You're in the Navy Now

Defeating the British during the naval Battle of Lake Erie in 1813 earned Oliver Hazard Perry a place in history, however it is his words in a letter to General William Henry Harrison that are remembered more than he is. “We have met the enemy and they are ours…..”  Perry was flying a battle flag with another immortal expression: “Don’t give up the ship.” Those words were uttered by James Lawrence as he lay dying aboard the USS Chesapeake.

About 160 years later - somewhere around 1980 - the Navy was recruiting with other memorable words. “It’s not a job, it’s an adventure.”  During World War ll slogans encouraged young men to “Join the Navy and See the World.” At the time, one could pick up forms at the Algoma Record Herald office, however those picking up the material knew war would not be a cake walk and seeing the world would be no vacation. It wasn’t only the Navy though. Young men from Ahnapee/Algoma and throughout Kewaunee County went into all branches of the military.

Ahnapee’s first known to serve in the Navy were DeWayne Stebbins and Henry Harkins. Harkins arrived in Wolf River, now Algoma, in the 1850s and was a Lake Michigan and Ahnapee captain in his real life. He entered the Navy as an ensign in 1862 and quickly became an acting master. Harkins manned the guns on the Cumberland in its battle with the Confederate USS Merrimac. Though the Cumberland was sunk, Harkins was one of the survivors who avoided capture by swimming away. Hank Harkins also served as an officer with Porter and Selfridge on the Mississippi River fleets.

Stebbins, who was little more than a child when he came to Wolf River with his parents, went on to work for C.G. Boalt and Edward Decker in the shipping and forwarding business until 1881 when he was appointed cashier in Decker’s Banking House of Ahnapee. Stebbins became the newspaper editor and a state senator who eventually became the name sake of the Stebbins Hotel. Stebbins’ importance is reflected in the fact that he had the first telephone in town.

During the Great War, Stebbins enlisted in Co. A, 21st Wisconsin but then was given a naval commission as a master's mate. Eventually he was promoted to master and transferred to the Kickapoo, a double turreted monitor that was sent to Farragut's fleet at Mobile. Following that, Stebbins was transferred to the steamer Michigan where he remained until discharged. When years later he became president of the Wisconsin Battleship Committee, the appointment was most appropriate.

DeWayne Stebbins was credited with saving the life of General Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War, although the fact was never actually proven. As the story unfolds, Stebbins was serving in Porter's Fleet during the siege at Vicksburg. One night when Stebbins was Officer of the Deck on the Mound City, a sentry challenged men approaching in a small skiff. Stebbins ordered his men to fire thinking the approaching men were spies, but suddenly delayed the command to make sure he didn't fire on his own men. Just then, a voice in the darkness was heard to say, "General Grant desires to see Admiral Porter." If the story is true, “Big Steb” might have changed the course of U.S. history.

George Marr, Sr. was another who served in the Navy during the Civil War. He wasn’t drafted from Ahnapee, but at the war’s end, he came west and settled in Ahnapee where he too made an impact.

In December 1917, Wisconsin was asked to “give 800 boys to the Navy” by February. At the time, the country wanted 20,000 seamen to help crush the German submarines. Those who were thinking about enlisting were admonished to do so quickly because a second draft and coming and that meant there would be no choice. The country needed seamen and addressing egos seemed to work.

Early in 1918 men were encouraged to join the Navy while being told the “pick of American manhood is in the Navy.” It was further said such men were physically perfect, mentally alert and morally sound. Articles emphasized the physical training would add years to one’s life while building one up to a point where illness would be rare. The Navy offered a chance to earn good money at the government’s expense, to get free clothes, free room and board, and an opportunity for adventure. Each city’s postmaster had information for those who didn’t go to the Milwaukee recruiting office. John Wizner must have been caught up in the fever. He was visiting in Algoma in February 1918 when he left for his home in Minnesota with plans to sell his farm and enlist in the Navy.

USS Cowell, 1960

At a time when seamen were touted as the cream of the crop, Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels made a statement about the preventable diseases men in the Army and Navy were contracting as a result of an unclean and immoral life. Everybody knew what that meant. The Navy needed doctors, and Lyman Dockery was one commissioned a lieutenant in the Naval Medical Corp. He was born in Green Bay but in later life associated with Dr. Dana in Kewaunee. Dockery graduated from Marquette College of Medicine in 1917, just in time for the war, and married a Navy nurse.

Krok native Anton Flegel was another Navy man. Enlisting in the summer of 1918, Flegel didn’t see service outside the U.S. but honed his skills, eventually leasing a service station in Luxemburg in May 1923. Flegel engaged in his own business handling Shell Oil Products. Civil War veteran Frank Gregor’s sons served in World War l. Stephen and Byron served in the Army in France while son Albert served his country at home running the farm. It was Gregor’s son Louis who served abroad in the U.S. Navy.

Kewaunee County did its best for Louis Gregor and the rest of its boys. Harry Crawford was aboard the U.S.S. Connecticut in December 1917 when he wrote to Mr. M. Wochos, Chairman of Kewaunee County Chapter of American Red Cross, to say thanks for the Red Cross package he received.  William Burke was an ensign at sea aboard the U.S.S. Cuyana in April 1919 when he wrote to the paper. When Burke got home to Casco for Memorial Day, he was in charge of the 20 returned soldiers who marched to the cemetery to pay honor to the military buried there.

While the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor was an attack on the Navy, Kewaunee County men were also serving there in other branches of the military. Algoma’s Louis Depas was serving at Pearl when it was attacked. Although his ship was hit and there were casualties, Depas survived only to die of a medical condition some years later. He was buried at Fort Bell, Bermuda and is now at rest in Arlington National Cemetery. Ray Gerhart was aboard the Nevada, getting ready to shave when the surprise attack came.

Luxemburg’s Edward Sell was at the marine barracks at Pearl Harbor when the attack started. It was several weeks before his family knew he was safe. Donald Gordon and Richard Cmeyla’s parents knew they were stationed at Pearl and they too got word of their sons’ safety weeks later. Gerhart later mentioned the time he was on the gangplank and spotted Gordon. The men had a lot to say to each other. Eldor Eggert and Ray Damas were stateside early in 1942 waiting to be shipped out. Both newbies felt there was “no place better than the Navy for young men.” Early in 1942 Howard Wolf received publicity for his heroic efforts rescuing crewmen. Wolf was in the Coast Guard when his cutter the Alexander Hamilton was sunk by enemy action in the Atlantic near Iceland. Frank Prokash, Jr. and Roy LeCloux were thought to be aboard the same cutter.

Sylvester Ullsperger was a Navy search and rescue pilot who later became an air traffic controller. Bill Storm was a graduate of the Naval Academy and Jim Lindeke was a medical corpsman. Seaman Richard Johnson served as the lowly Messenger of the Watch when he reported to the bridge – bringing coffee to the men on the watch - on a particularly stormy day while the captain was losing his cool with the man at the wheel who was unable to keep the ship on course. Nineteen year old Rich spoke up and said he could do it. The “Old Man” had had it and told the kid to take the wheel. The kid did it. He had grown up in a Lake Michigan commercial fishing family and as early as 6 or 7 years old took the wheel while the men were setting or pulling in the nets. From then on it was the commercial fisherman who took the captain up river for drinks or wherever he was going in his launch. Seaman Frank Schmidt was also a 6 year old at the wheel of his dad’s fish tug.  He was one who witnessed the testing of the atomic bomb. Ed Goetz always said Harry Truman saved his life. Goetz was in the Navy training fighter pilots in Alabama. Fighter pilots were going down at an astonishing rate and in July 1945, Ed got his orders “to go.” Before it happened, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, and Ed was eventually discharged. Ed was over 100 and still sharing the memories when he died in 2014. Donald Pfuehler’s desire to serve his country made newspapers as far as Washington D.C.  Pfuehler was working at Kewaunee Shipbuilding and Engineering when he enlisted in the Army. For some reason the Army felt there was something wrong with his feet and rejected him. To show the Army, Pfuehler hoofed it from the Green Bay recruiting office back to Kewaunee. Then he joined the Navy. Seaman Amand Laurent took part in the Siege of Casablanca. What did he think when he saw Bogart and McCall in the movie of the same name?

Joseph Muhofski of Kewaunee died in the attack at Pearl Harbor. Ralph Lietz was serving with Coast Guard when he was killed in the Atlantic in June 1943. Perry Drossart was killed in the sinking of the Quincy in September 1942. Levi Frisque was supposed to be on the Quincy but got sick and didn’t leave the States when the ship did. Casco seniors Lloyd Drossart and Roland Frisque went into the Navy in February 1943, two years after their brothers enlisted.

By the time the U.S. was in Korea, those serving in the Navy had a number of jobs besides being aboard ships. Standout Algoma athlete Zug Zastrow was the Navy quarterback who defeated the previously undefeated Army in the famous 1950 football game. The All-American Navy quarterback Zastrow even made the cover of Time Magazine. Zastrow, a Korean and Vietnam War veteran, graduated from the Naval Academy in 1952. A year after the big game, another Algoma athletic standout - Wayne Younk – came back to Algoma with a Navy medical discharge. Hilary Frisque served as an aviation machinist’s mate. Allen Albrecht served at the joint U.S.-Canadian weather station in the Canadian arctic. Father E. Thomas Peters was an assistant pastor at Holy Rosary in Kewaunee. Peters had served in the Navy during World War ll and was asked to return as a Navy Chaplain in 1950. World War ll Navy vet Melvin Qualman ran for 2^nd War Alderman in 1960. They all came back.

The Navy took men from all over Kewaunee County, during war time and peace time. During the peace time in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, area men were serving in the 7^th Fleet, keeping the two Chinas apart. The Navy was there during the Cuban missile crisis, and there to pick up Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard in the mid-1960s. During the late '60s, the Parkos brothers - Gene, Joe and Jerry - were serving at the same time.

In the last 50 years, the Navy has been throughout the world. Is it a job, or is it an adventure? The young men and women are certainly seeing the world and many see things they would rather not! At a recent gathering of Tin Can Sailors in Warwick, Rhode Island, the vets spent a day at the Newport War College, marveling over the new Navy, the education and the training. According to an after-dinner address by its commander, the young people are so much better prepared than were those at the event. Most of it because of technology and the fingers that knew joysticks and Pac Man!

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave………
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea! 


Note: Oil paintings are courtesy of NL Johnson Art and
and used with permission. The poster is a copy of table
decorations won at Warwick.

A Day to Give Thanks: Thanksgiving in Ahnapee/Algoma

Thanksgiving is synonymous with turkey and pumpkin pie, although history tells us those at the first Thanksgiving feasted on shellfish, roasted venison and corn among other things. But, probably not pumpkin pie. Recorded history says the settlers sent out a fowling party. Whether they brought back turkeys that were in abundance or some other fowl, who knows for sure?  Holiday cards and stickers reflecting smiling turkeys are sent to those who smile as the oven door is opened on Thanksgiving Day.  In 1891 the Ahnapee Record agreed with that, saying it was a day of sore distress to the turkey, but one of happiness to mankind. Some kick it up a notch dressing as the Pilgrims wearing dark clothing, and shoes and hats with buckles – the way they are depicted in books.  While the clothing description is not entirely factual, it adds to the fun on a special day.  

According to The National Park Service, the Pilgrims were actually continuing a tradition brought from Europe, a tradition Americans have kept. George Washington was in his first term when he called for a national day of thanksgiving and prayer. What sounded like a good idea didn’t catch on. Thomas Jefferson felt such a day didn’t fit with a separation of church and state, and apparently other presidents felt the same way. What we know today started coming about in the 1840s when the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, Sarah Hale, started lobbying for a national thanksgiving. However, it was Abraham Lincoln who declared the first official such a day in November 1863. The country was in the midst of the Civil War and Lincoln called for giving thanks for blessings. It was the 2^nd Thanksgiving that year. In August, Mr. Lincoln gave thanks for a Union victory at Gettysburg, the bloodbath that took somewhere around 50,000 men.

Today many celebrate while watching the clock. Some to make sure they won’t miss the Packer kick-off and others to snap up the deals at the stores opening at 6 or earlier. Maybe that’s what Franklin Roosevelt had in mind when he moved Thanksgiving to the 3^rd Thursday of November thinking that a few more days would make an impact on Christmas shopping. The country was coming out of the Depression and the economy was still hurting. Thanksgiving 1941 - days before Pearl Harbor - was back to being celebrated on the 4^th Thursday of November. And, that’s where it stayed.

It’s uncertain when Ahnapee saw its first Thanksgiving observance, or how it was celebrated, though observed it was in one way or the other. Lake Michigan captains weren’t giving thanks in the violent lake storms in November 1874. The Milwaukee weather station said winds were 48mph, 12 miles greater than the station had ever recorded. At the same time residents of Foscoro weren’t focused on turkey. They were out trying to capture a bear that was near the hamlet. Four years later the Record seemed to apologize for a paper containing less reading material because of Thanksgiving "work." The paper’s editor was not a woman! The paper did mention its accomplishments though and gave thanks for more subscribers, a new press and 15 different kinds of type.

Oysters used in turkey stuffing were in even bigger supply in 1891 when the Ahnapee Ladies Union Society gave a Thanksgiving oyster supper in James Dudley’s drugstore building. A day earlier Math Strutz  hosted a chicken and turkey shoot. City residents were urged to test their marksmanship skills at the event held along the lakeshore near the cheese box factory, today near the foot of Clark.

It was not frivolity when the Methodist Episcopal Church announced its evening services in 1898 saying there would be recitations, special music and the address, or sermon. Such an evening service was anticipated to draw large crowds because everyone would be free to attend at that time of day. The congregation invited others to “enter His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.”

Scholars were given the day off a year later when Algoma schools were closed the day following the holiday granting "students a day off to overcome the effects of overeating turkey, cranberry sauce and plum pudding." The Record went on to say that some of the elders needed to recover from over-doses of “brandy sauce.”  An observation is that the traditional pudding wouldn’t be the same without a dollop of the sauce, although there were always those who feel it is better with a few more dollops.

While much of the county enjoyed Thanksgiving, Rosiere didn’t. That part of the county celebrated kermis but not Thanksgiving, at least up to 1900 when the paper noted the quiet day because most people of the area didn’t observe the holiday. In 1901, Wisconsin’s Gov. Robert Lafollette issued a Thanksgiving proclamation in grateful observance of the blessings of liberty, peace, health and prosperity. The peace followed wars in Cuba and in the Philippines.

Perhaps Lafollette’s admonition caught on because a year later the Record said feasters needed a day to recover.

Wilbur and Kwapil Drug Store ran an ad for Kodaly, a product apparently curing indigestion by “sweetening and cleansing the glands of the stomach.” Their ad said heavy eating was the cause of such indigestion and that its repeated attacks inflamed mucous membranes leading eventually to catarrh of the stomach. A Google search indicates catarrh has more to do with the sinuses. As for indigestion, it was in 1928 when St. Louis pharmacist Jim Howe developed Tums while treating his wife’s indigestion. “Tums for the Tummy” came much later, but by then Wilbur and Wail had faded from Algoma’s list of drugstores.

Bottkol's, right

Dances were the places to celebrate in some years. Those giving thanks at Albert Gaulke’s Rio Creek hall in 1907 did so with Algoma Star Band. The Transit House in Luxemburg held a Grand Thanksgiving Jubilee the same year. The Record opined that Transit house landlords, Mr. and Mrs. Duquaine, offered entertainments not to be missed. Casco residents reported celebrating Thanksgiving “gloriously” in 1908. A huge audience crowded into the grade school for a program topped off with feasting on Casco women’s finest recipes before villagers filled Defnet’s hall for the best dance in years. Defnet expected large crowds when he advertised that Junion’s band would play for the event on November 30, 1911. The popular Junion band had also been engaged to play at Bottkols in Euren the night before. Euren isn’t far from Rosiere so perhaps Bottkol attracted the young who were beginning to celebrate the day, or perhaps just enjoyed the dancing. November 30 was a popular night for dances. Maybe it was because it was a year for bright spots. Alaska Band played at Alaska’s Lawrence Meunier’s hall while the Carnot Brass Band played at Joseph Neville’s hall in Maplewood also on the 30^th. In a time of horse transport, the populace got around.

When President Woodrow Wilson issued his Thanksgiving proclamation in 1914 he said he was dwelling on the peace in the United States while much of the rest of the world was at war. For those who thought Wilson was keeping them out of war, it would be a little more than two years before the U.S. was enmeshed in the war "over there." On April 6, 1917 the U.S. entered what became World War l and Thanksgiving that year was a day for weddings, including that of Ruth Pautz and Emmanuel Holt who were married at Immanuel Lutheran in Kewaunee. Residents were able to forget the war for a few hours during the two Algoma-Mishicot basketball games. Afternoon and evening games were played in Algoma. Mishicot creamed Algoma 31-7 in the afternoon, but the Algoma team came back to save its image in the evening.

As Algoma residents blissfully celebrated Thanksgiving 1941, they had no way of knowing that little more than a week later  FDR would be declaring war following the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor.  Geraldine Detjen and Jeanette Melchior were students home from Milwaukee State Teachers College. George Ackerman, Frank Knipfer, Jim Kohlbeck, Stanley Fulwiler and Betty Jerabek were part of the contingent home from the university at Madison. As they enjoyed the company of family and friends, they had no idea how next year’s Thanksgiving would be part of a world turned upside down.

The Thanksgiving that began in 1621, or 1624 depending whose history one accepts, is still going strong nearly 400 years later. While all is not good, there is still much for which to to be thankful. Some menu items remain the same, but preparation hasn’t. History tells us there were games at the first Thanksgiving, but it wasn’t the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears. History remembers William Bradford, William Brewster and Myles Standish, and Wisconsin honors the legendary Bart Starr and Brett Favre. Favre finally joins Starr in the Packers Hall of Fame.

Recent prompts to “Buy Local” harkens back to 1914 when the Record proposed a Kewaunee County menu that would be patriotic while demonstrating to the world that the county could depend on itself by supplying its own needs. The paper advocated Kewaunee County made flour. The Bruemmer mill at Bruemmerville could have supplied it. Sugar from county sugar beets was to provide the sweet. The paper wanted Badenzer cheese – made only in Algoma by the Schwendermanns - and fresh butter. Peas would come from Algoma’s Van Camp’s cannery. Commercial fishermen would supply the trout and turkey would come from one of the farms. Potatoes, squash, cucumbers, dill, pumpkin and more were grown in gardens all around the county. Baumeister in Kewaunee, the Algoma pop shop, and Garot Brothers in Luxemburg were there to provide the soda, and the county’s dairy cows were able to provide all the milk and cream anybody wanted.

Today, as then, women all over are preparing sumptuous feasts that will include Belgian pies and kolaches. Here and there men are deep frying turkeys in the backyard. Others have it all packed for their tailgate at Lambeau. Others will be out deer hunting, glad that it's a late game so they can get it all in. Still others will be kicking back with a blackberry brandy to soothe the stomach while others search for the Tums. 

Thanksgiving – 400 years ago it was a time for giving thanks while celebrating with turkey and games. That part hasn’t changed.

Sources: Ahnapee Record, Algoma Record, Algoma Record Herald, Google, National Park Service website.
Ad and menu from the Record; pictures and the postcard are from the blogger's collection.

Sunday Afternoons at the Majestic: How the Other Half Lived

Sunday afternoon movies at the Majestic taught us how the other half lived. On Sunday mornings in church Father Heimann and Pastor Toepel tried to teach us to stay in our own half  on the straight and narrow, which probably wasn’t what the other half was doing.

Postmarked 1919

There were no “B” grade movies on Sunday afternoon, but there were Broadway musicals and movies with night clubs, gangsters, singers, dancers, tuxedos and whatever made the east coast the other half and important in our small-town-kid minds. The “coast” to the savvy among us meant New York. Maybe California if it was a Bing Crosby movie. All that singing and all that dancing went on in night clubs where patrons sat at small round tables with light provided by the tiny lamps in the center. We always wondered where the electricity came from, but even more astounding was that the telephone could be brought right over to one who was important. Our telephones were on the wall. New York was so important that they even figured out how to get a telephone way across a room. It was a time when we heard ladies say, “Well, I never……” but we never heard the what. Maybe it was something they never heard of, like telephones that could stretch.

Kewaunee County didn’t have anything close to a night club with palm trees unless we counted those in the bier garten at the Dug-Out. We learned from Bing Crosby in Holiday Inn that show dancers were “kids” who were “hoofers.” Any Kewaunee County kid knew where to find a hoof and lots of kids saw far too many! The hoofing Jane, Ann, Jan, Nancy, Sandy and I did was around a Maypole when we danced for the Women’s Club. We didn’t have a band but we had Annette at the piano. She was blond and beautiful.

The folks, Norb and Lorraine, and no doubt others, would go to Milwaukee where the aunts and uncles lived. If we kids went along, we were put to bed before the adults went out. To a night club. We learned from the Majestic just how ritzy our parents really were. They even saw hat check girls and bought cigarettes from girls in satin shorts and shirts with little satin caps perched on their blond curls. Everybody who was anybody was blond. A tray of cigarettes was suspended by cords looped around that gorgeous, curvy, blond’s neck. Smiling, she walked through the night club selling packs of Lucky Strikes, Camels and more. Smoking in a night club meant the cigarettes came with a book of matches with the logo and address on the cover.

People in the movies always had stemmed glasses. We never knew if our folks got to drink out of such stemware, but they did bring home little paper umbrellas that actually opened. We could never understand what doll umbrellas did in a night club, but we knew we were playing with something special

Going to a night club meant suits, ties, dresses, spike high heels and hats. The men checked theirs but the women kept their hats on. A man’s hat didn’t mess up his hair while women in the movies didn’t dance wearing hats unless they were hoofers in costume. Night clubs had other beautiful blond women walking around with cameras taking photos of patrons. They were sold so one could tell friends they were snapped at such and such, a prominent Milwaukee place in which to be seen. One could also prove he was there by off-handedly using the logo matches to light another’s cigarette. Unspoken one-up-manship. There were lots of pictures taken at the Dug-Out, however they were for the Record Herald and all the subscribers – well over 5,000 when the Heidmanns wrapped it up in the 1980s – knew who was dancing at the Dug-Out. And, wearing a hat.

The movies had big bands on stage. Bob Crosby, Jose Iturbo, Desi Arnez, Guy Lombardo and the list goes on. That’s where Algoma caught up to New York. Algoma was no backwoods Wisconsin place. The Dug-Out with its dark paneling and palm trees in the softly-lit bier garten saw the likes of Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians, the Bob Crosby Orchestra, Lawrence Welk’s Orchestra conducted by Myron Floren and more that were touring the country. Germans, Bohemians and Belgians who made up the county love to dance and Kewaunee County had its own superb polka dance bands that were not exactly like the big bands. Alice Faye and Rosemary Clooney sang with the big names, but the beautiful blond Eileen sang with Russ Zimmerman and it didn’t get much better than that.

It was about that time that some kids started tap dancing. When Sharon came to visit her aunt and uncle, who were our neighbors, she always got on the picnic table and put on a show. We were impressed in a jealous sort of way. Her Aunt Pearl made costumes that were satin just like those in the movies. Her costumes even rustled. Then another Sharon and Ramona took tap and twirl and that was even more impressive. But, they had the same kind of satin costumes. We got batons for Christmas and tried hard to be like Carol, the high school majorette. We knew we couldn’t twirl because we didn’t have the satin shorts and top, but Carol had long pants and a matching jacket and she could do it. Something was wrong.

Years later there were musicals such as Beach Blanket Bingo with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. Frankie Avalon was one of the major heart throbs who came to the Dug-Out. Macy’s Thanksgiving parade was broadcast on TV. Drum majors strutted their stuff though not wearing satin shorts and tops.Even though they were men, their outfits were like Carol’s.

Nobody snapped photos of those trying to be seen at Mousy’s, Red’s, Pine Lodge or anyplace else, but Mr. Heidmann was chronicling history all around the county. Nobody was selling cigarettes from a tray and everybody in town knows more than a few who died of lung cancer. But, some of those were asbestos related. If anybody made it hoofing on Broadway or filled in for Ruby Keeler, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire, it wasn’t in the paper. Busby Berkley and Debbie Gibson aren’t calling the shots however there are plenty of county kids hoofing today in the top quality  area high schools’ theatrical productions. Polyester means you won’t hear rustling satin. If a night club scene required a telephone being brought to a table for a high school musical, would anybody ever be able to figure it out? And if it was figured out, how would it be staged? Telephone? Cords?

Kewaunee County still doesn’t have night clubs, but there are sports’ bars and just plain bars. If the county ever had a cigarette girl, her unemployment compensation would have run out years ago because few smoke. Cigarette smoke and liquid manure fumes are both the smell of money, but these days manure fumes are more acceptable. There are no little tables with the linen tablecloths and table lamps but there are high tables and stools that aren’t quite so easy to jump up on.  Big bands have been replaced with jukeboxes with choices from country western to rap. Here and there a big band sound can be reproduced with the right computer programs and mixing. A budding Bing Crosby or Rosemary Clooney might have a chance at Karaoke night while an aspiring Cyd Charisse, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire would be in some dancing with the stars contest.

Some of us still bask in the glow of having parents who did what the real people on the coast in the movies did. The post World War ll era led to changes in almost everything and almost unparalleled progress. Nearly 70 years later the lights on the nightclub tables are battery-operated. Everybody carries a cell phone. The world is not like Sunday afternoons at the Majestic.

Postcards and photos are in the blogger's collection.

Halloween: When Kodan School Board "Got 'Em Good"

Kodan's Postal Map, 1893

Trick of Treating is pretty big in most places but lots of Algoma kids – now of a certain age – never had a trick or treat experience. Somewhere back around 1950 the city exchanged a Halloween party for the promise not to wax windows and vandalize. The event began at Perry Field where costumes were judged while kids lined up for the Hobo Parade. Marching down Steele, the kids were given candy as they passed Meyers Deep Rock at the corner of 4^th and Steele. Spectators lining 4^th enjoyed the dressed up kids who continued south to Fremont where they turned west to Algoma Public School grounds. On the way into the auditorium for movies and magic shows, the revelers got other treats followed by take-home bags of popcorn balls, peanuts and comic books on the way out. Teenagers had a dance and their own fun at the Dug-Out.  A few years ago the lack of trick or treat memories prompted a five foot, 70 year old grandma to dress up as a witch and go out with her grandkids. She wore gloves on her hands to cover the age spots but felt her face would look made up enough.  

Perry Opera House on 3rd Street

Over the years Halloween activities were recorded in the Ahnapee Record, Algoma Record, Algoma Herald and Algoma Record Herald, but it was really TV that made it big news. To read the old papers and descriptions of Halloween, vandalism seems to have been a boys’ thing while the girls planned parties and the tamer events. In 1895 the Girls’ Friendly Society engaged music and charged a 25 cent admission for a Halloween dance at Perry’s Opera House. 

The paper told its readership that Halloween was the season when maidens walked downstairs backward with a mirror held in front of them, or walked around the block barefoot with a cabbage stalk in their hands. What for? They were trying to discover the identity of their future husbands. The mirror reflected the face of a man walking toward the girl, and in the walk around the block, the girl would meet him face to face. It seemed that by 1889 that custom went by the wayside and girls got into the practical joke action, though never appearing to get into the mischief that boys did.

1898 found boys and girls playing pranks, some of which were not funny. It was a year when the citizenry was warned to watch their gates as the boys would surely make raids on gates and fences. But they got into other things. Hitching posts were torn up and horse blocks were upturned. One family had its doors barricaded with shingles, lumber and junk. The following day a beer keg was found on top the flagpole at the Temple of Honor building, the home of the Temperance group in the city.

Temperance groups would have had plenty to say 50 years later when 12 and 13 year old boys went trick or treating on bachelors living in homes that were not kept like those with a woman in the house. The boys knew while there were no cookies and candy to be had, they were sure they’d get a treat. Most often it was hard cider. The boys went off with a buzz and looked forward to next year, knowing the men enjoyed the socialization as much as they enjoyed their buzz.

Around the turn of 1900, Mary Danek invited 36 young people to her family’s home for a Halloween celebration including games, singing and dancing. Coffee, cake and fruit were served in a “prettily decorated front room.” (Living room today.) A  Japanese lantern was hung in the center of the room and from there vegetables were hung on wires that were strung to all four corners. When the Record reported on Mrs. August Boedecker’s Eppworth League party at Algoma Hotel, it said the refreshment table was in the shape of a cross and that the waiters were dressed as ghosts. The paper said it was all very odd. Eppworth League was a fellowship group at Algoma’s German Methodist Episcopal Church and the symbolism of a cross on All Hallows’ Eve, which is followed by All Souls and All Saints Days, doesn’t appear as odd today as does a ceiling hung with vegetables.

If windows were soaped or waxed in the Silver Creek neighborhood early in 1900, it is hard to say, because the” school society” made news with its program. Model students with such names as Pflughoeft, Holub, Post, Raether, Wessel, Griese, Blaha and Entringer sang songs and recited pieces about Jack o’ lanterns, pumpkins and even October. Carl Post presented the History of Halloween.

Casco was a small village that didn’t escape Halloween. In 1903 the locations of all the village signs were moved to other spots, supposedly to make sport of travelers. A few years later the paper said “Hurrah for Halloween” when it reported on Rosiere’s activities at Rubens’ Hall.  Everybody was invited to the hamlet’s moving picture show which was advertised to include pictures of the war that had just begun in Europe. By 1917 the U.S. entered the war that became known as World War l.

Halloween was big in Kewaunee in 1915 when church bells and school bells were tolling, but it wasn’t those in charge ringing the bells that night. While the police tried hard to follow clues, windows were being soaped and vehicles were disappearing. Algoma's officer patrolled swinging his billy club but the tricksters weren't worried. They just did their work in another part of town.

Joseph Koss of Casco was the county supervising teacher in 1916 when the title of the article announcing his presentation read “Plan Halloween Program.”  It looked as if Supt. Koss himself was the Halloween program when the article pointed out that he was secured as a speaker for the Advancement Association of School District #2. But then the article went on to say that a Halloween program was arranged and that Mr. R.H. Wunsch would conduct the Babcock test for butter fat. The school had been rigged with a stage and light fixtures for the evening entertainment. One wonders about the size of the audience at such Halloween frivolity.

Halloween seemed to be tamer in Forestville in 1923 when Frieda Steuber entertained 20 friends in a room decorated with orange and black. The guests spent the evening playing games before they enjoyed a midnight lunch.A few miles away in Kolberg, Frank Pavlik didn’t have quite so much fun. He met a cruel prank when he walked into his barn the next morning to find two of his calves tied together by their tails. Another was tied to the door by his tail.

Holidays were a time ripe for crimes and scams just as they are today. A man up to no good used Halloween 1893 for his advantage. As it happened, a Veneer and Seating employee was on his way home from the factory about midnight on Halloween when he was commanded to halt by one described as being heavily built and wearing a black mask. The employee didn’t stop but ran a few blocks for assistance. When such assistance returned there was no sign of the highway man even though there was a search. Some felt the masked man was out for Halloween revelry but others wondered why anyone would halt people on the streets at midnight and risk getting shot just for the fun in scaring others.

Soaping and waxing windows was an old Halloween prank that resulted in more than a little work for home owners and businessmen. Some experienced true vandalism when vehicles were stolen and tires were punctured. Tipping outhouses was a biggie all over until it wasn't so much fun. 

For one reason or another, Kodan was known for its deviltry and that's where the outhouse tippers finally got theirs. After so many years of dealing with the outhouse, Kodan school board members pushed theirs forward just a little. When the jokesters came that wet evening and pushed from the back, they slipped!  Kodan school board “got ‘em good” and from then on outhouse tipping wasn’t quite so popular. That was about the same time the country kids bragged about Halloween cow tipping to gullible city kids who actually believed it, but no doubt they were the same kids who were told chocolate milk came from pumping the tail of a brown cow. 

Halloween customs have changed and costumed adults are found working in stores, banks and other places. Neighborhoods are decorated with all kinds of ghoulish displays and everybody gets hyped up. Kids trick or treat and adults are known to take a wine glass or beer mug and trick or treat in the neighborhood. Where most Halloween activities are soon forgotten, Kodan's school board continues to be remembered. By those who heard about it, and especially those who slipped!

Sources: The newspapers mentioned.

Post Office map and postcard are in the blogger's collection.

Kewaunee County & the End of the Vast Pine Forests

War of 1812 veteran Major Joseph McCormick was already living along Lake Michigan, in what would become Manitowoc County in 1836, when area Pottawatomie Indians made him aware of lands to the north. He and a party of men ventured north in 1834 to what, years later, became known as the Ahnapee River. Somehow their sailboat crossed the sand bar at the river’s mouth and the men  reported going nine miles up-river, as far as today’s Forestville where they named a small island in honor of McCormick.*

McCormick's party found the richly forested area quite favorable, and McCormick felt the north side of the river near Lake Michigan would be a fine place for a city. For whatever reason, neither McCormick nor any of the others returned within the next few years and Kewaunee County was not permanently settled until June 28, 1851 when John Hughes and William Tweedale brought their families to make a new home. Orrin Warner followed with his family a week later and thus was the beginning of today’s Algoma and the permanent settlement of Kewaunee County.

Men had been coming and going in Kewaunee County before that, however. They were lumbermen. Surveying of what became Kewaunee County began in 1830s when the flow of the river eventually known as the Kewaunee was the most prominent feature in the geographic area that would form the county. That prominent feature was to play a huge part in the county’s economic development.

Mouth of the Kewaunee River, 1836 map

Surveyor Joshua Hathaway and his friends bought large tracts of the heavily timbered land along that river and around the area that is the City of Kewaunee today. They were speculating. Hathaway sold water rights to Montgomery and Patterson of Chicago, and in 1837 Peter Johnson was hired to build a sawmill, however the mill owners failed to provide support during the winter and workers went on foot to Green Bay, narrowly escaping death, documented in Peter Johnson's letter to Hathaway dated January 12, 1838.. There was a little activity and the unfinished mill was deserted for six years when John Volk, also of Chicago, became aware of Hathaway’s search for a sawmill developer on the Kewaunee River. Volk accepted Hathaway’s offer and work began in 1843. It was the timber during the territorial days that principally motivated the land purchases along that river.

Although faced with significant problems, Volk managed to get the mill into operation. Lacking a sheltered safe harbor Lake Michigan captains feared being caught in storms. Almost worse was that the timber had to be floated downstream. Though that doesn’t sound like a big deal, a constantly shifting sandbar made it extremely difficult to get the logs into the lake. (At the time, the mouth of the Kewaunee River was east of today’s Shopko.) When ships were able to load lumber and return with supplies, Volk learned about other timberland at a place called Oconto Falls about 60 miles north of Kewaunee on the west shore of the bay of Green Bay, and he relocated He didn't stay long, however, and during a subsequent illness, he sold the Oconto Falls land and returned to Kewaunee.

Volk was joined by his brother and the two built a pier in 1850 or 1851 after earlier, in 1848, rejecting the idea. That meant people, freight, lumber and, eventually, mail and the development of Kewaunee. Volk once again left Kewaunee for Oconto Falls but that time his relocation was precipitated by Daniel and James Slauson, relative newcomers to the area.

Though Volks claimed they owned countless acres of timber in the area - and effectively drove others off - Slausons suspected Volk mills were processing lumber from stands of timber they did not own. When Slausons couldn’t find official ownership for most of the timber stands at the Menasha Land Office, Volk was challenged to present title. Since Slausons had filed for ownership themselves**, John Volk took the easiest way out and sold the mill operation. The new day around Kewaunee lasted for the next half century.

While they never came close to the operations of Weyerhauser, Knapp, Sawyer, Washburn and other Wisconsin companies existing within the same time frame, by the early 1870s, Daniel Slauson and partner George Grimmer became the county’s largest milling operation. The extent of the timber and what happened is difficult to imagine within today's framework.

In 1875 the Ahnapee Record pointed to the magnitude of logging in the camps around Kewaunee saying that within two years time the supply of pine would be exhausted. The size of the operations can be measured in the approximately 220 jobbers with an aggregate of 500 men that George Grimmer had employed for the season ending by late March 1875. The 500 men had a proportionate number of working teams. That same year C.B. Fay & Co. of Casco produced 2 million more feet of logs than the company anticipated prior to the season’s start.  James Slauson’s brother-in-law Charles Dikeman was another large mill operator, operating in Coryville by 1863. Dikeman was another who greatly exceeded  projections. The paper also said it took about 22 years to reach that point.

Lake mariner Abraham Hall was captain of the Rochester, the first boat on record visiting the lake shore settlements. Before going down on the sands of Two Rivers Point in 1847, Hall's Rochester was engaged carrying lumber from Volk's Mill at Kewaunee to Chicago.  What he did after his boat went down is not clear, however in 1849 he was working at lumbering in Kewaunee. Two years later he was also running a boarding house there, or at least was allowing the traveling public – few though they were – to stay the night.

Artist's Conception, ca. 1870

Born in 1814 in Montgomery County, New York, Hall learned the shoemaking and tannery trades from his father. By age 20 he was farming and buying and selling real estate in his home state. The Panic of 1837 suspended much of his business and in 1842 Hall came west to Racine. He purchased the schooner  Rochester in 1846 and engaged in general lake freighting. Abraham Hall could be called Kewaunee County's first permanent resident. The mill men left and Hall remained, however not in Kewaunee. On April 20, 1852, he began building a sawmill on the south branch of the Wolf River near the site of today's Algoma Hardwoods .Hall’s mercantile was built at the same time and was the first in Kewaunee County. His gristmill followed and was another county first. Hall, called a stirring businessman by Door County historian Hjalmar Holand, is credited with being the founder of Wolf River as a business center.

Kewaunee County saw a number of other large sawmills, the largest of which fits into this blogger’s family history. Just after the Civil War the Scofield Mill at Red River, with its hundreds of employees, had a capacity beyond any other in the county.  Scofield had a smaller mill about a mile south of Dyckesville on a waterfall in an area today called Rock Falls and also operated a larger shingle mill in Door County at what came to be called Tornado.

Fellows' Mill at Foscoro

Sawmills large and small dotted Kewaunee County in the early days. John McNally and his father-in-law Hugh Ritter were operating in Sandy Bay (Carlton) in the 1850s and was one of the earlier mills. Elisha Dean and John Borland were also there operating by the mid 1850s with James Sprague, Adolph Manseau and Hiram Coggswell beginning soon after. Capt. Charles Fellows had Wolf River/Ahnapee business interests but operated his sawmill at Foscoro, an area now called Stony Creek.  J.C. Merrill  and John Axtell were running their Casco mills during the Civil War. C.B. Fay had mills at Casco Pier and in Casco during and after the Civil War. Wells and Valentine ‘s mill was three miles north of Ahnapee and just after the Civil War, Boalt and Swaty were operating in what would become Bruemmerville. Henry Christman’s sawmill was in the Town Montpelier, a little over a mile north of Stangelville. Christman was the postmaster of the place called Montpelier and served from his business. Jacob Weiner began his sawmill business at Coryville just after the close of the Civil War. Joseph Horak had a sawmill at Zavis before 1876 and Alex Trudell and Charles Kalenhofer bought Slauson and Grimmer’s Scarboro mill in 1882. The Bauer Bros. began their Franklin operation about 1891, within the same time period that Albert Heidmann and Knudson were developing their sawmill at Bolt.  Pirvnec and Brandes  and the Albrecht brothers opened their mills near Stangelville. Peter Engeldinger was in Franklin before 1891 as was George Bottkol  in Bottkolville/Euren, John Buettner in Pierce and Grupp at Ellisville. William Baldwin was milling in Ellisville before 1883 and Andrew Hessel was there right after. Hardtke and Brand were also there, however little is known about them. Charles Beitling and David Hill were operating at Casco Pier at the time of the fire while Leo Heppler was at Pierce Lake (now Krohn’s) in the mid 1870s. The 1880s saw the Burmeister brothers milling in West Kewaunee.

Taylor and Cunningham's company was a factor in Kewaunee by the first editions of the Enterprize* in 1859 and Woyta Stransky was not far behind. Red River saw Speer Brothers during the Civil War and S.G. Shirland by 1872, both on the bay shore, and followed by Barrette. Interestingly, Surveyor Sylvester Sibley, Guerdon Hubbard and James A. Armstrong patented land near the mouth of Red River on September 1, 1835, intending to build a sawmill. By 1840, Wisconsin’s first newspaper publisher Gen. A.C. Ellis, Green Bay’s Daniel Whitney and Senator Timothy Howe were involved, but about 1850 Armstrong and Hubbard abandonded the mill.

There were other prominent early sawmills in Kewaunee County and at least ten that were destroyed in the horrific  fire of 1871, Edward Decker’s mill was one that was rebuilt. Willard  Lamb’s sawmill near Casco at Munchenhof was another mill that was destroyed in the fire and rebuilt. It began manufacturing in 1860 and seems to have continued until 1890. Lebfevre at Walhain does not appear to have been rebuilt.

When Hathaway began surveying in the 1830s, the trees were so thick that it was felt they'd last forever. The density is put into perspective in a story found in Ahnapee Record. Wolf River resident Edward Bacon decided to walk from the mouth of the river to his home near Hall's Mill. Using the river was the safest means of travel but for some reason Bacon was foolhardy and walked, completely missing his home. Some how he kept his wits and walked west where he knew he'd find the bay of Green Bay. When he got there, he turned south toward the place that had recently been named Green Bay. From there he walked the path leading to Kewaunee. Reaching it, he turned north and walked along the lake shore to Wolf River, finally reaching his home several days later. It is written that Bacon's family thought he was dead and was overjoyed to see him. Without a doubt, after Bacon's warm reception, he was dead meat for putting his family into such straits!

The vast stands of timber have disappeared and there are few places where somebody would get lost in the county's woods today. However it might be hard to find one's way out of  a herd of dairy cattle. Kewaunee County has close to 100,000 of them. Dairying is the leading industry and the number of cows to people is among the highest in the nation. It was lumbering and its demise and the Fire of 1871 that determined the future, which is what we know today..

*The mouth of the river now called the Ahnapee was east of the Harbor Inn. The river was dredged and straightened years later by the U.S. Engineers. A 9 mile trip is recorded but Forestville is little more than 5 miles from Algoma. The island disappeared before 1900.
**There are 5 pages of 1854 land transactions representing about 100 parcels involving Slauson.

Sources: An-An-api-sebe: Where is the River?, c. 2001; Decker Files and Fay Papers, ARC at UW-Green Bay; Here Comes the Mail, Post Offices of Kewaunee County, Kannerwurf, Sharpe, Johnson, c. 2010; Hjalmar Holand, History of Door County, c.1919; Marchant, Les & Jeanne, Marchant Relatives of Red River c. 1982;  Ruben Gold Thwaites Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin; U.S. Government Bureau of Land Management; Ahnapee Record and Kewaunee Enterprize/Enterprise; Kewaunee County maps

Volk's correspondence is a copy an original letter that was in the author's collection which has been sold.  Photos and documents are in the blogger's collection.

Women of the Plywood: World War ll Years

U.S. Plywood at the confluence of the Ahnapee River and its South Branch

Much has been written about what is now Algoma Hardwoods. Founded in 1892 by Mel Perry as the Ahnapee Veneer and Seating Company and later U.S. Plywood and Champion Papers, it was long locally called “the Plywood.” When the company observed its 100th anniversary in 1992, the celebration included a book chronicling its history, but the book made little mention of the women who kept the place going during the World War ll years. The war and defense contracts brought the company a new prominence and a new kind of employee. To read A Century of Quality Woodworking: 1892-1992 Algoma Hardwoods or old Record Herald newspapers, one would scarcely know area women stepped in to take men's places in production during the war.

During the 1990s, Virginia Johnson interviewed a number of former Plywood women employees about their wartime jobs. After 50 years, their memories were identical.  Collette Gerhart and June Poehls worked in the office while Lyla De Meuse, Millie Hardtke, Millie Nimmer and Helen Brunner were among the plant’s production employees. World War ll Plywood employees were predominantly women, but how many were there? Those interviewed for this project guessed women comprised from 50% to 75% of a work force that numbered about 1,000. Estimations changed with the departments, but it was agreed that the "boat works" was almost entirely made up of women. Former company president Ray Birdsall felt (at the time of the interview) that the information was no longer at the Hardwoods and probably no longer exists.

Whether it was 50% or 75% or more, the women did their "duty” in a way few could understand today, 2015. The men left at the plant during the war were young farmers, those beyond draft age or those with physical limitations and deferred from service. Though the women were not bothered by any kind of harassment, spitting tobacco or snuff was an irritant prompting management to provide sawdust-filled boxes to be used as spittoons. Some of the women remembered sweeping up sawdust only to find what was obviously a spit-out plug of tobacco. During its first 50 years, the very few women employed by the company held clerical positions and were quite likely “type-writers.”

A 1912 twentieth anniversary photo shows all 108 male employees who were given white canes and hats for the picture. Lydia Overbeck, the only woman in the picture, is sitting in a carriage with Edgar Parker. A 1915 picture shows 75 employees, all men. The three female office employees were the only women on a photo dating to 1937. Then, on May 9, 1941, Esther Rosengren was recognized. She was the only woman of the 38 employees who had served 20 years. The winds of war were blowing, however, and the employment of women in Algoma’s U.S. Plywood was about to change.

Women had been employed in the textile factories of the northeast well before the turn of the century and in the breweries of Milwaukee following the heavy German immigration to Wisconsin, but women in manufacturing positions in Algoma, Wisconsin, were largely unknown though Algoma Net Co. had women engaged in sewing or weaving.

Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the drafting and enlistment of Algoma's men, and defense contracts, women were hired in manufacturing positions for the first time in the Plywood's history. Area women were thrust into positions they would not have accepted in normal times. Married women, especially those with children, rarely worked outside the home and few single women desired employment in a factory, however this was war. Most women were single at the time of their employment and although married women worked at the Plywood, women whose husbands were still working there were not hired. Seventy years later, young people would find it difficult to understand words such as "duty," "commitment" and "pull together" as they applied to the early 1940s.

For young area women, such as Colette Gerhart and Lyla De Meuse who had just graduated from high school, the Plywood jobs presented an opportunity to work. Other women, feeling "looked down on" because they were not involved in the war effort, quit the jobs they had and went to the Plywood. One woman remembered the nice job she had while working for a wealthy family in Manitowoc. Everything was clean and the food was good. She had her own bedroom and bathroom where she could bathe with privacy at any time. After her brother was drafted, she changed jobs in a show of support for the war. For the same wage, she got dust, dirt and the smell of glue, in addition to boarding with an area family and sharing a bathroom to which she had to carry her bath water. Another woman had just married a farmer and took a job at the Plywood as a means of saving money for the purchase of their own farm. 

The women in the office usually worked an eight-hour day, putting in overtime for the quarterly inventories. The normal workday for production employees was 7:00 - 5:00, five days a week, plus 7:00 to noon on Saturdays. Those working in the boat works often put in additional hours. Working married women were still responsible for the all the household chores they would have been doing during peacetime. Even though they worked 50-55 hours a week outside the home, those women whose husbands had not been drafted did not expect them to help with the household work. There were no microwaves, dishwashers, automatic washers and dryers. Hours of ironing followed washing with a wringer machine and hanging clothing on outdoor lines. The fortunate had a carpet sweeper but many were still beating their rugs and carpets. There were gardens to plant and tend, and food to can. Home freezers were non-existent and though some rented freezer space in the locker plant at Algoma Co-op Co. – known as the Farmers’ Store - freezing produce was mostly locally unknown. Area orchards had crops of apples, cherries and pears that needed picking, although some of that was done by German POWs in Door County. There was mending to be done, socks to be darned and clothing to be made. And, farm women had additional chores before and after work. Millie Nimmer was among those who would schedule her week of vacation during haying.

Lyla De Meuse worked in shipping. As large sheets of plywood came from the clipping machines, Lyla and others would sort the mostly birch or basswood panels that were then counted and sent to other parts of the plant. Other women taped the seams of panels that made up airplane wings. Wing frames were made and the plywood pieces were bent and shaped on them. Three small sheets were attached and then three small sheets were crossed the other direction. Women worked with a partner so together they could plane the wing edges to ensure a perfect fit. In addition to wings, airplane noses were made. The women did not remember ever knowing what kinds of planes the wings and noses were made for, but they felt the noses were put on fairly large planes because they were well over 5 feet in diameter. Cockpit canopy parts were made from a variety of chemicals that were soaked and cooked. The resulting material crystallized and looked like glass. Then it was rolled over a form and baked to form a kind of plastic. Lightweight molded airplane seats were also manufactured. Eighty-five percent of the plywood produced in Algoma was used for fuselage skins. Birch panels were converted into tubes at New Rochelle, New York. The tubes were used for masts to house radar tracking equipment.

Most of the women worked in company’s the "boat works." Boat hulls manufactured during the war were light landing craft for more shallow water.  Few realized the Army boat hulls were one of the largest and most complicated pieces of plywood being made in the U.S. Seven layers of strips about five inches wide were stapled over a form and then glued. When the strips - the first and last layers were birch with five layers of spruce in between - went into the cooker, the heat and glue bonded the layers to form something like plastic.

Stapling was a major job in hull manufacturing and women under 5' 2" or 5' 3" were considered too short to do the work. Staplers were hand operated, forcing the women had to lean over into the hull, something a shorter woman could not do.  Although shorter women, such as Helen Nimmer, were unable to work on the hulls, they were able to stand on ladders to work on the plane noses or wings. Wearing leather bands on the wrists helped make the work easier. Those working on boats worked in pairs with eight women on one boat.

The PT boat carrying General Douglas MacArthur from the Bataan Peninsula to Australia was constructed using materials manufactured at the Algoma Plywood. Molded plywood shells were converted into hulls for Coast Guard patrol boats. One of the 18' molded hulls made for the Army was hung from the ceiling for display at the 15th anniversary of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

The women in the boat works, and their boss Adam Gutsohn, were a "big party group." Millie Nimmer remembered Mr. Gutsohn setting up tables with cheese, marzipan and fruit during the workday as "just a nice get-together." Later there would be Plywood picnics for employees and their families, and trout boils at the Dug-Out to reward workers in departments that remained injury free for a specific period. A few years after the war, trout boils became the reward to a department reaching one million man-hours without an accident. Although the women in the office were never included in the trout boils, the male office staff was, but by then male office staff was assisting.

Each woman in the boat works was responsible for her tools which included a hand plane, a linoleum-type knife, stapler and staple puller. It was easy to misplace or lose a tool or have it inadvertently picked up by someone else. Millie Hardtke received a $25 award for her suggestion to outfit each woman with her own toolbox. After that, keeping tools together ceased to be a problem.

Some of the women stood on benches to reach the hollows of the hulls and pushed the benches along with their legs. Consistent pressure on the same spot eventually caused infections. Employees were allowed time to visit the doctors who gave them pills and tinctures to paint on their legs. Then there was getting the glue out of one's hair. One of the women had such a glob of it that it was almost impossible to get out at the beauty parlor.

Women working in the glue room ran pieces of wood through the glue machines. There were no fans at first, but windows could be opened. Glue fumes made some ill, it made eyes water and it made rubber gloves a necessity. Unless employees wore two pair of rubber gloves, their hands would turn yellow, and "Plywood rash" was something many of the workers got. Dr. Nesemann gave shots for the glue reactions and Dr. Herschboeck made a mixture of lotions that took the itch away. All the formaldehyde in the glue prompted the women to feel employees got a little "high" or a "jag" from inhaling. It was felt that imported wood also caused rashes. The smell of glue was always in the plant and while there are men with documented health problems, no one seems to know about the possible effects of the glue on the women. 

Women doing clerical work in the plant and kept track of the bonus system, which was in effect for a time. Bonuses were paid for what was perceived as over expectations. When the system failed and was discontinued in April 1946, the women doing that type of clerical work were laid off, although the female clerical staff remained within the main office.

The women in the office wore skirts and blouses with ankle socks and loafers. Few women wore silk stockings because of the rationing and one who had stockings would never take a chance on running a stocking on wood if it was necessary to enter the plant. Women in the manufacturing positions wore loose, pale blue-gray uniforms, much like today's cover-alls except they looked somewhat like long-johns with buttons down the front and a flap at the rear. The flap was held up with buttons rather than a belt. The women had to purchase their own uniforms but were eventually allowed to wear slacks, long sleeved blouses and sweaters, shoes and socks. Men were never required to wear uniforms.

Men inducted into the war were paid 5% of their 1942 wages as a bonus. The women interviewed all reported receiving less salary than men for the same work. They began working for the minimum wage, 35 cents an hour. After several weeks, they were paid 37 1/2 cents, then 40 cents, and then 47 1/2 cents. A few years later, those who could staple in the boat works received an extra 5 cents per hour. By 1947 – after the war - both women's pay and minimum wage stood at 75 cents per hour. During the war, it was felt that men did a "higher level" of work, though they did the same things, and thus earned more. The women accepted the lower wages because of "duty" and the war. Helen Brunner was one of many with husbands serving in the military and because they were sent their husband's allotment, a lower salary was thought to be acceptable as those women did not "need it." Some women felt the pay was good because Algoma didn't have many jobs for young women. While the women did not remember overtime pay, they did remember paid vacations.

A Record Herald editorial on August 28, 1942, encouraged those seeking employment to take positions in Algoma to help the war effort rather than going to the shipyards. The article pointed out that Algoma's industries could return to peacetime work, thus offering some job security. An October 10, 1942, editorial pointed out that all four manufacturing plants in Algoma were engaged in either "war work or work vital to the prosecution of the war" and "not a single plant was working on non-essentials." The editorial continued saying that while the selective service had taken many of the area's men and would take many more, women were responding and filling the men's places. The editorial view was that the city was "going to have to pay" in directing every effort to doing its part to win the war.

An August 1943 Algoma Record Herald reported that five Japanese planes had been shot out of the air over Guadalcanal by Lt. Murray Shubin flying a Lockheed P-38 Lightening plane for which Algoma Plywood supplied parts. The article pointed out that not only was it a red-letter day for Lt. Shubin, but also for the Algoma Plywood. The workers received a pat on the back in a telegram from the assistant chief of the Army's Air Force staff, Major General Giles. In his telegram, he praised those on the production line who "had done your work exceedingly well and I thought you would like to know it." 

A September 1944 Weldwood News article mentioned the July production rally.  Eight-hundred Algoma Plywood employees attended the rally "to rededicate ourselves as free citizens to an all-out effort to produce war material so vitally needed by our Armed forces." Lt. Com. J.F. McEndry, the Naval officer in charge of the program, emphasized not letting down and keeping up an all-out effort. He said the employees were working for the Navy just as "we are” and their efforts were needed to insure victory.

A program marked the completion of the thousandth boat hull manufactured for the Army. During the program Colette Gerhart sang the national anthem, Algoma high school band played martial music and short speeches were presented. As the Weldwood News pointed out, the 1,000 hulls required over 4,600,000 square feet of veneer. After the veneer was cut up, it was glued or stapled to the mandrels using more than thirty million quarter-inch staples along with 7,000 gallons of liquid phenolic resin glue and impregnate.  The 2,000th hull was completed not long after on June 4, 1945.

The September 1944 Weldwood News gave special mention to the "all girl" lay-up crew for their outstanding record over the year. A single hull consisted of more than 600 pieces of veneer "templated to the proper contour." Millie Nimmer, Elda Gerhardt, Marie Matske, Viola Prust and Ruth Mastalir were the best. The article continued pointing out that Mr. Gutsohn was reluctant to have an "all girl" crew but he admitted to being wrong. The crew worked to "high standards on exacting jobs." In addition to handling and laying up the veneer, they drove 6000 staples a day, an accomplishment considered a "good muscle builder."

That same September 1944 Weldwood News pointed out that Maynard Feld and his staff "las femmes" Leona Schley and Millie Hardtke laid up polyfiber radomes like "nobody's business."  It mentioned Evelyn "Berky" Berkovitz, the mathematician who had charge of the cycles of pressing blankets, cooking the domes, checking densities and other jobs in between. The article went on to indicate the other "girls in the group are coming along fine, are proud of their jobs and seldom are absent." Though the article praised the women’s efforts, 70 years later it comes across as patronizing and condescending.

On April 6, 1945, the Plywood and Veneer Company was presented with the Army - Navy "E" in recognition of its contribution to the war effort. Ceremonies were held before a jammed-packed crowd in the Algoma High School auditorium. Florence Rupp, Myrtle Kalchek, Viola Mathis, Grace Sibilsky and Beulah Meyers were among the eight, who represented employees, receiving pins during the ceremony. 

The "E" award celebration and picnic on August 18th, 1945, was one of the biggest events in Algoma's history. About 2,000 employees and their families plus 200 invited guests shared in the festivities. There was a parade, games, food, dancing and prizes. Dorothy Lemkuhl and factory R.N. Gertrude Brice were among the judges for the games. Edith Birdsall, Loretta Ciha, Edith Rock, Ethel Pflughoeft, Eileen Nell, Mary Spaid, Colette Gerhart, Doris Fox, Suzanne Snerbeck, Vera Welk, Linda Moegenburg and Grace Ebert officiated at tug-o-wars, three-legged races, foot races, peanut races, sack races, and other contests. June Poehls and Lyla De Meuse were on the soft ball team. A week later, on the 24th, service pins were given to all those employed over five years - 161 men and Dorothy Lemkuhl.

A Century of Quality Woodworking; 1892-1992 Algoma Hardwoods indicates that before the women came into the plant, it was stripped of its "calendars and other pictures," but according to the women interviewed, they were accepted. Sexual harassment, as it was known years later, did not exist until after the war when the men started coming home and began taking their jobs back. Although women worked in a variety of jobs, they did not run the big machines. They were not part of management or supervisory staff and those who worked in the office were clerical staff.  As the men returned, most of the women were laid off. A few women remained until the boat works was sold to Wagemaker of Michigan, quitting at that point rather than relocating to Michigan.

All the women interviewed felt their most important contribution to the war effort was being there when needed, supplying the necessary equipment to the fighting men. All of them had husbands, family members or friends in the armed services and they all knew men who did not return.

There were rumors of work being secret. In later years some men revealed they had been deferred due to the nature of their work and had security clearances, however none of the women was actually aware of secret work. The Algoma operation was a branch of U.S. Plywood. Headquarters were in New York and there was always someone from New York or another division around. Only certain people were allowed in the boat works, however one of the women felt the secrets were really in the plane parts. Women in the office did not know some of what was going on in the plant. They did not know what some products were used for and did not ask.  After all, the work was for defense.

As the women of the Plywood during the war years looked back, their feeling was that working women (of the mid-1990s) were more equal to men and had higher expectations. They felt working women of the ‘90s were subject to much more stress and were living in a world where things are always changing. Most of the 1940's women worked hard for extra money but were not career minded. They felt it was easier to "make a go of it" then, but that today's capable women "can do." The women felt if a man and woman applied for the same job, the man got it.  If there were two women applicants, the prettiest one was hired first. 

The October 2, 1942, Record Herald editorial was ahead of its time when writing that Algoma citizens thought about the future of industrial and employment opportunities in order that there be a continued "diversity and balance in industry when the war is over and the peace treaty is signed." Hard as it might be to imagine in 2015, the women who responded to the war employment call helped pave the way for rural women of the future. Their granddaughters and great-granddaughters have opportunities because the women knew they “could do” and did.

Sources: Women of the Plywood: The War Years, c. 1995 and used with permission; Algoma Record Herald;  A Century of Quality Woodworking; 1892-1992; Weldwood News, 1944; postcards and photos from the blogger's collection.