1986), was the fireworks at the Fourth of July down at Westmorland Park. That was terrible, we

20 3 – Lorene Schultz

Lorene Schultz with her four children, Fourth of July at 453 Clifden Drive, circa 1962. thought, when they took it away. But I can see why they did because the fireworks were too close to houses.

Our transportation was the buses I just went down the street to catch the bus. It ran every 20 minutes, I think. It stopped right at the Madison Vocational School, and if you were at the Square, you were close to everything. I wanted to learn how to upholster, so I went to the vocational school. I did that for a couple of years but it was too much for me. I didn’t have the strength in my hands. So I gave up on the upholstery. I tried to learn to knit, but I really didn’t have the temperament for knitting. When computer classes started, I went down and learned as much as I could about the computers. Anything that came along that I wanted to do, I just hopped on the bus at Mineral Point Road and went right down to the Square to the vocational school. It was wonderful. Even the kids used to take the bus anywhere they went because it was so handy. It only cost a dime and so they’d hop on the bus and they’d go downtown with their friends. There was a Rennebohm’s Drug Store and that was a good place to get a nice soda. They’d shop around the Capital Square and get on the bus and come home. Once in a while they’d get on the wrong bus and end up on the East side and had no clue how to get home, but the bus drivers would eventually get them on the right bus.

Holidays I had my whole family, four brothers and a sister. I was the one who always had Thanksgiving because we had the big basement, and everybody had so many kids that they filled up the house. Everybody brought something, and we’d start at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon and we’d go until about 9 o’clock at night. The kids had a ball. The men played cards. The women stayed upstairs and talked.

21 Voices of Westmorland

Of course Christmas, everybody decorated. My husband loved to decorate. He was quite wild with his decorations, and Westmorland had a contest each year. When I was on the Westmorland board, we would go around judge the decorations. I think you got a plaque if you won. But some people were winning each year because they used the same decorations.

“Everybody shared everything” Before we had moved in, my husband was working on the house. The people next door on the corner ran Middleton Paint & Hardware (Dick and Peggy Hunt, 454 Holly Avenue). They both came over and said, “You know, we run this hardware store.” And he said, “I’ll give you a big dis- count on anything you need—shrubs, paint, varnish, anything. And if you need to borrow anything, I’ve got all the tools.” They were very giving and we bought everything from them.

Firebug At one time, evidently, we had a firebug. We don’t know for sure who it was, but he liked to burn down garages. He burned down one on Holly. He tried to start a fire in Birch Circle. The house had a woodpile next to their garage and that garage was attached to their house. Somebody saw it burning and put it out before the garage went up. There was another one down on Gately that burned down. It would always happen about 2 o’clock Tree damaged by the ice storm of 1976. in the morning. People thought they knew who it was, but he was never caught in the act. The men in the neighborhood had a little pa- trol that I don’t think the police knew about. They patrolled the area at night, starting probably about midnight. A whole group of them were out each night because they just didn’t want any more fires. Then everything stopped. The character, we think, moved.

The ice storm of 1976 The first thing people started doing when the ice started building up, we were all hosing the trees. They said if you can try to keep the ice off of them, you might be able to save them. And so, everybody was standing out with hoses. The next day, you could hear all the limbs cracking and going down in the street. And then, all the transformers started blowing and when they went, of course, they took all the power. But the ice even built up on the wires that led into the houses, and they were pulled out. We had a pipe that brought electricity in, and the ice just pulled it right off the house.

22 3 – Lorene Schultz

We didn’t have any power for about three days, but we had a fireplace so we were okay. Some people didn’t have power restored for a long, long time. The streets were all just blocked with trees fallen down and people were trying to make a path through. The city came through trying to make a path, but some places it wasn’t possible. And then, when it did reach the point where you could get a car down, I remember seeing Mayor Soglin come down. He wanted to see how bad it was—it was bad. But some of the trees were saved. They were elms. They cut off a few branches on them and the next year, the Dutch elm disease came along and took them all.

The tornado of 2004 That was quite scary. My daughter and her family had just moved back to Madison. They were looking for a house and hadn’t found one yet so they were staying in our basement. We had fixed it up down there, so they weren’t in my way. And my husband by that time was in a wheelchair. They had gone out early in the day to go house shopping with the realtor, and I started hearing on the news broadcast that it looked like we might get tornadoes. They had left their three little kids with us, and I said, “Kids, we’re going to go downstairs and we’re going to build you a little shelter down here.” We had a dining room table and it would hold the three of them underneath it. Caromar Drive following the And then I got the mattresses off the beds they had, we put them on top of tornado of 2004. the table. And then we pushed dressers, anything that was heavy, around it. They had enough room to get in. And I said, “As soon as the sirens go off, I’m going to have you come down here and you get in there.” And they had their blankets and pillows, and I said, “You don’t get out until I say you can or somebody else says you can.” I didn’t know what to do with my husband. I couldn’t leave him alone, so I got him out in the hallway and I covered him all up with a blanket. And I got a chair and sat next to him and waited for the tornado to come. As soon as the sirens went off, the kids went down and the oldest boy, I guess he was about 10, was going to watch the other two. I told them, “I’ll be here, I’ve got to stay with my husband.” And so then, the phone rang, and it was my daughter. She said, “Mom, are you taking precautions? It’s heading for your house.” And I said, “Yes, we’re all set. I’m hanging up.”

23 Voices of Westmorland

In the meantime, my daughter who was looking for a house had started back. They tried to get their car up Midvale Boulevard but it was all blocked with trees and stuff. And so they got out of the car and ran. I don’t know where they ran from, some place over around Tokay, and they came charging in. I said, “We’re okay. The kids were downstairs. In fact, they’re still down there.” And I said, “I gave them as much protection as I had. It’s all I could do.” The tornado came at the bottom of Caromar Drive, but then it turned and went on the other side of Tokay Boulevard. So, we didn’t get anything here. That first house on Caromar got it. But it turned back towards the shopping center and then it made that little turn. You wouldn’t even have known that a tornado came, except when you went out the next day and you looked at all those houses on the other side of Midvale that were just 453 Clifden Drive, summer 2013. devastated. Trees were down. It was very scary.

24 Chapter Lorien (Bud) and Jim Crawmer 4

Bud Crawmer, 2013. Jim Crawmer, 2013.

Bud and Jim were interviewed by Jan Murphy on June 12, 2013 at Jim’s home at 3917 Paunack Avenue . Bud was born June 4, 1927 at Illinois Central Hospital in Chicago . Jim was born July 28, 1930 at the same hospital .

Bud: My earliest memories are of moving to Madison from Chicago, December 27th 1936 or December 28th 1936. Jim: Our dad got a job up here as a jobber for Hercules Powder Company. Manufacturers of dynamite. He rented the house at 414 Glenway Street. He was here ahead of us. My mother and I took the train from Chicago to Madison. Bud and Dad and the dogs and whatever came in the car. Bud: We got to this house; the furniture didn’t come till the end of January. The first two nights we stayed over on the East side of Madison. Then we came here and slept on the floor, because in those days, school started right after the first of the year. The 2nd of January, we had to go to school. So that’s why we took up residence down there sleeping on the floor. Jim: I guess you could say we were lucky because we had an aunt and uncle who lived on Baldwin Street. He’s the one who helped my dad get the job up here because at that time, 1936 in Chicago, jobs were not to be had, that was Depression days. My dad was busy working but my mother,

25 Voices of Westmorland

she was very, very disgusted with Mayflower because it took so long to get here with all our stuff! I’m not sure but if I remember correctly, Madison was somewhere right around 18,000 people when we moved here, which is a very small town. From Glenway east was basically city life, from the golf course in toward the Capitol, and Glenway coming west was basically rural. There was nothing on this side except the homes along Glenway including the house that we lived in. And from there on west for the next five blocks or so, there were two or three homes down there and that was it. This was a rental house at that time and it had a coal furnace. You’d have to have coal delivered. The furnace had a stoker which pretty much took care of shoveling coal, but there’s still a lot of mess in the basement. The house had an oil hot-water heater, and the minute you went away the heater would go out. How many times we came home, and there was no hot water! My mother would be wanting to give us a Jim (10) and Bud (13) at 3917 Paunack Avenue, circa 1940. bath because usually we’d be covered with dirt whenever we’d be out playing—forget a bath, there was no hot water.

Dudgeon School buddies Jim: School started, and we had to go to Dudgeon School. I was in first grade then. I think Mom drove us to school down Glenway and around Gregory and down to Dudgeon. As far as I know the school had been there a while (it opened in 1927), but they had never finished the second floor. When we went to school there, workmen were finishing the second floor in the school. We were all on the first floor. They had no lunch program so we went to school in the morning, came home for lunch, then went back to school, and came home at night. Eventually we got a little smarter and started cutting across the golf course, which was a big short cut and saved Mom doing anything. We could zip to school in no time. And once in a while they’d want to chase us off the golf course. It must have been a week or so after school started and here I’m coming home across the golf course, and I look around and here’s this little red-headed kid following me. And the faster I ran, the faster he ran. It was

26 4 – Bud and Jim Crawmer

funny; here we were both in the same grade but both alone and didn’t know one another. He went up Birch Avenue. He lived on the last block. We finally got together and became great buddies, and we stayed buddies for 70-some years till he died. It worked out nice because I could walk down to the first green on the golf course and sit there where you can look right up Birch Avenue. He comes out of his house, and I could see him coming all the way down Birch. And if he got to the first green before I did, vice versa, but he could see up to our house here on Glenway. We met like that all the way up through sixth grade. His name was William Nelson (453 Clifden Drive). His dad was a builder. Bud: Mrs. Nelson and my mom were good buddies. There weren’t that many houses yet; there weren’t that many kids. We were warned to stay away from the lower part of Glenway Street because of the railroad and the hobos down there. Westmorland was in the Town of Madison then and it was an outlying area. The same down in the Gregory Street area. That neck of the woods was a community the same way Nakoma was a community and Shorewood Hills was a community. Jim: No streetlights, no curbing, no sidewalks in Westmorland. When we moved up here, they had a row of mailboxes on the corner of Toepfer and Paunack because the post office wouldn’t deliver to your house if there was no sidewalk, so that’s where your mailbox was. They’d come along in their truck and put your mail in there.

A hobo jungle and a fire Bud: Down by the railroad tracks there was a coalyard and then there was a haunted house. The lumberyard (Westside Lumber & Coal Company at 3420 Gregory Street, also known as Drives Lumberyard) was there, and the coal on one side and the haunted house on the other. From the haunted house down to Monroe Street was a hobo jungle. And there were several shacks as you went down the hill from the railroad tracks to Monroe Street. And I mean they were shacks. They were tarpaper and God-only-knows what, collected from the lumberyard or the coalyard or what-have-you. People were living in basically a skid row. At that time it was called Briar Hill. Jim: Of course as kids we were told to stay away from down there. The lumberyard was there along Gregory Street, too, and I’m not sure what year that burnt down (June 21, 1944). It was a terrible fire that burned for two or three days. Bud: You’ve got two things—one was the rats and one was the people. I mean obviously if you could sleep on a coal pile with a roof over your head when it’s raining you’d rather do that than sit out in the open around the campfire trying to sleep. So the hobo jungle is on one side, the coalyard is on the other side, but it’s covered. So are you going to sleep out here in the

27 Voices of Westmorland

rain or are you going to go across the street and crawl in on the coal pile and sleep? Jim: We heard all kinds of rumors on how the fire started, but who knows? Bud: Down there was the dumping ground, too, for some of your moon-shining that went on in Madison. They had talked about a couple of bodies being found in the coalyard, but the biggest show was when the lumberyard burnt. Every rat in Westmorland was down that neck of the woods, and when the fire started, the rats ran and they ran and they ran, and the firemen never saw so many rats in all their life. You’ve got all this wide-open land around, what better place for the rats to go. The rats just ran like a river going out of the coalyard.

Ghosts and the cemetery Bud: Even though the city limits were just a block and a half away, there was no bus service or anything. To catch a bus you had to walk between the cemeteries to Regent Street and Allen Street. That was the most miserable walk in the world. Jim: We walked that many a time and at night, no street lights. Would you like to walk through the cemetery at night? Especially when you’re about 8 or 10 years old? When you walked past the cemeteries, you stayed in the middle of the road because there wasn’t any traffic and no sidewalks. Once you got to the top of that hill, the first thing you saw were the lights from Herling Tavern. “Made it again!” Bud: The cemetery came right almost down to the road. They had a huge wrought-iron fence on either side—on the Catholic side and the city side. It was lined with immense elm trees almost up to the funeral parlor, and you were out in the middle of nowhere. The minute you left Regent and Allen and went west a block, you had West High School, and right at the corner of Highland and Regent was the Rentschler greenhouse. Then from there on out you were out in the country, and then of all places, you had to go between two cemeteries. It always reminded me of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. The wind blows, and the only thing separating you from the tombstones was this fence and these great big elms. It was a country lane. You can hear ghosts and you moved pretty fast. Once in a while, of course, you would have a car come through with the headlights. Jim: Not very often though. There wasn’t any traffic.

Dad and the dynamite business Jim: I don’t really know why he picked this house on Glenway except that it was fairly close to what they call the magazines. A magazine is a building used to store explosives: powder, blasting caps, dynamite, et cetera.

28 4 – Bud and Jim Crawmer

It sits on a cement foundation which has a steel outside, and sand, brick, and wood lining it. That was the magazine. It was out Seminole Highway beyond Tony Franks and the Beltline, where the Arboretum is on both sides. Then it was all farms. Bud: The road was called Bryant Road and it ran from Tony Frank’s to Fish Hatchery. On one side was the Arboretum, and toward the Fish Hatchery Road, there was a little settlement of Bryants, and on the other side were the dynamite magazines, The Crawmer home at 3917 where you go up into the Arbor Hills neighborhood. Paunack Avenue, 2014. Jim: One of the farms on the right was the Williams’ farm and back in there, they rented this space for these magazines and they were there for years. Hercules Powder Company had a salesman, our uncle who lived over on Baldwin Street. The salesman would go out and find a road contractor or something else and he’d sell him dynamite. He wouldn’t deliver anything, so now somebody had to deliver it. That’s where our dad came in. Bud: The dynamite business was primarily a carload business. Big construction companies bought by the carload, and that’s who Hercules Powder Company sold to. The road construction business was just starting. The big thing back in the 1930s, ’36 was the Farm Subsidies bill. Every hardware store in the southern part of Wisconsin sold dynamite and blasting caps and black powder because the government would subsidize ditching to clear the water from the land, clearing trees, and getting rid of the boulders. Basically it was to make more farmland because the old horse-and-buggy days farming 10 acres to support 10 kids was out the window. You were getting to the days when eventually you’d have a tractor, and 40 acres wasn’t big enough. You were going to have to have 100. And the 100 acres had to all produce, not just be a small forest or a swamp or a granite bed or whatever it happened to be. As the government subsidized or gave money to the farmers and the contractors, dynamite became a big thing for clearing land. Before, if you had a tree stump you went out there with an axe and a shovel, and if you’re lucky, you had a team of horses and you worked for maybe a week to get the big old elm stomped out. Now all you had to do was go down to the hardware store. Jim: With half a stick of dynamite, pop that stump right out of there. Bud: The hardware store sold black powder by the pound. They poured it out on an old scale and put it a paper bag and you took it home with you. You bought one blasting cap. You bought one stick of dynamite or five sticks—they sold it just like you would candy.

29 Voices of Westmorland

The government, by subsidizing these programs, is what started your farm production. Years ago, 20 or 30 acres was a huge amount of land because farming was all done by hand. Jim: Later on in the ’30s there was the road building program. This was just prior to World War II, and there might have been some concern about war and security and moving stuff around. Bud: It was Roosevelt’s New Deal. Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, it was money for highways. Jim: Of course, when you have money for highways, the road contractors start digging away. And when you start digging away in Wisconsin, you run into rock and then you have to blast. Bud: It still was the days of hand labor with pick and shovel. Roosevelt wanted to get people back to work, and the only way you’re going to get people back to work was the government putting money into public works. They were still digging ditches, 100 guys to a street. You might have 100 guys with shovels digging a hole for a sewer line or something, but it was making work as they were trying to boost the economy.

For kids, this was close to heaven Jim: As far as kids go, Westmorland was maybe as close as we’ll ever get to heaven. After Chicago and living in an apartment, where your movements are restricted, we just ran. We had the golf course and what we called “the woods.” My gosh, we played cowboys and Indians and whatever. We just had the run of the whole neighborhood. It was a great place for kids to grow up. We used to go to Hoyt Park on the north end. The quarry was active then. Some of the stone went for University buildings. Bud: I think some of it went uptown. Jim: As kids, we’d sneak around and play. They used to chase us out of there all the time. Bud: Ours was the first new house (built in 1938). There were two older houses down at the corner of Paunack Avenue and Glenway Street but on the other side of the street. It was just an open field all the way over to Speedway Road. Jim: Later on Herb Jacobs built a Frank Lloyd Wright house there (441 Toepfer Avenue). He was a reporter for The Capital Times . Bud: They never got up on Saturday and Sunday morning. The whole back of the house is glass. Jim: That included some bedrooms. Bud: And of course there was nothing from Glenway clear up to Toepfer, and they never thought to pull their shades. Jim: Well, they didn’t have any neighbors. When they first moved in there, I’m sure they were scratching like anybody else. They didn’t think anybody was around. As kids, when it started to get dark and it was near bedtime, that was a side show, to go out there.

30 4 – Bud and Jim Crawmer

Bud: They had two little daughters. The parents wouldn’t get up, and the kids would just slide the door, and they’d be out running around with no clothes on. Jim: They must have seen some of us lurking in the bushes. Then Mrs. Jacobs put newspapers up and eventually, I guess, when they could get the money, they put up drapes. Bud: Frank Lloyd Wright The Jacobs’ Usonian home at 441 Toepfer Avenue, 2009. used to come with a cape and a cane and a big black hat and Westmorland’s Usonian home the gold Lincoln and wave his Nestled into its site at the corner of Toepfer and Birch Avenues is a home de- arms. He would talk to the signed by internationally famous architect and Wisconsin native Frank Lloyd contractors, and then he’d Wright, built by Herbert and Katherine Jacobs in 1936–37. Today this house get back in the car and away is listed as both a Madison and National Historic Landmark. The house at 441 they’d go. As kids we played Toepfer Avenue is the first example of what Wright called his Usonian design. in the house while they were (Source: Westmorland, A Great Place to Live) building it.

Professor March’s family of readers Jim: The first big red brick house at the corner—the old Toepfer house—was occupied by Professor March and his family. Bud: They had five children. Mrs. March was a university graduate but they were from Ohio and he was a professor (of accounting and business administration at the UW–Extension). Later on if I’m not mistaken, he became a department chairman. Grandpa lived with them. They moved here from out of town. They were strangers and very un- usual for those times. The kids were nice kids and they all turned out to be professors or something to do with education. The parents required the kids to read. For instance the kids were all required to read the newspaper, and of course, as they all ate breakfast or dinner together, they would have their discussions. “What did you read in the newspaper?” They were all required to read a good book every week, something like Black Beauty, which was considered a good book in those days. Jim: Or Robinson Crusoe . Not the comic books or what-have-you, like we were reading. Bud: All the kids were so-called “brains” but they were very normal kids.

31 Voices of Westmorland

The Otto Toepfer house, 4001 Jim: Mrs. March was a very good cook! But they had help. She always Mineral Point Road. Photo had a maid. taken in 2006. Bud: Well, they had a good income. He was a professor, which at that The Otto Toepfer House time maybe only paid a few thousand dollars a year, but that was solid money. In September 1937 the Marches purchased and “Everything was homemade” moved into the house built in 1906 for the Otto Bud: Everything we had was homemade. There was no mechanical Toepfer Jr. family. The stuff. Marches moved to 4010 Jim: We played in the horse barn (behind the March family home). At Paunack Avenue in 1951, one time the stalls were downstairs for the horses, and there was a wooden and then to Shorewood, elevator with a rope so you could go up to the hay loft. Can you imagine a suburb of MIlwaukee, kids having fun with that? in 1953. The house at Bud: When you were younger you played cowboys and Indians, but all 4001 Mineral Point Road you’ve got is an old broomstick. You take a tin can and attach it one end of remains the largest house the broomstick for the horse’s head so that you can run around and be the in Westmorland at 3,927 cowboy or the Indian; maybe tie a little piece of string around it for reins square feet. (Source: Westmorland, A Great Place so you could hold the stick up as you would if you were out on the range in to Live) Wyoming or Montana.

32 4 – Bud and Jim Crawmer

The only thing you really had that probably was machine made would be a bicycle. Your imagination was your game. Everything was “make it on your own.” We used to play football over at the cemetery but we might not even have a football. We might just have an old ball of some kind because nobody had any money and nobody could visualize having up-to-date modern things. There just wasn’t all this stuff.

Early bus service in Westmorland Jim: Originally they started a limited bus service. It cost 10 cents and it only ran until 7 or maybe 10 o’clock. It wasn’t a full- sized bus like we have now. It was about two thirds of that, not a van but a smaller-sized bus. Bud: Didn’t he turn into the golf course and turn around in the parking lot? Right at the corner of Glenway and Speedway? Now there’s the stoplight there but there was nothing there but a stop sign. Jim: I think he sat there to see if there were any customers. Above: The horse barn at 4010 Paunack Avenue, early Bud: But that’s as far as he went. 1900s. Below: The horse barn Jim: He made a small loop and then back to Regent and Allen. He in 2014, after conversion into might have gone as far as the Square. He only ran about every half-hour. a house and garage. You might have a long wait. Bud: And it was always full, considering that there weren’t too many people out here. That was the only transportation for a lot of people who moved into Madison. You had to transfer to the regular bus if you were going anyplace.

World War II on the home front Bud: The restrictions started right away. You had your book of stamps. You had your restrictions on gas and many types of food, cigarettes, and things like that. Jim: During the war you had an ABC card for gas and you could get so many gallons based on your sticker. Because dad was in “roads” he had an A card for the gas. Bud: We were fortunate in that the dynamite business was considered essential so we always had gas. We always had tires.

33 Voices of Westmorland

Jim: I know we saved tin cans. Mom was a fanatic on that. We kept the tin cans in a box and when it got full she’d take it somewhere where tin was collected. Bud: The restrictions were on things like the baseball games and the football games and the basketball games. For instance, the restrictions were that teams could only travel within 20 miles of Madison. Where before the war, you might have driven to play in Lake Mills or maybe even Milwaukee, all of a sudden you found you were playing Sun Prairie, you were playing Oregon. The schools were playing each other two or three times because they couldn’t go out of the area. And the games were played during the day. In some cases it wasn’t any different than regular life. The only differ- ence would be the kids when they got to be 16 or 17 years old—it didn’t do to have a driver’s license because you couldn’t get a car. They didn’t make automobiles, and you had gas rationing and you had tire rationing. Of course every kid wants a driver’s license. For instance, during the war a second-hand Model A, 10 years old, cost $1,100. That’s the way things worked. The kids in the 1940s were so used to having nothing in the ’30s that the ’40s didn’t make any difference. It didn’t make any difference if you couldn’t go to Reedsburg to play a basketball game because before that, you couldn’t go to Reedsburg anyhow because you didn’t have enough money to go Reedsburg. There’s war— everything was restricted. Life remained average. It really never changed to be honest with you, except you probably were restricted a little bit more.

The end of the dynamite business Jim: Our dad died in 1949. He was sick for a year. He had cancer of the esophagus. He was 51. Bud: From roughly July 1948 when he got sick, he never worked after that. That’s why we had to drop out of school. He couldn’t do anything, and we still had the dynamite business, so it was natural that the kids take over. It wasn’t like it is nowadays. Jim: My mother wanted to continue. It’s decisions you make, you have to live with them. Bud: Instead of Lorien and Dorothy Crawmer having Badger Explosive Co., it became James and Lorien Jr. and Dorothy. Instead of a two-way partnership, it became a three-way partnership. When Dad died, things were good we were busy seven days a week. The dynamite business was just like everything else. You’ve got a business and then bang! All of a sudden you can ride a Caterpillar tractor that can do three times the work of one stick of dynamite. Jim: Now when they go to blast they have ammonium nitrate and kerosene, you got your “stick of dynamite” right there. That cut out the dynamite business.

34 4 – Bud and Jim Crawmer

Image courtesy of Cave of the Brothers first to explore Cave of the Mounds Mounds Natural Landmark, The following is excerpted from Doug Moe’s column of July 13, 2010 in the www.caveofthemounds.com Wisconsin State Journal. Bud was 11 years old and Jim 9 when the cave was discovered.

Lorien Crawmer [Sr.] had gone to work with his brother-in-law at the Hercules Powder Company, and in the summer of 1939 they were employed in the construction of the highway between Mount Horeb and Blue Mounds. As the road progressed part of the job involved blasting in nearby quarries to obtain the rock for the highway. One night in August 1939, Jim recalled last week, his father and uncle came home and said, “We found an opening.” Jim continued, “They were excited but didn’t know what it was.” It was decided that the next day—a weekend—the family would drive out and do some further exploring. Jim recalled, “There was a big pile of rubble and a crescent opening.” Jim, his brother Bud, and two cousins entered the opening with their dads nearby. Asked who was first in, Bud said, “I was.” He added, “It was wet. There was water dripping everywhere.” He said they had a little flashlight but couldn’t see or advance very far. Bud reached a precipice, dropped a few pebbles over it and couldn’t hear them bounce or splash. “We crawled back out,” Bud said. … The Cave of the Mounds opened in May 1940. Within eight weeks, it had 59,000 visitors. “It was really an accident,” Bud Crawmer said. “If they hadn’t been building the road, it wouldn’t have happened.” Reprinted with permission of Doug Moe.

Bud: Just went up in the air like a stick of dynamite. All of a sudden you didn’t have an income. You had to find a job. Jim: Dad was only 51. It’s a shame we never got a chance to really sit down, there were so many things he could tell us about. The few stories we did hear about his experiences in World War I in France … It would have been fantastic if we had been able to record them.

35 Chapter 5 Cora (Nelson) Christensen Cora was interviewed by Barb Perkins on June 4, 2013 . Cora O . Christensen, age 103, died at home on Friday, May 30, 2014 at Oakwood Village West, where she had been a resident since 1998 .

I’m 102 years old (born in 1911). I was number seven in the family and I’m the only one left. As a child I grew up on a farm and I always said my mother washed diapers all her married life. There was no electricity and no tractors, just horses. I remember the “horse-and-buggy days.” I learned to milk cows by hand when I was 8 years old. On the farm we always had dogs. My mother used to say, “The dogs belong outside.” She didn’t like them in the house. My dad had this dog, followed him around all the time, and the day after my dad died that dear dog died. We didn’t know what an allowance was. In the summer my dad would take us to the Black River Falls County Fair, and we’d get 50 cents for the day. That was our spending money. I don’t think they knew what a vacation was. I remember after I grew up and was working in Madison, I took a week off and went home to do the work for my mother so she could have a little time off. She went to Tomahawk to visit Cora Christensen in 2008. a relative. I felt sorry for her working so hard. We worked hard on the farm. First thing I learned to do was bake cookies and cake. We were always serving coffee. Whenever anybody came over in the evening for a visit you always served them coffee and cookies or cake. The school and our church basement are where we had all our activities. I came to Madison because we didn’t have a high school in our area. After I came I went to high school for a couple of years. I did not graduate. I had a brother who went to Madison Business College and I had a sister who went to high school and she became a nurse. She took part of her training in Chicago.

Courtship and marriage I met my husband (Harold Christensen) after I came to Madison. I was working at the university hospital, and he came to school at the university. He had the idea that he

36 5 – Cora Christensen

was going to be a doctor but he didn’t have any help. He was working as a volunteer for his room and board at Shorewood Hills. Then he started working at the university hospital for a real job, and that’s where I met him. He did not get a degree but he went on to work at the Chemistry Department. We were married in 1938. I have two boys. Robert was born in 1940 and Donald in 1944. We lived on Paunack Avenue for a while in a rented house until that was sold, so we had to find a place to live. For a while our furniture was in storage. Then my husband found this realtor who built this little house on Park Lane for us. My second child was born while we lived there. We sold the car to pay for the lot that we built our house on. It was just a small house and my husband always said that’s all we could afford. My backyard was Westmorland Park. I had no backyard neighbors to fight with. We moved into our house at 572 Park Lane in 1948. Park Lane was only a one-block street between Tokay and Saint Clair Street. We had to come in the back way through Westmorland Park the day we moved in, and it was raining. It was terrible. It leaked in our attic. I had to crawl up in the attic—it wasn’t finished—and take quilts and stuff and sop up the water so it wouldn’t run down onto our bed. It was very small but at that time we didn’t have a lot of money. It was all we could afford. We put the garden in ourselves. My husband liked to garden—he always said you can’t eat flowers but you can eat vegetables. We had a big, big garden. We had tomatoes by the bushel. I gave away many, and even the strawberries. We used to have picnics in the backyard all the time. My husband worked for 35 years at the university Chemistry Depart­ ment. He was not a professor but he worked with the students. He’d take the bus to campus. He’d even carry the groceries home at night from a store close to where he worked, because at first we didn’t have a car.

Stay-at-home mom I was a stay-at-home mom until the kids were able to go to school. When my kids were little, I took a sewing class. I tried to sew for the boys; I made flannel shirts for them. When I got them finished they didn’t want to wear them. I told my husband, “I’ve got to do something to get out of the house a little bit!” So I went and took bridge lessons at the Madison Vocational School near the Capitol. The best thing I ever did was take bridge lessons because it’s such a good game and it keeps your mind alert. Once a year Westmorland had a big card party in the Queen of Peace School basement. I taught my husband to play bridge. He got to be a real good bridge player. We played with my brother all the time. My husband died very young. He was only 62. We lived in that Park Lane house, and then I lived there alone for many, many years. I did some

37 Voices of Westmorland

Stage Coach Theatre. work at the department stores. At the time I retired I was working for Photo courtesy of Joanne Thuesen. McArdle cancer research. I didn’t drive a car until after my husband died. We had a brand new car sitting in the garage, and I wasn’t going to depend on everybody else. I took a few lessons so I could learn to drive.

Before Westmorland annexation We didn’t have sidewalks and no bus service. If we wanted the bus we had to go down by Mallatt’s (3410 Monroe Street) or out to Regent and Allen by West High School. When my younger son broke his wrist I took him to the doctor on the bus. I remember the day when they were putting in the sidewalks. We were anxious to get them.

Activities We could leave our kids at Westmorland Park all day long, no problems. In the park in the summer, we had playground instructors all day long for the kids. The city, I guess, paid for that. And then they used to have a bus in the summertime; if the kids wanted to go learn to swim, they could sign up and go on the bus over to Vilas Park. Also in summer they used to have, I think they called it the theater bus, and they’d come and put on a play for the kids.

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The older boy went to Boy Scouts. I don’t think the younger one was that active. For one thing, he didn’t like school very well. And when he got to be 18 and graduated from high school, he got a job driving a truck for the city.

Fourth of July celebrations When I first lived in Westmorland we had Fourth of July celebrations every year. The kids would have celebrations all day long. We had bingo tents, baseball games, a food tent where people could come and buy a lunch after the parade. People would come from all over to see the fireworks at night. They’d park all around. They’d park in my yard and walk through my garden. You can’t imagine, they had no regard for our lawns or gardens. We had a big garden and they’d walked through it. I got disgusted. Finally I turned on the sprinkler so they’d get wet. They learned.

Cora Christensen’s house at 572 Park Lane, 2014.

39 Chapter 6 Marzo Bliss Marzo was interviewed by Barb Perkins on August 26, 2013 at 4010 Birch Avenue .

I was born in Madison in 1918 and I have lived here ever since. Now I’m 95. As a young child, I lived just a block off of the Square on North Hamilton Street towards Lake Mendota. Later we lived on Chamberlain Avenue out on the West side. Westmorland didn’t even exist and the city limits were just a block from where we lived! Madison was considerably smaller compared to what it is now. Our grandparents had a cottage on Lake Waubesa about 10 miles from here. As a teenager we spent a lot of our time going down there. Actually during the early 1930s, during the Depression, we lived down there and rented our house to bring in some income. I had an older brother and a younger sister. The worst part about that was that my brother and sister and I, we’re all going to West High School and we had an old car that Marzo Bliss at home, summer 2013. didn’t always get us all the way into town. More often than not that darn thing just wouldn’t make it, and so we’d hitchhike in, then hitchhike back to the car. The Depression made a big difference. My dad worked with WPA (Works Progress Administration) during that time, and it was tough. I was still pretty young. We didn’t have it hard as far as the way a lot of people did. We never went hungry. But it was a hardship on the family and on my folks especially. Nobody wants their kids having the hardships that a lot of people had at that time. I met my wife (Eliza Caswell) in high school. We didn’t date in high school but I knew her and we hung out in the same group. When we started college, why, I got more interested in her. We dated all through school. We were married on graduation day (June 19, 1939). I was in Europe (just after) World War II. I was married in ’39, and we had a child, (Meredith, called Mary, born December 1943), before I went in the service. I didn’t leave for Europe until she was 4, so I got to see her. Then I was in Europe for two and a half years and when I came back—our little baby was a young lady. Now she’s taking care of me. Mary lives out near Gammon Road.

40 6 – Marzo Bliss

Coming to Westmorland UW Experiental Farm from Sunset Point Overlook in Hoyt After I was married, we were looking for a place we could afford and in Park circa 1909. (WHi 35799) a neighborhood we liked. Westmorland answered that problem. We bought here in 1948 and I’ve been here ever since. There was a working farm just up the block when we moved here (Carl Felton vegetable farm at the corner of Midvale Boulevard and Mineral Point Road). Midvale was a gravel road. Hilldale wasn’t there; that was part of the University Farms. The sheep farm was down there, and my wife used to take the kids—we’d “buggy” the little ones down there to see the sheep. This house was built in 1930. The builder lived in it for several years and then sold it to a med student and his wife, who lived here while he went through med school and internship. It was well broken in when we moved into it. As our family grew, we ended up adding a room in the back that became the family room rather than what used to be a parlor. And we added on to the kitchen.

41 Voices of Westmorland

Kids’ education We had four kids (Meredith in 1943, David in 1947, Carol in 1949, and John in 1951). They all went to Midvale School. All four walked to Midvale, walked to West High School, and actually walked to the University most of the time. As a kid that’s just a nice, easy walk. They had to leave plenty of time but no problem. And they all made it. They all went to the university here. My oldest (boy) was the smartest one of the bunch but he needed three credits in a language to graduate. He says, “I’m never going to use that. Why do I have to have three credits that I don’t need?” So he didn’t get them. He didn’t graduate, but as it turned out, he’s worked with horses all his life. He raised thoroughbred horses. He didn’t need French for that. They didn’t speak French. The only thing he’d ever done with horses as a kid was trail rides when we would go on camping trips, which we did a lot of as a family. A trail ride was big stuff. That’s where he got his first horseback riding.

Kids’ activities then and now Westmorland Park was a very favorite spot. They had baseball diamonds in the summer. In the winter, there was ice skating where they flooded a rink. It was an active spot. They spent a lot of time down there. There was not a neighborhood ball team that I recall. My older boy played on an organized team for a while but that was the city’s Recreation Department, not the neighborhood. Now, my great-grandkids are busy with hockey. When I was a kid, hockey was only a winter sport. We flooded our backyard here and had a rink for my kids, but hockey was a winter sport. But with these kids, they play hockey year round. I mean everything is so organized, and one boy has to be in Middleton because his team is playing, and the other kids are playing out at Sun Prairie. Things are so much more organized now than they were when my kids were growing up. There was a lot more of the kids doing their own organizing. “Hey, let’s get together and play baseball.” But now it’s all “your teammates are so and so, and you play at such and such a time. And your mother is supposed to bring goodies for this team on this day.” So some days I’ll take a pan of brownies. It’s a different life.

A “Bliss-ful” Fourth of July The Fourth of July parade and picnic was a big deal back in those days. Originally they had fireworks down there at the park (which ended in 1986). They had a parade that would start up at Queen of Peace and they’d gather there in the parking lot and then have their parade down to the park. They had a big picnic and they had pony rides and carnival-type games. It kept the kids occupied and kept them in the neighborhood. It was a safe

42 6 – Marzo Bliss

place to have some fun. My wife baked for the cake walk; she was in on all of that stuff.

Church and social life We belonged to a group that met and ate and played cards but we ate more than we played cards. It was more of us getting together for social reasons than to see how many points you could run up. We belonged to First Congregational Church on University Avenue and still do. We were very active in the church, especially when the kids were young. I was moderator at one time and deacon, and the whole gamut of offices. Actually, our social life was pretty much based with friends from the church. We had probably 25 people who got together for years for suppers. We had New Year’s Eve programs in various homes, just rotating through the group. That went on for years and years. That was non-alcoholic; nobody in the group drank. It was just a real close-knit group. There’s still a couple I see in church now but most of them are gone.

Composite photograph of an ant–Vietnam War protest at the intersection of Lake and State Streets looking east up State Street, circa 1968 by Robert Ostrom. A large group of protestors is gathered on State Street and a line of police officers in riot gear block entry to the University of Wisconsin campus. Businesses visible in the photograph include Rennebohm’s, Warner Medlin, Antoine’s 5th Avenue, Discount Records, and Taco Grande. (WHi 93540)

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Working on State Street I worked on State Street at MacNeil & Moore men’s clothing store, 602 State Street. To begin with, I rode the bus, and at the very beginning it cost a nickel, and that wasn’t bad transportation for coming and going, really door-to-door. When the bus drivers went on strike (1967), I had to find other methods of getting to work. From that time on, I would drive and just park the car on the street. At that time there weren’t the limitations to parking that there are now downtown. You could park right on State Street but I parked on Francis Street for two reasons: You wanted your customers to be able to park in front of your business, and there were not the parking restrictions like there were on State Street.

The Vietnam protests I was working downtown at the time of the Vietnam protests. Our current mayor (Paul Soglin) marched down State Street leading a band of hoodlums. We had our big windows broken 26 times. We had a contract with Klein-Dickert Co. to come and put 4x8 plywood sheets on our windows whenever things started to get wild. Each time a window got broken, they would automatically come over and replace it with plywood until the problems were over. I never really felt unsafe, not really. You wondered about what was going to happen. If you want to call them riots or whatever, they weren’t directed toward individuals. It was directed toward the material things. I mean that they weren’t hurting people. They were damaging property.

Changes The neighborhood has not changed much since we moved here. Many of the houses have added on rooms or put on a second story as their families grew, as ours did. Maybe just because they wanted more room, but there have not been a lot of new houses go up because there were not a lot of vacant lots. A lot of additions have been added. When I first moved here, we had some fruit trees, and my wife, Eliza, had a little garden, lettuce and carrots and tomatoes, and she liked that. And then we planted the grape vines. We had grape vines across the back for awhile, and that was a nice because she would harvest grapes and make jam. And then we put it in pine. One of my sons was in forestry at the university and he came home with seedlings. I had a dozen white pine and a dozen spruce seedlings that I planted in back. For several years, I’d thin them and spread them out and some of those big trees are the results of those seedlings. The backyard has gone through lots of changes.

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A more welcoming neighborhood In the early years, there were a lot more neighborhood gatherings and going back and forth, borrowing a cup of sugar and such. Anybody who moved into the neighborhood, Eliza would greet them with either a pan of cookies or some kind of a casserole, just as a welcoming gift. There was a lot more of that, than there is now. Part of it, I think, was because there were kids. The kids got together, and you wanted to know what kind of a family is this boy from. “Is this somebody we want our kids with or not?” And so you got to know your neighbors a lot better. Now, I can’t even name most of my neighbors. People are busier in their own little worlds than they used to be. There used to be time to hang over the fence and talk for half an hour. Mary Ripp and Eliza would spend half a morning out there just visiting. They had time for that. But now, so many families are so busy with work that they don’t have time to socialize.

Marzo Bliss’s home at 4010 Birch Avenue in 2014.

45 Chapter 7 Ardith (Ellis) McDowell Ardith was interviewed by Carolyn May on June 21, 2013 at Ardith’s home at Oakwood Village Towers .

I was born in Central Wisconsin, close to the little town of Endeavor, which is 20 miles north of Portage. We lived in several places in Wisconsin. Then my husband got a job in Madison. We were looking for a house and came here to Westmorland—and we found one on our very first day of looking. The address was 3815 Meyer Avenue. We were under pressure to find a house because we had this tiny baby. Our third child (Bradley) was maybe two or three months old at that time. One of my friends in Waukesha where we lived at that time took care of the baby. And so we just had this one day to look. The Stark Company had been recommended to us, so we contacted them, and they found this little house that was for sale and we were glad to buy it. It was a brand new house. It had been made to sell. And so we had all the landscaping and things to do to fix up the yard. We purchased the home in 1947. The house was next to Jessie Kissack (3813 Meyer Avenue); she was one of the Meyer daughters and she lived Ardith McDowell in 2010. in one of the Meyer houses. She had a garden in the lot next to her which was where our house was built. She had a lot of asparagus and also currant bushes, and so of course we

The McDowell’s first Westmorland home at 3815 Meyer Avenue, 2014.

Meyer Houses Henry Meyer bought and built houses on a number of Westmorland lots clustered down the hill from Speedway Road. Henry’s daughters Jessie and Bertha later lived in houses he built in this cluster. (Source: Westmorland: A Great Place to Live.)

46 7 – Ardith McDowell

inherited part of that. The children got very tired of asparagus. They didn’t realize how very special it was. I did make currant jelly ,which they liked. We had very good neighbors. One across the street was Julie Hunt (3818 Meyer Avenue). She came from the Prairie du Sac area with the German heritage and she loved to cook. She would bring us little samples of German food, like sweet and sour pork and also sour cream apple pie. I had never tasted those things and I loved them. So I appreciated her being a good neighbor and sharing some of her nice German food. When we were expecting our fourth child, we were outgrowing our small house. We liked the neighborhood. And of course, the children had the same friends to play with, and I had the same neighbors. We just needed the space. And that is why we built the larger house. We chose to build across the street at 3814 Meyer Avenue (1952). We bought the only lot that was left in the block and that The McDowell children Donna, Thomas, and baby brother had been used as a garden. We had a house Bradley, circa 1948. Two others were born after 1950. built for us that was a two-story and much larger. We borrowed the plans from some people we knew. And of course, we added little special things like nice woodwork and birch cupboards and things like that. And my husband and oldest son built the garage there also, and they had to do the landscaping there, too. It was a good family house. We lived in it 25 years (until 1977).

Fine children, fine schools The kids loved being there because there were lots of other children. Our children went to Dudgeon School for four years. Midvale had not been built at that time. Then they switched to Midvale when it was completed (1951). I think our children made the transition very well. Our younger daughter The home the McDowells built in 1952 at 3814 Meyer Avenue, 2014.

47 Voices of Westmorland

remembered a little bit more about it and she said they enjoyed the school very much. Westmorland had very fine children. They were children of professional people. Their parents were doctors and lawyers, and also people who worked at the University of Wisconsin and also state workers, like my husband. Paul Olson was the principal at Midvale. It was wonderful to have a man as a teacher and a principal. Although he had had polio as a younger man and he limped a little, he was very well liked by all of the children. He was a conservationist, which exposed the children to thinking about conservation.

A Japanese family shared their culture We moved (the children) in the middle of the (school) year, while they were still going to Dudgeon School. My oldest met another child who moved in the middle of the year, and they became good friends. He was a Japanese child. And at that time, the Japanese were moved from the West Coast into camps during World War II. The father was a pharmacist. He had a job uptown with his brother, who was also a pharmacist, and that’s why they were able to avoid the internment camp and come to Madison. Since the boys were new at Midvale School at the same time, they became very good friends. Lloyd Harrah was the boy’s name. They lived just a few blocks from us. It is the custom for the oldest Japanese son to have the ancestry dolls. Once a year, they set them up in their home and they invite people to come in and look at them. They’ll show the ancestry the Japanese way, from the really old, old times up to the more recent. I found that very interesting. These were precious things, brought out only once a year. It was a real joy to be invited to come into their home. The children were not invited—it was for the adults only.

My husband was Secretary of Agriculture My husband was the Wisconsin Secretary of Agriculture. He had been an ag teacher and had moved from place to place around Wisconsin. Then he had worked very hard at the State Fair and he was recommended by someone at the Governor’s Office to come and see if he would like a job. He was the assistant at first, for two or three years, and then he was appointed Secretary of Agriculture. He had that job for about 20 years and worked with five different governors. The position was nonpolitical at that time. He was not hired by a political party; he was hired by the Board of Agriculture. They had staggered terms, and so were never controlled by any particular party. It was Don McDowell, Wisconsin Secretary of Agriculture circa 1950–1970. more a position of accomplishment.

48 7 – Ardith McDowell

He worked with the Governor. Occasionally, there were state functions when all the department heads were expected to go. It was fun to dress up and be with the other officials occasionally. My husband, as Secretary of Agriculture, was invited every year to go to a conference in the summertime somewhere in the Midwest. As the children got a little older, we took all of the children to the summer conferences. My husband’s office was in the Capitol. We took the children there often. In fact, I was amused at my oldest daughter. I think she was about 6, 7, maybe 8, and she looked up and she said, “Oh, there’s my Daddy’s Capitol!” They had a carpool of men who were all going to the Capitol and so sometimes we would not have a car at our disposal when it was my husband’s turn. If he had the car, then the bus was the only way to get anywhere but it was fairly convenient.

A family’s teacher, nurse, and domestic engineer Among the activities on Meyer Avenue, we had a little sewing circle. There were about 10 or 12 women on Meyer and Winnemac who got together once a week or maybe once every two weeks. Some of them were doing a lot of knitting, and of course, there was always mending that needed to be done. So we got to know each other really quite well. We, the women particularly, would invite the other women to come visit in the morning. I guess I was one of the instigators of it. I would invite the neighbors to come in for coffee maybe once a month . We started a homemaker’s club in the area. We got our lessons from the UW–Extension. A woman would go get the lesson and bring it back to her club. I had belonged to homemaker clubs in other areas where I had lived. In each county you have a home agent, and she gives lessons to the leaders who come in from all of the clubs. And then the leaders take that lesson back to their clubs. The projects varied from year to year. Usually there were at least six lessons per year, and every year would be different. Ours was called the Lend A Hand Club. That club kept going for many, many years. For two years, four mothers and four daughters had a preschool to- gether. It would free us up for three mornings if we wanted to be doing something else. I think it was very nice for the children to have a little bit of preschool before they started school. Each mother did whatever she wanted to do. We didn’t coordinate what we were doing. I would often read to the children, I remember. And we’d play some of the little games that we’d played as children. I’m amazed that the Westmorland Association has continued to be so active through these many years, and I’m certainly pleased with the book they got out a couple of years ago. It brought back a lot of memories. We had a wonderful family doctor called John Waddell. He was so kind that if I would call him in the evening or in the night, he would gladly give me advice. And if he felt the child was really ill, he would come to the house.

49 Voices of Westmorland

Can you imagine such a thing? In fact, he did not have a very long life, I think because he was so generous with his time. He was a very kind doctor. Each of the children was supposed to make their own bed and tidy up their room and they would help with the dishes. Of course we didn’t have a dishwasher—it was all by hand. And so it was a fun time. I remember my husband occasionally would help. He had a very nice voice, so they would sing and the children would help him when he was doing the dishes.

Leading Cub Scouts, 4-H I guess I did the things that most mothers do. I was a Cub Scout leader for two years which was when my younger son was in Cub Scouts. There was a general leader, and we met at Midvale School. The Cubs and their leaders would meet once a month, if I remember rightly. And then, once a week, the little boys would meet in a home with their local leader and work on different projects. They wore little blue uniforms with a yellow scarf and little patches sewed on for any accomplishments that they did, and caps. The 4-H Club we started was for children of agricultural people. They had had the experience before and some of them were very excellent leaders for the club. The 4-H has excellent training in agriculture and also in recordkeeping, public speaking, parliamentary procedure, and knowledge of many different areas. In fact some of our members became good enough in their projects that they went to the county and state fairs. I felt that was very good upbringing for the children, very good training for them.

Pulled away from Westmorland My husband’s parents lived on a farm that has been in the family for 150 years now. At that time it was almost around 100. Grandma loved to have us come. Ours were the first grandchildren. She loved to have us, so often we would go for a weekend and spend it at the farm. Grandma loved to have children come for Christmas, and so we did that, year after year. Finally I said, “You know, the children are not having any memories of Christmas at our own home.” So, we laid down the law a little bit and said we will have Christmas at home in the morning, and Santa Claus will come, and so on. Then after that, we will go to Grandma’s. We were in Westmorland until about the early 1970s. By that time, we had a country house in Montello, very close to the farm. We were spending more and more time there. It was getting to be too difficult to keep up two houses and we had modernized the little cabin that we had originally. So we’re spending more time there. Our children do mind us leaving, yes. In fact the oldest daughter said, “Oh Mother, you can’t sell our house that we were brought up in.” But we noticed that they also wanted to spend time at the country house. So of course we did that. Westmorland was a very fine place to raise a family, and I’m thankful for that.

50 Chapter Ronny (Stodolar) Saeman 8 Ronny was interviewed by Barb Perkins on July 12, 2013 at Oakwood Village– University Woods .

I was born in Northern Wisconsin on a farm near Rice Lake. I went to Rice Lake High School and then one year I went to the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota. I transferred to the University of Wisconsin in Madison where I majored in Dietetics. When I finished, instead of going to a hospital for an internship, I went instead to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and worked on a master’s degree. I specialized Ronny Saeman in Westmorland rock garden, in Institutional Management and in Nutrition. After getting circa 1990. my master’s, I stayed there on the staff and did supervisory work in their cafeteria. After four years, I came back to University of Wisconsin where I taught in Home Economics for two years. But then when I got married in June of 1949, I resigned. I married Jerome Saeman who was from Cross Plains. He was a chemist at Forest Products Laboratory. Jerry began his career at the lab the summer after his junior year at the University. He was one of a group of the chemistry majors working at the lab in a federal program, something like the Civilian Conservation Corps, and actually, they lived at the CCC Camp that was located in what is now the University Arboretum. Jerry continued his contact with the lab when he did his graduate work and then when he got his PhD he joined the staff. He was a chemist in the division of Derived Products, where he did research on chemicals from wood. Later he became chief of the division and before he retired, for several years he was associate director in charge of all research.

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After he retired, he worked for a number of years at the university in the Chemical Engineering Department and he also worked for UIR which is University Industry Research.

Building and landscaping a home in Westmorland After we were married, we lived in an apartment on Spring Street but almost immediately we started looking for a lot because Jerry wanted to build a house. We looked on the West side because we wanted to be fairly close to the laboratory. We found a lot at 564 Gately Terrace in what was then part of the McKenna subdivision. We paid $1,100 for the lot. The original cost was $770 but we were the second owners. The lot was 65 feet wide in front. It was quite deep but it narrowed a little bit toward the back. We had a house designed by Weiler & Strang. We got builders from Cross Plains. They started building in the spring of 1950. When we built, there weren’t very many houses on Gately Terrace that were already finished. There were some that were in the process of construction and hardly any to the west of us. But it didn’t take very many years before that whole area was completed. When we started building, Gately Terrace was not paved. Tokay Boulevard was just a dirt road. A couple of times, the builders couldn’t get in because the roads were too muddy. We moved in on New Year’s Eve of 1950. We lived there for over 55 years until we moved to Oakwood in November of 2006. The house that we built was a one- story ranch with a large overhang. Inside we Top: The Saemans’ lot before construction at 564 Gately had a large living room, dining room, kitchen, three bedroom, and a bath. Terrace in 1949. Our lot was on a slope, which meant that when we were grading for a level backyard and a driveway in the front, we created walls. One in the Bottom: The Saemans’ house at 564 Gately Terrace, 2014. back was almost three feet high, and of course they needed something there to keep them from just washing away. And so Jerry built rock walls. We got the limestone from the Verona quarry. It was a big job, but he made very attractive walls. In time, water running down and the freezing and thawing

52 8 – Ronny Saeman

of the soil—and also chipmunk diggings—did affect the wall. It required almost yearly attention. Part of the basement was exposed because we were on a slope and we took advantage of that. The exposed part of the basement was a one-car garage. Ten years later, we added on a bedroom and a bath and a large family room and converted one of the bedrooms to a dining room, so we still had just three bedrooms. We stained the house red using iron oxide stain. Iron oxide makes the most durable kind of preservative. In the time we lived there, we had to re- stain only about twice. Staining is much easier than painting. The reason for using this was partly that Jerry knew from his laboratory’s research on paints that this was a very good paint or stain. But also, he had been in Sweden where most of their houses were red, and they had a lot of birch trees, which really accented that red paint. So of course we planted birches. They grew pretty well for quite a while but birches are a more northern species and they don’t take well to heat and drought. Eventually we lost a couple of the clumps. When we built our house, the lot was bare so we hired McKay Nursery to do our landscaping. Besides birch trees, they planted an elm tree in the back, flowering crab in the front, and then along the periphery in the back, many shrubs and some purple-leaf plums. One of the kinds of shrubs they put in was honeysuckle. At that time, I did not realize what a terrible plant that was. When I finally did learn about it, it had spread in our yard and over to the woods and the park. The birds loved the berries and of course, they spread the seeds so by the time that we An unknown neighborhood boy with Marian and Ann realized what a bad shrub it was, it took us a while to get it out of our yard. Saeman, circa 1959. Many years later, I spent a lot of time digging it out of the woods in the park. The elm tree in our backyard grew to be real good- sized. But then in 1976 when we had the ice storm, many branches were broken. At that time, the Dutch elm disease was killing all the elms in the city. We figured it would get our elm eventually, and so we just decided to take it out.

Activities in Westmorland Park In 1950, we also started our family. When we moved into the house, Paul, our first was 7 weeks old. We subsequently had two daughters. Marian was born in August of 1954, Anne in October of 1958. Westmorland was a great place to raise a family. There were lots of young children. There weren’t very many teenagers in our area, and so we formed a babysitting pool. There were eight or ten of us parents who would sit for each other. Most of the mothers in the area were not working at that time. We’d meet in each other’s homes for coffee while the children played. Sometimes we’d

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go over to the playground at the park. Our children would play in the sandbox or on the swings. As the children got older, there were organized activities for them in the park. In the summertime, the Recreation Department provided a person who helped children with games and crafts. Our children enjoyed going over there for that. The Recreation Depart­ Ice skating in Westmorland Park, March 1977. ment also sponsored a drama program. Children wrote their own play and then produced it when they were ready. They had a portable stage called the “Stage Coach” which went to various parks and playgrounds in the city. Although our children never participated in the production of the drama, they always looked forward to the Stage Coach coming to Westmorland Park. In the summertime the city provided a bus to take children to Vilas Park for swimming lessons. But Marian had some problems with ear infections, and so when the Hill Farm swimming pool was built, we decided to join. The children all went swimming over there. Even Jerry and I enjoyed going over there, especially on a hot summer night when we could cool off a little bit. We didn’t have air conditioning at that time. In the winter the city flooded the baseball field for a skating rink and they enclosed the shelter and then build a ramp from the shelter to the skating rink. I think they may even have heated the shelter a little bit so that kids could go over there, change to their skates, and then enjoy the skating. Our kids didn’t do that. They put on their skates at home and walked across the field. There usually was snow there, and they weren’t the only ones because they actually made a path that got packed down enough so they almost skated down to the rink. Our kids just loved it. They’d come home from school, change into their skates, and be over there—even after dark because it was a lighted rink. In order to get them home for dinner we would either blink our outdoor lights or Jerry would go out on the porch and whistle for them. In January or February, depending on when the ice rink was in good shape, the Westmorland Association sponsored a skating party. The kids loved that because they served hot chocolate and doughnuts.

Gately Terrace: a front-row seat for the Fourth of July The Fourth of July event was not just for children. It was for everybody— and it wasn’t just Westmorland either. The Sunset Village Association helped sponsor it and later even the Midvale Heights Organization.

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First, the children would assemble at the Queen of Peace parking lot with their decorated bikes, trikes, or wagons. Sometimes they were even in costumes themselves. At 10 o’clock, the parade would start to go down either South Owen Drive or Holly Avenue, sometimes with police escort. People would stand on the sidewalk and cheer them as they marched by. When they got to the park, each child was given two tickets to use for food or for games. The first activity in the park was a flag-raising ceremony, which involved the Boy Scout troop. There were many games for children, like ring toss, and if they were successful, then they received a prize. Another was a dunking tank. There was a cage with a seat above a tank of water and they’d get some prominent person in the community to volunteer to sit in the cage. Then people would throw a ball at the cage and if they hit a release, the seat dropped the person in the water. People thought that was funny. Pony ride in Westmorland There were lots of food vendors with hot dogs, hamburgers, pop, Park at a Fourth of July event, circa 1960s. popcorn, and cotton candy. For a while they also sold beer. In order to do Photo from collection of Lorene that, they had to get a permit, have a fenced-in area, and have a guard to Schultz. make sure that only those old enough to drink beer would get in. After a while, they stopped offering beer, I’m not just sure why. It may have been partly expense. A very popular activity was the cakewalk. Everyone was urged to bring either a cake or some cupcakes. In fact, it was a kind of a contest to see which block had the most donors. The cakewalk involved a numbered circuit on the floor of the shelter. To play, people would stand on one of the numbers. When the whole circuit was filled, they’d start music. People would walk around, and when the music stopped, they would call out a number. Whoever was standing on that number could choose a cake. Some people shared the cake with others there at the park; some took it home. Usually a band played over the noon hour, and almost always there was a baseball game in the afternoon. Several times, but not regularly, there was a pony ride. They brought in a dozen or so ponies, which walked around in a circle and children could ride on them. Activities went on most of the afternoon, but ended at about 5 o’clock. As you can imagine, there were many volunteers needed, and of course, we helped. I often sold tickets or I would staff some of the children’s games. And we usually helped with the cleanup.

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After dark came the fireworks They were shot off at the edge of the woods and people sat on the slope to the north. Of course we, living across the street from the park, could just sit in our front yard and watch. Every year it got more popular, and the traffic got worse. It got to the point where it just didn’t seem safe anymore, and they quit having fireworks in Westmorland. Watching from our yard was nice, but there were some drawbacks, too. If the breeze blew our way, a lot of the debris came down on us. There were a couple of times when we had to get up on our roof because we could see some debris that was still burning. One year, one of our cars was out on the driveway. Next morning, we looked out and the car looked polka dotted. Some of the little particles of debris were quite corrosive and actually bleached a little bit of the paint.

Summer vacations and pastimes Almost every summer, we took a vacation, typically in late August. Westmorland Park 4th of July Paul and Jerry both had hay fever, and we found that if we went up north fireworks, circa 1980. where there wasn’t as much ragweed, they got some relief. For many years, we rented a cottage on Island Lake in Vilas County. We enjoyed swimming and boating, a little fishing, hiking. We just enjoyed the north woods. A couple of years, we had a motorboat and could take the kids waterskiing. As the children got older, we wanted to give them the opportunity of seeing the west, and so we went camping in various national parks. We tended to camp in one park each summer, not jump from one park to another. We just stayed in one and really enjoyed that. We liked the ranger talks. Jerry took a lot of pictures. We also belonged to the Sierra Club. We had two Grumman aluminum canoes and we would join a group of other Sierra Club members on weekends going canoeing on rivers that were one or two hours away from Madison—the Wisconsin River, the Fox, Baraboo, and a number of others. Jerry, at one time, got a rudder and a sail that could be attached to a canoe. And so we were able to do some sailing on Lake Mendota or Lake Wingra. We also bought a small sailboat and later on, we were part owners of a larger sailboat. Four families went together and bought it. Some of the others would drop out, so we had various combinations of owners. Eventually, they all dropped out, and we were left. Actually, Paul has it now. In the summertime he has it moored in Lake Mendota and he does a fair amount of sailing.

A growing interest in ecology Madison Vocational School had classes in various schools around the city, and Midvale School was one of them. One that I took was a course in reading the landscape given by Jim Zimmerman, who was a prominent ecologist in Madison. I took it several times because I enjoyed it so much. It

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led to my interest in the environment and ecology. I took other short courses in things like wildflowers of Wisconsin, geology of Wisconsin, and I tried to learn as much as I could. I also had a great interest in birds. Jim Zimmerman and Paul Olson, who was the principal of Midvale School, were involved in getting the Jackson School Forest for the Madison Metropolitan School District. It’s an oak forest a few miles southwest of Verona that was never grazed and was in good shape. Paul Olson started a work-learn program there where he built a campground in one part of the forest. He had boys go there. My son, Paul, was part of that group. They actually sawed down trees and trimmed them. When their logs were ready, they brought in a sawmill, sawed it into lumber, and subsequent groups then built a shelter and cabins. This area was then used as a campground for school children. At the same time, Jim Zimmerman started a program in the other part of the forest where they made some paths. Schoolchildren would come out there for a tour, and Jim would teach them about the forest plants. At first, he did this himself, but as the program got better known and more children wanted to come out, he had to have help. I got involved as a guide. I did this for about 15 years, where I would take children on walks through the woods.

Volunteering as a poll worker Midvale School was the polling place for our ward, and I worked as a poll worker for many years. This meant getting there at 6 o’clock in the morning and working until 9 o’clock or later. At first, in order to be a poll worker, we had to be a member of a political party. They wanted to keep a balance. That didn’t work out very well because they had trouble getting the numbers that they wanted, so they eliminated that requirement. I enjoyed working there in spite of the fact that sometimes it was dull and sometimes very busy. But it was fun to see neighbors and then also to see some of the notable people who lived in Westmorland that we wouldn’t get to see otherwise. For instance, Jim Doyle, who was attorney general, would come in to vote. Roland Johnson, the director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, lived in Westmorland. And there were others.

Longtime WNA volunteer I was a member of the Westmorland Neighborhood Association in the 1950s. At that time, I was president for one year. Another of my responsibilities was to be chair of the block captains. I had to recruit whenever there was a vacancy, and then contact them when necessary. The block captains were really an important part of the functioning of the association because they were the contact between the association and the residents. Whenever a new family moved in, the block captain would

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Westmorland Neighborhood Association Board, Ronny Saeman, President, 1957–1958, seated in front row, second from right. greet them, give them things like the directory, alert them to activities that they might be interested in, and urge them to become members. For a while, we had what we called a Combined Health Fund drive. At that time, societies like Cancer Society and Diabetes and Lung Society would each contact people asking them to walk their blocks and ask for donations. We formed this combined health drive where people could give one check, indicate which organizations they wanted to contribute to, and then not be bothered by people coming around asking for individual donations. I was the head of the health fund drive a couple of times; that involved contacting all of the health organizations, getting information to see how they spent their money and what percentage was spent on fundraising. I had to collect all this information and put it on a sheet that would be given to all of the residents along with a form to indicate how much they wanted to give and to whom. I was a block captain for a number of years. I was on the board again in the early ’90s, and again, I was president for a year.

My greatest contribution: the Westmorland Park rock garden My greatest contribution to Westmorland was probably my work in the rock garden. The rock garden was created in 1953. Before that, there was a huge pile of rocks at the edge of the woods. The city decided to make a rock garden in the northwest corner of the park. They built it and then for two years, there was a full-time gardener who planted trees and shrubs, bulbs, ground cover, lots of annuals, and perennials. They put in hawthorn trees around the rock garden and a little farther away a bit of lilacs. There was a group of flowering crabs and even a magnolia tree. The gardener put in a lot of annuals and so, it didn’t take long before the garden was quite attractive. When he left, there was a part-time park

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worker who took care of it and that worked pretty well for a while. But in time, he could spend less and less time in the rock garden and eventually, all he did was mow the grass. Well, you know what happens if a garden is left unattended. It got completely overgrown. Some of the shrubs tended to creep over the rocks. And weeds came in. Eventually, the rocks were so overgrown that you couldn’t even see them. Some time in the early 1980s, Jerry and I decided to do something about it. We knew one of the park workers and we invited her to come and walk through the rock garden with us. She agreed that something needed to be done. She gave us permission to cut out everything that covered the rocks and do pruning and thinning as needed. We got a few neighbors together and we did that. We then dragged all of the debris out to the street—there was enough to fill about six trucks. After that, a park worker came in and applied a weed killer around the rocks so that stuff wouldn’t come up again. Then we had to dig out the roots before we could do any new planting. We got perennials and lots of annuals and also some trees that needed to be replaced. The city provided some of that, the Westmorland Association gave us money for some, and there were also donations. I know I donated quite a few perennials from my yard. Sometimes a city park worker would come in and do some pruning, either in the rock garden or even in the woods area. I would organize work parties, especially when we had Earth Day. A job for the Earth Day crew was pulling out the brush. Sometimes we planted trees or bushes. Sometimes I would order mulch, and then they spread that in the rock garden area and around isolated trees. Jerrry and Ronny Seaman Our renewed garden became quite lovely, and there were times when I at the Westmorland Park would look out and I would see a wedding party. They would come in and cleanup, Earth Day, April use the rock garden as a background for taking pictures. I’m glad that a 1998. committee is continuing to work in the rock garden and keeping it in good shape.

A few bad things happened in Westmorland … The ice storm in 1976 was hard on the trees, and also quite a few people lost electricity. I suppose branches fell over the wires. We were lucky in that we were without electricity for only about five or six hours. There were some people who were without it for as long as three or four days. Another weather-related happening was the tornado that came through in 2004. It had touched down as far west of Madison as Cross Plains. When it came to Madison, it touched down in University Research Park near

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Mineral Point and Segoe Road, where it took down a lot of trees. When it came to Westmorland, it came down just north of Tokay Boulevard. Then veered to the south and left Westmorland. There was a time when the shelter in the park was burned. At that time, there was a group of teenagers who were spending a lot of time in the shelter and also Damage from the 1976 ice storm damage in the Saemans’ front yard. in the rock garden. They were pretty noisy. I know they did some drinking because I would find cans and broken bottles there. A fire got started in a garbage can. It got out of control and it set the whole shelter on fire. Although the fire department did come and tried to put it out, the shelter was beyond repair and the city built a new one. But the most tragic event that happened in West­ morland was one summer when we had a cloudburst. The 4300 Block of Tokay Boulevard near Gately Terrace after the tornado, photo So much rain came in such dated June 23, 2004. a short time that the park was just covered with water. It didn’t last long and when the sun came out, the kids came out, too, and they were walking around in the water. There was a culvert in the woods that carried water under the street and toward Wingra Park. One young boy got too close to the culvert, he was swept in and he drowned. I don’t like to end this on tragic notes, so I will tell about a few happy events that happened in our own backyard.

A wedding and an anniversary In 1983, Marian was married and we hosted a party the day after the wedding. We had a canopy set up in the backyard and served food out there.

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Clifden Canyon Tom Martinelli, Westmorland History Committee correct the problem, saying that they felt that it was (This article appeared in The Westmorland Courier, a city obligation to address. The Clifden Canyon sign November 2012.) appeared again when the city refused to take action. Finally in 1957, the section of the gully from Clifden A ten-foot wide drainage easement, beginning Drive to the 500 block of South Owen Drive, west in the 500 block of Clifden Drive near Midvale of Gately Terrace was enclosed in concrete drainage School and extending to the south end of the 500 pipe, covered with dirt, and seeded. block of Gately Terrace, created quite a stir between On July 30, 1959, tragedy struck Westmorland Westmorland residents living adjacent to the natural when, after a heavy rainfall, a young boy was swept drainage way and the City of Madison government in away into the open end of a storm water drainage the 1950s. pipe feed by the gully in the Westmorland Park woods The area is part of the Seventh Addition to Sunset along Tokay Blvd. (The drainage way in the park was Village plat filed on December 10, 1946. Most of a portion of the full drainage way from Clifden Drive, the lots that abutted the drainage way were built up through the park, and continuing on to Lake Wingra. between 1948 and 1951. After several heavy rain When a new driveway to the park shelter building storms, the gully had deepened to four to six feet was constructed in the 1950s, the portion of the with steep side walls. After several attempts by the drainage way under the driveway and on to Tokay neighbors to have the city do something about the Blvd. was buried in storm sewer drainage pipe but deepening drainage way, in October of 1950, the the remainder of the section through the park woods adjacent residents posted a humorous sign on the west of the driveway was left as an open gully.) In Clifden Drive end of the easement that stated: November of 1959, construction began on the Gately Terrace Storm Sewer project starting at South Owen Clifden Canyon Drive, replacing the gully with a storm sewer system A natural waterway deepened and enlarged extending along back property lines, and ending on thereby supplementing the recreational Gately Terrace near the intersection with Tokay Blvd. facilities of the new Midvale School (which on the west edge of Westmorland Park. opened on September 16, 1951). The The following winter, a Parks Department crew pool at the head of the canyon is fed by graded the open gully in the park woods in order an underground lake and has never been to spread the storm water into a shallow pool over known to dry up; a perfect wildlife refuge a wider area during storms. Earthen dams were for bullfrogs, flies, and mosquitoes. Only also installed to slow down the flow of the water, small children can enter the underground and a concrete box with a steel cage, like a piece water, but with the deepening by two feet, of playground equipment, was constructed at the excursions will be available to all small inlet end of the storm sewer pipe in order to prevent children. further accidents at the site. Finally, in September of 2007, the remaining Erected by the Clifden Canyon Boosters portion of the natural drainage way through the Club park woods was replaced by buried concrete storm (from “Westmorland Residents Needle sewer pipe, graded over, and seeded. A nature trail, City Council,” Wisconsin State Journal, completed with a selection of wild flowers, was October 6, 1950) constructed over the top of the buried drainage pipe and a rain garden planted with over 500 rain garden– After no action by the city, a group of residents tolerant plants was constructed just west of the park again petitioned the city council to address the gully driveway. The drainage way conversion from a six- in 1954. The City Council proposed that adjacent foot-deep gully to a completely buried storm sewer property owners pay one half of the cost of a drainage system through Westmorland was finally completed system to solve the issue. Residents rejected the fifty years after it was started. proposal, stating that they should not have to pay to

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However, that happened to be a very hot day. Fortunately we had just put in air conditioning about a month or six weeks prior. A lot of the guests, although they would get their food outside, went inside and enjoyed the air conditioning. In 1989, we celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary and again had a party in the backyard with the canopy. We had a liturgy and then served a meal and had a great time. These are my memories of Westmorland. I am glad we lived there. I have many really fond memories of it.

Jerry and Ronny Saeman in September 1999, seated on the Westmorland Park rock garden bench installed in honor of their 50th wedding.

62 Chapter Gale VandeBerg 9 Gale was interviewed by Jean Tretow-Schmitz on June 7, 2013 at Oakwood Village–University Woods .

I lived in Westmorland from 1954 to November of 2006. It was a very comfortable community. We chose Westmorland because I had a friend, who had worked with me up at Appleton where we lived, who lived in the neighborhood, and we thought we’d live near them because they were such good friends. We didn’t even look at any other place in Madison. I came to Westmorland alone to look for a house to start with. And I came with instructions from my wife, Zona, who was not able to drive a car. “It’s got to be near a school. It’s got to be near a bus line,” she said. And so, here was this place at 533 Gately Terrace, two blocks from Midvale School, one block from the park, and right across the street at that time was a bus line. The very first place we looked at, and that’s the place we finally bought. It met all those requirements we were looking for. Gale VandeBerg in 2013. We had three kids, Sharon, John, and Jerry. They were born in 1944, 1947, and 1949. So when we came in ’54, the youngest would have been almost 5 years old. I had a goal in mind: I wanted a lot of land. You don’t get much land in the city. This place on Gately Terrace had only about a 70-foot frontage, but it had a very wide backyard area totaling just short of one-half acre. It was one of the largest lots in the community and had everything I wanted in the backyard. The orchard and garden were there when we moved in. In fact, the backyard was separated from the garden and orchard area by a white board fence and a big grape arbor. It was very well-developed when we started. This big lot had been developed by the Pages. He was a professor in the UW School of Medicine. He built that house (designed and built by Marshall Erdman) four years before we bought it. He was a gardener and he had two or three long rows of raspberries in our huge backyard. They did well, and we fertilized them well. We couldn’t use all of them! My wife and I would go out in the early morning and we’d pick several pints of The VandeBerg children Sharon, John, and raspberries. And then at 7:30, 7:45, I’d take several of those Jerry in 1956. pint boxes along and stop at the Sentry food store, and they’d

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buy our raspberries. They said, “Bring us more.” On my way to work, I often took raspberries and dropped them off.

Our kids raise pigeons The boys developed a hobby of fancy pigeon raising. Our lot didn’t have a garage, just a house. So back in the orchard area, we took 4x8 plywood and built what we called small pigeon houses. They had two floors and two compartments on each floor. We could house a pair of birds in each compartment. We built one, and then we built another one, and then we built another one, and we finally had five of those, which meant a lot of birds in the backyard. Later as the boys got older and got more and more birds, we built a 10x12 building with a fly pen. We kept the neighborhood fairly noisy with the cooing pigeons. It became a very interesting hobby. The boys decided they would not breed the same breed; each wanted his own. They learned about fancy pigeons by reading books and by going to the State Fair and seeing different kinds of breeds. They learned that there were pigeon clubs in various parts of Wisconsin, including one here in Madison; and there were state clubs and there were national pigeon clubs. They became a part of all of that, became officers, and became well-known pigeon breeders nationally. These pigeon shows would be held on weekends. If there was a pigeon show in Milwaukee, for example, we’d drive to Milwaukee for the weekend. If there was one in Columbus, Ohio, we’d go to Columbus, Ohio. We went to shows in many of the midwestern states. So I would have a weekend with a boy, taking some of his best birds to the show, and maybe another weekend with the other boy because the other breed was having some show somewhere. It gave me weekends with my boys and things to do with the boys in the backyard. In fact, later on the boys became very well known nationally with their pigeons. We’ve had people who were buying birds from the boys, maybe from Pennsylvania or Saskatchewan or Kansas. I’d take the birds in the box and take them to the airport on the way to work in the morning at 7:30, leave the birds off. Now you couldn’t do that anymore. But we’d ship the birds, and I’d go back to work. It was a hobby that determined the occupation for my oldest son, who became a geneticist. That came because of his interest in breeding different qualities and characteristics into the various birds. He went to Australia for graduate studies. I’d already bought his birds. I didn’t like having to go outdoors to take care of those birds in the cold weather, so, I built an oversized garage and, instead of putting a car in there, we had pigeon pens in there. I showed pigeons as a pigeon breeder myself.

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Below, Gale VandeBerg at graduation, June 1943. Right: Gale and Zona’s wedding, August 8, 1943.

A career in agricultural education When I graduated from the University, what I wanted to do for life was to be a high school agricultural teacher. I admired my high school agricultural teacher, who was really one of the outstanding ones in the state. He taught in the same school all of his life. So I started out as a high school agricultural teacher. Then some University officials visited me and convinced me to become a University county extension agent. After a number of years at that work and doing some graduate studies, they asked me to come to Madison and serve as a professor here on campus. So, I spent all my life in education. I asked my high school agricultural teacher to come and speak to my Future Farmer members, my high school students, and their parents a couple of times. We maintained our relationship while we were teaching, and my boys competed against his boys in various regional speaking and judging contests. We had a lot of fun together. And when he passed away, I spoke at his funeral. He meant that much to me.

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I drove to the University for work; it was a very easy drive. As the population of Madison grew, I learned that instead of concluding work at 5 o’clock and coming home, if I worked until 6 o’clock, there was no traffic, and I could get home in five minutes. Otherwise, it might take me twenty minutes, and I could get a lot more work done after everybody else left anyway. I liked every single position I had. I liked high school teaching. I liked being county extension agent. I enjoyed being a professor of undergraduate and then graduate students. And I enjoyed being an administrator, a state director, and a dean. If I had to choose among all the jobs that I had, I’d select being a county agricultural agent. It’s more enjoyable than even being a dean or a state director. The pressures are a lot different, and the responses from people are rewarding. You are working with local people every day in some community around the county, every day and every night. You get to know all these people very well. This back-and-forth response is different than what you get in other kinds of positions.

Our boys played sports … Our oldest boy, John, went to Midvale Grade School, then Cherokee Middle School, then West High School. He was 6 feet tall as a freshman. In eighth or ninth grade he wanted to play football. Unfortunately, he came down with rheumatoid arthritis, which supposedly ended his sports career. But he liked sports very much. When he went to West High School a year later, they had curling, which is not a contact sport. He started curling and liked it. He became the “skip,” or captain, of the curling team at West. Then the younger boy also became “skip” later on in high school. Both became good curlers. Other than that, they play a little basketball, and the younger boy played volleyball. But probably the most competitive sport we had was ping pong and we did that in our own basement. They became very good ping pong players. We all three entered a ping pong tournament at the YMCA in Madison. We had a lot of fun in that tournament. The Chinese people beat us, though.

… But our girl was into dramatics Our daughter was not a sports gal. She was into the arts. She was very interested in directing things. So every Christmas in Westmorland while the kids were growing up, she would plan the Christmas program, and each of the kids had a part in it. She was the director of this program. One kid may have to play the piano. They all took piano lessons. And the other kid may have to sing certain songs or read poems. We always had poetry around, and everyone made various Christmas poems. And then she’d have us all singing together at times. We used to have a Christmas

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program every year that she would organize all by herself. So, we did have that ritual.

4-H Club: The Diligent Doers We started a 4-H Club called the Diligent Doers in 1960. It was a very unusual 4-H Club because of living in Westmorland, where so many people from the University lived. Here were our kids, and the Niedermeier kids lived right across the street. Bob Niedermeier, the husband, was chairman of the dairy husbandry department at the University and his wife was the assistant state 4-H leader. Nearby over on Charles Lane was Frank Campbell and his wife. When I was the 4-H Club state director, I appointed him as a state 4-H Club leader. Somewhere beyond in Westmorland was the director of the State Department of Natural Resources (Lester Voight lived on Toepfer Avenue). Over on Meyer Street was the Don McDowell family. Don was the director of the State Department of Agriculture. There were others like that. We had so many people in Westmorland who were so interested in their kids being in 4-H. We had 20, 25, 30 kids in that 4-H Club. It was a wonderful club.

Church and Sunday School When we first came to Madison, Bethany Methodist Church (3910 Mineral Point Road) was here, but it was just a couple of houses, so we joined the First Methodist Church down by the Square. There they had some very special classes for the whole family. We used to go Sundays to church and then we’d go to a cafeteria called Piper’s Garden Cafeteria, right across the street from the Belmont Hotel (101 E. The VandeBerg family visits Mifflin Street, currently YWCA Building), for Sunday dinner. the Oshkosh Airport: Gale, But then we joined the Bethany Church, I think perhaps in 1957. It wife Zona, and children was growing very, very fast. Westmorland was full of families with lots and Sharon (7), John (4), Jerry (2), lots of kids. We started building new sections to Bethany and it became, 1951. eventually, the church that’s there today. There used to be a three-story house there called the Coach House. Then they built what is now called Fellowship Hall. We used to have Sunday School classes on every floor of the Coach House and in the pastor’s house.

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Our kids always went to Sunday School. My wife, Zona, was active, and I was prevailed upon to serve as a superintendent of the Sunday School for three years in the late 1950s. We had so many kids enrolled—they said we had 800 people enrolled, which was the largest Methodist Sunday School in the state. Then Bethany hired a director of education, Jim Suttie, and that helped. Yes, we were a part of the church life and have been ever since. Indeed, two of our kids were married at Bethany, and my wife’s funeral services were there. Bethany just celebrated a 100th anniversary.

Challenges: riots on campus My office used to be in Agriculture Hall. But at the time of the Vietnam protests, the Extension offices had all been moved over to Lake Street, just half a block from State Street and a block and a half from the Memorial Union. Of course, all the riots were going on. They used tear gas. The tear gas came up through the vents in our building. And so we found out what that was like. It was not very pleasant. My kids were both in college. And I remember I was worried about my son John, because the UW students even tried to stop people from going to classes. He said, “Nobody’s going to stop me from going to class.” And I said, “No, you have to be careful. You could get into some bad trouble.” “No, sir,” he said, “Nobody stops me from going.” The younger boy came home one day and said, “That’s the last time About school pairings I ever hold the door open for a girl.” Everybody had long hair during the A decision made by the hippie years. “I held the door open for this girl,” he said, “It wasn’t a girl. It Madison School Board in was a boy.” Yeah, those were interesting times. 1979 led to school pairings in Westmorland, beginning School pairings with the 1984–85 school The biggest challenge to the Westmorland community that I can year. The Lincoln and remember happened long after our kids were grown. That’s when they did Midvale elementary school the school pairing and they bused kids out of the neighborhood (to Lincoln pairing plan continues to be in effect. School) and bused kids from out of that neighborhood to Midvale. Both schools’ grades K–2 When we came, Midvale School was what I call an ideal situation. Paul attend Midvale Elementary, Olson was head of that operation. Paul Olson was a wonderful man. There while grades 3–5 attend was a very, very close relationship between the parents and those kids and Lincoln Elementary, the teachers. three miles southeast of I had a very busy schedule, both in-state and out-of-state with the Westmorland. University, along with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington. (Source: Westmorland: A But in my daily book, my wife always took first place. She said, “There’s Great Place to Live.) Midvale certain days that you are reserved for us.” Every PTA meeting was in that School is now a dual- book, and I had to go to those PTA meetings. I’d have to sit in the desks language (Spanish-English) with my wife, and she’d insist that I write a note for each kid’s desk. With immersion school serving so many families, we had large meetings. Lots of people went to those, and grades K–2. it was just a wonderful school-parent situation.

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That close association changed, according to my neighbors, when they did the pairing. Some families had kids in that school and lived right across the street, and their kids would be bused off to some other school. I can remember going by there and seeing three and four buses in front of the school, waiting to take kids somewhere else. The interest in the school and closeness of the parents to the school disappeared. I call it social engineering and I, obviously, was not in favor of it. It’s not that I was concerned about races. In fact, we had a black family. Two different black families lived right next door The VandeBerg house at to us over the years, and we had wonderful relations with them, very close 533 Gately Terrace, 2013. friends of ours. The thought was that this school pairing was going to build relationships between the races; I think it was one of the ideas. They would bring these little kids down to the park on little tours with their teachers and they came right past our house every time because we were on the road to the park. And here, I’d see the blacks would be together, and the whites would be together. I don’t think they accomplished what they hoped to. At any rate, from what I could see, although we didn’t have children in school then, the pairing destroyed the closeness that had always been between the parents and the teachers and the families.

69 Chapter 10 Ellen (Luentenmayer) and Howard Cross Ellen and Howard were interviewed by Barb Perkins on August 2, 2013 at their home at 3912 Paunack Avenue .

Howard: I’m from Illinois but we moved up here when I was 10 years old. Ellen: Howard’s dad was a train engineer. Right at the beginning of World War II, the employment picked up on the railroad, and they called him back to work down in Illinois. And so, that’s why they grew up part-time in Illinois. Howard: We met at my brother’s wedding in Springfield, Illinois. My brother married my wife’s sister. My brother was two and a half years younger than me. Ellen: I was in nurses training at the time, just a student nurse, and I couldn’t be released. They would not let me take time off to rehearse and to go to the wedding both. So I chose the wedding. When you were in nurses training, you jumped to their tune. I came to Madison from Illinois after I was married in 1946. We rented a furnished apartment near Tenney Park. And then, we rented a house over here at 425 Toepfer Av- enue. This house on Paunack Avenue, we purchased in 1952. Howard: The fellow who gave us the loan was a friend Ellen and Howard Cross in 2013. of the owner, Al Steinhauer. When we sat down I saw his name was Augie Paunack. So I said, “Well, Mr. Paunack, you might know the area where I’m going to buy, 3912 Paunack Avenue.” “Yeah,” he said, “We named that street when we developed Westmorland.” That was Augie Paunack, he lived in a brick house (4001 Mineral Point Road) nearby. Ellen: At that time, the sidewalks had just gone in. That was a treat, not to either walk on the street or through the little mud puddles. We liked this area. It was close to the hospitals, that was important, and a grocery store right down the street, and the schools. Midvale was just being built before we had children, so we knew there would be some schools, and then Queen of Peace Church was there, and West High, all within walking distance. We only had one car and we very seldom needed it because the library (was here), the drugstore, the hardware store, everything was within a couple of blocks. (The Sequoya Branch Library was at 404 Glenway Street then; in 1960 it moved to 513 S. Midvale Boulevard.) The only thing, at the time there were

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no sidewalks to go to West High. The cars going by go splashed the poor Westmorland kids walking to or from school.

Progress!? More curbs and gutters, fewer dynamite trucks Ellen: The driveways aren’t big enough for parking two cars, that’s why there are so many cars parked on the streets. And some of the streets don’t have sidewalks or curbs. If you wanted sidewalks and curbs, you had to go up to the City Hall and get a petition. We’d go around and get signatures from the different neighbors. Howard: I did that here and I made an enemy down on the right-hand side. That lady, she hated it when I petitioned for all of the driveway aprons and the curbs on the street. And it was only $75 for an apron then. Now, it’s about $700. She told me I was the devil for trying to ruin the terrain. She wanted it left as it was. I’m surprised that there are so many houses down the street that don’t have curbs and gutters. Ellen: But that was procedure. Somebody on those streets had to get 75 percent of the people’s signatures and then present it to the city. That’s how the procedure was then. Howard: The Herlings, who owned Herling’s Bar, were here before we were. Their’s was the second or third major home built out here. Crawmer’s was one of about the first ten that were built. He drove a dynamite truck that he always parked in his driveway full of dynamite at night. (See Crawmer brothers interview page 28–29.) Ellen: He wouldn’t be able to do it now. Nobody knew about it. There weren’t that many houses around. Howard: It was all pasture.

Ball player, war veteran, decorator, state worker, retiree Howard: I was a professional baseball player before I went in service (during World War II). I had a contract with the White Sox until Uncle Sam drafted me. We have a Major Leaguer living near Westmorland in Midvale Heights, Bob (Red) Wilson. He played with the Sox, and he played with Detroit, and he played with Cleveland. I had gone to university on a baseball scholarship for one year and then the second year, I was drafted. My draft number was 158, and that’s the one that (Vice President) Henry Wallace pulled out of the fishbowl. It was for a one-year draft, but then, when war was declared, all of that was canceled. You stayed in until the war was over. I was in service for five years. When I came back, I went to school for one semester. I had been in combat for almost four years on the islands in the Philippines, and the doc- tor told me not to do anything strenuous for at least a year. But I went back to school that following January. I just went one semester. I couldn’t hack it. So I started a painting apprenticeship. I studied for four years and I got a degree in decorating. And

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then I worked with the biggest company in Madison, Capital Decorating. They’re no longer in existence. But in 1958, I went to work for the State of Wisconsin as a painter. I worked there until 1982 when I retired. I’ve been retired ever since. I play golf and belong to the Knights of Columbus. We do a lot of charity work, including stuff in Westmorland.

Getting around town Howard: We were kind of strict on our kids. We didn’t buy them a car. Ellen: No, they didn’t have a car. They either rode the bus or their bikes. Howard: My daughter Maureen, the pilot, rode her bicycle to college. Ellen: Even in the snow, down to the university but it is all downhill. You could get there all right but coming home was hard. After sitting in classes they were happy to stretch their limbs. They’re used to walking, and it’s an enjoyable walk. I used to work at Wisconsin General Hospital while I was down there at the university and I would often walk down there. We were great walkers. Howard: I took the bus down to work, caught it right up here on the corner. I had a parking stall for about 10, 12 years at Law Park where the Frank Lloyd Wright convention center is now. That was a city parking lot. It’s funny; they started sniffing around, while I was still working downtown, about the use for parking, since the city charged for parking at Law Park. Somebody got nosy and looked up the records, and it was deeded to the city from a private owner for park use only. They took it to court, and about 500 of our parking stalls went right out the door. By then it was $15 a month. Now it’s all park down there on both sides of the convention center.

Social clubs for all ages Ellen: I belonged to a card club at one time, a sewing club at one time, and a coffee klatch. We used to just get together and sit out in the sun with the neighbors and visit while we watched our children. In our card club, there were eight from here in Westmorland, and we stayed together for at least 20 years. And then one got sick, and it seemed like just overnight they disappeared. Some moved away; some passed away. We played bridge. Bridge was a club thing, very important. We started out by belonging to the Queen of Peace card club. And then, for various reasons, we found it more convenient to play in our own homes. We loved it. Howard: You always had desserts. Ellen: Oh, yes. It was very important. It was a big deal when it was our turn to entertain. I’d make maybe apple crisps or bars, pies, or fancy ice box desserts. It was always something special. We usually played in the evening because in the daytime, naturally, we took care of the children. After all the

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children grew up, we did change to daytime. But by that time, our group was getting quite “ancient.” I learned bridge at Madison Vocational School when they taught it uptown. That was just the place to go and learn. (Madison Vocational School would not be called Madison Area Technical College until 1968.)

Trolleys Howard: The city limits ended at the cemeteries when we first lived out here. I remember, in the 1930s, when I first lived here (in Madison), the streetcars came out that far from the Capitol. And the traffic went both ways around the Capital Square when I lived here in 1932–35. They had trolley tracks around there that went down Johnson Street. The trolley came out University Avenue and went back down Regent. It turned down by the stadium. At one Electric street car shown on time, there was a branch that came up here (to the Forest Hill Cemetery Speedway Road at Forest entrance) and then they backed it; they wouldn’t turn it around. They just Hill Cemetery in 1910. (WHi turned the wire around and away it went. We used to ride it for a nickel. 35076)

Active children The end of the trolleys Ellen: The kids would go out and play right in the area and you never On February 23, 1935, a had to worry about them because there were other children about the same severe ice storm brought age and there just wasn’t a lot of mischief around. down many miles of Howard: They could play on the streets because the buses didn’t come electric trolley wiring, and down here then. They’d go up to Queen of Peace once we’d put athletic the service came to an facilities up there. I was involved in that; that was one of my projects. And end. The Madison Railway then, they’d play over at Midvale School. There was an athletic field over Company became the there. They’d go down to Westmorland Park. Madison Bus Company in Ellen: All the children spent a lot of time just walking wherever they 1935, but bus service for were going. That was part of the activity. Westmorland residents Howard: The kids back in those days didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, and remained limited for some years. (Source: didn’t do drugs. None of the kids even thought about smoking. Today you Westmorland: A Great Place see them in grade school smoking. That bothers me. to Live) Ellen: They didn’t drink either. The kids grew up with nature, hiking. They wouldn’t think of that kind of stuff.

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Below: The Cross children L-R: Jeff, Gerri, and Kathy, Easter 1954. Right: The Cross children L-R: Maureen, Gerri, Kathy, and Jeff. July 4 1957.

Howard: Steal a few apples off a tree maybe once in a while but that was part of the game. Ellen: There had to be mischief in some ways.

Girl Scouts Ellen: Being an RN, I was chosen to go along on some of the scouting overnights because they needed somebody with medical knowledge. I was in scouting for 27 years with all the children as they went down the line. And our youngest son learned Girl Scout songs before he knew Boy Scout songs. We always spent a lot of time at Camp Brandenburg with the girls. Our Queen of Peace group met at Mrs. Palm’s. She lived over there in Sunset Village and she was also a very active scout leader. Howard: Joe Palm was her husband. He was a Knights of Columbus brother of mine. Ellen: Queen of Peace had a lot of scouts for every grade, and our Kathy belonged to the ones over at Midvale. They stayed after school to meet even through junior high. They always said they’re life members and friends. They just grew that close.

Notable neighbors Howard: You can find some very historic people who lived in or near Westmorland. Like Steve Caravello used to live at the corner of Mineral Point Road and Franklin Street; he was one of the city’s best golfers for 25 years. He just passed away a few years ago (November 2004). There were some well-known people. Governor Doyle was here (4213 St. Clair Street). Hugo Indra (4104 Paunack Avenue), he had a barber shop over here (at 337

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Kathy’s Girl Scout troop with leader Ellen Cross, June 1963.

Glenway Street) for about 30 years. Len Tranchita (4021 Paunack Avenue), was another barber. Ellen: He was a barber who was real well known around here. Howard: And Ruth Doyle, Jim Doyle’s mother lived near Westmorland. She was a legislator and a state assemblyman. In fact she was president of the City Council back 30, 40 years ago. Then her son became Attorney General. Then he became Governor for two terms. Ellen: They sold the Westmorland place and moved into the Governor’s mansion. They didn’t stay here. Howard: So the Governor always came to church and he’d always wave at me. Some of the guys would say, “You know that guy?” I said, “Yeah, I work for him.” Ellen: There are a lot of people that have made footprints in Westmor- land. Then there are others who tread lightly—they do a lot but don’t make any footprints.

Curling Howard: I curled for 15 years and I curled in two world tournaments. Our Madison team represented the United States and we went to the world tournament three times. Won once and lost twice. Ellen: And where was Ellen? Oh, taking care of the kids. Howard: Well, one time you came over to Zurich, Switzerland after the curling competition was over. Remember you ran into Steve Brown (Olympic curler from Madison) in Switzerland. That’s an interesting sport. We went to Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Germany—they had the world tournament in different places and they had it in Canada

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twice. They’ve never had it here. I don’t know why but the world tournament’s never been here. It’s in the Olympics now, curling is, and they practice at our rink in the winter of the Olympics year. Burr Jones Field, right by the Yahara River—it was right there. We leased the building from the city until they tore it down. They built one out in McFarland. I had quit curling by the time they moved out there. But the Olympics trained The Cross home at 3912 here the last two times, which is very Paunack Avenue, 2014. interesting. You see some of the world’s best curlers. I was going over my medals the other day. My gosh, I enjoyed curling. Got medals from all over the country and Canada. Ellen: I’ve been getting rid of his old trophies. They’re downstairs, just taking up space. Some outfits still like them. They get recycled in that way. Howard: They put new nameplates on them. I give them away at the Knights of Columbus every year.

Time passed … Ellen: The kids all had to go to work. Almost all of them worked when they got old enough to get jobs. They worked as they went to school. Kathy, she was working at the A&P as a cashier. She learned how to handle money. Now she is in management out in the big laundry over in South Madison. (Madison United Healthcare Linen, 1310 W. Badger Road.) Howard: They do all hospitals and the public buildings. They’re big. Ellen: She got her degree in physical education for the handicapped. She never used that but as she was going to school she was handling money and she got very good at it. Howard: And Steve (her husband) is at the University at the Forest Products Laboratory in research. Westmorland has been a very friendly neighborhood; our whole tenure here. We have a block party every year. We have a festival up at Queen of Peace, which has started again, and it’s a charity thing. And the transportation is good here. The schools are excellent. That’s why this area is so good for selling property, real estate. It’s close to the hospital, the Capitol and the big government VA Hospital. Ellen: I put down all these different things that we like about Westmor- land and I included right down to the cemeteries. They’re close.

76 Chapter Betty (Scribner) Skowlund 11 Betty was interviewed by Jean Tretow-Schmitz on July 12, 2013 at The Oaks Apartments in Oakwood Village .

I grew up in New Hampshire about 90 miles from Boston and lived there until I was married. I taught school there for about three years. Then I came out here for summer school at the University of Wisconsin. There I met my future husband and moved here. The core of our friendship was my husband’s fraternity brothers and their girlfriends, that’s the way I met a lot of people. Some became my very best friends. My husband, Alan, was an accountant employed by Wisconsin Life Insurance Company. We lived at 3909 Birch Avenue in Westmorland from 1947 until 2002. My husband was in the service in the Navy in World Betty Skowlund in 2013. War II when he planned the house. He had an idea of what he wanted and he got a contractor who actually lived up at the end of Birch Avenue, Ed Nelson. He and his helpers built the house, and Alan did a lot of work on it himself. While Alan was in the service, I went back to New Hampshire and lived with my parents for about two years. Alan had a chance all of those years to dream of what he wanted for a house. When we came back to Madison

Letters helped during wartime separation Alan was gone for around two years when he served in the Navy during World War II. There was a lot I didn’t know but I do know he was in the Pacific. He was on some kind of patrol craft. We were only able to communicate by letters. And I’m telling you, we wrote them. Every week, there were letters. People don’t realize how much the written word, something to hold in your hand and to read over and over again, matters. And it’s being lost in today’s world. Yes, when I was at home in New Hampshire with the kids, I walked to the post office every single day. And we mailed letters back and forth and kept up to date. The post office was just a few blocks from where I was living. This was a very small town. Women I knew whose husbands were also in the service would meet at the post office to get our mail and to mail our letters, too. We were all very faithfully writing.

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after the war, we rented for a while and moved into the house in 1947. We had two little boys (before Alan went into the service) that I brought back from New Hampshire after the war. And I had a daughter who was born in ’47. When we moved in, we had three bedrooms: The boys were in one, we were in one, and the baby was in the third bedroom, and there was no furniture or anything. She was there in a baby basket all by herself. We grew from there to fill the house. On the first floor was a living room, kitchen, and a garage. Years later we added a long room across the back—our family room. All windows looking out onto the backyard. So we had more living space. The house had a basement that was for storage. While the boys were little, there was a ping-pong table down there. And there were steps going out to the backyard so I could get to the wash lines. Later on, we transformed that into a bedroom and a The Skowlund home at 3909 workshop. Birch Avenue, 2013. In the beginning, we had a garden. I grew corn and vegetables. After the children were gone, I just had flowers. Oh, and grape vines; I planted those on the fence at the back of the yard. It was just plain open space when we moved there. I made grape jelly. My daughter remembers when she was little going out there and picking grapes and she just felt lost or as if she was in a forest because she was standing up there in those vines that were all way over her head.

A neighborhood fills with families There was a vacant lot west of us, as I recall. The house beside us on the other side had been there. There were vacant lots across the street. Judge Horace Wilke had the lot across the street (3914 Birch Avenue) and he had a huge garden on it. It would later become the Kirkpatrick’s house. I used to see him there early in the morning on his hands and knees working in his garden, with his corn and other vegetables. Right across from me was a vacant lot, in fact, three lots across were vacant. There was a lot of open space. It was fun when somebody built a home in one of the vacant lots. We got to meet them. We had a wonderful neighborhood. The people who were moving in were primarily families with little children. We used to gather in the morning for coffee—we women—and we

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would sit around the edge and the middle of the floor was full of all ages of babies. We had a lot of activities together. Everything was in walking distance. I could even walk down to Mallatt’s Pharmacy (3410 Monroe Street) and down to Parman’s service station (3406 Monroe Street). Everything was close by.

Betty goes to work There was a period before the war when I could not get a teaching position here because I was married. They were not hiring married women, so I didn’t work. I was a homemaker. I had the two little boys at that point. I went back to work when the children were in school. I worked at Bethel Lutheran Church (312 Wisconsin Avenue). Before that, how do I explain it? I had a connection at Luther Memorial Church (1021 University Avenue). It was the beginning of what was called the Older Americans Act. That was when they decided that something should be done for older Americans that would inspire them and give them something to do. Older Americans Act It was a daytime program. Older adults The Older Americans Act of 1965 signed on July 14, 1965 gathered together over a light lunch of soup was the first federal-level initiative aimed at providing that volunteers would provide, and you had comprehensive services for older adults. It created the activities. They had a little bit of equipment National Aging Network comprising the Administration on so that the men could repair lamp switches Aging on the federal level, state units on aging, and area or cords or something like that. And women agencies on aging at the local level. The network provides did handwork. And they did a lot of things funding—based primarily on the percentage of an area’s with tiles. population 60 and older—for nutrition and supportive I helped with the Older Americans home and community-based services. Source: Wikipedia, program. In fact, I ran it with a committee retrieved May 23, 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Older_ from the church, and that was a wonderful Americans_Act. program. It was the beginning of thinking of what you can offer to older people that will get them together, get them out of their homes and together and enjoying a little activity, a little creativity, too. I worked at Luther Memorial for about two years with these older Americans. Then I had an opportunity to go to Bethel and be the secretary to their children’s programs. At Bethel I became the secretary to the Parish Education Department. We had the Sunday Schools and confirmation and all the education and older adult activity classes. It was a full-time job but it was wonderful. I went to work for Bethel in 1968. And these were the years when we had many, many, many children—after the war. I worked for 19 years at Bethel. And then I retired because it was time. My husband had retired.

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“A lot of neighboring back and forth” Our church (Bethel Lutheran) had a group called the Westmorland Circle. It was just for women. We had about 30 members then. We used to have a big picnic out on Mineral Point Road beyond the cemetery when that was the Maddrell farm. He had a big red barn there. He was a member of the church and he said we could use that land. We set up tables and we had a huge ice cream social. There was a good-sized Bible study group. We used to meet in the homes, at night, when the men could stay home and take care of the children. We had a neighborhood bridge club in the afternoon on Wednesdays and we called it a Trash Day Bridge Club because that’s the day they collect- ed the trash. When we put the trash out, we’d remember that this was time to take off for the afternoon and play bridge. The children were in school. We used to have a lot of gatherings in the summertime in people’s yards. My neighbors and I would just put out some tables and have ice cream. We had a very good block—we were very close, with a lot of neighboring back and forth.

Building and equipping Midvale School Most of us moved in when our children were little and going to the local schools. We built Midvale School. It came after we’d lived here about three years (opened in 1951). My two sons had to go to Dudgeon School (on Monroe Street) until Roger, the oldest one, was in third grade. My second son just was there, I think, for kindergarten and then first grade. But then Midvale opened. Well, I say we built it because we did. We were the ones who started the Parent-Teacher Association. To begin with, we had to equip it, raise money for the extra things that didn’t come with just the curriculum. We raised money to buy dishes so that we could have dinners and meals there. We voted there in the gymnasium, and the PTA always had a big bake sale. I knew Paul Olson well, who was the principal for many years. The school had movies on Saturday mornings. They would be the Gene Autrey kinds of thing—guns and everything. But Paul always said, “Don’t worry if there were guns. The good guy never, ever shoots first.”

Remembering Edgar “Pop” Gordon and Roland Johnson There was a professor of music in Westmorland; we called him “Pop” Gordon. He had a radio show called School of the Air that went into the schools of Wisconsin. The students sang, and he would conduct it over the radio. He built a small house across the street (3910 Birch Avenue). He and his wife had come from a big house in the University area. They were older people, he was well retired when he moved here.

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The Alan and Betty Skowlund family in their living room, December 25, 1977.

One time when they first moved in (in 1955), I was standing out in the yard doing something, and he called over to me and he said, “Come on over! Meet the old lady.”Well, I had never met Mrs. Gordon. They had just moved in. So I went over expecting to meet just a lovely, white-haired lady. He introduced me to a huge cactus plant full of blossoms. They called it the “Old Lady.” Pop Gordon was just like the Pied Piper. At Christmastime he went around and got the kids out, and they’d go carolling. He even came over at Christmastime and sat in my living room and asked all the neighbors to come and led us in Christmas carols. He was a wonderful man. Having him was a real plus. He was very, very friendly. He took time with the kids. Two houses down from me was the director of the Madison Opera and Chorus, Roland Johnson. He and his wife—she did a lot of the opera— always gathered around with us when we had a block party or something like that. One time I was out in my yard, and a car came whizzing down the street with the top down. This woman was singing at the top of her voice. And she came up in front of Johnson’s house, stopped the car, stopped singing, and walked in for a lesson. (Roland Johnson lived at 3823 Birch Avenue from about 1965 until December 1997. He directed the Madison Symphony Orchestra from

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1961 until 1994, when John DeMain took over, and Roland became Music Director Laureate. He died on May 30, 2012.) Pop Gordon knitted us together at Christmastime, and other times, too, he really did. And so did Roland Johnson for years. They were proud of the block. They joined things.

“Pop” Gordon Edgar Gordon joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Music faculty in 1917. At the university, Gordon designed music appreciation lessons for underprivileged rural schools. Among the first to perform on WHA in 1921, Edgar Gordon, host of Journeys in Music Land, was perhaps the most famous of all School of the Air broadcasters. For 24 years, from 1931 to 1955, generations of students received his music appreciation broadcasts weekly in their classrooms. By the time he retired it was estimated that he had taught nearly one million students throughout Wisconsin via the ether, and Journeys had become the longest-running, continuous radio music course broadcast to classrooms anywhere. Source: Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research website, retrieved May 24, 2014. http://old.wcftr.commarts.wisc.edu/collections/featured/ madisonradio/schoolofair/gordon/.

82 Chapter Mary (Wenger) Miller and Dale Miller 12 Mary and her son Dale were interviewed by Jean Tretow- Schmitz on June 28, 2013 at 4018 Winnemac Avenue .

Mary: I was born in Middleton, Wisconsin in 1924. Soon after I was born we moved to Dane, Wisconsin, where I grew up on a farm. We enjoyed it. As kids we had a lot of freedom. It was a dairy farm; we had maybe 25 cows. We kids had to help with all the work, everything that was going on at the farm. We milked cows and did all the cleaning in the barns and so on. We had a garden, too. We grew lettuce and potatoes and carrots, beets, beans. There were 10 of us children altogether. I was the second born and the second girl. My chores were mostly in the house, where I helped my mother with whatever needed to be done, like making bread and taking care of the younger children. I helped her with the cleaning, cooking, and all the things that needed to be done in a house. There was always laundry! Originally, we did our laundry outside. We had an engine that kept a belt moving to work the washing machine. There were different phases as we went along the years. It took a lot of manual labor Mary Miller, 20 years old, 1944. to do the laundry. We didn’t really have a specific day that we did it, I suppose just whenever it was necessary. Maybe two or three times a week. With a family of that size there were always diapers to wash. We didn’t have the disposable diapers that they have now. We went to the Hundred Mile School near Dane. It was a one-room school. I lived on that farm until we moved to another farm near Lodi. I was about 19, I’d say. My sister and I both worked at The Log Cabin in Lodi, Wisconsin. It was a restaurant. John happened to come in with another friend. It was the friend who my sister had dated. Those two boys were neighbors. And that’s where it started with John, my husband. As a waitress, I would get to meet the customers. I had a job in Madison during World War II. We took airplane crankcases and we’d have to buff the pieces to remove burrs and make them smooth. I operated a drill. We didn’t have to handle these big crankcases; we had somebody

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to do that. There were different shifts, too. I think I worked a daytime shift if I remember right. My sister and I lived together with my brother-in-law and his wife. I worked there for maybe nearly a year. Then John and I became engaged to be married. I quit my job and came back to Lodi and got ready for the wedding. We were married May 27, 1944. My oldest child was born in 1947 and the next one was born in ’50, and the next one was ’54, and then ’59, and then ’62.

Coming to Westmorland Mary: We moved to this house (4018 Winnemac) in Westmorland in 1951. It was built in 1941. We had two children when we moved here. The oldest one must have been about three and a half, and the younger one was probably maybe a year and a half, something like that. Before moving to Westmorland we lived in an apartment near Bowman Dairy, where my husband was working. My sister-in-law helped us find this home. She lived in a nearby neighborhood. Our apartment on Fish Hatchery Road was very small, and so we were happy to get into a house. The house was completely furnished. There was even food in the refrigerator.

Remembering Our Lady Queen of Peace Church Mary: Queen of Peace started church services originally at Edgewood High School before the church was built. The services were held at the Edgewood campus. Then Queen of Peace School was built around 1948. Westmorland Golf (The school opened in Fall 1949. Masses were held in the school basement Course becomes until the Church was completed in 1955.) Queen of Peace Church I went to the church for services, and I used to belong to the Queen’s In November of 1945, The Guild years ago. It was an association of women, and we had meetings once Westmorland Golf Club, a month or something like that. Queen’s Guild did a lot for the parish. Inc. sold 5.5 acres of the There were dances and social gatherings at Queen of Peace, and I course to the Diocese participated in those, pretty much whatever I could do. of Milwaukee (prior to the establishment of the Mary cooked Diocese of Madison) for Mary: I was the cook for the school at Our Lady Queen of Peace. the new Queen of Peace When I started out, there were about 400 children at school but I don’t Church. Their were 318 remember how many we cooked for at that time. I would say maybe half of families in the original them. I started there in 1969. My children were in the school at that time. parish in 1945. Sunday I usually got to work about 5 o’clock. The first things I’d do would be to masses were held at Edgewood High School unlock all the equipment and get the food that we would be using for the from March 1946 until day. There were three different lunch sections. We’d serve probably from September 1949. (Source: 11:15 till maybe 11:45—about a half hour or better. Westmorland: A Great Place I had a manager. She prepared the menus, and I’d follow them. I was to Live.) the head cook. There were about five cooks altogether. Each had their own job. We had a baker who worked in the same kitchen.

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My favorite things to cook were things that were easy. Hamburger and gravy over mashed potatoes, or even hotdogs—those are the easiest. Dale: When I first started school at Queen of Peace, Ma wasn’t the cook at first. She went to work at Queen of Peace when my brother went to kindergarten. She stayed home with the children until the last one went to school. I was probably in third or fourth grade when she came in. We came home for lunch until Ma started there, because there was nobody to cook lunch for us here. That’s when we started. I would guess lunch break was probably about 35 or 40 minutes, and we live four blocks from the school, so a lot of times we’d run home to eat and then we would walk back. We did that until Ma went to work. I think a lot of us used to like either the hamburgers or the pizza burgers. That was a hamburger bun split with pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese on top and they toasted it in the oven. Mary: I worked at the Queen of Peace hot lunch Mary Miller as a hot lunch lady at Queen of program for 38 years (1967–2005). There were changes Peace School, circa 2000. over time, like pizza burger. I mean actually we call them pizza burgers but at that time, there was no pizza around. Not those days. Not that I was aware of. And then of course when pizza came in, that went over really big. Several of the neighbors worked with me there a long time. One was Eleanor Martinelli, and another was Lorene Schultz. She was my manager for a time. Usually I’d work until 2 o’clock. I would be home before the children got home from school. The first thing I did was check my mail, then take a nap. Then I’d prepare dinner for the family, usually something easy. I still enjoy cooking.

John delivered dairy products Mary: John was a Bowman dairy delivery salesman. He delivered milk and butter and cream and that kind of thing. He would go to work about 3 o’clock in the morning, go to the dairy to pick up his deliveries. He would get home probably about 6 or 7 o’clock in the evening. He had a route in Madison and a route out in the country, too, out near Barneveld from Mount Horeb to Blue Mounds. Dale: He drove a refrigerated van. It had a refrigerator box in the front. I would say it would have been about a good 35 or 40 feet long. When I was a child, in the summertime my dad took us on his route with him. Most of his customers

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trusted him to walk in the house, open up the refrigerator door, and examine to see what they needed. And then he would go on the truck and fill up their refrigerator and then leave. He would hand-write a bill and leave it on their table if they weren’t home. A lot of the older houses had a little door near their back door, just for milk delivery. He would come up and open the door and the empty bottles would be there, so he’d take the empties and either they’d leave a note saying what they needed or he would replace whatever John Miller, Westmorland’s empties he found. Then he’d do the same thing. He’d hand- milkman, with his daughter, write them a bill and then leave. Jeannie, circa 1957. I think the deliveries were once or twice a week, it depended on how many people lived in the house. They always wanted the freshest milk they could have. He would go to the dairy and pick up all the stuff and then when his route came by this area, he would pick us up. That would give Ma a break from one or two of the kids. Then we’d ride with him, and he’d finish his route and then we’d come home. He’d park the van in the dairy on Fish Hatchery Road and then drive home. Mary: Over time he worked at two or three different dairies in Madison and McFarland.

Dale recalls a Westmorland childhood Dale: I was born here in Madison at Madison General Hospital in 1959. This is the first and only house I have lived in. I’m one of five children. I have three older sisters and a younger brother. There were a lot of children in this neighborhood. Almost every house had children, and back in those days, during the summertime, we went down to the park every day. They had all kinds of activities going on—baseball, football, basketball. We went on field trips. We made art. We learned how to swim down at the Vilas Park beach. They used to have a bus that would take us down to Vilas Park beach to go swimming. We did a lot of biking; there was hardly any TV so we went out and made our own entertainment. I really enjoyed my life as a child here and I’m sure all the people my age really did, too. A perfect day when I was 10 years old would be: go to school and have a good day at school. After school, go down to the park. If it was the wintertime, get out of school and come home, get our ice skates, put them on and play hockey, come home and eat, watch a good show on TV, and then go to bed. I went to Queen of Peace School for grade school and then West High. When we were kids, there were more Catholic schools around. They have closed at least four or five of them since I was a kid. I was in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts at Queen of Peace School. They had open gym one night out of the week where any of the kids in the neighborhood were welcome.

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We’d go up there and play in the gym. If the school played with another school in sports, we would go over there and watch. When we were old enough, we got interested in golf since we had the Glenway golf course down at the bottom of the hill. We would go play nine holes of golf. We would have clubs that we got from garage sales. I think we would just bring an iron and a wood. Well, we used to go down to the park and find lots of balls in the woods. John and Mary with their Those were our golf balls. And back in those days, nine holes of golf at children in 1965. Glenway was 75 cents. We usually went golfing with kids in the area. Mary: Mike. And Jeff. Dale: Yes, the Littels. As a teenager, we liked hiking and baseball and football and basketball. When I went to West High School, I did play football for a couple of years. I got hurt so I quit. And I think that was the end of my sports career. And then as I got older, I was tinkering around with cars, a hobby of mine, still is, a little bit.

Madison Recreation Department baseball Dale: I played on some baseball teams that were sponsored for the chil- dren in the neighborhood. Our team was based out of Westmorland Park but then we would go to other parks in the area where we would play other teams that were sponsored by neighborhood companies. This was through the Madison Recreation Department. I think it would start right as soon as we were done with school and then it would end in August. We got uniforms, a hat and a shirt. I think we were grouped by ages. They didn’t have any T-ball back then for the smallest ones. I think it started when you were probably about 10 and then I think it was from 10 to 14. The baseball diamonds were in the lower area of the park by the shel- ter. I had my own glove.

Mary and the WNA Mary: In later years I was on the Westmorland board, I think that was in 1992 and ’93. My job was organizing the Fourth of July parade and the cakewalk and, well, I think that’s pretty much what I did. Dale: Before that, Ma, you were on the collections for the fireworks. Mary: We did that always on the Fourth of July. We had barrels around the park in different areas for donations. We had somebody manning each barrel. That’s how we brought in money for the fireworks.

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Dale: I think it was about 1985 that they moved the fireworks out to Elver Park because the West side was growing so much that Westmorland Park was too small. Mary: There were other things that I did as part of WNA. I’d go to the business places to ask them to donate a certificate for a dinner or something like that. I had pretty good luck with that. I didn’t have very many turn-downs. I enjoyed that.

Some things change, others remain the same Dale: When I was growing up, there was nothing past Whitney Way, nothing, The Miller home at 4018 just farmland. There was no West Towne. Winnemac Avenue, 2013. Westgate (Shopping Center) was the end of town. And when Ma moved here, I don’t think there was much past Midvale Boulevard. The grocery store at Midvale Plaza was a Kroger store. And there was a Sentry Store at Mineral Point Road and Speedway, so we had two grocery stores here. We had gas stations over on Mineral Point Road. There were two gas stations over there. There still is one. Mary: One was a neighbor, Hugh Percy. He lived just across the street (4025 Winnemac Avenue). Dale: Yes, he had a gas station there. That was probably the businesses in Westmorland between Midvale Plaza and over here. The Village Bar has been there forever. The library had been there forever, too. Sentry, 3817 Mineral Point Mary: The library was next to the Village Bar going down Glenway Road, circa early 1980s. Street (1957–1960). Photo from WNA archives. Dale: Then they moved it up to Midvale Plaza (in 1960). I don’t remember it being next to the Village Bar but I remember it being up at Midvale Plaza. Mary: And then there was a grocery store up there, too, in later years. Dale: Right. The Kroger store. Mary: Bergmann’s had a drug store there. Dale: There was an IGA there, too. Mary: I think usually we went to Sentry. Dale: Probably in the early 1980s, down at Hilldale, there was an A&P store. The A&P closed, and Sentry wanted more

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space, so they moved down to Hilldale. I remember that. Mary: And sometimes, I’d go shopping uptown. I’d take the children along. We’d do our shopping like fitting shoes and maybe some clothes. We’d take the bus. That’s many years ago. Dale: The Sequoya Commons development replaced the strip mall where the grocery store and library were. That shopping center needed updating anyway. It was old. Actually I think the new Sequoya Commons really was an improvement in the neighborhood. Mary: I don’t have any concerns about the neighborhood. Only it would be nice if we had curbing. St. Clair Street has curbs. Upper Winnemac Avenue has. But from our block all the way down to Glenway Street, we don’t have any curb and gutter. Dale: The history is there’s a few blocks up here that still have the original 1941 road out front. All they’ve done is patch it. Curbs and gutters would spruce up the Mary Miller with her son Dale neighborhood a little better. in 2013. Mary: The old railroad line used to run along the south edge of the neighborhood. The train stopped a couple of times a day. Dale: Years ago, instead of semis, the train used to carry the supplies for a lot of companies. They would park the train and had a lot of workers unload them to corporations on the train routes. Mary: Maybe some coal and lumber and that type of thing. Fuel probably, too.

Looking forward Dale: It’s still family-oriented but it was more family-oriented years ago. Almost every house had children. It was a really good area to be brought up in if were a child. Mary: And those families, each family had several children but then as they grew older, then they moved. Those days, they didn’t do much remodel- ling. They just moved to a different home if they needed more space. The future I see for Westmorland is pretty much the same—good qual- ity neighbors and families, but a lot less families. We’re close to downtown and close to schools, shopping centers, and there’s barely any crime here. It’s a good place to live.

89 Chapter 13 Joanne (Jackson) Thuesen Joanne was interviewed by Carolyn May on June 20, 2013 in her home at 568 Toepfer Avenue .

My parents, Ernie and Millie Jackson, my two sisters, Lois and Judy, and I lived in a rental two-flat on the corner of Mills and Drake Street between St. Mary’s and Madison General Hospitals until 1951. We lived there for 14 years. My dad was a Madison police officer and had advanced to Sergeant and then Detective after we moved into our newly built home at 461 Westmorland Boulevard. The first floor was finished with a living room with fireplace, dining room, kitchen, and bedroom. The second floor was roughed in for two bedrooms, which my dad slowly finished over the years. He also added on a family room. My mother’s favorite color was red, so of course, the house was painted red with white trim and remained so for many years. My friends really thought we moved out to the sticks. Joanne Thuesen in 2013. There were not a lot of kids our age but many young children, so my sisters and I were very popular babysitters.

A teen with jobs I didn’t have a whole lot of time to socialize as my sister and I worked full-time during the summer and every other weekend during the school year in the operating room at St. Mary’s Hospital. We washed all the instruments after surgery, and on weekends we would clean the autoclave that sterilized all the instruments and the gowns. We would make up packs for the following week that consisted of gowns, masks, instruments, bandages, and that kind of thing, and then we would autoclave them for the following week. It was a lot of responsibility for a young person, but we enjoyed it and enjoyed working with the nurses. We wore an ugly gray uniform. We were only 13 and 14 years old when we got the job, which paid 50 cents an hour, which The Thuesen’s home at 461 Westmorland Boulevard under construction in 1951 we were thrilled with. This was when I made my choice to become a nurse. After two years of that, when I became 16 years old, I was able to get a job at Kroger’s as a checker. I worked at the Kroger’s downtown right off of the Square in the first block

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of East Washington Avenue. I would work Friday nights, too, until 9 o’clock at night. I made a lot more money there but it was hard work, too. I was on my feet all day long, and in the winter it was really cold because the registers were right by the door. Summers were really hot. No air conditioning then. And of course there were no computerized registers. You had to do math in your mind. I worked 40 hours per week in the summer and on weekends during the school year through my freshman year in college.

Edgewood High School, teen parties, and driving lessons My mother and several others were in a carpool that drove us to Edgewood High School in the morning. We either walked or took the bus, which we had to catch at Regent and Allen Street. We did have parties at some of the other teens’ houses—the Leichtenbergs who lived on Paunack and Toepfer Avenue, the Heibels L-R: Ernie Jackson with who lived on Paunack and Holly Avenue, and the Jacobs who lived on Birch daughters Lois, Judy, and Avenue. They were all classmates of mine. The Wilsons, on the corner from Joanne outside the house at us, flooded their backyard for a skating rink. Their son, Pete, was my age 461 Westmorland Boulevard, but went to West High School. June 1954. I took driver’s ed in the summer; there was a coach from West High School who taught me, and then my father took me out. He had to teach my mother how to drive, too, after we moved out here. She had never driven, and all of us kids went with her every time, of course. It was just hilarious. We were constantly criticizing her, making fun of her.

A WNA scholarship leads to UW Nursing School When I was a senior in high school in 1954, the Westmorland Association awarded two $50 scholarships, one to a student from West High School and one from Edgewood High School. I received the one from Edgewood, and Larry Graham from Meyer Avenue received the one from West. It was awarded on the Fourth of July at the Westmorland Park. The money I received went for over half of my tuition for the first semester at the University of Wisconsin. I was in the nursing program. Tuition then was $90 a semester. The first two years I lived at home and then the third year I moved into the UW nurses’ dorm at 1400 University Avenue. I lived there for two and

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a half years. I received my RN after four and a half years and then I had to go another year to get my bachelor’s. Then I moved out into an apartment with some friends that last year. Some of us quit after the four and a half years but most of us went on. I received my BS in Ward Management and Teaching. Our nurses’ uniforms were white dresses, white stockings, white shoes and hats, of course, and when I was in school we had brown ugly dresses with white pinafores, brown shoes, and brown stockings. We would have classes up on the Hill at Bascom Hall. Some of our classes were at the nurses’ dorm but other classes were with everybody else and so we would have to wear our brown dresses, brown shoes, and stockings up there. Most of our training was working on the floor in the different specialties at Wisconsin General Hospital located at 1300 University Avenue, now called University Hospitals.

Family changes During my freshman year in college, to our total disbelief, we welcomed a baby brother. Michael was born in April of 1955. Now he had four mothers who fought over him. He had so many kids in the neighborhood to play with, and my parents became very close friends with their parents. In 1963, one of the neighbors, Don Jones, on Birch Avenue, who worked at Rural Insurance Company, introduced me to John Thuesen, a coworker who worked for Rural in Waukesha. They were having a company Christmas party, and John had recently bought a house at 568 Toepfer Avenue for his mother and sisters. He would come home on weekends. He invited me to the party but I wasn’t very impressed with him. He was persistent. We continued to date. He proposed in July of 1964 and we were married in November at Queen of Peace Church. We had a big church wedding. My two sisters were bridesmaids plus John’s sister, three groomsmen and my 9-year-old brother. Our attendants wore red, because of the holidays. The bridesmaids’ flowers were bouquets of mums hanging from a ribbon and shaped like a snowball. We had a reception at the Top Hat in Middleton. People came in winter clothes but it turned out to be in the 80s that day. The next week it snowed, but we were in Nassau honeymooning at that time. When we came home there was snow everywhere. I worked as a nurse until my daughter, Jane, was born. I was a head nurse by that time on our surgical ward. She was born in 1965, followed by our son Jim in 1967 and John in 1969. Most of the families in our neighborhood had children the same age. They all played together from morning until night except for naps, which they took through kindergarten.

Young mothers together None of the mothers in our neighborhood worked when their children were young, so life was so much easier than today. We cooked, cleaned,

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baked, washed, and hung our clothes out to dry, and ironed … and ironed. We didn’t have to drive the children everywhere as they had everything right here. They spent a lot of time at the park. Summers, the Recreation Department had several people doing crafts and games with the kids. The Stagecoach Players, a traveling theater, would come several times a summer to perform plays. They also Stage Coach Players perform had rollerskating at the park in the summertimes, at the shelter house. at Westmorland Park, Joanne’s In the winter, the skating and hockey rinks were open, and they had son John taking part, summer a nice shelter house to warm up. We always felt so safe here as everyone 1986. always watched out for each other. The kids all walked alone to school together without their parents.

At the Fourth of July festivities, a volunteer nurse That was the biggest event of the year. We all pitched in to get the park ready. The kids made floats and decorated their bikes for the parade to the park. A few years my husband, John, grilled chicken and brats on large grills and in later years got the insurance for the fireworks from his company. I volunteered for a shift at the nurses’ station. There were quite a few nurses in the neighborhood who volunteered. It was an all-day affair. We had pony rides, carnival rides, dunk tank, beer tent, bingo, and fireworks at dusk. People came from all over the city. Unfortunately, the insurance became too expensive. Sometimes the fireworks didn’t go up correctly. They went into the crowd and would come down on the ground. There were a few slight burns but nothing very serious. The park was too small to handle everyone, and there were a few accidents, so the fireworks were discontinued. It just got too overwhelming for a small park.

Parties We had lots of parties. One time they were putting new pavement down on Toepfer Avenue, and it was closed off. We would sit out there and have fires right in the middle of the street and roast hotdogs and stuff. That was fun. Of course we had 40th birthday parties frequently. We were all around the same age and so we were all turning 40, which at that time seemed ancient. Now it seems like kids! But we would have—I know for Marie

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across the street we had a funeral. She was out with her family for dinner. When she came back we were all sitting around a casket in her front yard in black, mourning her and moaning and music coming from the inside. She turned 40 so we were having a funeral for her. We had Halloween costume parties where we all dressed up in outra- geous costumes that we just put together from things we had around the house. We would have bridge clubs that we played in and mostly we would sub in each other’s clubs. We all had clubs outside of the neighborhood, and I would often sub in their clubs and they would sub for me. The moms would do things together, too, like we’d have coffee during the day, get together and have coffee while the kids played.

Volunteering with the WNA I was a block captain for a number of years and also on the Westmorland board for several years. That was fun. My husband was the Santa for a number of years. He loved that. And my kids all delivered the Westmorland Courier.

Thinking of moving out … We used to go to the Parade of Homes and see all these new beautiful homes. We got the bug there for a while. In the mid-’70s, we had plans to build a new home on the far Westside. But then the more thought we put into it, we decided to forgo that as our children had all of their friends here, Queen of Peace School, church, park, library, grocery stores, pharmacy, golf course, on the bus line, and neighbors we would miss. We just couldn’t handle all that, and my mother who was widowed lived just a few blocks The Thuesens’ home at 568 Toepfer Avenue in 2014. from me and she needed our help. We never regretted staying. Instead, we made changes to our house. Originally our house had a carport but in the mid- ’80s, we enclosed that into a garage. And then we extended the house out the back 14 feet and across by 28 feet. This enlarged our kitchen with an open sunroom and a deck added. It gave us a lot of added room which we’ve enjoyed.

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Four generations in Westmorland We had four generations of our family living out here until my grandmother died. My grandmother lived with my aunt, uncle, and their daughter, who lived on Keating Terrace. My aunt still lives there. She is 94 now. My grandmother lived with her until she died in 1977. Then there was me and my family at 568 Toepfer Avenue. So that was four generations. My sister and her husband and family built one of the new homes on Chatham Circle. They don’t live there John and Joanne Thuesen in anymore but they built there in the mid-1970s, and so they were living here, 1988. too. We had quite a few of us in the neighborhood. My parents only lived a few blocks away (461 Westmorland Boulevard). My dad died in 1971, and my mother in 1996. My dad and mother were able to stay in their home until their death with the help of my sister, who’s also a nurse, and me caring for them. They just loved their Westmorland home. It was hard for us to have to sell it. But it has been very well cared for since. The people who lived there after we sold it had the basement finished and a large garage added. They have welcomed us to show us what they had done to the house. That was very nice. My husband died in 1988. I have lived alone in my home now for 25 years. I still have some of my original neighbors. My children all live nearby, and I have cared for all my grandchildren, all six of them, part-time until they’ve started school. So that’s been a real joy. They had a lot of fun here and, of course, taking them to the park where they would play on all the equipment. There was a giant sandbox— we took all their trucks and different things and built castles. Their giant sandbox was actually the volleyball court, which I don’t know if that was appreciated, but that’s how we used it. We also explored the woods and rock garden. In the winter, we would go to the park and slide down the hills. We’re just a block from the park. They’ve kept up with new equipment. They’ve kept the tennis court up nicely and the shelter house, too. It did burn down once—some kids set that on fire—and it was rebuilt. There was some graffiti on it for a while but I haven’t seen any lately. There were a few problems with kids drinking in the park but I haven’t seen that lately either. It’s much quieter than it used to be. There are many young single people who have bought homes here and even though we now have a number of children here, seldom are they outside playing. Most are in daycare or after- school care while both parents are working. It’s still a great, safe community, and I hope to live here as long as I am able. People walk by and if I’m outside, they’ll stop and visit, even if you don’t know them. And pretty soon you know them.

95 Chapter 14 Ken and Mary (Alderson) Quinn Ken and Mary were interviewed by Jan Murphy on Sept­ ember 14, 2013 at 450 South Owen Drive .

Ken: I was born on North Owen Drive (in Sunset Village) in 1954. Actually, I was not in the hospital. It was a little surprise. They called the doctor and said my mom was having a lot of back pain. The doctor said, “Back pain has nothing to do with labor. Don’t worry.” My dad called back and said, “I really think it is labor.” And the doctor said, “Have you had a child before? Is this your first? Settle down.” And then he called back and the doctor said, “Why are you calling back again?” “Because I can see the head.” I guess my grandma was there to help out. We moved a year later to 4109 Meyer Avenue in Westmorland. The neighbors next door were the Millers, Eleanor and Rasmussen, an older couple. He had a big garden in the backyard. When we played basketball in the driveway, the Ken Quinn and Mary Alderson ball would sometimes roll down into their yard and garden. before the Edgewood prom, 1971. That was a bit of a problem, but they were really pretty nice people. Mary: We met in first grade at Queen of Peace School. We were in the same classroom of 47 or 50 kids all the way through eight years and then we went on to high school together. I grew up on Waverly Place, around the corner from my dad’s Alderson Texaco gas station, the building where Speedway meets Mineral Point Road where Fit 2 Eat deli is. My maiden name is Alderson. I spent a lot of time over here in Westmorland because of going to Queen of Peace.

Kids’ games circa 1966 Ken: I remember there were lots of kids on the street, the Leahys, the Liegels, the Kuehns, the Walljaspers, the Ad from the Westmorland Neighborhodd Directory,1965. Murphys. There were enough kids on Meyer to get a whole football team together. And we would play against the kids on Birch—they had a full football team as well. I remember playing down at Westmorland Park before the tennis courts were there. It was a field. We played hockey on the hockey rink when the boards were mounds of snow as opposed to boards. It wasn’t

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organized hockey, just pickup games. And I remember skating down there all the time. I actually got pretty good at skating. There were just hundreds of kids in the neighborhood because there were an awful lot of families with six and eight and more kids, being Catholic Irish or Italian families. I remember so many kids on the ice rink that it would be crowded, you had to kind of work your way around. There were a number of speed skaters in the neighborhood. One of the fathers had been in the Olympics. We used to play a game on the ice, something like Red Rover, where you had to get to the other side without getting tagged. And I also remem- ber doing Crack the Whip. That was fun, as long as you didn’t get killed on the end of the whip. It’s where the kids hold hands in a long line and you’re skating forward broadside. Then the person on one end stops. The line swings around so the person on the end gets going really fast. You just have to try and stay up and not catch an edge and fall over. I think they banned that after a few people went a little too fast and out of control. Mary: We used to all go skating at Westmorland, even though Sunset Park was closer. It was far more fun because it was packed all the time. It was a hike for us, but it was worth it. We’d skate and then we’d have to walk home freezing cold. Ken: A game we’d play in summer was Kick the Can. That was a fabulous activity because it would just go on for hours. I remember we always played at Joan Murphy’s corner, at Winnemac and Holly. First of all, you get a soup can and pick a person to be “it.” The person who was “it” would count to whatever, and everybody would just scatter. We always used either Mississippi or Kinnikinnick for counting, “One Kinnikinnick, two Kinnikinnick …” This was to give people the time to run and hide. And then, the person who was “it” would have to go look for them. Then the person who was “it” would have to come back, put a foot on the can, and say, “I saw Mary Alderson hiding behind this bush” or whatever. Once your name was called out, you had to come in and you were done. The person who was “it” would go around and find other people. But, if somebody could come in and kick the can out into the street, then everybody would go free and the game started all over again. My parents had this deal with us that when we played outside after dinner, we had to come in when the streetlights came on. They’d be sitting on their back porch, looking at the streetlight down at Westmorland and Winnemac, where it is covered by trees. That streetlight would go on much earlier than the streetlights over on Holly. Apparently, there were light sensors in there and over on Holly, it was much more open and so those streetlights wouldn’t go on as soon. So, we always played over at that end. And my parents would come and say, “Streetlights have been on for a long time.” “No it hasn’t. It just came on.” Mary: Sometimes your dad (Stan Quinn) would get sent to go get you guys. Then Joan and “Murph” (Murphy) would go, “Oh, Stan. Have a beer.” He’d stay and have a beer until Mom called to track us all down.

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Madison Recreation activities in local parks Ken: The Stage Coach theater would come to the park sometimes. The broad side would open up and it would have a stage with scenery inside. The actors were all from Madison Recreation Department, probably teenagers or maybe university theater majors. They were all in costume and they’d do a play. Then there were the park instructors, what I’ve heard called Green Box now. These instructors were almost full-time, just about every day. They would have activities like playing chess or—What was that board game on the other side? Mary: Mill. Ken: Playing Mill, or doing stuff with gimp (a type of flat plastic string). There’d be one or two people there, again, probably teenagers or college students, working for Madison Rec, to lead the activities. Mary: I was at the Reservoir Park, but it was all pretty much the same stuff. Everyday, that Green Box, gimp. For me, the big highlight was the Green Box. We did a lot of arts and crafts, maybe crepe paper or tissue paper, make stained glass windows or whatever. There was always something going on there. There was a lantern parade for kids from all the different Green Box areas. You went to Vilas Park one night with your lantern that you had made out of some sort of poster board frame that you put together with tissue paper. Then you put a flashlight in it. There was a parade of lots of kids. The park down at Vilas is configured a little differently than it was back then, but I remember walking around the lagoon, going up over a bridge, and looking at people on the other side with these lanterns being reflected in the water. It was so cool, especially to be out as a little kid at night without your parents. It was really, really cool.

Go-karts at Glenway Golf Course Mary: At one time there was a go-kart racetrack where you go down Speedway and you pass the parking lot to the golf course. (There’s a building there now.) That’s where the big kids would make their go-karts and then race them. It was just across the street from us on Waverly Place. As little kids, we were allowed to cross the street when we were 5 years old because there was no traffic. So, we could go over there in the evenings, when they raced their go-karts, and we’d sit along the edge and we’d watch the big kids. It was just boys, not girls. Because my dad had the gas station there, he was kind of a go-to guy for these guys.

Fourth of July remembered Ken: It was a really big deal from my earliest memory. I remember these aunts and uncles and cousins, mainly these two cousins, teenage girls,

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helping us decorate our bikes. It was a big deal to decorate the bikes and then go up to Queen of Peace, get judged. My brother won something one time. There were darts and the usual little kids’ games like “ducks floating in the water.” You pick one, you get whatever prize. Of course, the prizes were all really cheap. And so, we loaded up our pockets with all of this really cheap stuff. It was a lot of fun. Meanwhile, the parents were in the beer tent and we had to go and coerce more money out of them, more tickets. I just remember my father had this big roll of tickets and he’d just give us enough to have us hit the road and he could have another beer, but not enough for us to be gone too long. Sometime, it may have been a day or a week before, they fogged for the mosquitoes. I remember running through the fog, whatever it happened to be, DDT or whatever. I probably still have some stored in my body somewhere. That was fun, running through the fog.

Queen of Peace School Mary: We started Queen of Peace in first grade. We were expected to go to church every morning. School started after Mass. And because you had to fast before you took communion, that meant bringing your breakfast to school. So you started your day with your little brown bag and eating your cold toast with jelly or maybe your mom made scrambled eggs in between toasts. Ken: I remember having cereal and we had milk. Mary: We didn’t have cereal because my mother wouldn’t buy those little boxes. Ken: Oh, no. We had Tupperware—we wouldn’t get those fancy little boxes either. Mary: Every day you’re expected to do this, first through eighth grade. Well, nobody took attendance or anything like that. As we got older, there was a whole bunch of us who walked to school together. We would stand on the corner of Mineral Point Road and Westmorland Boulevard. And at that time, there was no traffic, but we’d go, “I think I hear a car coming. We’d better not cross the street.” We would stand, many days, throughout the whole Mass and get to school just as everybody was getting out of church. Ken: My favorite teacher at Queen of Peace was Sister Mose. I think it was eighth grade. She was into science, and so was I. She organized a science fair. I did a little project and ended up getting a blue ribbon. Maybe that’s why I remember her. There were others, like Sister Veranice. I think that was sixth grade. She was pretty strict, they all were, but she had good qualities. I would say about 80 percent of the teachers were nuns. Mary: There was always a Christmas program where every grade got up and sang a song. It was big night when the parents came. Ken: And the band would play. I played drums, but I was just terrible.

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Mary: We had big classes. And the funny thing is I work there now, and there have been times when they’ve increased the class size, gone from 24 students to 27 in a class. And I remember people saying, “Where are we going to put all of these desks?” And I would just kind of snicker, thinking, “You can’t figure out where to put 27? We had sometimes 50 desks in a room!” Sister Veranice had a reputation of being very strict, and I was kind of afraid to get her. But I really liked her because she was a good teacher and you knew what to expect. If you met that, you were fine. But if you didn’t do your work, she’d be all over you. She taught us how to play the harmonica, that was fun. And she had great parties, but she had you earn the party. She taught us how to play Bunko. She set up enough card tables for a class of probably 45 or 50 kids. The winner would progress until finally you played at the winner’s table. It went on all afternoon, down in the gym. And we’d stop and have ice cream sandwiches. We had soda. Ken: I remember a party with pizza. Mary: Those things like pizza were just unheard of back then. When Sister threw a party, it was a lot of fun. But boy, if you were on her bad side, which I was once … Mrs. O’Brien was a lay teacher, and they would switch. She’d come do geography, and Sister Veranice would go over and do religion. When Mrs. O’Brien would come over we would horse around, because it wasn’t Sister Veranice. I sat in the back row, and we were doing this thing, where your job was to get into somebody’s desk and steal their pencil case. Then the fun started, and it would just keep getting passed around. Well, it was just way too much for this teacher, and she walked out of the room. And then Sister Veranice came back in and she said, “Back row, out in the hall.” She was going to chew us out. There was this one student who was really and truly brilliant and well- behaved. Unfortunately, she was a friend of mine and if she ever got in trouble, it was with me. We were out in the hall, and Sister Veranice was going down the line lecturing everybody. She got to this person and she said, “What are you doing here?” And I went, “Sister, it was my fault.” And she literally, just looked at my friend and said, “Get back in the classroom.” And then she came to me, “Yarrrrr.” She knew who to chew out and who not to.

Modern nuns Ken: I remember “Christian Social Principles,” that was seventh grade, Sister Deborah. Mary: It was on being a good citizen, things like doing volunteer work and being honest. It wasn’t like Catholicism, but basic morals. Sister Debo- rah was, and I’ve just come to this realization, a modern nun. When we were in sixth grade, the nuns went from their nun outfits to their bangs and wearing skirts.

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Ken: They kept just a little headdress. Mary: You saw their hair for the first time. Sister Deborah and those four teachers who taught seventh and eighth grade were really pretty hip. They were teaching us to sing They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love . Last year I looked at the copyright date, 1966. We were singing it in 1967. And she was teaching us We Shall Overcome, and lots of guitar music. It was just a total change in the freedom of the nuns, I think. Ken: Well, it was the Civil Rights Movement. They were supporting that. Mary: We never heard anything about that in fifth or sixth grade. But in seventh and eighth grade, we were getting a lot of that. There was Sister Clement Mary with her guitar, teaching us all the popular new Christian music, and Sister Deborah and her social principles. We graduated in 1968.

Eighth grade: best friends Mary Clare Murphy and I became cheerleaders in eighth grade. We became really fast friends. Her mother, Joan Murphy, having just the two kids, had more time and she’s very social. She got to know my mom, and they became best friends. One of the first things they did was take a sewing class together, I think it was at Yost’s down on State Street. They thought it was so much fun that they signed Mary Clare and me up to take it, which was a riot. One of our favorite things to do was to go down into Hilldale to Kessenich Fabrics. We’d look at patterns and materials. We made all our clothes, so sometimes we were concentrating on something, but we would go down there just for fun, too. And we’d go, “Who does this material remind you of? Oh, who does this remind you of?” Mary Clare and I used to go golfing. We used to take cheese and salami and crackers and something to drink. We would start to play golf but we’d get turned off halfway through. We’d just go off on the fairway somewhere and we’d sit down and have a snack and let people play through us. We were just having a ball, laughing and giggling and carrying on. The golf was inconsequential. Mary Clare and Will Murphy and I, we just did a ton of fun things together. And then I started dating Ken, and he became part of the group.

Fun with the Murphys Ken: I remember sleeping over at Will’s one time. Will was in the lower bunk, and I was on the upper bunk. Joan was a great mom. I remember her coming in and saying goodnight to us. And she gave me a kiss goodnight— it was just so nice. I don’t know why I remember that. It was just a nice childhood memory. Mary: In certain ways, both of our lives have been influenced by Joan and Murph. They took me so many places. My mom had six children between the ages of 8 and 17 when she was widowed. I wouldn’t have gone anywhere if it

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Quinn family wedding, weren’t for the Murphys. They would take me to Milwaukee and Appleton October 12, 2013. L-R: Colin when they went to visit relatives. They would take me to Door County to go (Ken and Mary’s son) holding his son Sean, his wife Jenny, camping. They’d take me to Florida for spring break. bride and groom Tess and Ian As we were raising our kids, we would invite kids along on trips, and (Ken and Mary’s other son) I would joke to Ken, “I’m turning into Mrs. Murphy. Just start calling me holding Colin’s son Nolan, Mrs. Murphy,” because we’d take kids on ski trips or up north with us and Mary and Ken. stuff like that. Joan is just so vivacious. She taught me that if you’re going to have something like strawberry shortcake, have it for breakfast. When a bunch of us would be sleeping over there, she would make strawberry shortcake if strawberries were in season. And we’d have it with ice cream for breakfast. So, we have raised our children that if you have strawberry shortcake, have it for breakfast. Because why not? Ken: I always looked up to Mr. Murphy. He was the scientist father in the neighborhood and a good role model. Now, my father was definitely my strongest mentor, but Mr. Murphy was certainly right behind him there. Mary: He had such a dry sense of humor. He was always so calm. Oh my goodness, I remember once, when we were 16 or 17 years old, I was with a friend Jeanine and Mary Clare as well as other friends. Jeanine was dating this older guy. He was parachuting out of the Waunakee airport. So a bunch of us got in Murph’s green Ford and we drove off to the Waunakee airport. At that time, the planes landed over the road you drove in on. We were in the car and we looked out the windows on the driver’s side and we

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started to scream because there was a plane right there. The wheels went over the top of the car as it landed. We came home all hysterical. Murph was sitting in the living room, reading the paper. We came in and we said, “We almost got killed. We almost got hit by a plane, it went right over the top of the car.” He just lowered the paper down, “Mmm-hmm,” and lifted the paper back up. The next Saturday, he went to wash his car, and there were tracks across the top. And he came in and just said, “You were right.” That’s all he said. “You were right.”

Ken and Mary, love and marriage Mary: Actually I had my first crush on him in sixth grade, and it would just kind of come and go with him. Matter of fact, today is our 39th wedding anniversary. We went to Edgewood High School together. We started dating as juniors. Because our parents all belonged to Queen of Peace Church, they all knew each other. Ken and I started dating in 1970. I knew all his friends. He knew all my friends. We had a group of friends who came from both groups. Ken: Deciding to get married was just kind of a gradual thing. Mary: This is just a terrible thing—we opened a joint savings account after we’d been dating a year. We were seniors in high school. How did that even happen? Why did they give us an account? Anyway, his mother found the passbook. To her credit, she told him it was a terrible idea, but didn’t tell my mom. She said that we could break up, and I could take all the money and— Ken: Well, it was tens of dollars— Mary: It was college tuition money because we knew that we were go- ing to get married in college. We knew that we had to have college money. So, we were saving college money and that was one of our claims to fame. We got through college—being married two of those years—without a loan or anything. Ken: We paid our own way through. Mary: We owed nothing.

Moving away, moving back Ken: I moved away from the neighborhood when we got married, when we were juniors in college at the UW. Then we moved away to grad school for a couple of years. Mary: We went to grad school at Ohio University in southeast Ohio. Ken: Then we started looking for jobs and interviewing around the country. I saw this job opportunity in Madison and my first reaction was, “Madison? No, I’m not going back to Madison!” But it was the job that really fit; it was what I really wanted to do. I applied and I got the interview and got offered the job and then had to decide, Do I want to go back to

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Madison? We’re out of there, spreading our wings. Oh well, I guess we’re going back to Madison. The job was with the DNR and using my geology degree. It turned out to be exactly what I wanted to do. We moved to an apartment on Russet Road for a year or two. And then we bought a little house on Doncaster and were there for about five years. Then we started looking for a house in this neighborhood. This was about 1985. A woman in my mom’s card club, Mrs. Sendlebach, was telling everybody how they were having a house built somewhere. And The Quinn home at 450 so Mom said, “Hey, my kid’s looking for a S. Owen Drive in 2014. house.” We came and looked at her house. It was kind of an unusual deal in that the Sendlebachs were trading it to Impala Homes, which was building houses and had a realty just because they were selling the houses they were building. The Sendlebachs traded this house to Impala Realty for the house they were building. We talked to the realtor and we thought, “This house is going to be too much money for us.” Mary: Well, first we had looked for a year and a half and we just couldn’t find anything we could afford. We had put in a lot of offers on dif- ferent houses, but didn’t get anything. Ken: And so I said to the realtor, “Well, you know I was kind of thinking of offering this.” And he turned around and said, “Well, if you offer us …” and what he suggested was six or seven thousand dollars less than what I said. So here the guy who was trying to sell us the house, was telling us, “Offer us less, and we’ll take it.” So we did. It was a good deal. The kids were one of the reasons that we wanted to move back to Westmorland. Our second child was severely allergic. And I kept thinking, how can he eat lunch at school? What can I even pack for him? He couldn’t eat bread or eggs or any kind of dairy product, or even soy. You name it, he was allergic to it. We had decided we really wanted our kids to go to Queen of Peace. We wanted to be close enough that he could come home for lunch if he had to, which is why it took a year and a half to find a house. And we really lucked out finding this one we could afford.

104 Chapter Joan (VandenBerg) Murphy 15 Joan was interviewed by Jan Murphy on June 5, 2013 at 507 Holly Avenue . She married Donald M . (Murph) Murphy in 1953 in Appleton, Wisconsin . She has two children, Mary Clare and William .

We moved from Appleton in the 1950s when Murph was offered a good job with WARF (Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation) at the University here in Madison. There were only two apartments in the whole city of Madison for rent. One was at William Place, which was an alley in South Madison, and the other one was on Vilas Avenue, and that one’s a big white two-flat; the bottom one was for rent. It was a $110, and that was exorbitant in our minds at that point, but there was nothing else except the one on the alley. So we took the Vilas one—and we were so happy because it was a wonderful introduction to Madison, that area. The zoo and the beach, we just had everything going for us there. The flat had a sunroom in front, and we used it for a playroom for Mary Clare. We could hear all the animals at night. We did not have air conditioning in those days and you just went to sleep to the roar of the lions. We Joan Murphy in 2013. loved it. It was probably the prices of homes that led us to look in Westmorland. Vilas was a very expensive area, and I remember we drove around a lot and when we saw this house—it only had the two bedrooms upstairs, but we could see the possibility with the big yard where we could expand. And we loved that the park was right at our fingertips, and the shopping center, and our church, Queen of Peace. We moved to Westmorland in 1957. So the kids went to kindergarten at Midvale Elementary, and then from first grade on through eighth, Queen of Peace, and then from Queen of Peace to high school at Edgewood, and then they both graduated from the University of Wisconsin. We’ve been loving the area all those years. They just love coming home here.

Moms “coffeed” while kids played Holly Avenue didn’t do block parties like Meyer Avenue did, but we socialized. Rita Walljasper was a good friend of mine. She’s lived in two houses on Meyer; she used to live

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“1957: Will Murphy (in hi- chair) 1st birthday. Guests: Mary Clare Murphy, Cheryl Severson, Barb Wegner, Lyn Laufenberg, Ann Kittle, Ellen Sprecher, Mary Sanger, Diane Arndt, Jim Oppert, Diane Oppert,” Joan Murphy wrote on the back of this photograph.

in the ranch house across the street (4118 Meyer Avenue), she left and then “Neighbor ladies Elaine they moved to 4129. We were always friends, and the Quinns were friends Wegner (518 Holly Avenue), Joan Murphy, Mrs. Halverson, of ours, too. Arlene Leahy and I had coffee every now and then, part of Maureen Seaerson, 1967, in the whole group. There was a lot more going on in those days; we were all front of Murphy house before home. remodeling,” Joan Murphy We all seemed to buy those big coffee pots, the bigger ones because we wrote on the back of this photograph. did a lot of entertaining. Now that I think of it, nothing formal, just go to someone’s house for coffee when the kids were in school. We talked about everything under the sun, the kids’ doings. A lot of playing in the neighborhood happened at our house because we had a pretty big yard and we were on the corner. It was kind of a melding place. I remember one story. My mother and my sister were visiting from Appleton and there were always a lot of little kids around, because I liked it and it was fun for our kids, they were all in and out. My mother said, “Now all you children go home now. Mrs. Murphy has to get some work done,” or something like that. So all the kids vanished. Then my mother and sister got in their car and left. And Mom said to Margaret, “Go around the block. I bet those kids are back, I bet Joan let them all back in.” And sure enough, all the kids were back. They had a good laugh. The kids would play games in the street. We had no cars parked on the road then because everybody put their cars in the garage. It was a free-for-all. There’d be every age out there playing. They played

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any of those games—Kick the Can and all different things. Fred Wegner across the street (at 518 Holly Avenue), I think he was a professor at the University, and he’d be out there with all the kids because he was an assistant baseball coach. He’d get the kids out there, and they’d play baseball. I remember one night, the kids were all playing out in front, and Ken Quinn was supposed to be home and he was still out playing. So his dad shows up, “Oh, I was just looking for Ken. My wife said it was time that he came home.” We had a screened porch in the back before the addition;Murph built it right when we moved in. It was just a nice little porch, room for a table and a couple of rockers. So Stan Quinn and Murph and I poured a glass of wine, and we sat out in the porch, and about 20 minutes later, the phone rings and it was his wife. She said, “Well, I thought he was going to get Ken, but it got later.” I said that we were just sitting and having a glass of wine. He took Ken home after that.

Fourth of July meant guests The Fourth of July was the biggest day of the year, including Christmas. You didn’t plan on being out of town ever, and our house was on the parade route, so all our bridge clubs—everybody—was welcome here July 4th. I had the big coffee thing in the morning, and the families would start showing up so they could get parking. I had platters of doughnuts and coffee ready at 8:30 a.m., because if the parade started at 9:00, people came early and had coffee. Then when the parade came past the house, everybody cheered! We had cheerers lined up along the route. The kids were all dressed in their outfits. Sometimes the parade got kind of dangerous because starting at our house the route went downhill. They’d be running down the hill, and the kids were flopping all over, and then the ones on bikes would run into the kids with the buggies, and it became dangerous. Oh, but it was exciting, too, because the band from Cherokee (a middle school on Midvale Boulevard) would lead them. First the police squad “Chairs lining up for 4th of car would come, and then the band, then the kids. When that got just too July Parade, 507 Holly Ave, dangerous, they enlarged the route to go down South Owen Drive. That 1963,” Joan Murphy wrote on made more sense. the back of this photograph. Now they have a grown-up band. I think what I miss is the fact that it doesn’t go past my house anymore. I loved having that whole day in the yard. We’d cheer as every kid we knew went past. But I’m so glad Westmorland keeps that parade going. We were down at the park volunteering, too. That went on all day. So we had people coming here from 8:30 in the morning to 9:00 at night—all

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day—and then we had wonderful fireworks. I used to go down into the basement with our dog, Peppy, and hold her ears. She didn’t like fireworks.

Activities with family and friends We started camping when Will was 3—we didn’t go camping with kids in diapers—and Mary Clare was 5. At first we did camp with somebody else’s stuff, one time at Devil’s Lake, and we knew we liked it. So for the next Father’s Day, I went to Wolff, Kubly (and Hirsig) down on the Square and bought a tent and everything you needed to camp. People would offer their stuff when we went, but we didn’t want to be borrowing all the time. Will and Mary Clare before the Fourth of July parade in 1959. I remember I put the camping gear on layaway and then paid $5 down or so. It took me probably six months to pay it off but I gave it all to Murph for Father’s Day. We had a big 8x10 foot tent: Murph was 6'3" and he could walk in it. And then he made a screened porch for the tent so we had a really swanky outfit. And we camped a lot. Up at Devil’s Lake, Sheboygan—all over—and many times we took other kids with us so that our kids would have somebody to play with, and they just loved it. We did sleepovers with the kids, a lot of that. Every one of the older neighbor kids babysat here at some point. Like Dianna Arndt (who lived at 526 Holly Avenue) babysat here, and Marg (Margaret Mary) Sanger and Art Sanger (who lived at 514 Holly Avenue) were looking for babysitting jobs, so we alternated because they were all close. I remember we came home one night from bridge club and Mary Clare was asleep, but Will was up, this was midnight and Art Sanger was babysitting, him and the halls were full of popcorn from one end to the other. On Packer Sundays, I’d always have three or four kids here watching the game with us—Will’s friends, and the girls were Packer fans, too. We’d all watch. I’d gauge our dinner so that we didn’t have to miss any of the game when we’d sit down—usually Sunday dinner was pot roast. During half-time when it wasn’t dinnertime, all the kids would play outside and then they’d come back in when the game was on. Carl Sanger, who lived across the street (at 514 Holly Avenue), was highly responsible for getting our tennis courts. He was a tennis coach at the University, and that was a good thing to happen to Westmorland Park. Those tennis courts were used. Our kids were in grade school when we got them. The kids would come home from school and run upstairs and look out their bedroom window to see if there was an empty court and then run down with a racquet. We have so many nice things here in Westmorland. At Queen of Peace the boys had seventh- and eighth-grade basketball teams. The girls were cheerleaders. The girls didn’t get their sports activities

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in school until I think Mary Clare said it was 1973. She graduated from Edgewood in 1972. There were no girls’ teams, except for your gym class. They had a golf team at Edgewood High School. Will was on that and so was Tom Walljasper. Tom won the trophy one year, and the next year Will won it. Will learned how to play golf at Glenway and he worked there, too, even in college. Murph played, and then we got our kids golf clubs when they were young … and skis. I remember we went to this hardware store out in Middleton and bought them junior skis when they were maybe 6 and 8, something like that. The hills at the cemetery down here next to Glenway is where they learned how to ski. Then we joined Black Will and Tom Walljasper Hawk Ski Club, which is still going, and Mary Clare is still a member with shooting baskets in the her family. This was downhill skiing; they didn’t do cross-country skiing Murphys’ driveway, 1966. much back in those days. We’d pile them into the car and take them down to the cemetery, and they’d ski down—they liked that. That’s why we joined the Black Hawk Ski Club. They had chair lifts and everything. They got to be pretty good skiers, so they went on a lot of trips out West. Vail, Aspen—all those places.

Kids’ jobs Babysitting was their first job. Will was a paperboy for a while, but it Poole’s Cuba Club operated at didn’t last long because it interfered with his golf in the summer. And then 3416 University Avenue from when they were 16, West Towne opened. 1946 to 1988. Postcard from the collection of Ann When Mary Clare turned 16, she went out to West Towne to find a Waidelich. job. She, Mary Alderson, and a bunch of friends all went together. She got her first full-time job at 16 years old at a place called the Tie Rack where all the ties were, I think, a dollar. Will’s first job was as a busboy at the Cuba Club restaurant (3416 University Avenue). It was famous—everybody loved the Cuba Club. After that he just worked at Glenway and Odana golf courses. Will was friends with Ken Quinn.

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Growing families, expanding homes I’ll tell you, there’s hardly a house down on Winnemac that hasn’t been added onto. When we moved here, there were only small houses down on Winnemac, but everybody probably had the same idea, to add on if they wanted to stay, like we did. I think we instigated some of the additions because we had many friends and because we’re on the corner and very visible. People would come around the corner, and we’d be outside, so they talked to us about the remodelling job. The other people living down the street figured, well, if they can do it, we can do it. That year after we remodelled, there were so many additions put up. Even across the street, the big white colonial (518 Holly Avenue). They added a room in the back, took our same contractor, and had the same panelling as we have in the family room, and ordered the same big picture/ bay window. In the house where Helen Karls lives now (510 Holly Avenue), there was a couple, in their mid 90s, and he was a retired carpenter. When we started our job here, he was happy as a tick to have something to do, so he’d come over— his name was Mr. Richard Crase. He’d come over every morning with his carpenter apron on, and he’d work with the guys. One day, Carl Sanger, who lived across the street, was helping Murph put panelling in this big closet here. Mr. Crase came over later and he looked at the closet and he sat down and said, “Well, it’s okay, but,” he said, “you probably should have done the The Murphys’ home at 507 Holly Avenue after panelling before you had the beer, because you got it upside down.” remodeling, 1965. We all laughed about that because he was our little boss. One day Murph was on vacation and he got called into a meeting. He put his business suit on and got his briefcase and said to me, “If Mr. Crase comes over, don’t let him do a thing. Don’t let him touch that bathroom.” I said, “Okay.” So Murph went to the meeting, and pretty soon Mr. Crase came over. He had me hauling sheet rock from the front room and into the bathroom. He had that up by the time Murph got home. That was him.

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His wife Mary would make soup and bring it over. I can still see her—she was 93—coming up the front steps. There were footings outside, and then they had a plank across it. To get in the house, she had to walk across this plank. She’d come with this kettle of soup walking across the plank and over here to feed whoever was working at that time. It was that kind of neighborhood— good thing. Fred and Carl were always over here giving advice—and it was fun! Neighborhood girls, circa Everyone in the neighborhood could see how things were going. 1958. “Ellen Sprecher, Linda The breezeway to the garage was a teardown. The kids from the Singer, Diane Arndt, Barb neighborhood all came over, and they tore it down with sledge hammers, Wegner, Nancy (last name unknown), Lynn Laufenberg, knocking the boards out. The next day, Murph and I had to go down to the Diane Oppert, Margie Sanger, building inspector’s office to get a permit. holding Will Murphy, Mary The guy said, “You can’t add on to that house.” And Murph said, Clare, Cheryl Severson,” Joan “What do you mean?” The inspector said, “Oh, you can’t go up in any Murphy wrote on the back of this photograph. way on that lot” (something to do with local ordinances), “and we just about died, because we had already torn it down—the whole part! Murph said, “Well, we’ll see. We’re going to have to talk to somebody.” And the inspector said, “Well, if you can add on to that, I’ll eat my hat.” We found a Mr. Johnson who lived across from Queen of Peace on Mineral Point Road. He came over and looked around. Then he measured and said, “You can add on here.” It was nip and tuck for a while because here we were with no building permit until Mr. Johnson came through. Mr. Simpson was our contractor, and he was an older fellow—hands on—that you could just trust. Murph had a meeting at the University of Illinois, and we were going to use that meeting as a vacation with the kids ,so we left. Then they came and started the building. And our neighbors were just dumbfounded that we would leave town and let these strangers come and start building on our house. When we came home from vacation, the frame was up and the walls were up. But when we came home, there was no door in front so they hung a canvas there. We slept in this house with a canvas door there, and we had a hide-a-bed in the front part of the living Mary Clare and Will, 1958. room that Murph and I slept on. A cat came in one night through the little canvas. So I was really glad when they put the door on.

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The Murphy home at 507 Holly Avenue in 2014.

Then they added this room and back there a big closet and the new garage. Murph and I used this room for our bedroom until the kids left home.

A funny story about that carpenter … Before the Crases lived here, they used to live downtown on Bassett Street and then they moved to Holly. They had a one-story house there. He was here through our remodelling, and then next summer Fred Wegner (518 Holly Avenue) did his remodelling, so Mr. Crase was over there with his apron. One day, I was over there, too, and Mrs. Crase said, “We think we want to move back downtown because Petey (that’s the bird) hasn’t sung since we left Bassett Street.” And she said, “Petey misses Bassett Street.” I said, “Oh, I would just miss you guys, you two, if you left.” They were so good to us. And anyway, they made the move; they sold the house. I drove them down on moving day. The movers came and took everything, but I took them and Petey over in my car. I’m driving them down to Bassett Street, crying, because I was going to miss them. They got to Bassett Street, and the next day she called and she said, “Petey’s singing!” Now, did the move help? It turned out that Petey died about two months later. But they were so happy that they moved down there in time for the whole business of the causeway … they were building the (John Nolen Drive) causeway (across Monona Bay). Mr. Crase told me one day, “Joan, it’s a good thing I moved when I did, because I had to help out over there.” He was over there every single day while they built the causeway. He came here one day about a year after they left, because I’d keep up with them. I’d go visit them and bring them out here. He came in one day

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and he just sat down. He was crying. I said, “What … Oh! Where is Mrs. Crase?” He said, “Mary died.” Murph and I had been travelling. We didn’t know it. He just lived about a year after that. They loved it here, and what she really missed about Westmorland, and she told me this later, was that she got out more. Everything was open here and she could walk around. It was more congested downtown. He went to the Square every day and sat on a bench with his cronies. He probably missed it. Maybe Petey was an excuse.

1976 ice storm That day it was really icy and sleeting, and Murph was at work at WARF, and I was in the house with the dog. It was just sleeting terribly, and I got a phone call. It was Fred from across the street. He said, “What room are you in, Joan?” I said, “I’m in the family room.” He said, “Go to the back room. There’s a tree branch about to come down on your roof.” He was looking out. So Peppy (our dog) and I went to the back, and the tree came down on that roof. It didn’t hurt the roof much but the Ice storm of March 1976, whole yard was silver. All the branches were iced … it was beautiful. The 4321 S. Owen Drive. whole front patio part was just like a fairy tale out there. Fred called again. Photo from WNA archives. He said, “I’m coming over to get you and Peppy. Come out the back garage door. Don’t try to go out in front because limbs are still coming down on your house.” Pep and I went out the garage and around that way. There was Fred hanging on to us. Just then a man got struck by a limb. The ambulance came right when we were crossing the street. We kept going because it wasn’t safe. It took forever for us to get all that tree out of this yard.

113 Chapter 16 Shirley and Stan Inhorn Shirley and Stan were interviewed by Jan Murphy on June 20, 2013 at Oakwood Village Retirement Center .

Stan: I was born in Philadelphia, but I grew up in Cleveland for the most part. I graduated from high school in January of 1946, so the war had just ended. But a draft was still on, so I decided to stay in Cleveland rather than to go elsewhere for college. I went to Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City for four years, finishing in 1953. I came to Madison in June 1953 to start my internship and later my residency at what was then Wisconsin General Hospital. Shirley: I was born on a farm in Iowa. The nearest town was called Lone Tree. It’s about 15 miles from Iowa City, comparable to what Mt. Horeb is to Madison. Both are college towns. I graduated from Lone Tree High School in a class consisting of 18 people. I went on to the University of Iowa where I was a chemistry major. I worked for six years at the University of Iowa Hospitals, became chair of the lab doing blood chemistry. And with that emphasis, my focus shifted to biochemistry. I came to Madison, knowing that there were Shirley and Stan Inhorn in 2013. at least four very fine colleges that focused on biochemistry, to continue my studies not too far from home. I arrived in September of 1953. Stan: We met in 1954, and got married in ’54. Shirley: Met in January and got married in August. Stan: I might add it was a cold day when we met. We were both pursuing our studies and we met one evening in the hospital cafeteria. Then started dating, and before I knew it, we had scheduled a wedding. But in the meantime, my draft number turned up. There was actually still a doctor draft going on, part of the so-called Korean War era. I was randomly assigned to the Navy, went down to Great Lakes (Naval Station) with over 60 other doctors who were also drafted. I was assigned to the San Diego base of an amphibious troop carrier that was in the Pacific fleet. So, we got married in August. Then I went out to San Diego, whereas Shirley stayed back to pursue her studies. Then we got a message that our ship was going to be

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The Inhorn home at 23 Frederick Circle in 2014.

decommissioned, and so, I was transferred to a different fleet, also based off San Diego, but because of this reassignment the ship stayed in the States, so I never did get over to Japan. When Shirley heard that I was staying stateside, she decided that she would give up her studies, at least temporarily, and come out to be with me. So, we spent about 18 months in San Diego.

Coming to Westmorland Shirley: Our first recollection of Westmorland Park is when we had first arrived, and there was a picnic in it. We think it was Stan’s intern class— Stan: It was probably in June of ’54. They reserved the park and we had a picnic there. Shirley: We felt like we were really out in the country, but that’s my really first recollection of Westmorland. Stan: When we came back from the Navy, we had our first child, 8 months old, and we had to look for a house. We thought we would be here for four years doing my residency, and therefore, we wanted just a comfortable house for, at that time, a family of three. We had a realtor who took us around. We looked at a place in the Hill Farms, which was just opening at the time. And there was one street, I don’t think it was paved at that time, but there were four houses under construction … Shirley: South Hill Drive. Stan: We looked at it, and it was a very lovely home but we reasoned that there was going to be construction around us for a long period of time, a lot of to-do going on. So, we looked at other places, including a nice house in a fully established neighborhood in Westmorland at 23 Frederick Circle. What attracted us especially was it was a circle, a dead-end street, so we saw a lot of kids out there playing. Most of the families had young children, so we thought it would be an ideal place to raise a family. And the fact that it was right close to Westmorland Park was attractive.

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That’s what we decided to do. When we went to close the deal (in 1956), the seller’s real estate agent was Pat Lucey, who went on to become Governor of Wisconsin. (Patrick J. Lucey, Democrat, became Wisconsin’s 38th governor on January 4, 1971; he left office on July 6, 1977. Lucey died on May 10, 2014.) The Illinois Central Railroad was nearby, but it was maybe one or two trains a day, so it was no big deal. Shirley: Our street address was 23. Our neighbors were 25 and 27. There was no 13. It was 9, 11, 15. On Frederick Circle, it seems like the houses were fairly close together. Ours was a big pie-shaped lot, so it fanned out, but it was narrow at the front. The space between our driveways was just a couple of feet wide. And then the driveway was right up against the house, so where to put the snow? When it snowed, I can remember just how high the piles got. (The Inhorns lived in Westmorland from 1956 until 1968 when they moved to a home in the Parkwood Hills neighborhood and stayed there until 2011, when they moved to the Oakwood Village Retirement Center on Mineral Point Road.)

Frederick Circle: good neighbors Stan: The house right next to us was the Andersons (21 Frederick Circle). Arlo was in the process of completing the house. He built the whole house himself, I think, other than having the basement put in. He was very handy and a great friend. I was not much of a handyman, so if I had any problems, Arlo was fully set with the tools and everything. Shirley: Arlo always quipped that he had built five houses—that he had to do everything at least five times on that house before he got it right. The Andersons had one adopted daughter, Christine, a very lovely little blonde girl, a great joy to them. Stan: Arlo worked for the city health department. Shirley: Some of the other families on Frederick Circle were the Livermores who lived in the Tollefson house (3902 Odana Road, which backed up to Frederick Circle). It had been the original Carneville farmhouse. Across from them were George and Thelma Martin (33 Frederick Circle). George had been the UW wrestling coach and he was very well-known for taking his wrestlers out on whitewater trips in the summertime. In fact, that’s how he met his death some years later (July 1970). Across the street from him on Frederick Lane was his elderly mother. She sometimes helped us with the babysitting because she had a lot of experience. Then we had the Blecks (9 Frederick Circle). Helene Bleck was a great person, working for Madison Theatre Guild where she made costumes. She was the number one ticket seller. We always subscribed to the Madison Theatre Guild in its very early days. Then, we had the Waterworths (15 Frederick Circle). He was the city assessor. I believe they were the only people who did not have children.

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We had the Drehers (11 Frederick Circle), who were about the second owners of the house. Stan: Good friends. Shirley: After they left, it was the Roberts. We remember these people especially because they all had children the age of our children. That house was then bought by Max and Gerda Wald. He was a social worker with the state, and she was a librarian at Memorial High School. They had one son, Jim, who was a good friend and classmate of our older son. Then, we had the Kunz family and they had four children (17 Frederick Circle). The Inhorn children Roger, Marcia, two younger ones were girls, and they were our babysitters. Whereas the older and Lowell in sandbox, circa ones, John and Mark, were playmates of our older son. And then, we had 1962. the Plenkes (19 Frederick Circle). They had two beautiful daughters. Mrs. Plenke was a marvelous seamstress who taught at the vocational school, as did her husband, Jack. He was in vocational training, woodworking maybe? I’m not quite sure. These daughters were beautiful and they were quite a bit older. One of them went to New York to seek her fortune as a fashion designer. It was just very exciting to see the glamour. Shirley: We had Don and Virginia Topp, who were our next-door neighbors (25 Frederick Circle). They had two children, Steve and Marilyn, a bit older than our kids. Don worked for the State of Wisconsin. Then we had Dr. and Mrs. Feig and their two college-age daughters (27 Frederick Circle), and he was with the State Health Department. They later sold the house to Hiram and Jane Pearcy. But then, continuing, we had the Thomases (29 Frederick Circle). They were a little bit older. Their children were older, and he was a very successful businessman as I recall (Ralston-Purina sales manager) and travelled a lot. As a family they travelled abroad. We were quite impressed by that. That house was later sold to the Toftes, who had five children, four girls and one boy. They were good friends and playmates of our children because they were all ranging about that age. Then it was the Busses (31 Frederick Circle). We didn’t know the Busses too well because their children were a little bit older, but I remember Les Busse as being a real successful businessman (Downing Box Company, Milwaukee). And then, we came up to the circle with the Martins. So, you can see, we had a very compatible group of people.

Children, in school and out Shirley: Our first child is Lowell, born in February of 1956. Our daughter, Marcia, was born in December of 1957. And then our third child,

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Roger, was born in August 1960. Even though the two were born less than two years apart, they were every other year in school because of the way the school year cut-off dates fell. How did the children get to school? They walked. Stan said when our first child went, “Now, don’t baby him,” because he knew my inclinations. He said, “Get him a slicker. And if it rains, he can walk in the rain. I don’t want him to be a sissy.” So, we got a slicker, and the very first day it rained. I got him all dressed in his Inhorn children with Fritz little yellow slicker, and he went trudging the Cat, Roger, Lowell, and off to school, but for some reason later that week, I had to pick him up. It Marcia, circa 1965. was raining and here were all the parents driving up. Well, I felt so mean. I thought I was a terrible mother. Westmorland has always had a series of events, the Fourth of July always was a big thing. And Halloween? The children always dressed up for Halloween, and so did the neighbors. People were so generous with their compliments of the children when they came around for Halloween. The most unimaginative costume was just great. Stan: In those days, you did not have to accompany your children as they do today. The kids would go around and come back with bags full of candy. It’s a wonder that all their teeth didn’t fall out because of so much candy. Shirley: Our kids went to Midvale School. Stan: One of the most outstanding teachers was Elyn Williams. She was the music teacher there. Another person was Mrs. Russert, a kindergarten teacher. She was known for teaching the children a little bit of French. We went up into Canada on one of our summer vacations, and our son, who had just completed first grade, or was it kindergarten, with Mrs. Russert. He was very pleased that he could say, “Mon poulet et froid (My chicken is cold)”and “Crème du glace s’il vous plait (Ice cream, please).” Shirley: We always enjoyed the programs they had at Christmas and Springtime. They had the whole school get together for assembly programs. We’d sit in a gym. I remember one little boy who was too young to be in kindergarten. He went to the morning session because he usually napped in the afternoon. He fell asleep during the afternoon program because that was his usual napping time. One of the things I recall in the summertime is that one summer, our kids and Jim Wald, a boy who lived up the street, made a little museum. They scoured around, asking everyone if they had any collections like coins or rocks. They put together a little museum in our basement. Thelma Martin

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was a journalist and she managed to get a nice article in the paper about their museum. (An article by Evelyn Thompson, including many photographs, appeared in the Capital Times on August 2, 1967.)

The children were musical Shirley: All our kids were musical, very much so. They all took piano lessons. We went to a lot of piano recitals. Then they all took string instru- ments, which were introduced at grade four. They had singing with Elyn Williams all the while our children were at Midvale Elementary. She was there for many years. I remember our son going to perform in the assembly program with a shirt that was a little short. I said, “Now remember, before you stand up, just be sure your shirt’s tucked in.” He remembered it at about the final note. He was frantically pushing his shirt down. These are insignificant things, but they’re just things you laugh about. Our older son took up the violin under Ernie Stanke while he was still at Midvale School. He started fifth and sixth grade with classes in violin. Stan: Then our daughter decided to take up the cello. Our younger son, we told him that he was going to play the viola because I love chamber music. He obeyed, and they all got to be quite good. We did have a family quartet and we sometimes played at church and other places. They went on with music in high school. They each played two concer- tos with the school orchestra. Shirley: Our children were also members of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra, with which we have volunteered for more than 40 years, so many that they made us life trustees. We can credit the wonderful musical opportunities for young people in this state to Marvin Rabin, who came here to develop strings in the City of Madison and the entire state, as a matter of fact. The Wisconsin Youth Symphony is still very, very prominent today. Stan: They did not follow music as careers, but I would say they all still do play quite well.

Attending and volunteering at First Unitarian Society Stan: We started going to the First Unitarian Society. This was a new building and it was built in ’51. So in ’54, it was a relatively new building when we first attended. Shirley: It’s the Frank Lloyd Wright building, of course. We were sort of curious about it. We were very taken with what we heard. Max Gaebler was the minister and he married us in 1954. Twenty-five years later, he mar- ried our son. It was the first time that he had married the child of someone whom he had married. We feel that’s a little bit of his history. Stan: We still go to church there. Most recently, I’ve been on the finance committee. Shirley, for many years, was in charge of the guides because it’s such a famous church.

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Shirley: I’ve coordinated the tours at the church for ten years and I was also on the committee for the capital campaign for the most recent addition to that church. The Frank Lloyd Wright church was built for 150 people, and we now have a membership of about 1,600. So that has necessitated three additions to the church. The most recent was completed in 2008. I was working on that for a number of years. Stan: They had a wonderful Sunday School. When you send children to Sunday school, somebody has to teach them. So again, Shirley participated in the teaching program. Shirley: I’ve done lots of different jobs through the years. But as far as for our own children, the Meeting House Nursery School is well known. We always quipped that you sign up for that school the same day you sign up your child for Harvard, meaning the day he or she is born. But our two younger children went to Westminster Presbyterian Church on Nakoma Road, to a nursery school there, for maybe two or three semesters.

At first, money was tight Shirley: Our older son had a lot of ready-made playmates right on the Circle, so we didn’t think we needed to send him to nursery school. It might have been a financial matter, too, because as a resident, Stan was earning $75 a month? I grew up on an Iowa farm, and my father and mother, although they had retired, always maintained a few head of beef. Each year, we could expect to get a half of beef and put it in the freezer which they had also bought for us. Stan: Shirley had a vegetable garden. Our house backed up to a green- way that ran off from Westmorland Park. Since it was just space, I got the little children to dig it up, and we put in a vegetable garden in the unused ground. Between the vegetables and the beef from Iowa, we did not starve.

For Shirley, memberships and volunteering Shirley: One time the church was having a bazaar. A friend and I bought a bushel of apples, and we made hot apple pies and delivered them to church all day long. We peeled a bushel of apples and just kept churning out pies. I was a member of the University League. At that time, they had the Junior division and I was treasurer of that group, and then I served in various capacities throughout. I’ve been a member ever since. I graduated to the regular University League. At one time we belonged to a University League foreign foods group. We had this little kitchen. It was so little. I don’t remember how I ever managed, but I did. We had a large board that we put on top of our tiny little table to enlarge it so that we could probably seat eight people very carefully. One time we did a Japanese-style dinner and put this board down on the floor. Everybody had to sit on the floor and eat. That was the end of the group.

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I am also a 50-some-year member in the League of Women Voters. I did the bulletin for a while. I remember feeling somewhat akin to Genevieve Finnegan, who did the Westmorland paper. I was invited to join the Women’s Committee of the Madison Sym- phony Orchestra. At that time, it was called the Women’s Committee and you had to be invited to become a member. But because Stan played in the orchestra and I’d always been very supportive of their auxiliary-type activi- ties, I became a part of that. In 1976, Marian Bolz did what was really the right thing. She said, “Music is for everyone. It should not be limited only to invited members.” So, she opened up the membership to anyone. It was called the Madison Symphony Orchestra League, of which I’m still an active member. I served on the board for many years.

For Stan, playing in the orchestra until career intervened Stan: Growing up, I played violin in the high school orchestra. In college, I played for a couple of years in the orchestra. Then we formed a quartet. It was the first time I had really done chamber music, and I certainly enjoyed that. When I went to medical school, I formed a quartet there, and that was enjoyable. So, when I came out here for my internship, I brought my violin. Shirley mentioned that one of our neighbors was Hiram Pearcy, who was the director of the orchestra at West High School. I was talking to Hiram one day, and he said he was going to go that evening to try out for the Madison Symphony. I said, “Oh? Maybe I’ll join you.” So I did, and we both became members of the orchestra. I was a member, perhaps, for seven or eight years. But it got to be a little too busy, because most of my activities, obviously, were related to my work. My field of specialization was Pathology. My activities, which took most of my time leaving me less time for local volunteer work, had to do with going to meetings of professional societies. There’s the American Society of Clinical Pathology, American Society of Cytology, American Association of Public Health Laboratories, and a few other professional societies. I was very active for many years in the Wisconsin Division of the American Cancer Society. And for eight years, I was also on the national board. So, I was very busy.

A laboratory view of polio Stan: As I said, my field was pathology. Autopsies, at one time, were a very important part of the field. I was very much involved in the polio epidemic because when I was an intern in 1954, there was a big polio outbreak. We had iron lungs in the hallway of the Wisconsin General Hospital because there was no room for them in the patient rooms. It was really very serious. Many of the cases that year were bulbar polio, affecting the lower brain stem. Many of these people became completely paralyzed—it was

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very serious. A lot of people died, and unfortunately, I had to do a lot of autopsies on patients who died of polio. Most were younger people. We use to call it infantile paralysis. Our laboratory, the State Laboratory of Hygiene, did virus testing to determine what types—there were three types, type 1, 2, or 3 polio—and this was done by a test called the neutralization test. This test was done on cells in test tubes. We would overlay it with the patient’s serum to see if they had the antibodies, and then you would put in live virus. In those days we didn’t have the safety codes we do today. We used a mouth pipette with a solution containing the live viruses. Then we put them into the tubes— you’ve got to be very good so that you didn’t suck it up too hard.

Family vacations Shirley: Because Stan taught during the school year, the month of August was when we would strike out. In those days, you loaded your children into a car, un-air-conditioned and no seatbelts. We paid a yearly visit to Stan’s family, who live in Cleveland. We always squeezed in at least a couple of weeks to travel to national parks. I had an uncle and an aunt both living in Arizona, and another aunt in California, so “westward bound” was the focus of some of our vacations. We are not campers. I like hot and cold running water, I’m sorry. Stan: We had a very nice system. We would stop at noon for lunch and sometimes in a little city park. We’d go to the local grocery store, get some food, make sandwiches. And we would get something for breakfast the next morning, some sweets or something and cereal. Shirley: We carried a little electric coffee pot for our coffee. Stan: We would always stop at a motel with a swimming pool, the kids loved that. I would go to the soda machine and get a can of soda. I always took along a bottle of gin so we would relax while they were swimming. Shirley: We thought that our children were completely oblivious to this. We later found out that they were quite aware of the fact that we were drinking the stuff. Stan: So we vacationed on the cheap and— Shirley: It’s very gratifying to see our own children emulating this practice of taking children and visiting national parks. We did hiking or whatever it was that that particular site offered. We have been in every state in the union. I’m pleased to say that. Some people have that on their bucket list. We’ve already crossed that off.

122 Chapter Elinor (Martin) Moore 17 Elinor was interviewed by Carole Vincente on June 19, 2013 at Oakwood Village . Elinor died on July 10, 2014 at the age of 90 .

I lived for 38 years (1966 to 2005) at 4337 Keating Terrace. We moved here when my husband was hired by the university as a professor of math and computer science. What struck us when we saw the house was that it was so big. There’s such a lot of space. It was just everything we could possibly want. There was a baseball field next to us which is part of the Midvale School playground. We liked the fact that there was a school right next to us, and also a main street. The bus went up and down Midvale Boulevard and another bus along Mineral Point Road, which was handy. Everything was just very nice-looking and convenient. Elinor Moore in 2013. It was nice to have a big lawn, living room with a dining area at one end and a fireplace at the other end, and room for a Christmas tree or whatever else you wanted. It was nice and spacious, and the girls all had their rooms and my husband had plenty of room to spread out. He sure did. We had books all over the place. In fact, we ended up with more space than we needed, because my mother was going to move in with us and then she died before she could actually get here, so she didn’t occupy one of the rooms. The house suited our needs pretty well. The only remodeling I can remember is putting in a closet in a downstairs bedroom. There were plenty of rooms for all the girls and for my husband to have a study and eventually, two studies; two rooms filled up with books and papers and files. We had a nice big yard with two old apple trees and grass that we kept reasonably mowed. Sometimes we had a garden in back. The yard went continuously into the school yard, though there was a little rise, maybe three or four feet high up to the level of the school playground. We enjoyed living there.

Meeting my husband I grew up in New Jersey and went to Mount Holyoke for college. After teaching for three years on a reservation

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The Moore home at 4337 Keating Terrace in 2013.

in South Dakota, I went to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. I was looking to get a Ph.D. in math, at least that was my idea. I met my husband Edward at Brown University, There was one class where I was one of two girls in the class. There was one particular fellow, he asked me out, and we went together all that year. We got married in July. He told me a while later that because there were only two girls in the class, he had had to choose which one he was going to ask out first. So, I was the lucky one and he never did ask the other girl out. She was a former classmate of mine at Mount Holyoke. I think she stayed single all her life.

Raising three girls, sharing a love of music We have three girls, Nancy, Shirley, and Martha (born in 1952, 1954, and 1963). Nancy moved back to Madison after a career as a programmer for the telephone company in New York. Now she lives in Oakwood Village, too. Martha was just 2 when we moved here. My daughters lived in Westmorland mostly through their grade school, middle school, and high school years. I didn’t work much after I was married. Earlier in my life, I had worked three years as a teacher. Then after I was married I worked getting books to and from the physics library at the University of Illinois for a year. But mostly I stayed home and took care of my kids and family. We celebrated Easter and Christmas and birthdays—I always made a homemade birthday cake with writing on it and flowers if I could make them. I think people appreciated having a homemade cake and ice cream. Westmorland Park was very nice and it was just several blocks to walk to. The girls enjoyed going there during the summer for activities, and we liked to go there on the Fourth of July. They were usually in the Fourth of July parade; then we’d all go down to Westmorland Park and go on some of the rides. We particularly liked the fireworks that they had in the park until they had to move them somewhere else. It was so nice to be able to walk home without getting stuck in the traffic jam. It was so close.

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The children all had chores and they got allowances. Not very much as I recall, but enough to satisfy them and keep the peace. The kids went to Sequoya Library fairly often to get books. They were all pretty good readers, interested in reading. I was a block captain for the Westmorland Neighborhood Association for a while. I also delivered Meals on Wheels and I was an assistant Brownie leader. I guess I would say my main hobby was singing in the church choir. I’m a soprano. The girls all sang in church choirs, too. I think they all took up some form of music. One of them played the violin for a while, and another played the trumpet and flute, and I think there were some piano lessons, too. My best work was raising three daughters who The original Sequoya Library were self-supporting and are still church-going and contributing to society. branch was located at 404 I think everybody who knows them likes them. Glenway Street from 1958– 1960. (Building photo circa For teens: cars, dates, and church 1980.) We gave the girls driving lessons around the area, in out-of-the-way places, like cemeteries. I guess, for everybody, it’s sort of scary letting them take the wheel. But they did okay, and I think they also got a driving course in school, whether it was behind the wheel or just bookwork, I don’t know, but they eventually got through that stage. It’s nice when it’s over with. Other than junior prom, I don’t recall that they dated much, although I’m sure they must have done some dating, but I can’t recall exactly. One thing I do remember is setting an alarm clock for midnight. We’d set the alarm and go to sleep, knowing that if they came home and turned off the alarm, everything was well; and if they didn’t get home, the alarm would wake us up, and then we would start worrying or looking for them. I don’t think that happened often. Religion was always part of our life. We went to First Baptist Church (518 N. Franklin Avenue), a progressive American Baptist church, and as I recall, we always went to Sunday School and church which took up most of Sunday morning. We often went out to eat after Sunday’s church. When the girls were teenagers, they questioned having to go to church. I said that I expected them to go to church until they were 18 because that was part of their edu- cation. After they were 18, they could decide for themselves. If they wanted to visit other churches, of any denomination or religion, they could go there instead and try it out. So that seemed to satisfy them and they all continued to go to our church or some other one when they moved away, which pleased me.

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Area churches and businesses We were near Queen of Peace Church, which went through a lot of reconstruction (1995–1997). It seemed to me they ended up facing a different direction than they were originally. I remember that they were doing a lot of building in the middle of the winter, and it was very cold, and these poor men were working outdoors. They had plastic over the framework and they were working on something inside, but it must have been awfully hard to keep working in that cold. I remember Mount Olive Church further down Mineral Point. For several years we went there to a 60-plus group. Further on down was Bethany Church. The gas station on that corner (Alderson Texaco service station, 3742 Speedway Road) was one we frequently went to, and a grocery store (IGA/Sentry, 3809 Mineral Point Road) was across the street. There was a Bergmann’s Pharmacy in Midvale Plaza, which had a post office in the back. I remember there was a Pancake House up at Hilldale Shopping Center and lots of stores, and I sometimes walked that far, which must have been about a mile. We usually bought our groceries at the nearest grocery store, which was the IGA at the end of our block (in the Midvale Plaza Shopping Center). I remember going to the IGA Sentry grocery store, 3817 Mineral Point Road, A&P up in Hilldale, and later on I guess I settled on Copps on Whitney Way circa 1950s. and Tokay. Photo from WNA archives. When we went shopping for clothes, sometimes we went to Hilldale or Sears or Penney’s at West Towne. Our doctor and dentist were all quite nearby. I think our doctor originally had an office right at Hilldale and I think maybe the dentist did too. They both moved a little further away, but they both ended up quite near where I am now, so it’s really handy.

The Vietnam era remembered We were never particularly concerned about our safety during the Vietnam protests here in Westmorland, except the time the bomb went off on campus. It was just before our oldest daughter, Nancy, was due to start at the university. It didn’t bother her, and we just crossed our fingers and let her go; everything worked out. That was the Sterling Hall Bombing (August 24, 1970). I think my husband had a run-in with some protesters, and I am not sure how that worked out but I think there was some red paint thrown. He was in close contact with some of the protesters. He was not very happy with them.

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Wild weather During the 1976 ice storm, we were without power for several days and somehow we kept warm. I remember my husband filling the bathtub with lots of hot water, because that was one way to get some heat. I found out later that we could have had the furnace going, but without the controls that required the electricity. I don’t know how that would have worked and whether I would have been brave enough to try it, since it was a nonstandard way of running a furnace. About 2004, the tornado came through. Ice storm damage on Paunack Avenue, March 1976. I’m not sure where I was, but I remember Photo from WNA archives. that it went to the other end of our block and didn’t do any damage in our yard. I think it downed some trees near the end of the block and others got damaged, but it was sort of minimal. After that I just had the feeling that tornadoes could come in close.

Leaving Westmorland We had everything very comfortable and available when we were in Westmorland, but my needs and abilities have shrunk considerably since then. I’m very happy here (at Oakwood) and I’ve got what I need here, so I don’t really miss my old home. I’m glad I don’t have to take care of all that property and worry about the roof or the lawn or the 4321 S. Owen Drive at Caromar Drive, June 23, 2004. snow or anything else. Photo from WNA archives.

127 Chapter 18 Kent Liska Kent was interviewed by Barb Perkins on June 17, 2013 at 4018 Euclid Avenue .

I’m semi-retired and was born in Westmorland; I have lived here on and off for 65 years. I grew up in this house at 4018 Euclid Avenue. I worked outside of the city at times, came back when my mother had lung cancer and I was her caregiver. My father was still alive but he never cooked or anything, so I came back and took care of the family. My father was the Director of Structural Engineering at Forest Products. He was a professor at the University first. He lived to be 95. He bought the house, I guess, two years after it was built (in 1938). Somebody in the Liska family has been in this house ever since.

Eating out of the garden year-round The garden was my father’s pride and joy. He had flowers in one section, rhubarb in a section, and raspberries along the whole back fence. At one time he had a pear tree. Behind the garage was a grapevine and “the back 40,” as we used to call it, was always planted with all of the vegetables that would get canned or blanched and frozen. In the 1940s, ’50s, this was the main staple. In the wintertime my mom would bring out frozen beans and then steam and Kent Liska in 2013. serve them. They were delicious. Back then you created your own produce. That doesn’t seem to be the norm today. We would rake the leaves in the fall and put them along the back fence where the raspberries are. And then, with each row that you tilled, you would put in leaves to add to the mulch. Talk about organic farming, my father was farming organically 50, 60 years ago. Today you can take a pitchfork to that

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Shoveler Kent Liska in front of his house, winter, circa 1958.

soil, lift it up, and it’ll fall apart before it hits the ground. It has been so enriched with all of the nutrients over so many years. Now, we just keep the grass clippings on it and then that gets turned in, so you’re just adding nutrients to the soil and you go from there. I have a number of tomato plants and I’ll give away the extras, next door, across the street, up the street. When the cucumbers come in, I’ll just lay them out on my little wall out there and let people take as many as they want.

A woods instead of neighbors Two houses down, there is a brick house; this house was built on the same model as that house. I want to say it was either 1942 or ’45 when this one was built. The only other houses in the neighborhood, my dad said, were the stone house across the street where the Van Cleeks lived (4015 Euclid Avenue), and this one behind us where the Nelsons lived (4015 Paunack Avenue). The other side of that street was all woods, between there and Mineral Point Road, the whole block. I don’t remember any houses except for what’s called the Toepfer’s house. They had the big one up at the corner of Toepfer Avenue and Mineral Point (4001 Mineral Point Road). The house on the corner now wasn’t there. The whole rest of the street was all woods. Our parents would say, “Go on and take your little bow and try to hunt.” We were never good shots, but we would do that. The corner house was built later on. Before, there was another garden and grapes and stuff. You can see how the properties have changed.

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Group portrait of the Rentschler team of the West Midget Midvale No. 2 baseball league. L-R, front row: Randy Wise, Mike Plautz, Tommy Eisele, Steve Scheneman, Paul Schmelzer. Back row: Scott Kraemer, Stewart Voight, Kent Liska, Ricky Seffert, and Steve Lubcke. Photo by Arthur M. Vinje, August 1958. (WHi 99789)

Wiffle ball in the street We played wiffle ball out in front of the house and all of the kids—the Zimdars, the Draysons at the corner, up the street the Kissingers and who else? We would all get out at night and play wiffle ball in the street, and never a car. We never were stopping our game for a car. We played wiffle ball because it didn’t need as big an area as baseball. We weren’t going to be hitting softballs and baseballs and breaking windows or anything. We were just playing wiffle ball. Television had not come at our house. We were out doing things other than sitting at home. That was the fun part. This was a pretty active area, and we’d get kids from Birch and even Toepfer to come up and play.

Organized sports through school and city programs There were school-oriented sports, so you’d have your football. Your basketball would be through the high school. Then there were the city programs. We had what was called midget baseball every summer. You had to be 8 years old. West Madison Little League, I would say, began maybe when we were around 10 (1959). I don’t

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remember it any earlier than that. They just had one field and now they have three. I played for a team called Rentschler’s Floral Shoppe, and we were Midvale League champion for four straight years. I think we won about 80 and lost six through all of the years I played baseball. It was a phenomenal team of people from the Westmorland area and a couple from Midvale Heights. We had a number of good athletes on the team. One played professional football, one was a state tennis champion, one won the city golf championship for six years. That was fun. The city put on a program where they provided the umpires, and this was huge. At Midvale there were at least two leagues of ten teams from the surrounding area. It was a fun time playing over there in the summer. There were no soccer moms, no vans, no travelling to and from sports. The parents did go to the diamonds and watch the baseball games. My mom was religious about it. She was a nurse at Associated Physicians, which was just A summer ballgame at down on Midvale, and she would walk from Associated up to the diamond Midvale Elementary School’s at Midvale and then walk back down. She would make as many games as baseball diamond, circa 1958. she could.

Earning money to play golf A lot of us played golf at Glenway before Odana opened (in 1954). A gentleman named Rudy Platt was the clubhouse manager at that time. He was there almost every year that I can remember. The clubhouse itself was more towards the corner where they now have a practice green. During the wintertime the clubhouse got hit a few times with cars that didn’t make the turn coming down the hill. It was quite humorous at times. Since then it’s been moved well away from that corner. I probably started golfing when I was 7 years old. I needed to earn my money to go play golf. My brother told this story in my father’s eulogy: He said, “In the early days there were a lot of dandelions in the neighborhood. Kent would have to get 10 dandelions to earn one penny. But there had to be the roots showing to prove that he went down deep enough so that they weren’t going to grow back.”

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My father grew up in the Depression and had lost both of his parents by the time he was 16. So he instilled thriftiness in both my brother and me. We had to understand the value of a dollar. That’s why my brother likes to tell the story of the dandelions, that ten good dandelions would get me a penny. Golf at the time I first started cost about 10 cents to play nine holes down there. They had a junior card, and for 10 cents you could play a round of golf at Glenway. Then it would be baseball in the afternoon and pretty much wiffle ball in the evenings.

Decorating bikes for the Fourth of July I think one of my fondest memories is decorating bicycles for the Fourth of July and going up to Queen of Peace Church and getting all in a line to go down to the park, and get free tickets at the end of parade line for what I considered the biggest game show. We decorated our bikes with crepe paper and baseball cards. You would put baseball cards in the spokes and it would just flutter and make a little noise. It was not a lot of the bells and whistles that there are now, but it was just whatever was available. They had great softball games, and you watched really good players. I was able to play a couple of years. They had a couple of hours of dancing in the shelter house and music from, I think, 2 o’clock to 4 or 3 o’clock to 5, something like that. The beer tent was extremely enjoyable. Kent Liska, ready for Safety That night the whole family would walk down with their blankets Patrol duty, May 11, 1960. and watch the fireworks. The family gathering would be a whole day. My mother loved the cakewalks. My dad was more reserved and he just let my mother go and have fun. That Fourth of July party was probably the biggest thing Westmorland had. And then, you had all your games. I can remember taking nieces and other kids down there to have fun. It was just really the community getting together.

For Safety Patrol captains, a trip to Washington, DC The city had a very active Safety Patrol, out there making sure the kids got across the streets back and forth to school. The captain of the Safety Patrol got to go to Washington, DC on a train. Each of the schools sent one representative. I was lucky enough to be voted to go when I was 11 or 12 years old. No parents! You hopped on a train and you took off and saw Washington, DC. You got to meet all the kids who were captain of their school safety patrols. I think this was done through AAA. You went to the Smithsonian, saw all of the museums, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument. That was quite an interesting journey as a 12-year-old.

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High school hangouts When you were going to high school, the Hilldale Bowling Alley would be a place where you would gather. If they had a baseball game or basketball game or football game and you were going out afterward, you would go down to Lombardino’s on Old University Avenue for their pizza, which was really good. That was the high school–type hangout. That and there was a McDonald’s right near where Whole Foods is now (3317 University Avenue). That was the first McDonald’s in the area, so when you got to be a little older at 16, that’s where you all would gather to see your friends. McDonald’s if you were not on a date, and if you were on a date, probably Lombardino’s is where you would go. We wouldn’t really go any farther downtown because that was more the college area. You would primarily stay this side of the college and downtown.

Between high school and college, Europe on Five Dollars a Day I went to West High School, a lovely place. I worked as a janitor in a laundromat one summer as a 16-year-old, hating every minute of it. I swore I would never mop another floor. Then I worked at the University Civil Engineering Camp in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. I spent the whole summer up there and I would make extra money by doing the guys’ laundry because they didn’t have the time to do it. I saved every cent because there was nowhere to spend it. Two friends and I decided when we were sophomores that when we graduated from high school, we were going to go to Europe. We were going to pay for it ourselves so that they couldn’t stop us from going. When it came time that we graduated from high school, the three of us (plus one friend whose father financed it) got on a plane and travelled around Europe for 90 days. There was a book, Frommer’s Europe on Five Dollars a Day. And we pretty much were able to live by that. The parents of the three of us became really good friends. Whenever somebody got a letter, all the families got together. They’d read the letter and they’d try and figure out what we were doing and how we were managing.

The edge of town There was nothing west beyond Whitney Way. You would drive all the way out to go to what was called the Big Sky Drive-in Theatre. It was at the corner of what would now be the Beltline and Mineral Point Road. There was very little built out there. West Towne was not there. No Memorial High School. That was a city dump. I had a summer job working for the Dane County Rivers and Lakes Department when I started college. That was where we would dump all of the seaweed. It was bad then, and they had the weed cutters. We’d load all the seaweed in a truck, dump it all out, clean the truck out and then get back and go take another load to dump there.

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The Liska home at 4018 Euclid Avenue in 2014.

The university farms really dominated from Segoe Road on out. There were more farms than houses at that time.

Attending the UW in the Vietnam era After that summer I went to the University of Wisconsin. I lived on West Main Street at that time. That area got gassed a lot. We were always getting hit, and it was intolerable in that area sometimes. It was a lot of tear gas and it was a lot of threats of physical violence. I’d come home to Westmorland just to be able to exist. Our class structure was such that one year, if you took one exam and had showed up for lectures, that was all you needed to pass the class. They thought the learning experience was going on outside rather than in the classroom. You had to figure that was because we were one of the most active schools in the nation with regards to our antiwar philosophy. There would be marches and protests. The core university area was not an area you wanted to be in. My father was very good friends with the police chief, and they often talked about all of the things that had to be done to maintain order.

134 Chapter Kurt Meyer 19 Kurt was interviewed by Carolyn May on June 6, 2013 at 3814 Winnemac Avenue .

I was born in Janesville, Wisconsin in 1958. In 1965 when I was in first grade, we moved to Sunset Village right across Mineral Point Road on East Sunset Court. So we lived nearby, and of course I had friends, playmates in Westmorland. My wife Astrid and I bought my grandmother’s house at 3814 Winnemac Avenue from her in year 2000. We had been thinking about moving out of the house we lived in and finding something a little bigger. When it became apparent that maybe my grandmother wanted to sell her house, I started looking at this house as a prospective buyer. All the magic fell away, and I saw all the flaws in the house. It’s an old house, of course, and it has all the difficult challenges of an old house, but of course we still bought it. We were happy to do so. We’ve been here 13 years. Our daughter Isabel was Kurt Meyer in 2013. 4 years old at the time, and this was her great grandma’s house. Now it’s our house. I think she’s attached to it since she was at an impressionable stage when we moved in. Of course, it was exciting to have this new place. We did quite a bit of work on it when we moved in—we took out carpeting, we painted, we took out wallpaper, we refinished the floor. Probably the most visible change we’ve made is that we tore down the original garage, which was a small one-car garage. We had space, so we put in a larger two-car garage. It’s 28x20, feet and there was just room in the lot to put that in legally. That improved the place a lot.

Remembering a familiar neighborhood I grew up next door. It still feels like the kind of neighborhood it was when we were kids. There were a lot more kids here then. I went to Midvale School. I played a lot with the kids in the neighborhood. You could go out the door any time and find somebody—there were always kids running around. Parents didn’t keep track of where their kids were so closely then. A lot of parents would have calls for their kids. One of my friends, his dad had a certain way that he would cup his hand and whistle and you could hear it for blocks.

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Midvale Plaza from the air, 2007.

We’d be out playing, he would hear that whistle, and knew it was time for him to go home. I remember my friends were on Little League teams. They used Midvale School’s fields for that. Welch Plumbing was the big team. The cool kids were on the Welch Plumbing team because Dave Welch was one of the kids who was on the team. He was my age, in my class. At home, I had chores to do. I would sweep the back stairs and I would clean up after the dog in the backyard and I would take out the trash. I would mow the lawn, help with painting the house, stuff like that. I got 75 cents a week, and they paid me separately for mowing the lawn. I think I got $1.50 for mowing the lawn. It might even have gone up to $2 after a while. I used my allowance to buy plastic models at the hobby shop at Midvale Plaza (on Midvale Boulevard). They sold plastic models, model railroading stuff, airplanes and rockets, and all that fun stuff. A lady ran it (Eveline Bessert). She was infamous. She had a reputation of being snippy with customers and not putting up with much but of course we didn’t care. The Sequoya Branch Library We would hang out there. And then there was the Baskin-Robbins ice was located at 513 S. Midvale Boulevar from 1960–2008, cream store. We would go and have some ice cream. Bergmann’s was just when Phase 1 of the Sequoya down the way and they had a good photo store after a few years. I was Commons project opened. interested in photography, and they sold really nice Pentax cameras. They (Building photo circa 1970.) even sold darkroom equipment. The Sequoya library was there, of course. We went there in second grade as a class and got our first library cards. I think I remember mine said it expired in June ’67 or something. I think I had that card for a long time. They expanded Midvale Plaza and added a couple stores in there. What was a vacuum cleaner store later became La Brioche. Then I think Buck’s Pizza was there for a long time. And of course always the grocery store. It was Piggly Wiggly. Then it was Kroger. Then it was IGA. And then Bergmann’s Pharmacy ended up moving into that space. But it used to

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be a regular little supermarket. We got most of our groceries at the Sentry Store where the U.S. Geological Survey is now (on Mineral Point Road). And my mom would send me down there to get a loaf of bread or some meat or something for dinner, a gallon of milk. There was Ellis Hardware right next to the Sentry store. It was old-school, a long narrow store with shelves eight feet high and they had a toy department in the basement that nobody ever went down to very much. And of course the Village Bar was always the Village Bar. I remember hearing my elderly great aunt (Jessie) who’s long gone talk about the The Village Bar in 2012. kids going and getting pails of beer to bring home to their dads, but that’s way before my time. It was a general store, also way before my time. Then it was the neighborhood bar. Westmorland was a neighborhood where we always felt safe. We didn’t lock our doors very much. I remember when I went to Midvale School, I started riding my bike when I was in probably fourth or fifth grade, and nobody ever locked their bikes. That would be crazy now.

Christmas My earliest memory of Westmorland was coming over to my grandmother’s house, which is this house. My father grew up in this house, and when I was born, his mother still lived here. We came here for Christmas and for a lot of things because we lived nearby. Every year, our family tradition was Christmas Eve at this house and then Christmas morning at our own homes. And that’s when Santa came. But on Christmas Eve, my dad, Don, and his brother Butch (Gary), and his other brother Tim would be here along with Grandma and our families, and we would exchange gifts between the extended families. Growing up, my mother was Catholic. My dad had been raised Lutheran but he wasn’t real devout about it. But when he married, they all agreed to raise me Catholic because at that time, the Catholic Church was pretty insistent about that and mother’s family was pretty devout Catholic. They were from Prairie du Chien. When we moved to the West side, we went to Queen of Peace Church. I can remember going there every Sunday and I remember the cold nights going to midnight Mass at Christmastime when I got a little bit older.

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Fourth of July The Fourth of July and the fireworks were great. There was a beer tent for the adults, there were pony rides, and a lot more. It was more of a commercial midway where “carny” types—well, maybe not carnies, but people who did that for a business—would set up. There was even a little Ferris wheel, a small thing that came in on a trailer with six little cages that would go around and it was probably 20 feet tall. It was a mini carnival. A lot of my friends were really into the bicycle parade. And they would get excited a couple of weeks in advance, “I’ve got this for my bike for the bicycle parade.” Just talking about the decorations that they had in mind.

Kid’s lore Our house backed up to Sunset Park. We played there a lot and of course at Westmorland Park. At the bottom of Sunset Park the drainage ravine began. And from that ravine coming out from under East Sunset Court was a big culvert, big enough that a kid could walk into it almost, just bent over a bit. The story was, if you walked all the way up that, you would end up at Westmorland Park where there was a great big drainage place where all the culverts come together. They had bars over it. Legend had it that somebody had walked all the way to Westmorland Park but no one was sure if it was true. After a while, the city put bars over that culvert so people couldn’t walk into it.

Schools: Midvale, Van Hise, West High Paul Olson was the principal Midvale School. He felt that “every child should go home for lunch,” although while I was there, that changed quite a bit. There was always a lunchroom and there were always a few kids who ate lunch there, but no one could understand why. But as time went on, by the time I was in sixth grade, a lot of kids were bringing their lunch to school. My first year at Midvale School was second grade (in 1966). Miss Webb was my teacher and she was legendary. I thought she was about 200 years old. She was stern but also kind, and I was shy and a little bit scared at first. She told me just to calm down and pay attention, and I did. So I have good memories of Miss Webb. Third grade was Mrs. Zdun down in the basement, looking out into the big window well. And then fourth grade was Miss Combs, Mary Jane Combs whom I have good memories of. And then fifth grade was Mrs. Bunker. And sixth grade was Miss Farnsworth. When I came from Sunset Village, I would typically not take the crosswalks (off-street sidewalks between houses) because there were big, mean kids who went to Queen of Peace, and they would come down the

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crosswalks. I would always walk up Caromar Drive to Owen Drive and then walk from there to some crosswalks in Sunset Village. I would walk those to get to my house through the park. But these big tough kids would see me coming on Caromar and they would push me around, and so I started using the crosswalk onto Owen. I avoided them that way. I remember that crosswalk. Then I went to Van Hise Junior High for seventh grade. At that time it was seventh, eighth, and ninth grade. Then when I went to eighth grade, it became Van Hise Middle School. So I went from the lowest to the top. And then in ninth grade, I went to West as a freshman and then graduated from West (in 1976). When I was high school, I was active in Boy Scouts and I had a circle of friends, but I was not really involved in sports or anything like that. I learned to drive in high school, driving my dad’s yellow ’72 Pontiac LeMans. I liked to drive. I always liked cars and at a very young age I’d been riding with my dad and his brothers in cars with manual transmissions and watching how they shifted the thing. I’d never learned how to do that. And we ended up getting a Volkswagen Beetle. So I learned how to drive a stick shift in that.

State Street in the Vietnam era Vietnam was a big deal when I was a kid. People knew of kids, or par- ents, or older brothers who had gone to Vietnam. Of course, in the news, there was a lot about the protests downtown. My mom commuted to work with a car pool. They would drive through downtown every day to get to where she worked. And they talked—they’d pick a “freak of the week.” They would always identify the funniest-looking person they saw on campus. I remember State Street, I remember well the period when all the windows were boarded up on State Street because they got broken so much, they finally said, “We’re not going to put new glass up. We’re just going to put up plywood.” All of State Street was just plywood windows. I remember the first time we saw glass again, somebody put a window back in on State Street. I thought it was a big deal. Then they started coming back. It could be that, that wasn’t for very long period but it was the time when I was first going to State Street, because there was a hobby shop called The Pix and Post on State Street.

A newsboy’s view of current events I delivered The Milwaukee Journal around that time. I had an afternoon and Sunday morning route. After school I delivered a route that was most of Sunset Village. Daily I had 15 papers in an area where I would have one or two houses on each block. But then Sunday, I had 50 or 60 papers. People liked the Sunday Milwaukee Journal, which was 300 pages and a big deal to deliver.

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I remember the Sterling Hall bombing happening (on Monday August 24, 1970). I had delivered my Milwaukee Journals early and then my dad and I went up north to go on a fishing trip we planned. Stopping for gas I remember seeing a paper on a newsstand maybe in Wausau or someplace up there, with big headlines about a bombing on the UW campus. That’s the first we knew of it. I would have been out delivering my papers when it happened. I might have heard the explosion. I might have thought, “Oh, that’s thunder. Is it gonna rain?” This was also during the time of Watergate. A lot of headlines, every day, with the latest goings-on with Watergate. That was in the news a lot. We had a television set all through my growing-up years. I remember in about ’69, my parents got their first color TV and it was big … we were just talking about that the other day. They got it at Casey and O’Brien and it was a Magnavox. It had a 23-inch screen and a big wooden cabinet and it cost $550, I think. I still remember that amount because it seemed like a lot! I’m thinking, in today’s dollars, it’s probably like $5,000. You had to have a TV! I remember one of the first things we saw was Richard Nixon giving a speech and how the area where his moustache would be was just green. They didn’t really have the makeup worked out for color TV yet. I said, “That’s green!” I don’t know if it was really supposed to be that color but I remember that.

Majoring in Economics, working in Information Technology I went to the university here in Madison. That’s where I met my wife— we both worked on the (John) Anderson campaign in 1980. (Anderson ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary election, then ran as an Independent candidate in the presidential election). That’s when we met. I majored in Economics. I got a job in an economic consulting firm with a fellow that I’d been in Boy Scouts with—it’s all who you know. Pretty quickly I realized I didn’t care much about economics but I liked keeping a computer running. They sold the (computer) system to the State, and I ended up going along with it. The State hired me, and I ended up in networking. And now I work for the Wisconsin Lottery but I still do IT stuff.

Events: ice storm, Dutch elm disease, tornado I remember our power was out after the ice storm. The neighborhood looked like a war zone. There were a lot of the old elm trees still around. I remember when there was a canopy down every street and I just walked down in the middle of the street and looked straight up: It was just elm branches. Backing up a little bit, when the Dutch elm disease came through, there were big paper signs that the city put on trees that said “Dutch Elm,” and maybe that tree had been marked for removal or for treatment. A lot of trees got cut down. Anyway, when that ice storm came (in March 1976), there were still a lot of trees that were probably somewhat damaged by Dutch elm

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disease. A lot of elm trees that were maybe borderline came down. The streets were blocked with branches for a day or two, power lines down, school was closed, and this street was the same way. I remember checking on Grandma, and her street was all full of the broken branches. The tornado that went through Westmorland in 2004, I watched, not realizing it was a tornado. It The 3800 block of Winnemac Avenue before Dutch elm disease took the trees, was a Wednesday night and circa 1950. every Wednesday night I go to the Village Bar because I play golf every Wednesday, and I go there afterwards. The sirens were going when I got to the Village Bar and it was storming and raining real hard. TVs were on. So we’re watching the weather, and maybe then the lights went out, and then it just poured, just a torrential downpour of rain. They lit candles. A couple of poor teenagers came running inside. They’d been out on the golf course and just completely soaked. The rain lasted for a few The Meyer home at 3814 Winnemac Avenue following the 1976 ice storm. minutes and then it stopped. So, of course, “Let’s go outside and look around.” There was the strangest sky. The clouds were twirling all around. We were looking up and seeing one kind of ragged area of twirling clouds and we said to each other, “That could turn into a tornado. That might be a funnel cloud.” But it was too ragged and it didn’t look like Dorothy’s tornado. So we watched it go over the golf course. That was the tornado that was knocking everything down five blocks away—and I had no idea.

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A new generation in Westmorland Our daughter, Isabel, was 4 when we moved here. She went to Midvale and then to Lincoln and then to Hamilton and now to West. She was a Girl Scout and she still is. She goes to Camp Black Hawk every summer and now she’s a counselor in training. She’ll be there for three weeks this summer. This will be, I think, her fourth summer of spending at least two or three weeks there. Astrid, my wife Astrid Newenhouse, runs a Girl Scout troop out of this house. There’s a group of four or five girls—they’re a nice group of kids and they’ve been doing this for several years now. They go on one or two camping trips every year. They decide on activities and they enjoy it. My friends and I started going to the Village Bar every Wednesday night because my dad and his brother Butch bartended there on Wednesday nights to make a little extra money. I’d go on Wednesday night and see all their friends with cars and stuff. We’re in a car club. They would all come. There’s this group of us that have been going every Wednesday The Meyer home at 3814 Winnemac Avenue, 2014. night. My dad long since has stopped working there, Butch has long since stopped working there but we still go there. I think it’s a pretty friendly place. Although it is true that since most of the people there know each other, if you come in and nobody knows you, you’re left alone. It’s not a fancy place, just grill-type food. There’s no jukebox. I think that’s nice—it’s not so noisy that way. It’s a place you could sit at a table and talk. Westmorland Park has changed over the years. There are fewer kids there. Well, there are just fewer kids in general. The whole Sequoya Commons controversy was a difficult time. A lot of people felt it was too big and out of scale with the neighborhood and that it would bring in too much traffic. I thought the neighbors did a pretty good job of putting together a response, asking to have this project scaled back. But the general sense was that the city planners pretty much rebuffed them. That might be part of the reason that Dave Cieslewicz did not get re-elected mayor. I think he made enough people mad with that and other things like it. It is what it is. It’s completely out of keeping with the rest of the neighborhood. It’s pushed up to the street. There’s no setback. It dwarfs the church next to it. But Westmorland is still a nice neighborhood. It seems physically stable in that there’s not a lot of empty space to be developed or changed. It’s not likely a big highway is going to come through the middle of it. It’s a neighborhood of small houses but it seems like people are investing in their houses and building on them and making additions. It seems like a stable neighborhood. We’re happy to live here.

142 Afterword Westmorland residents continue to participate in traditions like those chronicled in these interviews: block parties, picnics, play dates, and socials. Seasonal community celebrations connect us, from Earth Day clean-ups to Fourth of July festivals to Halloween parties and Santa housecalls. Through these activities, neighbors continue to get to know each other and to preserve what has always been special about Westmorland—an ordinariness where, like Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, all the children are above average. While the traditions continue, Westmorland’s strong sense of place subtly shifts. Our “old-timers” remember a more close-knit community. It’s true that there is less “coffeeing” among stay-at-home moms in the morning and fewer games of Kick the Can until the streetlights come on in the evening. Maybe there is a message here: If we don’t work to knit our community together, we may lose the sense of “heaven” remembered in Voices of Westmorland . Even though today’s residents are busy with work and other activities outside Westmorland, community spirit is alive and well here. Our Ice Team received the “2013 Volunteer Group of the Year” award from the Madison City Parks Commission in spring 2014 for maintaining the skating rink in Westmorland Park. WNA’s Greenspace Crew continues to beautify our open spaces. An annual wine-and-cheese party and the Fourth of July festivities bring us together to deepen our bonds. Times may change, but Westmorland, not so much. We hope you have enjoyed spending time with the individuals who contributed interviews to this oral history project. Above all, we hope we have inspired you to record and share your own memories—with your family, friends, and community.

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