Kewaunee County and the Liberation of Concentration Camps

Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and more are German internment camps that Algoma residents began hearing about right afterJanuary 27, 1945, the day that marjed the Soviet troops' liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp. It was after that when residents began hearing about Nazi atrocities, however the news did not make the fronht pages of Algoma Record Herald. It seems curious that during the war and after, Algoma library's newspaper new books' column highlighted any number of novels revolving around the plight of Jewsih people and the death camps while the paper carried so little, Why?   

Eighty years later, Auschwitz might be familiar to one who has toured Germany, but for others? Maybe not so much. The World War ll generation has nearly passed away, taking vivid memories with them. Algoma servicemen who witnessed the death camps might have screamed in terror in their dreams, but they couldn't tale about what they saw by day. Years later, military service was not mentioned in the obits of many who served as part of the Greatest Generation. 

Today, January 27, 2025, is remembered as Holocaust Memorial Day, a day marking the liberation of Auschwitz. It is a day to remember over six million Jews murdered and the the millions of others killed by the Nazis. The evening news pointed to events in the UK and in Poland where King Charles and Prince William, Price of Wales, and other leaders paid a visit to the Jewish Community Center in Krakow. CBS News reported on the gas chamber survivors at today's event, saying it is likely that today would be the last :major observance that any notable number of survivorswill be able to attend." 

While the world saw genocide before the gas chambers and has seen it since, Holocaust Memorial Day is a day to remember the victims and to encourage action "For a Better Furutre,: 2025's theme.

Although the largest number of people were killed in the gas chambers, the Nazis murdered Poles, Soviet POWs, Roma, gays and others who did not meet the restrictive requirements of a "pure race," In all, two-thirds of of Europe's Jews were exterminated. That was one-thrid of the Jewish people in the world. 

In her report, CBS's Anna Noryskiewucz said those who survived the original selection for death went on to suffer the unimaginable, forced labor, suzero temperatures, horrendous medical experiments and then finally murdered. Auschwitz was hell on earth.

There were rumors, and there was skepticism. Algoma residents really began learning about that hell when letters began flowing, or years later when European travel came back 

Robert G Neumann, formerly of Vienna and teaching at Oshkosh State Teachers’ College, was an Algoma Men’s Club speaker in September 1942 when he talked about the 8 months he spent in a German concentration camp. He showed the scar inflicted by a Gestapo’s bayonet.

Neumann avoided the worst of the details although said, “Death is not the worst thing that can happen to you under the Nazi regime.” He also said that if one is beaten, one can be beaten again, but if one is shot, that ends the torture.

Neumann felt the conquered people would never overthrow Hitler, and the breakup of the regime was only hopeful thinking. He felt an invasion of the continent would require a revolt, also saying the war didn’t start in 1939 but right after World War l. He told attendees that war was a failure of the past.

Neuman told about conflict between Hitler and churches saying totalitarianism could not permit allegiance to a church. The Nazis did not close churches, however it was very unwise to be seen in one. He told about gaining absolute control of the youth by organizing youth movements under Nazi-trained leaders and control of teachers. Home influence was more subtly controlled.

Gestapo could imprison anyone for even a potential crime against Nazism. The concentrations camps were threats of punishment and the camps were not a secret in Germany. Papers even published pictures of such punishment to impress the population with what could happen to one who was contrary to Nazism.

In February 1946, Pfc. Lorenz Hoffman was back in Algoma after 17 months overseas. He was with the 116^th Evacuation Hospital which supported the Sixth Army in its campaigns in France and Germany. Hoffman was being transferred to the Central Pacific when Japan surrendered and was sent back to Germany. There he spent time in the Dachau area where the Nazis committed some of the most horrific crimes. Hoffman brought back pictures as proof that the Allied reports were not just propaganda. And propaganda there was.

Professor Laura Leff of Northeastern University has written extensively on the “final solution.” Professor Leff’s outstanding work can be found online or at libraries. She wrote how newspapers and 24-hour news programs decide to broadcast, prominently display stories, or even the follow-up. As an example, Leff used the New York Times coverage of Hitler’s “final solution,” saying, “No American newspaper was better positioned to highlight the Holocaust than the Times, and no American newspaper so influenced public discourse by its failure to do so.”

The Times did not ignore the plight of the Jewish people but, as Leff said, total coverage mattered less than placement and frequency. Although the Times published 1,200 stories on the Holocaust, only 26 of 24,000 front page stories centered on the Holocaust and many failed to mention the Jews.

The Catholic Church actively worked to rescue Jews with false passports, hiding them in monasteries and convents, but there was criticism about the extent of the rescue work and that Pope Pius Xll, fearing reprisals against the church, did not forcefully denounce publicly what the Nazis were doing to the Jews.

It was January 1944 before Franklin Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board, although some historians feel he could have done more earlier. By 1944, the magnitude of the Holocaust was becoming evident. Some feel Roosevelt’s lack of forceful action was public opposition and potential opposition to large numbers of Jewish immigrants.

As early as August 1942, one Gerhart Riegner, who represented the World Jewish Congress in Switzerland, attempted to report to Rabbi Stephen Wise by sending a message through the State Department, which tried to block Riegner’s report. State asserted that such planned murders were war rumors. The department finally verified the news and Wise said he was authorized to release it to the American public.

As American military advanced deeper into Germany In the spring of 1945, they liberated Buchenwald, Dachau and Mauthasen, although liberation was not their primary purpose. They liberated captives on forced marches and found others in camps. It was in August 1945 when Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower toured Ohrdurf and sent first-hand evidence of the atrocities to Washington saying that there was truth for the future should “there be a tendency to change the allegations merely to propaganda.”

Ike encouraged the soldiers to tour the camp take pictures and write home about what they had seen. He arranged for Congressmen and journalists to witness the horrific scenes themselves.

On June 22, 1945, Algoma Record Herald  published the letter St. Sgt. Leander Paul wrote to his parents saying he saw the hospital at Dachau, about 5 miles from Munich. Since  censorship was lifted, Paul was able to write more freely about where he was. He said he saw 30 cars of refugees who had starved to death. Guards told the men that inmates died at a rate of 50 per day from starvation although there was also black typhus, which was why Paul and the others could not get closer.

Paul said the place covered about one square mile and had walls around it. He talked about the crematory and said there “was a stink around the place.” Although he took pictures, he feared they’d be poor quality since it was getting dark. He also said if he had not seen the place for himself, he would not have believed the rumors about the Germans.

Sgt. Paul told about his fellow soldiers who had gone to Hitler’s retreat at Berchtesgraden, Austria. While Paul didn’t get there, he said he had “a couple shots of champagne in one of Hitler’s fancy glasses” that the men got from there.

After leaving Dachau, Paul’s group moved to a location on the Rhine and were living in a house that belonged to a doctor. He felt the Germans were friendly and were not giving them trouble as Paul’s men were acting as police for the surrounding towns. Paul was busy getting clothing and equipment “for the boys,” as they had moved so much that there was no time.

Before arriving in Germany, Paul landed in Southwest Wales and crossed the channel.

Landing at LaHarve, it was necessary to unload everything on the beach because the docks were knocked out. The city was flattened and the worst he had seen. The French people gave them “the cold shoulder” as they “were sore at Americans for wrecking their town” although it was the only way to get the Germans out.

Sgt. Paul was near Roen, France, and the German cities of Aachen, Vetweiss, Bad Godesburg, Frankfurt, Augsbach, Wurzburg, and Remagen where they guarded the Ludendorf bridge.  Paul crossed the Danube at Ingolstadt. Before the crossing, Paul and five others took a town by themselves, taking 30 prisoners. Paul said he took two pistols, one being a Luger, from the dead, and said the guns were his prize possessions.

St. Sgt. J. Wright Ihlenfeld was another who wrote after visiting Dachau and was at a trial of Nazi war criminals. He wrote to his parents about seeing gruesome sights while saying he knew some things were in the newspapers though some people thought the propganda was true. It was not.

 Algoma Record Herald published his letter on June 7, 1946.

Wright said there were two crematories, the first built as early as 1933. His guide was one who was liberated at the same time as Father Kaminski (who Wright did not know at the time), just before prisoners were to be set afire.

One crematory had four ovens which took six bodies each, so 200 a day. Adjoining the crematories were the gas chambers packed full each time they were used. In all rooms there were signs reminding workers to “wash your hands after handling the corpses.”

Torture included lashes with a thong for hiding a cigarette or taking a carrot. Men’s hands were chained together as they hanged from a hooks in the ceiling while bodies swung from side to side.

Until the Nazis started “mass production,” the ashes of the victims were put in jars with “Prisoner” on the containers before being sent to the nearest relative for 75 marks. That got so rushed in the “maniacal frenzy of extermination” that a huge grave was dug for the daily dumping of ashes. When Ihlenfeld was there, a sign and cross marked the site: “Here lies ashes of those who were cremated, number unknown.”

Ihlenfeld told about the execution stand where six or eight were shot at a time, falling into a wooden grating where blood  ran into a concrete ditch. The guide said the ditch filled many times during the day.

The Crimes Commission at Dachau was that of the Third Army headquarters and attending a War Crimes Court, Wright described 80 prisoners in the dock while the “big shot” being tried was Dr. Walter of Mulhausen Camp where 29 died daily from in population of 10,000.

It was estimated that over 2,000 people were used as guinea pigs and frozen in degrees up to 30 to learn about the effects of low temperatures in high altitude flying. When Walter was questioned, he said he could not remember or said he followed orders.

 

In 1948, after 25 years, Kewaunee’s Mrs. Anna Kotyza returned to her native Czechoslovakia to visit her siblings. She said the country was beautiful where war had not touched it, however the war changed the country and its people.

Mrs. Kotyza traveled with Mrs. Rose Shrovnal who visited relatives in Moravia. An October 1948 Kewaunee Enterprise reported on Mrs. Kotyzka’s trip.

On arrival at an airport near Prague, Mrs. Kotyzka was greeted by her two brothers and four sisters. Correspondence was always kept up and, during the war, Kotyza’s son was in the U.S. Army and able to establish contact with his Czechoslovakian relatives.

Mrs. Kotyzka said those known to be Communist were vociferous while others didn’t say much other than that they didn’t want another war. She felt that there was so much discouragement over the futility of war that people would accept almost any kind of government to avoid it.

She told about the little Czech village of Lidice that the Nazis erased from the map for alleged assistance to “assinators” of a known Nazi official. She said it would be like going to Casco one day to find nothing but level ground. After the Nazis destroyed Lidice, they bulldozed it and re-routed the highway to eliminate it from maps. She told the story of a woman who lost 7 family members in one night of terror.

That story appeared as early as June 26, 1942, when Algoma Record Herald reprinted Edmund Duffy’s article about the annihilation of Lidice in the Baltimore Sun. Duffy’s story further explains what Mrs. Kotyzka learned several years later.

Duffy said to imagine men all being shot, the women and children sent to concentration camps or to appropriate centers of education, all the buildings leveled, and the name of the place abolished. That was the village of Lidice and “abolishment” was in a Nazi statement a few days before the article. Lidice was a village for at least 600 years and St. Margaret’s church had been there since 1736. There were shops and a street named Wilson for the American president during World War 1.

As it was, two men fatally wounded Nazi Reinhard Heydrich, the “protector of Czecho-Slovakia,” called the Hangman. It happened on a highway that didn’t even go through Lidice. The people told the Gestapo that they knew nothing about it but the Gestapo knew the people of Lidice dreamed of freedom and said they found a forbidden radio, arms and munitions. Some young men managed escaping to join forces to fight against the Germans, and the Nazis went forward with bloody vengeance in the deaths of more than 700 innocent men and women.

Duffy told readership that when they read of Lidice to think of a small town near them that was crushed into the earth, its name purged from all records, the bodies of its men dumped into a common grave, its widows imprisoned, and doubly orphaned children in the hands of vengeful, merciless foreigners.

Upon arrival Mrs. Kotyska was whisked to Prezietice, 7 miles from Prague and the place where her family lived. The entire neighborhood turned out to honor her with a celebration while catching up on the 25 years.

One Prezietice woman was visiting overnight  in a neighboring village and returned the next day to find the Nazis killed all the men while sending the women and children to concentration camps. She never heard from family members again.

Mrs. Kotyza found a reminder of World War ll when she learned her niece’s leg was amputated as a result as an American bomb on one of the last days of the war.

Long rows of white crosses were reminders of the concentration camp at Teresin and brought tears to the most hardened person. It was there that she saw some of the Nazi torture equipment. She met a man with unmistakable signs of plastic surgery on his face and palms of his hands. He had been at Teresin and told Mrs. Kotyza that he was in his cell brooding about his family when a guard ordered him to tell what he was thinking about. Guards did not believe he was thinking about his family and thought he had information he would not divulge. When he said it was true that he was thinking of his family, a Nazi doctor came and cut the skin from his cheeks and the palms of his hands. Then the guards bound his hands to his face to force him to permanently assume his “thinking position.”

He was left bound for a year and was fed by guards who enjoyed his discomfort, beating him when he refused to talk. His palms grew to the side of his face and when the Americans freed the camp, an American surgeon performed plastic surgery to restore the man to almost normal. 

At Teresin she met a man weeping bitterly outside the camp. He told Mrs. Kotyza he had been a prisoner and came back because he couldn’t help himself. He said if all Americans could see the ravages of war and what the people had to deal with, Americans might better understand.

Mrs. Kotyza said she realized the country was licking its wounds from World War l and the next war piled up new scars that probably would never heal. So many lost everything and the scarcity of rebuilding materials couldn’t be realized in the U.S. Everything was rationed and because rations were so meagre, people were forced to the black market even for necessities. She saw at least 500 people standing in front of a store that advertised 50 pair of shoes that were poor grade.

Mrs. Kotyza spoke to one of the men in the rear of the line and asked him if he didn’t know the shoes would be gone long before he got to the door. He replied that he knew they would be gone but hoped he just might get lucky. She talked about food in big cities when after long working hours people had to stand in food lines if they found a shop that actually had something.

She said people were grateful for every bit American sent them and even saved the cans although she didn’t know why.

Polish widow Mrs. Mary Kulesza was the wife of a man who died at Dachau. She was also in a camp at Oswiecim for a year and a half. She was sick and thought she’d never see her children again. When County School Superintendent Mrs. May Smithwick sent a package to Poland, it was received by a grateful Mrs. Kulesza.

On May 20, 1948, the Record Herald reported on the letter translated for Mrs. Smithwick by Rev. Thaddeus Koszarek of West Kewaunee. It told of the joy the packages brought to her, her 16-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter.

The Polish woman said she would send a letter with pictures and asked Mrs. Smithwick to write to tell what prompted her to send the packages. She asked “Mrs.” if she could write in Polish. Although Mrs. Kulesza studied English, she remembered very little and said she did know German quite well, but she “did not like that language.” Kulesza said she was grateful to ”Mrs.” for her generosity and interest.

Father Koszarek assisted again in 1949 when the May 26 edition of Kewaunee Enterprise ran the story of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Burzynski, their daughter Hedwig and son Wencil who arrived in the county under the Displaced Families’ program to make a new home on and operate the 78-acre Veeser farm north of Rostok in the Town of Pierce. The Burzynskis owned a farm in Poland before Germany overran it in 1939. When Germany attacked Russia in 1941, the Russians robbed the family of everything they could not pile on a wagon. Since then, the Burzynskis were in a German concentration camp and in a displaced persons’ camp. It was Father Koszarek, pastor of St. Hedwig’s, whose efforts brought the Bursynskis to Kewaunee County.

Casco’s Father Hodik and Stangelville’s Father Rudolph Kerch spent three months in 1950 visiting twenty European countries. When they later shared experiences, they said the trip to Dachau was gruesome. The clergymen talked about the approximate one-quarter million executed there and said there remained chalk-like human bones could be picked up on the ground.

During November 1951, Vignes Homemakers received letters of appreciation for the box of clothing and foods sent to Poland in spring. Letters told of the need for medicine and  a letter writer told about her 80-year-old father still held in a concentration camp. It did not all end with the liberation of Auschwitz.

 

It was October 25, 1956, when Latvian concert pianist Herman Godes appeared in the 1956-57 Door County concert season, a concert that almost did not happen. Godes was a brilliant pianist when he was taken prisoner during German invasion the Baltic countries. He spent 4 years at Buchenwald where he was liberated by Allied forces in 1945. He came to the U.S. in 1950 and quickly became a favorite of American music public. His appearance brought memories.

As late as American Legion’s Veterans’ Day dinner at the Dug-Out in 1966, Algoma residents heard speaker Father Hubert Kaminski as he talked about his life as a prisoner of Nazi death camps. He also showed slides. Kaminski was a chaplain and captain in the Polish army when captured. As a chaplain at St. Mary’s Kewaunee Hospital at the time, he spoke to groups frequently over the year. He said what was read in news or seen on tv was nothing compared to actual goings on.

Born in Kajewo, Poland, on July 18, 1908, Kaminski studied law at the University of Warsaw and attended Duchowne Seminary in Plock, Poland.

He talked about the Katyn Forest just northwest of Smolensk in Soviet Russia where 14,000 polish officers were massacred. He told about the 238,000 who died at Dachau and said April 29, 1945, was the happiest day of life because the  Americans saved him and others at Dachau from extermination.

But more happened in the years before.

Kaminski was captured by Russians early in the war from his home near the Russian border. Escaping from the Russian POW camp by putting on civilian clothes, he asked a woman if there was another entrance besides the main gate. The guard was half asleep and Father got past him to get to Poland using his Warsaw college student ID.

He eventually reached the German occupied sector of Poland where the bishop assigned him to a small parish. On his way to say mass one day, Nazi soldiers ordered him to come with them, saying he would not need to take anything and would be back the next day – which turned into years. In his earliest Nazi imprisonment, Kaminski had to take care of latrines. Then he was taken to a transitory camp for two weeks before being sent to Dachau. He got his last glimpse of his mother as he passed her apartment in a truck, however she didn’t see him.

The five years of terror and horrors at two concentration camps were unforgettable.

At Dachau, one bathroom served 400. Most slept on the floor and if there were beds, it was seven to a bed. Dachau and the transitory camp had 100 crowded in a room without beds nor changes of clothing. Kaminski was one of 33,000 crammed into a two-block area at Dachau. Escape was impossible as there were two sets of electric wires which were patrolled by soldiers. People lived like swine, and Kaminski told about the death of an archbishop who was put in boiling water.

Kaminski’s doctor brother survived a concentration camp while another brother was a member of the Polish underground who died in 1965.

Dachau had about 2,000 Polish priests, and priests were used as guinea pigs in medical experiments. Survivors were crippled or mentally broken while 864 Polish priests died at Dachau. Kaminski was fortunate to be strong as Nazis needed the strong in the quarries. Those in the quarries called vile names. They could not walk and had to run. The slow were whipped.

Working with other priests in quarries, Kaminski split rocks and loaded trucks which they had to pull with 15 priests to a truck. The rocks built the crematoriums and ashes of the murdered were used for walks.

At one point, Kaminski scheduled to hang because of sabotage which was placing his wet shoes too close to a heater. He never knew why he was not hanged though felt the order was lost. Not all were exterminated. There was starvation and disease. Breakfast was black coffee and then it was working in the quarry till noon without food. He told about finding a frozen rutabaga that he hid in his clothes to share it with others. To the day of the presentation “the mere thought of a rutabaga” made him ill.

As liberation forces pressed forward, executions ramped up. In Spring 1945, word spread that remaining prisoners were to be burned alive at 9AM the next day. The plan was to spray gasoline on prisoners and set them on fire. Nazis were forced to flee when American troops heard about the plan and sent a tank corps ahead thus sparing 30,000 prisoners. Aware of the stepped-up executions, they reached Dachau less than 4 hours before the slaughter was to take place. Kaminski is one of the relative few who survived Dachau

Pope Pius Xll sent Kaminski to recuperate in the US where he became a citizen. He had been under the rule of four governments - Polish, Russian, German and American. Kaminski told audiences that he felt so blessed and thankful including for the freedom of movement and the joy he found in fishing.

At the time, Kaminski’s brother was director of a clinic earning about the price of 5 pair of shoes monthly while working eight hours a day, 6 days a week. After hours he handled private care for which he was seldom compensated. Most whom he served came for a document giving permission to stay home from work. Medication was free and the clinics were overcrowded as there was no well-organized system. If one had a headache, it meant going to the hospital.

Om May 5, 1966,  Cardinal Joseph Beran, exiled archbishop of Prague, spent a day in Kewaunee and Manitowoc counties visiting Bohemian parishes, four in Kewaunee County and three in Manitowoc. The Cardinal had a reunion with Father Kaminski. The men spent four years together at Dachau. Beran did not speak English and the two conversed in Polish. When Beran spoke at the Bohemian parishes, Rev. Jaroslav Polc of the Green Bay Diocese translated for him. Polc worked as a researcher in Rome and assisted the Cardinal for about a year after the Prague government permitted his departure. The Cardinal remained head of the Czechoslovakian church even though a communist order prevented him from returning to his homeland.

After liberation, Cardinal Beran returned to Czechoslovakia where he was again arrested but at that time by the Communists. At liberation, Kaminski worked as a chaplain with Polish and American troops at Dachau.

Kaminski came to the U.S. in 1951 and was assigned to Kewaunee in the summer of 1965. Before that, county residents got bits and pieces of stories from the military who could speak of the horrors, travelers after the war and sometimes by letter.

Louis Sell was Luxemburg ”Man of the Year” in 1957. The speaker at the December recognition dinner was Henry Cornell who told of his experiences Auschwitz, a camp, he said, no American ever saw. Cornell said he was one of five who survived Auschwitz.

Cornell said a U.S. weakness was “taking blessings for granted.” He went on to encourage attendees to, “Exercise your responsibility to your country and vote. You are the government,” while pointing out that at one time Germany had 23 parties, but in 1933, one party – the Nazis – took over and the hatred for Jews and Catholics resulted in persecutions, most which the world had never heard of.

As late as October 1981, Rev. Roy McDaniel, former vicar of St.-Agnes-By-the-Lake, was a delegate from Kansas to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council in Washington, D.C. The conference had representatives of former prisoners and the governments of the prisoners as guests of the State Department. Fr. Mac wrote to Algoma friends saying, “My Division, the 104^th Infantry (Timberwolf) freed the prisoners at Nordhausen Concentration Camp. We processed the dead and cared for the sick and dying.” Fr. Mc Daniel was presented with a commendation.

Holocaust Memorial Day has much to teach. There are countless online sites, digitized newspapers and magazines, and U.S. museums for those who want to know the stories.

Although Kewaunee County is small, there are connections to the Holocaust. There is no doubt the late members of the military or the families of immigrants to Kewaunee County took stories of atrocities to the graves.

SourcesL Algoma Record Herald, Kewaunee Enterprise; CBS Anna Noryskiewicz;Professor Laura Leff of Northeastern University (online.) 

Kewaunee County History: Algoma and Nearly 175 Years of Dolls

Financially strapped as so many were during the Depression and going into the rationing of World War ll, there were plenty of long faces when there were no dolls, trucks, roller skates, BB guns and sleds under the Christmas tree. Beach’s Dime Store – and Beach’s Basement Toyland in 1945 - had toys and if Santa read his mail, he could pick them up in Algoma without making the long journey to the freezing North Pole. Everybody had fresh carrots in the basement bin and a farming community, such as Algoma, had plenty of hay. The reindeer wouldn’t go hungry.

But how did parents explain when Santa forgot, or why a friend got a gift their child desperately wanted? Nobody wanted a pair of socks or underwear unless it was for a dress-up doll. The little ones never knew when second-hand gifts appeared under some trees. Metal toys and old toboggans were cleaned up and painted. If there was a scape or two, it was bound to happen if a toy fell off the overcrowded sleigh or rubbed the side of a chimney. Dolls were washed, clothing was refreshed or new clothing was made. Little girls were ecstatic when a new dress matched the dress on the refurbished doll. Seldom do the moms and dads of today work secretly worked into the night to sew, refurbish and build. Today requests are electronic, mostly phones, which average kids already have. They need the latest model. Video games and subscriptions to gaming sites are desired. Some things are factory refurbished although are not “second hand.” While it seems that everything runs on batteries, it was flashlights that required batteries in 1950, and any kid playing with a flashlight was chastised for using up a battery.

Since the settlement of Wolf River, (one of Algoma’s early names) little girls have played with dolls, however not today’s dolls. Perhaps the area Pottawatomie children did as well. The Oneida populated areas west of Wolf River in what has been Brown County since 1818 when today’s Wisconsin was part of the Michigan Territory. The Oneida children had faceless, corn husk dolls.

The only little girl in Wolf River in 1851 was 9-year-old Harriet Warner. If Harriet had a doll, no doubt it was one made of fabric scraps – a rag doll - rather than a China doll made mostly (or even entirely) of porcelain. By 1859, Harriet’s cousin Lucy Warner lived on the lake shore road about 3 miles south of (then) Ahnapee. Lucy had a China doll, 11” tall with black hair and blue eyes. The doll was in an exhibit at Algoma Library in December 1953, just under 100 years later. Librarian Dorothy Ackerman hosted the display at the library then at the northwest corner of Third and Steele St., above City Hall. Also in the display was a wax doll from 1869. It belonged to Mrs. George Hyde (Sabina Emily Flower Hyde, 1870-1958) and who brought her doll with her at immigration to America. Sabine was the mother of Myrtle Hyde Perry, who became  Mrs. Rufus Runke, the mother of Ralph and Melvin Perry.

National Gallery of Art online tells us dolls go back much farther than the settlement of Wolf River and that since ancient times, dolls were used in magic and religious rituals, and used to represent deities. But they have also been toys for children.

Mattel’s Barbie dolls were introduced in 1959. The full-figured adult dolls that reflected cultural changes and the dreams of little girls were by far the most popular doll of the 20^th century. There were others.

When a 21-year-old art student rediscovered an old German art called “needle molding,” soft sculpture dolls were born. Originally called the Little People, they were renamed Cabbage Patch dolls, marketed as a doll that “looks like you.” They even came with adoption papers.

Cabbage Patch dolls were such a phenomena that adults fought over them. News carried reports about law enforcement called to stores to break up adults fighting over the dolls. Some adults developed strategies to work with another, throwing dolls over the display into the next aisle where another could grab as many dolls as possible. When dolls sold for $25, there were reports of selling on the black market for as much as $2,000, and an online search reports that in the 1980s, 30 million Cabbage Patch dolls were sold.

Kenner introduced its scented Strawberry Shortcake dolls in 1979. Lower elementary teachers of the era remember the scents of strawberry, blueberry, and more when the kids brought the overpowering scented doll necklaces. Now-retired teachers well remember the headaches from all that “perfume” in the classroom.

Girls of the late 1930s and into the 1950s had dolls whose faces were a composite of the famous Dionne quintuplets. The quints were real, and dolls were named for them – Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emilie, and Marie.

The quints' clothing was copied by well-dressed children throughout the world. Their baby clothing was the inspiration for child models and the colors they wore became the colors in children’s clothing.

By July 1936, the quint dolls were being made with curly dark hair and the dolls were wearing silk frocks and bonnets like the those worn by the girls.

The identical quintuplet girls were born in Corbeil, Ontario, during the Depression and their marketing and exploitation -they  were wards of the provincial Crown - brought profit to the Canadian province. People flocked to “Quintland” to gaze and gawk at the little girls who were taken from their parents and siblings, exhibited like monkeys and even used in scientific experiments. As the world’s most photographed children, the girls were forced to dress alike for photo shoots. Their pictures were in magazines, on postcards, used in advertising and souvenirs, and their images were used to sell products, such as dolls. Dolls with the quints’ likeness outsold the child film star Shirley Temple dolls.

Shirley Temple, America’s child star sweetheart, was an irresistible, curly topped little girl who was always seen as  cheerful, cute, loving, and even courageous on the silver screen. The 1930s saw the depths of the Depression and in the decade, Shirley made 20 feature films. Wikipedia, photo left) says each of her films included emotional healing.

Popular as Shirly Temple and the Dionne quintuplets were, if there was downright fighting over dolls in stores, the newspapers didn’t mention it. However, during the same era, there were reports of women fighting over the fabric stamped flour bags. No doubt some little girl’s dress came from one of those flour bags while her doll’s dress came from the scraps.

Just as the Barbie dolls, the Cabbage Patch dolls are sold as collectors’ items so are the older Shirley Temple and quintuplet dolls. The metal toys of the 1930s often found their way into the World War ll metal drives, but the dolls had nothing to offer in defense of the country and thus exist today.

With tears like a real baby, Tiny Tears made its debut in the 1950s. Betsy Wetsy was even more like a real baby. Entering the market in 1937, the “drink and wet” Betsy grew in popularity.

Algoma was the place for dolls. The late historian Pearl Foshion’s hobby was re-doing dolls from the body to the clothing. She was regarded as an expert who collected and repaired dolls to the point of being known as the doll doctor. Her husband Herb was a city physician. When the Record Herald reported on Pearl’s dolls, it said she had been collecting for years and the oldest was 82 years old.

When the dolls were exhibited in December 1953, the oldest doll was a golden-haired China doll, owned by an Indiana resident, that dated to 1890. Mrs. John Thiard’s bisque doll with auburn hair was on display as was a 1900 doll that came from Mrs. Frank Jirtle’s store. Ruth Henry Evans’ 1903 doll even had its own swing to sit in.

 Mrs. Lorraine Gray, whose husband, Harold,  was the local Methodist minister, had a huge doll collection and in late 1969, she had 2,200 dolls in her home. Ten years later, Mrs. Gray’s museum was a major tourist attraction in northeaster Wisconsin, drawing over 11,000 visitors in 1980.

By spring 1980, Mrs. Gray’s Doll Museum featured 5,433 dolls on the east end of  Living Lake’s Expo on Church St. The museum had Shirley Temple dolls and boasted of having Norwegian, Olympic skater Sonja Heine wearing skates. Her oldest doll, Frozen Charlotte,* dated to 1860. Topsey Turvey** (left) dated to 1884.

One of Mrs. Gray’s most unusual dolls (left) was a replica of a paddle doll*** of Egypt of 3,000 years ago. The doll lacked arms, legs and a head and was not much more than beads on a piece of wood.

She had dolls from porcelain, wax and wood to plastic, and dolls from around the world, including a Belgian lacemaker brought on a tour of Belgians who came to the area in 1978. There were George and Marth Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, the Kennedy family, Queen Elizabeth, Ike and Maimi Eisenhower, Will Rogers, Laurel & Hardy, Elvis Presley, Emmett Kelly, the Muppets and so many more.

Annual doll shows brought hundreds and hundreds to Algoma and in July 1982, the 18^th annual Doll Show ans Sale at Knutson Hall and Dug-Out was the largest ever with dealers and exhibitors coming from 20 states.

 One hundred sixty-nine years after the first documented doll in what is now Algoma, there are a lot of dolls, collectibles and otherwise, in town.

Notes:

* Frozen Charlotte was a china or bisque doll made in one piece between 1850 and 1920. There were no moveable parts, which, Wikipedia says, made them look as if they were frozen. Wikipedia further says as the dolls increased in popularity, its name was inspired by a ballad about Charlotte who froze to death riding in a carriage to a winter ball.

** https://dclu.langston.edu.eflewiscollection history says the dolls were sewn by African-American women who were employed as domestics in European-American households.

Research indicates that the dolls originated during slavery and that there appears to be no single reason for such dolls, the dual doll might reflect the mixed race children who were part of the plantation world.

*** https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/544216 says Egyptian Paddle Dolls dated to the Middle Kingdom and were not toys but were necklaces which when shaken made sounds to appease gods or goddesses. They were made of wood although had thick hair.

Cousins in the Blogger's family had quintuplet dolls. Our family shares the quints' ancestry.

Sources: Algoma Record Hearld and websites mentioned above. The corn husk doll is from an Oneida doll-making workshop.

An Algoma Christmas 1944: I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

 When poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote his poem “Christmas Bells,” it was Christmas Day 1863 and followed the 1861 death of his wife, Fanny. She had died from burns when her clothing caught fire. By the time Longfellow wrote the poem, his son had been wounded in the War Between the States, now known as the Civil War. Longfellow’s poem stemmed from his deep mourning as he heard hope in the chiming bells that Christmas morning.  That the right prevails with peace on earth and goodwill to men is echoed in the Christas carol that originated in the pealing Boston church bells.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day was set to music by John Baptiste Calkin and has been arranged many times over. Bells reflect good news. Bells reflect the beginning and the end, but it is the Christmas bells that herald the hope and joy of Christians in the birth of Jesus.

Eighty years ago – 1944 – Christmas bells brought hope in Algoma when the war-weary world prayed for peace. In some ways, 1944 was not so different from 2024. Most things change in such times but, sometimes, not so much.

If Algoma residents were thinking of the joy in the bells and music, maybe they stopped at Yahnke’s service station to purchase music from the new shipment of records.

John Byrnes was running for 8^th District Congressmen in 1944 when told Algoma’s U.S. Plywood employees that the Washington administration failed to bring jobs and create prosperous economic conditions while being responsible for the largest drawn-out depression in history. Byrnes said it was the war not FDR’s New Deal that brought the uptick in jobs. He said while Algoma employers and employees agreed to wage increases, they were stuck for months and months as there were 19,000 cases before the Washington, D.C. board that had to approve of any such raises. Byrnes said the country needed to “return to the freedom of workers and freedom of enterprise.” He said the way it was, folks were being misled to believe Washington grants the benefits. He further said that when the war was over and the boys came home, they’d want real jobs, “not the dole and leaf-raking dependency on Washington.”

While Brynes was campaigning, Algoma resident Garritt VanDam talked about the two letters he received concerning relatives still residing in his native Holland. Gerritt’s father was a baker in Eerde, in southern Netherlands, but Garritt followed milling. It was Father VandenElzen, the pastor at Fairland (now Namur), originally from VanDam’s home area, who encouraged Garritt to locate in Algoma to work for Algoma baker, James Knaapen. VanDam eventually bought the Rio Creek mill and elevator.

A Minnesota woman wrote to VanDam telling him her son met Gerritt’s brother Bernard and his family who treated her son with great kindness. The woman’s son was in England after being wounded and hoped he could write to Gerritt about his family.

The other letter was about Bernhardt Van Dam, Garritt’s nephew, and the bare bakery Bernhardt owned. Supplies were short, if they could be had at all. Restrictions meant the writer could not say where he was nor where he had been so only mentioned the church in “your nephew’s village,” which the family knew was at Eerde. It was still standing but had suffered in the bombings.

While Bernhardt VanDam’s village faced food shortages, Katch’s and Red Owl’s Cashway were advertising food bargains, although Cashway let it be known that the store had the right to limit quantities. Katch’s bulk candy shipment ad was sure to bring in shoppers. Arndt’s Super Food Market suggested food gifts and would make up any size of fruit basket.

Local merchants were doing “Christmas good dollars and cents business” but said Christmas items were scarce although there were plenty of substitutes. The Record Herald said there wasn’t any candy and few cigarettes. Sugar was the first and last thing rationed during the war. It was needed for military food rations. Cigarettes were given to soldiers with their overseas rations at a time when civilian smoking was increasing due to wartime stress. One businessman was realistic when he said they sell what they had because that was all there was. It even made the news when scarce women’s hosiery became available and seemed to be of unusually good quality.

Though residents missed candy and cigarettes, everybody knew the “boys” in tents, foxholes, on bases or in ships needed it more. Besides that, spending less at Christmas meant more money was available for war bonds.

William Saroyan’s Christmas was dramatized when Algoma Women’s Club met for their December meeting. Christmas smells were represented in the cedar boutonnieres given to each attendee. Christmas tastes were brought out the in cookies, while Christmas sights included gift wrapping and decorations. The women learned cutting strips of flannel with pinking shears made appropriate ribbon for babies’ gifts. Just being together was the Christmas highlight.

But this was 1944, the fourth Christmas when the country was at war. The dramatization stressed that the being together was a “spirit” with so many absent. Suggestions included inviting a serviceman to dinner to see the tree lights and gifts, getting cards and letters to those one had been meaning to write, or to have a ‘round robin account of the day’s events to send to others. It was pointed out that “a gift is anything one can give another and the greatest is those we hold in our hearts, rather than in our hands.” Far away were those both known and unknown who didn’t hear the hope and joy of the Christmas bells while they fought for the right to believe in all that Christmas means.

During this fourth year of war, businessmen and homeowners alike skipped the outdoor decorations and 10 days before Christmas the post office said it had sold 15,000 1 ½ cent stamps, down from the 35,000 the year before, although the Record Herald felt that folks were just late as card sales in the city had mushroomed.  Both the paper and the post office neglected to say that the cost of mailing had increased during the year.

Christmas doesn’t seem like a time for paper drives, however in 1944, Kewaunee County had just completed the December paper collection which fell considerably short of the 10# per person in September. Collections were made at the various churches where St. Paul’s, Algoma, led the way with about 1,000 pounds. That fell far short of the over four ton the same church brought in a few months earlier.

Beach’s Toy Store at 304 Steele and Beach’s main store at 514 4^th advertised gifts, including jewelry which seemed a little pricey for the time. Pyrex came into being in 1915 and in 1944, a Pyrex casserole dish had a distinctive advantage: the cover doubled as a pie plate. At 75 cents, the practical man could gift his wife, mother, sisters, aunts and neighbors a Pyrex casserole for the price of a single lapel pin.

Seventy-five cents could buy a new hairdo at Flora Lee. Permanent waves began at $3.95. Anew “do” was certain to put a woman in the Christmas spirit.

Algoma churches announced Christmas Eve and day services, some of which saw youth taking the largest part. St. Mary’s celebrated with midnight mass and 5 masses on Christmas Day. St Paul’s had a song service on Christmas Eve. The choir, Sunday school, day school and congregation were all part of the service. Christmas Day services were at the regular times.

The Methodist church presented a Christmas pageant with children of the congregation taking multiple parts.

St. Agnes-By-the-Lake Episcopal church did not have Christmas Eve services in 1944 but did have a communion service on Christmas Day. St. John’s, Rankin, opened with a children’s program on Christmas Eve. The congregation’s 66 Sunday school children presented recitations and songs at night. Services in both German and English followed on Christmas Day.

Just before Christmas, the paper informed readership about the school Christmas programs. Students at San Sauveur school joined the kids at Duvall Graded as they were treated to an educational movie. Any kind of a movie was a treat in those days when the county owned projector was scheduled for use at the various rural schools. Casco High School announced its Christmas concert on December 22 as the three other high schools were performing their own band and choral concerts. Other musical news was Luxemburg’s Phyllis Rueckl who made her operatic debut in the Chicago Opera Company. Phyllis studied with Theodore Harrison at the American Conservatory. The really big news was in food production, and Lincoln cheese factory got a new cheese vat big enough to hold 15,000 pounds of milk.

When the Christmas bells rang in 1944, Algoma residents were praying for relatives and friends in the military and the war’s end. The war did end, and 1945 saw a different kind of Christmas. There were still shortages and hardships, however fathers, sons and daughters were returning. In some cases, it took years for a body to come home.

Eighty years later, there are similarities. The older set remembers; the younger people have no clue. What seems to have changed the most is business. Algoma was a hub where one could find just about anything in 1944.

The bells have changed too. They are automated, electronic and digital, but they were heard "on Christmas Day in the morning."

+++++++++++++++

Algoma businesses – 15 of which were alcohol-related - wished residents Christmas greetings in the pre-Christmas Record Herald.  The Hotel Stebbins and the Flora Lee Shoppe remain.

Mollie’s West Side Tavern, Mura’s Rustic Resort, Worachek’s Tavern, Dick DeGuelle’s Bar, Perry’s 4^th Street Coffee Shop, Thora Wheeler’s Club Tavern and Restaurant, Kulhanek’s North Side Tavern, Marquardt’s Electric Service, Arno Graf’s Hotel Stebbins, Louis Hassberg’s Majestic Theater, Maedke Produce, P.C. Gerhart & Son, Heinie Damman Schlitz’ Bar, Henry Wiese Clothing Store. Red Zastrow’s Tavern, Blahnik Chevrolet Sales, Ebert Barber Shop, Stangel’s Tavern, Clarence Haucke’s Funeral and Ambulance Service and Furniture Store, Empey Monument Co., Schuch’s Market, Norb Hucek’s Victory Club, John Maedke’s Lakeview Lumber Co., Tom Stodola’s Owls’ Club, Rufus Entringer’s West Side Barber Shop, Otto Krohn’s O-K Barber Shop, Builders Veneer & Woodwork Co. of Rio Creek, Clarence Vandertie’s Sky Club, Rein Ponath’s Rein’s Tavern, Algoma Creamery, Timble Barber Shop, Rivers’ Bakery, Hubbard Welding and Body Shop, Reinhart’s Footwear, John Bero Insurance Agency, Paul Hoppe Perlewitz Paint Shop, William Mullen Insurance Agent, Groessl’s Drug Store, Algoma Oil Co., Sedivy’s Market, Nell’s West Side Grocery, Fellows’ Garage, A.S. Woles’ Melchior Jewelry Store, Muench Service Station. Earl’s IGA Store, Beaches, Pearley’s Standard Service Station, Gamble Stores, Fluck’s City Drug Store, Yahnke Wadham’s Service Station, Allen Schwedler Appliance Co., Ropson’s Motor Sales, Flora Lee Shoppe, Holtz Beer and Locker Service, Louis Sibilsky Insurance, Carl Fabry Cashier at the Bank of Rio Creek, Algoma Fuel Company and Horak’s Market.

Sources: Algoma Record Herald; Commercial History of Algoma, WI, Vol. 1

 

   

Veterans' Day, 2024: A Reminder That Freedom Isn't Free

“Freedom is never free,” said President Ronald Reagen. He was quoting from James Grengs’ Freedom is Never Free, or maybe he was quoting from Kelly Strong’s poem Freedom is Not Free. Trey Parker wrote the song Freedom Isn’t Free. The phrase seems to be identified with many, however Googling susgests its origin is credited to Col. Walter Hitchcock of the New Mexico Military Institute. Whatever its origins, it's true.

Irvine Health Foundation, ihf.org/veterans/ is one of many that says, “A veteran is someone who, at one point in their life wrote a blank check made payable to “The United States of America,” for an amount up to and including their life.” The person who first said that appears to be unknown, but the quote rings loud and clear on Veterans’ Day, November 11.

The words were echoed once again by emcee D. L. as he spoke to hundreds of vets who were recognized at the Green Bay Yacht Club. In its 20^th year, the club honors all vets who enter the grounds under the fire department’s huge flag arch. As they meet and greet, they enjoy coffee, pastries, hors d’oeuvres, and a scrumptious lunch for which there is no charge. It was and is a day of remembering and comradery. Veterans know each other even though they’ve never met.

Solemn 2024 ceremonies included an invocation, a speaker – this year a Lt. Col. who talked about being under fire when a severely wounded man kept it up, putting his life in even greater jeopardy thus surely saving the lives of others. The story of such bravery brought tears from those who knew how many times it was repeated in the 250 years of U.S. history. The bagpipers from the Green Bay fire department added to the emotion. The flag ceremonies, the Sullivan-Wallin Post 11 salute and taps, and the Coast Guard dropping the wreath into the water to honor those lost at sea had an effect on all present.

There were sobs. Some were men still dealing with the demons of Vietnam. They had a special honor though when musician/songwriter Mickey Grasso introduced his new song, “Welcome Home.” Vietnam vets came home to be degraded and even spit upon for being drafted into service, and Mickey sang just for them. Veterans’ services vans were there with staff offering information and assistance.

The future was represented by elementary school scouts who led the Pledge of Allegiance and then went on to be of service carrying food and coffee for those with mobility issues, or just helping around the dining room.

The men who originated the event, and all those who have helped to grow it, know Col. Hitchcock was right: Freedom isn’t free. From the Revolutionary War to present day, it is ordinary men and women who have written the blank check. For far too many, the check has been cashed!

 Photo from https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/navy-sailor-salute

Kewaunee County, Abraham Lincoln & the Nomination of 1860

 

Kewaunee Enterprize was the first newspaper on Wisconsin’s Peninsula when it published its first edition on Wednesday, June 22, 1859. Door County Advocate followed on March 22, 1862. What started as the Ahnapee Record in June 1873 became Algoma Record Herald in 1918. There were other Peninsula papers within those years, however they came and went, or merged with the big three.

Of the papers, it was only the Enterprize that saw the nomination and the election of Abraham Lincoln. It was only the Enterprize that witnessed the start of the War Between the States, later being mostly known as the Civil War.

The presidential election of 1860 was 164 years ago. One hundred sixty years certainly brings change, but then again……not so much.

In today’s world, news travels electronically in seconds, however in 1860 telegraphs had not yet made it to the Peninsula. Travel was primarily by horse or boat, and while railroads were making inroads, it was over 30 years before trains were a reality on the Peninsula. News came to the lake port communities via the ship captains and any newspapers they brought with them. Door County was set off from Brown County in 1851 and Kewaunee County was set off from Door a year later. The Peninsula is no longer the “backwater” it was in 1860 when often news was hearsay, although many would say today's rumor-spreader is social media.

When the Enterprize published on Wednesday, May 30, 1860, it told readers the Republican nomination of Abraham Lincoln in Chicago “astonished everybody, and none more than that party.” The paper went on to say there was no use in “disguising the fact than that the nomination is a wet blanket” on the party’s election chances. It said the charming, gregarious William H. Seward was really the enthusiastic choice and looked forward to by the rank and file as the preeminent choice.

It said that Lincoln, Pennsylvania’s Simon Cameron, Missouri’s Edwin Bates and others were fair enough as candidates but that Seward was a champion of the issues, a man of extraordinary talent and more. Lincoln was identified as a man of good reputation with a “sort of coarse popularity.” He was called a country stump speaker. His sense was sound, but his talent was “medium.” The Enterprize did not say that at the Chicago convention, Mr. Lincoln was on his own turf. Called the Chicago Wigwam,** the building was specifically erected for the convention in the young city that would after play an important part in U.S. politics.

In a reprint from the Green Bay Advocate, found in the Enterprize, the Advocate said it could probably find 20 Wisconsin farmers within a day’s drive who would be at least equal to Lincoln in “all valuable respects.”

The Advocate thought Lincoln’s nomination was brought about by those hostile to Seward, those who would rather have the party defeated than have Seward succeed. It thought the Democrats who were about to meet at Baltimore might have learned a lesson from the Republicans: “Chicanery is fatal to party success.” Men who were faithful, prominent and demanded by the people were those the Enterprize felt must be nominated even though it did not suit the political managers. Had Seward been nominated, the paper felt, the Democrats would have had a horrible time defeating him. Green Bay Advocate said the Democrats only needed to be marshalled on election day to march “over the field to certain and rapid victory” with a candidate like Stephen A. Douglas.

Enterprise Editor Garland said that from boyhood forward men were raised to see talents and abilities in looking for a presidential nominee. It carried correspondence from the Free Democrat which said there was excitement in the city (Chicago) and issued a statement “of ground of the fitness and capacity of ‘Old Abe’ for the high office for which he was nominated.” It was also written that “the Press & Tribune office was illuminated from the top to bottom, and on each side of the counting room stood a rail taken out of 3,000 split by Old Abe on the Sagamom River bottom some 30 years ago, and on the inside were two more rails hung with tapers.”  “Old Abe” was a mere 52 years old.

The Free Democrat said it learned early of Lincoln’s “peculiar fitness” for office. Mockingly, the Enterprize said if rail splitting was a qualification for office, Kewaunee County would have no problem finding several hundred men who qualified as timber candidates. It went on to say stalworth farmers “who are sound on the rail” should be selected to bear aloft the Republican banner.”

Boston Chronicle of the same date said Friday, May 18, would be remembered by the men of Massachusetts as the day the Republican party executed itself. Since the death of Daniel Webster, the paper had not seen men “so sober and so sad.” The Chronicle thought if the capital sunk into the earth, if the courthouse turned around, if city hall and the old state house moved to the customs house..….all those unnatural things could not have produced such profound a sensation as the announcement of Lincoln’s nomination. It said the intense sadness of the Republicans was so bad that Democrats “could not find it in their hearts to make light of their affliction.” But they did.

When a Boston merchant asked what possessed Republicans to nominate such a man, a “shabby man said it was availability.” As the merchant walked off, he was said to be muttering, “And are the great interests of this great nation to be given over to a man we do not know, because someone says he is “available?” It was said men stood in groups on the street discussing the “blunder.” Mr. Seward had the hearts of New England masses. He spoke well, he was educated and had a familiar name. How could such a man be thrust aside with the likes of Abraham Lincoln? The Illinois rail splitter was nominated in the morning and in the afternoon, Massachusetts’ sister state, Maine, won the “second prize” in Hannibal Hamlin. Such candidates could not be more unfortunate for Massachusetts and even women and children were laughing, said the Chronicle. Still, there was a 100-gun salute, however nobody knew if it signaled the life or death of the six-year old party.

The New York Tribune felt Seward’s election chances were so strong that his nomination was a foregone conclusion, so when news of Lincoln’s nomination came, it was considered a hoax. It was said in 1856 that John C. Fremont was nominated to be defeated until the Republican party got stronger.* The Tribune opined “Lincoln was set up to be knocked down to save the credit of some other man.” Then the New York Times of a few days earlier suggested Lincoln’s nomination was so bad that the chances of  any candidate nominated at Baltimore were greatly improved.

Then the Boston Courier, an old line Whig journal, believed it was the same influences that overthrew Daniel Webster in Baltimore in 1852 secured the defeat of Mr. Seward in Chicago. The Courier said Seward was a first class statesman and anybody who knew the “rail splitter” would be the first to admit he was not. It said that nomination was the “meanest specimen of availability.” The Courier asked what Republican editors had to say about such “impudence.”

Editor Thurlow Weed of the Albany Journal was Seward’s political manager, and Weed came “ungracefully” to the support of Lincoln, doing so under protest and writing that it was only “an idle attempt to disguise the disappointment of the people of New York” in regard to the failure of the Chicago convention. Kewaunee Enterprize pointed out that Republicans of Wisconsin were of the same spirit. On the 21^st of June, the New York Tribune suggested that some prominent members of the Albany lobby were goning to bolt the Chicago nominations. The Albany lobby was made up of its favorite son’s supporters.

On May 23,1860, just days before Kewaunee received the news that the Hon. Abraham Lincoln was nominated for President on the third ballot, Capt. Smith of the schooner Racine brought a newspaper, the Racine Daily Journal, which gave the account of the Republican convention held the previous Friday, May 18.

The Journal said the third formal ballot gave Mr. Lincoln 235 votes. The first ballot gave Seward 193 ½, Lincoln 102, Bates, 48, Cameron 50 ½ and Samuel Chase 49. On the second, Seward received 184 ½ , Lincoln 181, Bates 45, Chase 42 ½ with the balance scattered among others. Then came the third ballot. When Hannibal Hamlin was nominated as vice president that afternoon, it was said the nominations were confirmed with such enthusiasm that it was almost beyond conception. But, as history tells us, that was not quite factual, but, of course, politics is politics.

News from Chicago was that an hour before Mr. Green opened the Republican convention with a prayer, the facility was densly crowded. First, it was moved by Blair of Missouri, to admit 5 more delegates to give them a vote equal to the electorial vote.

According to news received, it was Everett of New York nominating William Seward. Abraham Lincoln’s campaign manager Norman B. Judd of Illinois nominated him. No surprise that others from the candidates' home states did the nominating, but it was Caleb B. Smith of Indiana who seconded Lincoln’s nomination. It was said all candidates received great applause, but the most was reserved for Lincoln and Seward.

Surprising as it was, Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election. Before he could take office in March 1861, the February 13, 1861, issue of the Enterprise reported Madison Patriot of the 4th said it felt “irrepressible” Republicans got themselves into “bad order” with the president elect, which they would find out in due time. It did say Mr. Lincoln was considered to be a man of sense who knew he could never be president of the whole country. The Enterprize pointed out that Seward and Cameron (by then in support of Lincoln) spoke for themselves and the President-elect.

The paper said if Mr. Lincoln redeemed the “hope warmed into life, he could rely on the confidence and support of every Northern Democrat.” If they backed him, he had nothing to fear. The paper suggested a wait and see approach. It hoped he could restore government to its “original stability and safety.”

With unprecedented security arrangements to that time, Abraham Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. On March 13, the Enterprize told readership that  Mr. Lincoln made one of his characteristic speeches that was either ignorance of the widespread effects of national division or a woeful misrepresentation of the true state of trade and business when he said there was “no cause for this and nobody is hurt.” The paper said thousands were unemployed in the North – reported to be 30% in Philadelphia alone - because of secession brought about by “intense love for the Negro,” in preference to citizens "means somebody is hurt and pretty badly too.”

The March 20 Enterprize carried an article from the March 9 Patriot about winning back the seceding states. Thus, it said, Mr. Lincoln was trying to steer the “old, shattered ship of State between the dangers of Scylla and Charybdis,” and if he got the Union through, he would be the greatest of all great men. If he failed, he would go down with the sinking of the Union to be known no more.”

And the rest, as they say, is history.

-------------------

*March 20, 1854, is the date given for the establishment of the Republican Party in Ripon, Wisconsin. Those founding it were against the expansion of slavery.

**Although Chicago's 1860 population was nearing 110,000, the city did not have a large enough facility to house the presidential convention. Call "the Wigwam," meaning "temporary shelter, the wooden building was constructed in under a month to serve the convention. It was destroyed by fire in 1869. 

Note: Men who ran against Mr. Lincoln were part of his first cabinet. Most positions changed with Lincoln’s short second term. In 1861, William H. Seward became President Lincoln’s Secretary of State. Edward Bates was Attorney General, Caleb Smith was Secretary of the Interior, Simon Cameron the Secretary of War and Solomon P. Chase Secretary of the Treasury.

Sources: An-An-api-sebe: Where is the River?, Kewaunee Enterprize (became Kewaunee Enterprise in 1865), Wikipedia.

Ahnapee: When Leerie Lit the Lamps at Night....and Tended the Bridge and the Harbor

     Today - 2024 - harbor communities maintain the offices of a harbor master whose duty it is to warn vessels of hazards and to ensure that regulations are followed. They see to the safety of marine traffic. Generally, today’s harbor masters and dock tenders have different jobs.

Ahnepee/Ahnapee, now the City of Algoma, employed a bridge tender since the 2^nd Street bridge was built. Before that, the log bridge near the mouth of the river needed to be taken down to allow ships such as The Ahnapee, built for Chicago businessmen J.P. and Titus Horton by Martin Larkin & Co., to get into the lake. Built upriver in the southwest part of Section 9 in the Town of Ahnapee, it was necessary to dismantle the log bridge that ran from approximately the foot of Church St. to what is now the east side of Von Stiehl Winery. 

On  September 14, 1875, the Record told readers the town board advertised for sealed bids for the construction of a new bridge to be opened on October 3. Board members visited Two Rivers to see its draw bridge and decided to build such a style. The board decided to move the bridge to 2^nd Street as it was the "center of town." When the bridge was constructed, the town needed a bridge tender to raise the bridge when necessary. His job was spotty thus enabling him to also serve as harbor master.

It was Chapter 140 of the laws of Wisconsin, published March 13, 1877, that enabled Ahnapee to go ahead with either a new drawbridge or turnbridge at 2nd Street.The bridge was to be erected with a draw or swing that could acommodate large class vessels with ease. Chapter 140 charged Ahnapee with the care and maintenance that allowed passage of vessels as quickly as possible in all types of weather. All funds were to come from collection of taxes within the town.

The community built a drawbridge and it seemed as if there were always issues with it. They began when the first vessel used it. On May 10, 1877, the loaded scow Charley Ross came down river under sail and carried away telegraph wires.

After the 2nd Street wooden draw bridge was condemned in 1895, the iron swing bridge was built in its place in 1899. The old wooden bridge needed work, however it was the blasting for harbor development that brought push to shove.

The September 1, 1899, the Record  informed readership that within three months a $6,700 iron and steel bridge would span the river at 2^nd Street to “supply a long-felt want.” Fred Wulf had the contract and was getting things in readiness for the cribs and approaches.

Wulf was paid $1,602 for the work that included two 32' wide abutments, 6’ at the base and 4’ at the top with wings of 16’ long, and a center crib, about 20’ in diameter, for the swing to sit on. Plans were for Milwaukee’s Wagner company to construct the bridge which would take about two months.

Before the days of gas - and then electric lighting, - most communities installed oil burning streetlights. The lights needed to be lit at dusk and extinguished at dawn. Lamps required cleaning and wicks needed trimming. Later, when gas arc lights came into being, the often temperamental lamps still needed cleaning and more maintenance. The lighter/maintainer was called a gas lighter and it was the job of the Ahnapee lamplighter/gas lighter to also serve as bridge tender and harbor master.

   

Lamplighters were hard workers whose work meant carrying ladders and equipment for servicing the lights to ensure safety for those on the streets at night, whether the safety was physical or personal. Even small towns had “footpads.” Except for some historic villages, lamplighters have faded into history and about the only time anybody thinks about streetlights is during a power outage.

Robert Louis Stevenson's poem The Lamplighter (published in 1885 in his Child's Garden of Verses) was one of the poems included in our grade school "memory work." There was a lamplighter in Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince, which was also a movie, but it was the movie Mary Poppins that brought lamplighters and chimney sweeps back to life. In the 2018 version, Mary Poppins Returns, Lin.Manuel Miranda played Jack, a cockney lamplighter and former apprentice of Bert, played by Dick VanDycke in the original film.

Stevenson called his lamplighter “Leerie,” a Scottish word meaning lamplighters. Wikipedia says the word also refers to the light of a lamp, a candle, or the lamp itself. As far as can be determined, Ahnapee’s lamplighters were never referred to as leerie nor were they ever the romantic, dancing figures the movies suggested. While lamplighters in larger cities were more no-account, or just “there,” Ahnapee’s lamplighters were respected members of the community. They were reliable and trustworthy, serving somewhat like  night watchmen.

At first, the Ahnapee streetlights were lit with oil. Ahnapee's lamplighters worked in the same manner as those in other U.S. cities and across the world. He had a ladder which he carried from lamp to lamp to climb and reach the wicks. He cleaned the chimneys, trimmed the wicks, and filled the lamps with oil. He? Men only? It would have been unthinkable for a woman to hold such a job in 1875, or ever, in Ahnapee. When gas lights were introduced, they replaced the oil-lit lamps, and men continued doing the work. Gas lighting was originally used in London in 1807 and soon after, in 1820, in Fredonia, New York. Some said the gas lighting era was a period of gracious living that would never be forgotten.

When a ship neared the harbor, the lamplighter became harbor master and had to find a berth for the boat. Then, as bridge tender, he opened and closed the bridge when boats went up or down river. For that he was paid about $50 a year. https://www.measuringworth.com/dollarvaluetoday says $50 in 1875 has the 2024 purchasing power of about $1,430.89. Salaries in March 1873 were set at $50 for the bridge tender, lamplighter $20, and harbor master $25, which would be just under $3,000 in 2024 dollars. In its first action, the new village* council appointed Joseph Pauly to the three positions.

Some businesses had their own streetlights and often maintained them. When a streetlamp was put in front of the post office in December 1873, the Record said it would be convenient for a small expense. In February 1874, hotel owner John Weilep, on the northwest corner of 2nd and Steele, was praised for putting up a large streetlight to throw light on the evening’s proceedings. That light caused some comment. Weilep surely had the light for safety as he wasn’t showing the rest of the city who frequented his establishment. There were Temperance societies and the hotel had a taproom! When Bill Boedecker raised a large streetlight in front of his hotel at 4^th and Steele in March 1874, he joined Weilep and Charles Hanneman, who was located on the southwest corner of 3rd and Steele. The paper said some of the businessmen “go home with the girls o’ nights and don’t like them ‘ere streetlamps.” Hmmmm.

By mid-October 1878, several groups and public-spirited citizens provided lamps for street corners. “Let the good work go on,” opined the Record.

Halloween 1878 brought word from Moses Teweles who was going to put a streetlamp in front of his saloon just west of 2nd and South Water. Teweles was having tinman Leopold Meyer manufacture it for him and said he would not ask the city fathers to pay for it.

As George Warner was about to walk home from Fax’s bar at the corner of Steele and 1st on the night of November 21, 1878, he noticed a suspicious character, thus prompting his return to Fax’s. There he left his money and watch with Capt. Laurie before starting for home again. He was accosted by two heavily built men who searched his pockets to only find 25 cents. They demanded his watch and not finding it when they searched him, they took his overcoat. The editor said if the neighborhood was possessed of such characters, something needed to be done about it and that meant streetlamps.

On May 5. 1881,the council appointed John Cooper, Sr. to serve all three positions. Cooper was appointed at the same meeting that gave the street commissioner’s job to George Bohman. Less than a year later, City Marshall Joseph Pauly was appointed bridge tender, lamplighter, and harbor master.

Before Pauly's appointment, John Cooper was paid $36.00 in salary as a bridgetender, harbor master, and lamplighter, and for buying a dog in early July 1882. In April 1883, the motion was made and seconded that John Cooper be appointed lamplighter for the coming year. He was also appointed as harbor master. Who was the bridgetender?

George Bohman was appointed in April 1885 and again in April 1888 to all three positions.

In 1889, the village board bought 18 oil lamps for street lighting and mounted them on cedar posts in strategic places. They were lit from dark to daylight except on moonlit nights when they were not needed. The lamplighter had his work cut out for him.

At the board’s September 4, 1890, meeting, it was moved and carried that George Bohman be dismissed and the offices of lamplighter, bridgetender and harbor master be declared vacant. What happened? Earlier that year, on April 10, 1890, George Bohman received 5 votes in the council’s informal vote for bridge tender. In the vote for harbor master, he received 5 of the 6 votes cast. When the vote was taken for lamplighter, Bohman received two where Simon Pies received 3. When a formal vote was taken, results were the same. When a second formal vote was taken, Bohman received 3 votes and was declared lamplighter, but that changed by meeting’s end.

When Fred Wolfgram submitted his resignation as city marshal to the council on September 4, later that same evening he was appointed to the offices of harbormaster, bridge tender, and lamplighter, the positions previously held by George Bohman and for even a few minutes on September 4. Since Wolfgram’s resignation left the city without a police officer, the mayor appointed E.C. Cameron to the position as a special policeman. Cameron had served as the city marshal, a job he held admirably. It was felt the council would approve the appointment.

When the council was paying its bills in January 1893, Emil Schubich’s salary as bridge tender and lamplighter for 7 months was $49.00. The harbor master was set as a separate job, however the year’s salary was fixed at the same rate. One year earlier William Koch served as lamplighter for just one month and was paid $20.00. How did that happen?

Ahnapee’s lighting watershed came about in 1883 when Adolph Hamacek was working on electricity while Adolph Bastar was operating a blacksmith shop on the northeast corner of 6^th and Fremont Streets. Bastar formed a partnership with Adolph, and his brother Anton, Hamacek to open a foundry and machine shop called A. Hamacek & Co. As with anything new, there were things to work out, and when the dynamo in the electrical equipment was disabled by some burning wires, it was called one of the “unavoidable occurrences” that happened to any business. Street lighting did not happen overnight. 

The 1883 dynamo Edison-Hopkinson graphic comes from https://www.fineartstorehouse.com/legends-icons/famous-inventors-thomas-edison-1847-1931/dynamo-machine-edison-hopkinson-1883

In 1885, Wodsedalek’s foundry and light plant were burned in a most destructive fire, plunging the city into darkness. Wodsedalek rebuilt less than six months later. At first, only the streetlights were operated, but a few days later, the plant was running regularly to include inside lighting. Three new streetlights were put up and all lights were kept burning from dusk till daylight.

The Record felt the first carbon arc electric lamp on the Peninsula was lit when Adolph Hamacek received a 2000 candle power arc lamp and put it in front of their foundry on July 4, 1890. 

https://edisontechcenter.org/ArcLamps.html says "the carbon electric lamp was the first widely-used type of electric light and the first commercially successful for of electric lamp."

What is a carbon arc electric lamp? Wikipedia tells us English physicist Sir Humphrey Davy invented arc lamps, the first type of electric lights, in the early 1800s. They were used for streetlights and lighthouses. The arc lamp, known as an arc light, is a device that produces light by passing a high current through a gap between two conductors, usually carbon rods. The light comes from the heated ends of the conductors and the arc itself. Britanica explains the workings of another kind of arc lamp, saying that the arc lamps are gas discharge lamps that produce light by passing an electric current through a pressurized gas between two metal electrodes. 

The graphic at the right comes from https://edisontechcenter.org/ArcLamps.html. The site is a go-to for electric light history.

Carbon arc lights were brighter and cheaper streelights than gas or oil. Still, the carbon rods didn't last long and had to be replaced often, thus a full time job. Carbon lights were fire hazards in places like theaters Carbon monoxide was bad indoors, however buildings were poorly insulated that fresh air did enter the building.

In August, about 300 Invitations were issued for an Electric Light Hop at the Music Hall. Hamacek and Co. was sponsoring the dance in the hall lighted by an electric arc lamp. How much light one lamp provided is curious.

Because of its geographical position, Ahnapee followed Kewaunee with installation of telephones and natural gas, but when electric lamps illuminated Ahnapee on March 11, 1891, the city was the first on the peninsula to be so lighted.

Things changed in April 1892 when Anton Hamacek took over lighting for the city. Aided by Ordinance 9, Hamacek furnished three lights of 2000 candle power, two placed in the original part of the city - the Youngs and Steele Plat - and one in the Third Ward, the northside of the river. The cost was $300 per year and since the Third Ward was outside the original part of the city, Hamacek was compensated for erecting, operating and maintaining lights there.

June 1893 saw Hamacek’s – by then called Ahnapee Foundry and Machine Shop – form a partnership with Joseph Wodsedalek and August Ziemer – called Joseph Wodsedalek and Co. Having experience in several businesses, the men felt the new company would meet all expectations.

When Hamachek’s Foundry, in 1894, added a dynamo to its equipment to furnish electric arc lamps for street lighting, the company had 60 patrons in addition to the city. Electricity did not totally end the lamplighter's job as carbon rods in the 1890s needed replacing after about 75 hours. By 1910, the rods lasted twice as long.

Joseph Wodsedalek had just been paid $110.35 in February 1898 for city lighting when he received a new arc lamp to be used in a streetlamp trial. However, the lamp was broken in transit and could not be used. Martin Bretl was the first in the city to try a gas arc lamp in April 1899 and felt it was impressive. The gaslight had a small chamber holding a quart of gasoline which was warmed with a generator and ready to go. Cheap and efficient. Electricity was less work.

Once again, on May 14, 1898, Ahnapee Record said the city had the distinction of being the first city on the peninsula with electric  streetlights. Results were positive and traveling men said the lamps equaled the brilliant lights of larger cities.

The arc lamps were of 2,000 candle power each. Though some of the needed materials – lamps, wire and regulators - were purchased outside of Ahnapee, Adolph Hamacek and company designed nearly all the machinery in the plant. Not long after the street lighting was introduced, business owners and industries were interested. So were homeowners.

Adolph Hamacek was living in Sturgeon Bay in October 1898 when the U.S. Patent Office awarded him a patent for his electric arc lamp. By then, Algoma** was enjoying its light.

Residents were reminded of the old days when the main shaft at the lighting plant broke in July 1907. The issue necessitated bringing out the stored old oil lamps and cleaning up the chimneys. All electric lighting was cut off and finding sidewalks was hard. Once again, the city needed lamplighters. Inside lighting was back online days before the streetlights were back in operation.

Well over 50 years after oil lights were last used in the city, in May 1950 Door-Kewaunee Normal School students held the spring formal themed “The Old Lamplighter.” Decorations and slow, modern music, furnished by the Polka Dots, harkened back to a day that was.

The lamplighters were not forgotten when lamplighter ceremonies were held marking the event when Gerhart Leischow threw the switch at Algoma’s utility plant. Mayor Malcom Empey offered the dedication when two magnesium bombs (fireworks) exploded over Perry Field. It took 18 months to get to a point where Algoma’s new system of mercury-vapor lights were a reality. Hundreds lined the street and the stores featured lamplighter specials. Algoma High School band paraded down the street and all were invited to a free dance at the Dug-Out given by the Ernest Haucke Legion Post.

The stationary 2^nd and 4^th Street bridges eliminated the need for bridge tending, the marina takes care of docking, and Algoma Utilities is serviced by WPPI Electricity.

To read the Record is to wonder about the checkered history of the three jobs. What was going on? Politics? Lamplighters, bridge tenders and harbor masters – the days of yore.

NOTE: *Ahnepee became the Village of Ahnapee in 1873. The village became the City of Ahnapee in 1879.

**The City of Ahnapee was renamed the City of Algoma in 1897.

SOURCES: Ahnapee Record, Algoma Record Herald, An-An-api-sebe: Where is the River? Commercial History of Algoma, Wisconsin, Vol. 1, 

Disney Wiki; https://disney.fandom.com › wiki › Lamplighters    

https://edisontechcenter.org/ArcLamps.html. The site is a go-to for electric light history.

https://www.fineartstorehouse.com/legends-icons/famous-inventors-thomas-edison-1847-1931/dynamo-machine-edison-hopkinson-1883

https://www.measuringworth.com/dollarvaluetoday  

https://en.wikipedia.org>wiki>Arc_lamp

PICTURES: The 2nd Street bridge picture is from the 1883 Birdseye Map of Ahnapee. The 1911 bridge postcard is in the blogger's collection.