Teachers' Honor Roll

There has been a little buzz in the community for the past few months about a Teachers’ Honor Roll that is being planned for the new addition to the Lawton Memorial Library in La Farge.  With construction on that library addition advancing quite rapidly in the past week and as the new building starts to assume its shape, the interest in the honor roll seems to be increasing as well.  Recent donations have increased the number of names on the honor roll to fourteen and another sixteen have also been nominated for the honor.

            The Friends of the Lawton Library came up with the idea of the Teachers’ Honor Roll as a way to honor teachers who had made a difference in their students’ lives.  The honor roll was also devised to raise money for the new addition as the Friends organization was charged with the task of collecting funds to pay for the project.  (That fund-raising is ongoing as the money needed to pay for the completed addition and renovation of La Farge’s library still has not been reached.  There will be more on how you can help with that fund-raising at the end of this pithy little doggerel.)  As it turned out, the idea of a way to honor teachers and raise some money in the process has worked out quite well as attested by thirty teachers being named for inclusion to the honor roll and over $10,000 being raised for the library expansion.

            I am fortunate to be included on this new Teachers’ Honor Roll.  Family, friends and former students backed my inclusion on the list.  It was particularly gratifying to hear from several of my former students, who told me how my being a teacher for them had made a positive impact on their lives.  (One young lady’s glowing words about my presence in the development of her life were so powerful that they brought me to tears.)

            Anyway, all of this teachers’ honor roll discussion and personal inclusion has me thinking some about my career in teaching.  I think that I knew pretty early on in my life that I wanted to be a teacher and I am very sure that some of the teachers that taught me in those formative years had significance in my choice of that career.  Having taught in public schools for over thirty years and then continuing to teach in some capacity or other since my “retirement” in 2002, it seems obvious that I made the correct choice for my career path.  That personal history as a teacher made me think about the role models that must have been before me in my youthful days as I decided to become a teacher.

            Georgia Evans is another teacher that is included on the new Teachers’ Honor Roll.  I actually nominated her for inclusion on the Lawton Library honor roll and subsequent donations from her family, former students and teaching colleagues placed “Miss Evans” on the prestigious list.  I use the term “Miss Evans” because over the years, that is what I always used when addressing her, even when I was a colleague of hers teaching at La Farge Schools.  (Looking back on this, I now understand why many of my former students still have a hard time calling me “Brad” when I admonish them for using “Mr. Steinmetz”.  My deepest apologies to my former students, who have heard this from me, but FINALLY, I understand where you are coming from!)

            I was a member of the first class that Miss Evans taught at La Farge.  We were sixth-graders and Miss Evans, who had taught at country schools for all of her career, came to La Farge, I believe, when the Ottervale School, where she was teaching, closed in 1957.  She came with a certain reputation, as she was a stern taskmaster in the classroom.  I liked schoolwork and even flourished at it a little bit, so Miss Evans’ no-frills style of classroom work did not faze me much.  What did captivate me about our new sixth grade teacher was her performance outside of the classroom, especially during recess and noon hour.  Unlike most of her teaching colleagues of that time and place, Miss Evans was “All-In” when it came to her student’s playground activities.

            As I remember it, the recess and noon hour of that first day of school were very different than previous ones.  Miss Evans was very interested as the boys gathered to play a game of softball.  What we found amusing was that she wanted to participate in the game as well.  So, to placate the new teacher, the boys reluctantly agreed to let her play.  But she also insisted that the girls be allowed to play as well!  Coming from a country school background, Miss Evans was used to both boys and girls playing.  With small enrollments, it was a matter of practicality to have enough to play the game. 

But to call for that co-ed approach at metropolitan La Farge - now this was getting ridiculous!  The guys and the gals of that age simply did not participate together in ball-playing activities (although we did have dandy co-ed participation occasionally in “Cowboys & Indians” and Pump-Pump-Pull-Away).  There were plenty of boys to make up sides for a softball game, but our new teacher insisted, so the girls, with big grins on their faces, joined in the game of kitten ball.

Then Miss Evans insisted that she be the first batter in the noon hour softball game.  What next?  Some of the boys chided their new teacher and asked if the pitcher should roll the ball along the ground so she might be able to hit it.  But Miss Evans said no to that, just pitch it in there as usual.  Then some of those same smart-alek boys said all of the outfielders should move in close because teacher wouldn’t be able to hit it far anyway.

On the first pitch, Miss Evans hit a “Moon Shot” to deep centerfield!  Those called-in outfielders scrambled back to make a play, but by the time the ball got back to the infield, Miss Evans, with those long easy strides of hers, had easily rounded the bases and touched the plate for a home run.  The girls broke out in squeals of glee at their new teacher’s exploit, while most of the boys stared in gaped-mouth silence.  The gender barrier had been smashed for our noon hour softball games.

Miss Evans continued to stretch our educational experience that year.  She took us up to the park for tree identification lessons.  We went to neighboring fields and woods for our Science Class plant ID’s.  In the winter, she led us up onto a neighboring farmer’s hill for sleigh riding during noon hours.  The following spring, she somehow finagled a bus and afternoons away from school for our class to play a softball schedule, playing the country schools around La Farge.  We traveled to play games at Bloomingdale, Elk Run, Fairview, Salem, Buckeye Ridge, Weister Creek and Rockton.  She managed the team to a near perfect record (dang Mary Anne Daines and that team from Potts Corners!) and endeared herself to the entire class, since everyone got to go to the games, whether you played or not.

Miss Evans loved local history and would take the class on history hikes to Seelyburg, her hometown and where she still lived when she taught our class.  I think that I developed my interest in history from her as I listened to her stories of Seelyburg, the old lumbering town on the Kickapoo River.  I also was always impressed with the passion that Miss Evans showed in her teaching.  Her job was important to her and she always strove to be engaged in her teaching and to keep her students engaged as well.  It was where the first seeds were planted in my thinking about becoming a teacher.  I had many more teachers along the way that would influence me towards making a career in education (and hopefully I can relate some of that at another time), but it was Miss Evans who began that process for me.

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Here is a list of nominated teachers for the Lawton Memorial Library Teachers’ Honor Roll: Kevin Alderson, Bonita Dorschied, Mary Downing, Gerry Drake, Betty Ecklor, Ann Erlandson, Jerry Hesselberg, Laurie Hesselberg, Jeanne Kraus, Bea Lee, Karen Lee, Geneva McGeorge, Al Oaklief, Dave Sarnowski, Robert Sutton, and Mary Warner.  If you would like to contribute to help advance a teacher who made a difference in your life, donations for your favorite teachers can be made at the library, or by mailing your donation to Friends of the Lawton Memorial Library, 118 N. Bird St., La Farge, WI 54639.  Donations can also be made online by going to www.lafargelibrary.org.  Check the Friends of Lawton Library webpage or on Facebook for more information on the teachers already on the honor roll.

            So, as the lady might say, “C’mon people, vote for your favorite teacher and move them on up to the honor roll!” 

More Travers Building History

(This blog entry is a continuation of a story started last time about a building on La Farge’s Main Street.  Built in 1899, the brick veneer building was originally called the Travers Building after its owner Art Travers.  Travers and others operated a variety of business places in the store building during the first twenty years of its existence.   We continue the story of the Travers Building with some of its more recent uses as a hotel annex and the village’s post office. – BDS)

            In its most recent history, the old brick building next to La Farge’s busy Z-Zip Stop convenience store/gas station has been the home to a real estate office, Hometown & Country Realty.  For a few years before that, it was the home of a restaurant for a while.  Both of those types of businesses were reincarnations of former enterprises carried out in the building’s first-floor retail space.

            For over forty years, from 1950 until 1991, that space was occupied by La Farge’s Post Office.  There is an entire generation or two who grew up in the community who will always remember the brick building as the post office.  For much of that time, Mac Marshall Jr. was the postmaster in La Farge, working in a building that his family owned.  There were usually one or more members of the Green family working at the La Farge Post Office in that building as well.  Lester Green was the postmaster in 1950 when the post office was moved from its former location on south State Street (across from the lawyer’s – Ralph Freeze at that time - office).  Lavern and Willard Green also had rural mail routes and for many years worked out of the post office in the brick building, that previously had been known as the Hotel Annex.

            The brick building became part of Mac Marshall’s hotel in the early 1930’s.  Mac’s Hotel was located on the corner lot, two doors east of the brick building (which was still then known as the Travers Building).  Mac’s became La Farge’s only hotel when the Curry Hotel (the old Hotel Ward located on the corner lot which is currently a parking lot for the La Farge Medical Clinic) burned down in June of 1929.  At that time there was still a strong demand for hotel rooms in La Farge.  Teachers who taught at the school in La Farge would often rent rooms in the hotels in town during the school year.  (Fred Mercer, La Farge’s agriculture teacher and coach, was staying in the Curry Hotel when it burned down in 1929.  Mercer, who still lived in Wauzeka at the time, lost all of his possessions except the clothes on his back in the fire.)  Railroad workers also stayed at the La Farge hotels, indeed it was a man named Cox, who was a conductor on the Kickapoo rail line, who first discovered the fire at the Curry Hotel.  There were ten guests at the Curry Hotel on the night that it burned down.

  Mac Marshall needed more hotel rooms, so he purchased the Travers Building to meet that need.  (One source said that Mac bought the property from C. E. Yeomans, who had purchased the Main Street building from the Travers family.)  They called the new acquisition the Hotel Annex and moved the dining room from the basement of the old hotel building over to the first floor of the Annex building. 

Mac’s Coffee Shoppe, as the dining room/restaurant was called then, was a going place in the community.  Besides offering guests in the hotel hot meals three times a day, the hotel’s dining room was also a bakery with homemade pies, doughnuts, cakes and cookies for sale.  A 1929 advertisement in the La Farge Enterprise for Mac’s restaurant also listed candy bars and box candies; tobacco, cigars and cigarettes; and ice cream, soft drinks and fresh fruits for sale.  The ad finished with “School students and Farmers especially welcomed”.

The Hotel Annex dining room was a very busy place in those days.  Mary Lee Muller shared some memories with me about the hotel’s dining room.  Her mother Anna Norris and Maggie Potter were cooks in the hotel dining room and that dining room would be filled with customers during the busy dinner and supper hours.  (Mary Lee also related an interesting story about another of the cooks at the hotel.  Alphreda Lawton cooked at Mac’s and was also a midwife who helped deliver babies in the La Farge area.  One night, Georgia Evans, who lived on the family farm up on Maple Ridge, had to hook up the horses to the family buggy and race down the hill to Seelyburg and then to La Farge to get Alphreda to come help with Georgia’s mother’s birthing.  Then it was a quick ride back to the Evans’ place where Georgia’s baby brother, Pete, was brought into the world.) 

The men who worked for the railroad always ate at the hotel, as did many men who operated businesses on Main Street.  Mary Lee could remember Tony Novy, the village’s blacksmith and Dr. Frank Gollin sitting at the same table each day for lunch.  There were no lunches served at the school at that time, so teachers and students alike would hustle down to the hotel during their noon hour (which really was a full hour back in those days) to eat their lunch.  The hotel’s cook stove was usually going before five in the morning, as the baking had to be done before breakfast was served.  Besides the hotel guests, many people coming into La Farge for work would catch breakfast in the hotel dining room.

 The apartments on the second floor of the Annex building were converted into hotel rooms.  Maxine Shird, who grew up in her folk’s hotel on Main Street, said that the rooms in the Annex were usually reserved for the railroad workers who needed a place to stay.  She said there were usually three or four railroad men staying at the hotel during the week.  When the Kickapoo Stump Dodger made its last run on August 15, 1939 and the railroad buildings and tracks were pulled out of La Farge later that fall, Mac’s Hotel lost some steady customers.

Mac’s Hotel building burned down in 1942 – it was the last hotel in the village.  The Major’s Feed Store building, which was just to the west of the hotel, was burned out at the same time by the hotel fire, but the Annex building survived.  Although the hotel business would not be revived, Mac Marshall continued to rent out the upstairs rooms in the Annex, which were later reconverted back to apartments.  The dining facilities were also rented out and a restaurant remained in the first floor space throughout the 1940’s.  In September of 1950 when that space in the Annex was converted for use as a post office, the Bluebird Café, which had been operating there, moved across the street to the Tony Novy building, located on the northwest corner of Main and Silver Streets.

At a meeting of the La Farge village board held on April 22, 2013, it was decided to order that the old Travers Building be razed and the demolition material from the building moved off the property.  Negotiations are under way for that order to be executed, but neither the building’s current owner, who is in bankruptcy proceedings, nor the lien holder on the building want to incur the responsibility and costs of the demolition.  The village has issued a “Notice And Order To Raze And Remove” and wants the building taken down within a week of the notice.  Regardless of how it happens, the end of an old building in La Farge is near.  The last of the five buildings on the old Central Hotel block will be gone.