Margo W Hanson - Margo's Stories

Margo's Stories

The Northwest Wisconsin Regional Writers . Margo on the close right. The group meets the 2nd Friday of each month at the Siren Pour House for noon lunch. This photo is from about 2019.

Christmas 1949

Growing up in SE Wisconsin in a rural community, we knew our neighbors, many of them relatives from generations of farmers living along the Milwaukee River near West Bend.

I went to St John’s Lutheran parochial school, part of the church we attended.

Every year, the school children put on a Christmas program for the congregation. Each of us had some role in the program, sometimes wearing a robe to be a shepherd, or wings to be an angel and a Bible verse to recite.

After the program, each of us kids got a Christmas treat in a small brown paper bag. I remember getting an apple or orange, peanuts, some ribbon candy and maybe a candy cane. Sometimes a home made popcorn ball was included.

After the program, we usually went to Grandpa and Grandma’s house, my mother’s parents where most of her 11 children and families all got together to eat and visit.

Today, I brought along a photo from 1949 with me and some of my cousins -- not very many at the time compared to later years with at least 35 first cousins, all who are still alive and get together for reunions every other year. Four of Mom’s siblings are still alive, in their late 80s and 90s, and so I am lucky to still have uncles and aunts.

One Christmas day, at my other grandparents on the Wilkens family farm, where my grandparents and parents shared the farming work, my Christmas gifts were a small shovel and a coaster wagon. I liked to help Grandpa feed his cows in the manger, and the wagon and shovel were to let me help out more.

“Let’s feed the cows,” I told Grandpa right after I opened the presents. And so Grandpa and I went to the big steaming barn where the cows were waiting for their silage and grain. Grandpa scooped up a big forkful of sweet and sour smelling silage and carried it down the line of 10 cows and dumped a scoop in front of each cow. I came along with my wagon filled with grain and shoveled a scoop on top of each pile of silage, the cows so eager that they threatened to tip over my wagon with their big heads.

I wonder if there are any neighbors who have cows who would let me try that again once more as that was one of my favorite memories of growing up.

Margo is in the front row on the left with the dark hair -- 1949 Her mother is the one on the right with the apron and father behind her mother.

Margo at Christmas with her mother's family, the Kirmses. She is the girl in front on the left with the dark shirt.

My German Wedding

The spring of 1971 Russ and I started dating. We had worked together 6 months as nursing assistants in the County Nursing home, on the floor with 90 patients who needed complete care and so knew each other well before Russ asked me out. Part of what we liked about each other is that we both saw the patients as extended family and made friends with them and tried to do the best we could.

In July Russ asked me to marry him. By November I said yes. Then we started negotiating a wedding date. Russ wanted it right away and with no big ceremony and I wanted it in June and my parents a big German wedding. After negotiations, Russ agreed to a big German wedding with the date set as March 4th.

I am an only daughter, and my parents were part of a large extended family, Mom having 10 siblings, I had dozens of cousins and Grandpa and Grandma on that side. On Dad’s side there were only three siblings, but many other cousins, neighbors, co-workers etc. And they determined to marry their daughter with no stinting on ceremony, dinner and dance.

Russ’s family lived 7 hours away and only his brothers and parents planned to come. We also had a few co-workers invited too. I made out the invitations that ended up with 350 invited with 325 attending. Many folks commented on the March 4th date, with some of them reaching us-”no one would get married then unless they had to.” Scott came along 4 years later proving them wrong.

I was a member of the Newburgl Lutheran Church where we planned the wedding. The minister required counseling sessions and warned me I was marrying out of the faith. The Wisconsin Lutheran Synod was very conservative and Russ was not religious.

March 3rd, a blizzard swept across Wisconsin with below zero temperatures making difficult travel that lasted into the wedding day.

We had the practice Friday night for the Saturday wedding during the snowstorm. As the wedding had grown near, Russ complained much about how the event kept getting bigger. Saturday at 4pm the church was filled and the wedding and photos went smoothly. The wedding party moved to have supper at a big hall in a nearby town where several hundred folks ate probably 100 chickens with all the fixings. The tables were cleared from the large banquet hall for the wedding dance. There was a free bar with beer and liquor that probably cost Dad a small fortune with the German thirst for booze.

The band, Russ says it was “Elly May and the Clampets” played almost all German polkas with a few waltzes. Russ was very upset he had never danced a polka and hadn’t known that was what the music was to be. He danced the waltzes and spent the rest of the time visiting with new relatives while I danced with every uncle and cousin there.

At about midnight, we decided to leave and go to our apartment. I had my 68 Mustang and it was too cold to start. Russ told me “Go in to the dance and ask someone for a jump.” “No way!” I replied. After a little more trying it did start and we left for our new apartment. We had just settled in when someone started pounding on the door. “Let’s ignore it”, said Russ with his mind on other things. They kept pounding and yelling “we know you’re in there for 15 minutes” Eventually they left.

The next day we learned the advantages of a huge wedding as we opened hundreds of gifts and cards, lots of money, household items, and half a dozen variations of lazy susans. I remember the day well. Russ says luckily traumatic events are soon forgotten.

2024 will mark 52 years of living happily ever after.

The wedding album

The photo is of Margo's grandparents on her mother's side, the Kirmses. Elmer and Julia. They had 11 children including Myrtle, Margo's mother.

Apple Kuchen

“Margo,” Grandma called,”I need some help baking an apple kuchen.” It was an autumn Saturday and I was at the Wilkens farm where Dad was helping Grandpa with the harvest, Mom was at the telephone switchboard in nearby Waubeka and I in the house with Grandma. Grandma really didn’t need help from a little girl, but knew that if I was helping out I wouldn’t get into other trouble.

We started by going out into our yard, which was a large orchard with 50 or more full sized apple trees kept in very good condition by Grandpa who sold apples each fall. We picked a dozen big yellow apples already on the ground, that Grandma said made good pies.

Grandpa and Grandma had a dairy farm that also had the orchard, chickens, bees, and raised acres of potatoes and other vegetables and fruits to sell to folks in Milwaukee. Most of our food was home grown.

Apple kuchen, a German dish, is sort of an apple cake. I don’t remember Grandma’s recipe as she never used a written one, just put the ingredients she wanted together, which included peeled and sliced apples, eggs, cream, flower, sugar, salt and spices as I remember.

My job was to stir the ingredients together in a big old gray clay bowl, likely passed through several generations of the family, with a wooden spoon. The mix was fragrant with fresh apples and spices. When it was all mixed, we added the sliced apples and put it all into a large greased pan, black with age, and into the oven. “My how much nicer the electric stove is compared to my old wood stove,” commented Grandma.

After baking 40 minutes or so, Grandma occasionally poked in a match stick to see if it was done, then brought it out and put it in the pie safe to cool.

“Shouldn’t it have ice cream on it too?” I asked. “Well, let's get the ice cream maker out and get it ready and see if we can get Grandpa to make a batch. I ran out to the barn where Grandpa had just finished feeding the cows. “Grandpa, can we make ice cream,” I begged, “we have a fresh apple kuchen to put it on.”

It is another story about how we made homemade ice cream from our own milk and eggs and the hand crank ice cream maker.

This story ends with us sitting in the large kitchen at the big old round oak table, eating our kuchen topped with ice cream, Grandma and Grandpa sipping coffee and me with a big glass of whole milk just as it came from the cows.

Kirmse Family Reunion 1978

Mom, Myrtle Kirmse Wilkens, was one of 11 children who were all fruitful and multiplied so growing up I had many aunts, uncles and dozens of cousins. Every 2 years we had a Kirmse Family reunion and still do.

I grew up on a Farm, with a large yard and plenty of space to host an outdoor potluck picnic reunion. I am going to tell you about one of those, one after I left home and was married when Russ and I helped out.

The reunion was always a Saturday as my mother’s family was divided between Catholics and Lutherans, who took their Sunday church seriously. Grandma was a Catholic and Grandpa a Lutheran and the family divided, but got along anyway. They were all of German heritage and heary folks who liked parties, visiting, cards, polkas, brats, sauerkraut and beer.

Russ and I were married, Scott was 3 years old. We had the summers off while Russ was a teacher so we could stay at Mom and Dads to help out. It was a potluck picnic with Mom and Dad furnishing the location, tables, utensils, a tapped barrel of beer, soda pop, brats, hot dogs and beer. Dad was a Newberg fireman and ran the food stand for them at the local ballpark and so bought meat and buns in huge quantities and was used to cooking for many folks.

Dad, Russ with Scott following along with everything, put up a volley ball net for the youngsters and had room enough to play ball if anyone wanted too. He cleaned out the horseshoe pits and brought out bats and balls.

Russ and Dad went behind the chicken coop away from the picnic area and pounded several steel fence posts in the ground wrapping canvas around them making sort of a pen that was the beer recycling location for the men. “Our bathroom and septic system won’t handle that whole barrel of beer,” said Dad. Mom thought it was tacky, but she didn’t really want all those men peeing around her bathroom stool or offending the neighbors by going around the garage. “If we are gonna kill the grass, back here is OK,” commented Merlin.

Dad and Russ mowed the 5 acre yard that was part orchard, and had many shade trees and then put some tables out in the big garage. Folks were to bring their own chairs.

About 11 am, the first folks came and then for the next hour cars came until the parking area was filled, the orchard and the field edge. Grandma, who was in her 90s, was brought by Uncle Eugene. Grandpa had died by that time. Ten of the 11 children were still alive, Uncle Orville being killed in a car accident, but his wife and kids were there.

By this time, some of my cousins already had children and so we had a range from babies to 90 year old Grandma, who beamed at all of her descendants. Grandma was somewhat of an ornery person and was not shy of showing it at times - having had a hard life where she worked away from home much of the time to support her family and her husband who had tended bar from the wrong side too much of the time.

Mom and I made tuna salad, and got out the ketchup, mustard, relish, pickles, and olives.. The food brought was all home made including many desserts, potato salads, hot dishes, all German heritage, the table loaded with food.

Dad fired up the grill at about 11:30 with charcoal, doing his spectacular lighting ceremony where the kids all watched him soak the charcoal with gasoline, then standing back 20 feet tossing matches until it exploded with a huge whomph into flames.

Brats, burgers, hot dogs and sliced onions were ready about 1 pm and then lunch started. The men had been at the barrel of beer since they came, drank more with lunch and by 2 pm there was a migration to the canvas bathroom. ‘

There was no program, just visiting. The older men played horseshoes or sat and sipped and visited. The women caught up on the latest gossip, whose daughters had gotten married or pregnant, the last babies in the family and other important news.

About 3 pm, another pass at the food table, the beer was starting to run low, the men noticeably agreeable but they told Merlin to run to the local bar and get another half barrel and by 7pm the reunion broke up as the mosquitoes moved in.

A good time was had by all.

Krmse Family reunion, Margo is about 8th from the right in back -- with the red shirt and the big hair!

Margo's mother was one of the 11 Kirmse children. 4th from the right in back.

Church Cookbooks

When Russ and I got married, my mother gave me a Betty Crocker Cookbook, the kind with the hard cover with red and white checks on it. I didn’t come to marriage without knowing how to cook as my mother worked during the day and so I often made supper. As a German family, we mostly ate potatoes, sauerkraut, ring bologna, our own chickens and eggs, apples from the orchard and rhubarb made into Kuchens.. We butchered our own beef, and so had all of that too, as well as everything from a large garden.

Russ came from a Scandinavian background, and had a mother who was a prize winning cook, wrote a weekly recipe column and had spoiled her boys with fancy desserts and complicated dishes. And so I had to find a cookbook that had NW Wisconsin recipes.

Local churches often published cookbooks and so I got one from the Lutheran Church in Cushing, published in 1972, the same year we got married. It had the kind of food Russ was used to.

That got me interested in local cookbooks, and so when a church had one for sale, or at a garage sale or antique store, I kept an eye out for them. And I ended up with a few dozen from Polk and Burnett Counties.

A local church cookbook has recipes submitted by church members with their names at the bottom, so one knows that it is a good recipe. Sometimes a few comments are added or maybe a church history page and a photo or two.

My favorite cookbook is a real old one that the recipes say “a medium oven” and a “handful of flour and a pinch of salt and bake until done”. One very old recipe says “pour 3 glugs of molasses from the jug.”

I also tried to find recipe books for maple syrup as we make it and have as much as we want to cook with. I collected other maple syrup items too, little syrup pitchers, currier and ives scenes on plates, and even a maple syrup shack in the Holiday Village buildings set..

Russ was one of 4 boys. His mother, Alberta, was an excellent cook and her boys too often compared their own wives' efforts as not as good as their mother. In the 1990s, the daughter-in-laws decided to make a Hanson cookbook mostly from their mother-in-law’s recipes so they could feed her boys right.

Margo collected local cookbooks including this one from Frederic WI

Baling Hay with my Dad

My grandparents lived on a farm and I would stay with them to help out wherever I could while my Mom and Dad were working. After work, they would come over to help Grandpa and Grandma with the farming and cooking. One day when I was 10 years old, my Dad came into the barn where I was helping to bring in the cows for milking and told me “Margo, we need to go bale the hay!”

We had a small Ford tractor to pull the baler and hay wagon. Dad let me drive the tractor and taught me how to go around the field. He also taught me how to stop the tractor with the clutch and brake at the same time. I was still small and had to stand up to drive. There were a few broken hay bales which Dad lined up for me to bale again.

After the hay baling was finished, Dad took over to back the trailer into the drive-in haymow because I could go forwards but backing up was tricky for an ten year old. I would put the small round bales onto an elevator to send up to Dad who had the job of stacking.

When we were all done, Dad pulled the baler into the barn and we all went back to the house where my Mom and Grandma were setting the table. We had baked chicken, mashed potatoes, homemade stuffing, peas and carrots from the garden, and apple pie for dessert. Grandpa praised us for working so hard and helping on the farm and then I went straight to bed, exhausted after a long day of work.

Margo on the Wilkens 9N Ford Tractor. Her grandfather farmed with horses, but when her father started helping out, they bought their first tractor.

Merlin on the Ford Tractor and Frank on the grain binder.

Silo filling on the Wilkens farm.

Silo filling

Merlin, Lucille, and Milton on the Farm. The barn burned down when Margo was about 10 years old and Merlin stopped dairy farming then.

A Backwards Girl

All of my life I have had challenges due to being a backward person.

I came into the world backwards, a breech birth where my mother was in labor for hours and hours and finally the doctor used a forceps to pull me out backwards, breaking both of my hips. During the birth process, oxygen was cut off to my brain, damaging it and causing problems that lasted the rest of my life. Mom said the nurse told the doctor to do a cesarean, but he insisted on a natural birth that was quite unnatural.

The first 6 months of my life I had a cast that went from my waist down as the broken hips healed. Margo will never walk was the prognosis from my doctors. As I got older, my parents found other damages from the birth trauma: I couldn’t control my hands well enough to write as they had large tremors. My speaking was very difficult, stuttering and having a hard time forcing any words out. I had dyslexia, with reading and spelling problems. Although I learned to walk, it was never easy.

My parents took me to physical therapy in nearby Milwaukee for many years. I wore leg braces and gradually learned to walk, although I never was able to run. My walking was difficult but functional. I tried to run, but never kept up with the other kids. I knew I was different but my family treated me normally and encouraged me to do everything other kids did and help out on the farm.

When I was 4 years old, I was the Wisconsin March of Dimes poster girl for having overcome many difficulties. My picture was of a cute little girl with braces but pathetic enough to encourage donations to help with treatment of children like me.

My parents both worked and farmed with my grandparents. I spent a lot of time with Grandpa and Grandma on the farm and they expected me to help out and treated me as a normal child including learning to drive the tractor and pickup truck, which helped me to get a driver’s license later. . I really liked being on the farm where the cows, calves, dog and cats didn’t notice my handicap.

My many uncles and aunts were very supportive and I spent time with many of them in the summers. Aunt Lou and Uncle Raymond had a neighborhood bar in Random Lake. I spent many weeks during the summers at their place, hanging out in the bar and getting free sodas and candy bars anytime I liked. I got to know many of the regular bar customers as friends.

I started St John’s Lutheran school at age 6, where many of the other students were cousins or neighbors who knew of my problems and treated me well. I had learned to print very slowly with a lot of effort, but both speaking and writing were very difficult. And so school was hard, although I liked it. I got passed through the grades but didn’t learn as much as I should have as the teachers thought of me as someone who was trying but brain damaged and not fully educable. Was I really slow or was it my handicaps that made me look that way. I thought I was normal in intelligence.

I started high school at Kewaskum where I was in classes with normal students. I had trouble as they expected me to write tests faster than I could. With my dyslexia, reading the assignments was difficult. The teachers did not understand my difficulties were not due to a weak brain, but just to expressing myself. This was just about the time special education was beginning. My limitations made education difficult.

My parents transferred me to the West Bend high school where I was placed in special ed classes. They were far too easy for me and so I really didn’t learn much. I complained to my mother, who said, “just graduate so you can get a job.” I graduated in 1966, with much lacking in my education. I was 18 years old and my life was ahead of me.

Could I get a job? Could I have a normal life? Would I get married? Have children? Could I overcome my backwards start in life? That comes in next month’s episode.

This will be continued next time.

I looked for a job, got a summer job at the local historical society doing clerical work as I could type. I also gave tours and could speak enough to get by. That was just a summer job. I tried to find another job, and finally a friend of my parents hired me to work in a factory where I assembled small motors. I could do this work in the very small factory where the others accepted my disability. One of my fellow workers told me I should go back to school and take nurses aide training and get a better job.

I attended the local Vo-tech school and became a certified nursing assistant, and found a job right away at the County nursing home and started there December, 1970. I found this work satisfying and I could do it well, although writing the nursing notes was difficult. I had thought about becoming a nurse, but knew I couldn’t give shots or do all the paperwork they need to do.

When I started, Russ had already been there a month and we worked together for about a year, started dating and then got married when I was 24. We lived in several places as Russ was a teacher and I had jobs too. We had Scott in 1975 when I was 28 and it was a fast and complication free delivery.

When Scott started school, I worked at Mayo Clinic as a Physical Therapy aide. However Mayo decided to eliminate that role and so I worked at a CNA and went back to school. I had been tutored one-on-one in reading and had gotten much better at that.

I liked gardening, and decided to take the local technical college courses in horticulture and in starting a business. Out of that came my green house business Geraniums by Margo.

Margo wore leg braces many of her early years.

Geraniums by Margo

For ten years spring started for me in February when I went to the nursery in Faribault, MN and picked up 400 rooted geranium cuttings, 200 coleus and 200 begonias. They were little pieces of stems with roots and a leaf or two, made from a cutting from a big plant. I brought them home to my small heated greenhouse to grow them for sale in May.

I always like gardening and growing plants with large flowerbeds outside and many house plants.When our son started school, I did too, taking the course at the local technical college, fiest a year in growing plants and then a year in starting a business. One of my most enjoyable greenhouse projects while in school was making cuttings from a huge old poinsettia plant, rooting and growing them to be ready for Christmas sales.

I interned at a local greenhouse and talked Russ and Scott into building me a small garden shed type greenhouse with three sides insulated walls and an insulated roof, but the south with green house rigid plastic. A propane heater kept it warm, and extra lights and shelves made room for about 500 plants.

I decided to specialize in growing various colors and types of geraniums. They are easy to grow and easy to sell. However, they are a low cost commodity at the big chain stores, so I had to figure out how to make mine special to sell them at a higher price.

Store bought flowers look nice, but have a problem. Chemicals and hormones are used to force them to branch out, stay small and bloom early. That weakens the plant. . When you buy one, it takes a month or so for them to start growing decently, the time to overcome the treatments.

I used only Miracle Grow fertilizer and no sprays. I pinched off the growing tips by hand to stimulate branching. That meant my plants would take off quickly when the customer got the plant home and replanted it in a flower bed or pot. At first I didn’t get many customers because my prices were higher, but once I got a customer, they always came back as they saw how my plants out performed the store ones.

I had to stop when my parents started having health problems and I was needed there. Then when we retired, we spent spring making maple syrup rather than in the greenhouse. I still like plants, and have 6 rooted cuttings from geranium plants in the window sill to be planted outside this summer.

Tidbit: If you can spell dyslexia you probably don’t have it. Margo Hanson

New Year's Resolutions 2024

Every year I start off thinking of resolutions for my husband, but after 51 years of marriage I know that some things are impossible to fix. For me, the tradition of changing things with the New Year is somewhat boring. Surely this is the year I will exercise more, listen to all of my doctor’s recommendations, and floss my teeth three times a day.

My mother didn’t like resolutions either, and my father was glad to make up a list for her which was quickly thrown in the garbage. “You could stand to lose a few pounds,” was a common addition, as Dad wasn’t always very tactful. In the past, if Russ would make that suggestion to me, he would end up spending a long weekend alone at the cabin. This year, it’s actually true for me, as the combination of aging and medical conditions have me losing more weight than I would like.

So I guess I do have a resolution after all. This year, I resolve to eat lots of greasy, fatty foods in the hopes that I gain a few pounds. If you catch me ordering a salad, make sure to remind me that i’m breaking my resolution!

Entering Home Made Butter at the County Fair.

It all started with my brother-in-law, Byron, who was a volunteer and board member of the Polk County Fair. He had a dairy farm and liked to make his own butter and bring it to the fair competition. He usually won the blue ribbon, often because there were very few entries.

He talked his mom, Alberta, into entering butter too. She already took apples, vegetables, dill maple syrup, and paintings and adding butter was something new to try.

. Byron always got the blue ribbon, and Mom only the red or white.

“What is your secret?” she asked.

“I add 4 tablespoons of salt,” he replied.

“Yah, right!” Laugh Mom, thinking that would be way too salty.

Byron was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2002. In memory of him his wife and four children all began entering butter in the fair, and so did I and sometimes Russ. So there could be up to 7 Hansons entering butter.

Stacy, our niece, won grand champion for many years.

“What is your secret?” I asked her.

“Four tablespoons of salt.” she replied, “Just like Dad did.”

I started laughing and said “that’s what Byron told Mom, but she never believed him.”

So I added 4 tablespoons of salt and for 3 years now have gotten Grand Champion. We think it tastes a little too salty, but it wins the prize.

The butter making judge is a 90 year old former professional butter maker and knows what he likes. He says, “Salted butter is supposed to be 2% salt by weight, and that is how I judge it.”

Russ saw him last week and he says he is judging again this year, so my butter will be salty again this year.

Entering the fair in the 1950’s

Last week I filled out my Polk County Fair entry form and started thinking about my first time taking things to the fair in Slinger, Wisconsin where I grew up. I was in 4-H and my grandparents had a farm where I helped out. I wanted to enter a calf, but only boys were allowed to take them to the fair back then. My uncle was the head of entering livestock for our 4-H group so he said he will help me enter. Meanwhile, my grandpa told me I had to start training my calf early. This meant bottle-feeding and trying to teach her how to walk behind me on a rope. The calf had other ideas and wanted to run all over instead. By the time the fair came around, she was following me around the yard without any rope. She must have thought I was now her mother and she would wait for me every morning by the gate for her walk. When we took her to the fair, they did not have any place for a girl to sleep overnight so my uncle got two cots and we slept right next to my calf. The next morning I had to take her for judging, but being used to walking without the rope, she did not want to be on the leash again so I walked her around the circle without it. She followed me as usual. The rest of the calves were roped and were stubborn and hard to move. When it came to the final judging, I did not get any ribbons as the fair rules said the calves must be lead by a rope, but the judges were very impressed that a girl could train a calf so well that they brought me out front after and the audience clapped. We took her home that night because the fair didn’t want a girl sleeping there again. After she grew up, she became one of my grandpa’s best milkers.

Hillbilly Reunion

Merlin, watch out for those rocks,” his wife Myrtle said for the 20th time as we drove over nearly impassable roads in the hills of Arkansas back in the early 1950s as we were headed to visit an army buddy of my Dad.

Dad, Merlin Wilkens, was one of the Greatest Generation, a World War II veteran, only a half dozen years out of the service. In the army, he had some close friends, one, Ernie, was a hillbilly from the Ozarks of Arkansas. Ernie sent a letter inviting us to visit with the instructions how to find their home.

I was 5, and don’t remember too much, but do remember three times we drove right through small creeks, with no bridges over them. Eventually we got there, a log house with a nice porch far back in the hills. The country was beautiful in late summer and as our cows were mostly stopped milking we were able to take a few days off from farm work.

After we left the main roads, just miles of dirt roads, over hills, through creeks and further and further back into the woods.

”Turn at the brown house,” Mom read from the letter as we tried to find Ernie’s. No road signs, or names, just instructions to go to a brown house or a tobacco barn and turn there.

Ernie had a wife and I can’t remember how many kids. Merlin asked,”where is the the nearest motel?” “None closer than several hours away,” answered Ernie with a distinct southern accent. “You can stay overnight with us.”

They had no electricity, no running water, an outhouse, but it was a nice place and as I was only 5 years old, it seemed fine to me. We stayed one night and visited and then after a big southern breakfast with grits and ham, we left and then continued our vacation trip and stayed in motels the next nights before returning home. That was the only time Dad saw his army buddy again.

What I remember most is Mom’s worries of getting flat tires, running out of gas and wrecking our new car. I remember driving through the creeks and riding in a very hot car in the south in August as two young army buddies reconnected for a last time.

Myrtle and Merlin Wilkens about 1942

Bedtime Stories from Walt and Russ

Russ and I had lunch with Walt every Wednesday when he was living in Grantsburg since the summer of 2020. At first we went to Burnett Dairy for a sandwich, but with Covid, we got takeout sandwiches and had outdoor picnics when the weather was OK or socially distanced ones inside his house when not.

Walt always had the same -- a Wisconsin sandwich, hold the spinach. The spinach, he explained, had some effect he wanted to avoid and he wouldn’t eat the free pickle because it was salty and would raise his blood pressure.

Walt had gotten into the habit of going to the dairy with Don Miller, another book club member a few years earlier. Walt drove and picked up Don and paid for the lunch for both of them as a way to let Don have an outing.

When Walt, Russ and I got together, sometimes Walt would tell us about his life, about the orphanage or life in Alaska, very interesting topics for me, but always Walt and Russ would get to talking about science as both had been scientists.

One sunny day outside as we were talking, Walt and Russ got on to biology. I listened as long as I could, but fell asleep.

Walt said, “well we put Margo to sleep” and hearing my name I woke up and we all had a good laugh about that. ‘

Do you remember Walt’s writing? He was somewhat like an encyclopedia, somewhat like a professor, and sometimes would have been good to listen to at bed time to get to sleep!

Walt Fluegel, a good friend.

Pills Pills Pills

A couple months ago, I went into the Mayo Clinic for a stent in my neck. This was supposed to be an out-patient stay, we arrived at 10 AM but my procedure didn’t begin until 4:30 in the afternoon so they decided to keep me at the hospital overnight. The next morning, my blood pressure dropped to dangerous levels which added an additional day to my stay. Then I started having problems with my stomach and digestion so the doctors decided it was time to run a tube down my throat to pump everything out. An additional day was added to my stay as testing of my throat and stomach took place, finding some ulcers down there. By the 5th day, I was being seen by three different teams of doctors, each with their own list of prescriptions for me to get started on once I was free from the constant testing, beeping, and measuring that comes with an extended hospital stay. In the two months since, as the different specialists ponder over what the heck is wrong with me, I now spend about 25 percent of my day taking pills that hopefully will keep me going until my next Doctor’s visit, which is next Friday, where i’m sure to get another handful of pills to take every morning. Otherwise, i’m feeling pretty good.

Geraniums by Margo

In 1980 we moved from Amery to Rochester, Minnesota where my husband got a job at Mayo Clinic. Two years later I began taking horticulture classes at the community college. They had a huge old glass greenhouse where we learned to propagate plants, raise poinsettias from cuttings which was my job. I could have continued to get my Horticulture degree, but would have had to drive to the University in the Twin Cities for an additional year.

When we moved to Pine Island, Minnesota, my husband built a small greenhouse where I would start geraniums from seed. Then I went into buying geranium plugs, which are cuttings from full size plants. At this point, I began taking classes on starting my own business. I grew 200 geraniums along with many other plants to sell around Mother’s Day. I would have over 500 plants in my greenhouse in the spring, but I liked geraniums the best. By the end of July, I would be completely sold out.

For many years, I would sell from home and at the local Farmer’s Market under the name “Geraniums by Margo,” and had many repeat customers who loved my plants and their giant blossoms, and also donated many to the local nursing home for their planters. I still hope that some day my husband will build another greenhouse at our retirement home here in Wisconsin.

Trip to Washington Island 2022

Russ and I took a trip to Washington Island which is on the tip of Door County, Wisconsin. On the way we picked up an old friend, Tom. Both of the men were teachers on the Island, and on the 8 hour drive they reminisced about their one year of teaching there. It was interesting, but grew boring after the first 6 hours. Russ and Tom were busy arguing over which one was wrong about their time on the island and whose memory was failing, so I needed to remind them to look out the windows every now and then to see the beautiful trees which were in full fall colors.

In order to get to the Island, you need to take a 30 minute ferry ride with your car. Once there we met up with another teacher and the next two days were filled with visits with former students who still live on Washington Island. It was fun to see how much they have changed in 48 years. My favorite part was having fresh caught fish every day for supper!

We left on Sunday, caught the 8 AM ferry and began our long trip back to the other side of Wisconsin. During this drive, in between stops at McDonalds to get our stomachs used to normal food again, the conversation was filled with thoughts on how great they must have been as teachers for those kids to turn out so wonderful. They’re probably right.

Margo, Sally, Russ, Tom and Mr Hansen from the Island.

Dressing for Winter

Is wearing a short dress in winter ever a good idea?

I was on my way home from work with my new 1968 Ford Mustang with rear wheel drive and a big V8 engine, that was not a good winter driving car.

I left work in the afternoon, and my drive home included a big hill near where I worked. The road was icy on the hill, and as I drove slowly down, hit a patch of ice and slowly slide completely around and ended up backwards in the snow covered ditch.

My job was a nursing assistant, and I was wearing uniform of a dress required in those days, with the skirt as short as we were allowed --just at the knee if I tugged it down when the head nurse was around came by. And of course no boots and not at all dressed for winter because I didn’t have far to drive. I was in my early 20s at the time, and my legs were not too bad according to my boyfriend, Russ.

I got out of the car to look, wearing my very short blue dress and almost immediately three truckers stopped to see if I needed help. One had a tow rope and all three of the men hooked it up and got me out of the ditch right away.

I thanked them and asked if I could pay them for the help. They all said no, and two of them hung around and asked if they could get my phone number. I told them, while trying to look disappointed, “no, I’m engaged and plan to be married next spring.”

Russ and Margo won a blanket at the Samaritan Nursing home for the suggestion to add rails to the toilet stools. By that time, women were allowed to wear pant suits although still had to wear caps. Margo was in light blue and Russ in white. The home made blanket was made by the patients in occupational therapy. We still have it.

SUMMER VACATION 1953

My parent liked to take a week’s trip and rent a cabin in Northern WI on a lake most years. Dad would hire a neighbor to help Grandpa with milking the cows on our farm.

One year we decided to take a trip to Yellowstone park. I was about 6 years old, old enough to be excited about a big trip!

Dad had a Ford station wagon. We packed it and on a Saturday in early June, we were ready to hit the road. Mom made sandwiches and cookies to feed us the first day as we wanted to get in a long day of driving.

The second day we were already in Wyoming, most of the miles done, so we could stop at small town shops. My Mom collected salt and pepper shakers and other knick knacks that she brought home and ended up as things in the living room for me to dust every week.

I had packed a small box of books to read, but my parents said, “No! This trip is for you to look around and learn about different places.

The second day we saw a big sign, “Yellowstone Ahead. Beware of bears. Do not open your windows and do not feed the bears.”

WOW when we drove in past the main gates, there were bears everywhere. Dad was glad to move on pass the bears as the traffic was jammed up and everyone was feeding bears with their windows open.

We had driven about an hour when I looked at the gas gauge and said “DAD, you need gas.”

“OH NO,” said Dad, “I will make a run for hill and if you hold your breath while we go up the hill and then blow it out on the way down, I will turn the car off and coast down the hills, until we get to a gas station.”

We finally coasted into a gas station with me holding my breath and filled the tank. The car tank was supposed to hold 21 gallons, and the gas station man put in 21 gallons of gas -- so it really was empty.

What I remember most about the trip is the empty gas tank and holding my breath. I probably shouldn’t have worried as there were many people on the road and so we would have gotten help, but when you are 6 years old you don’t think about that. On future trips, Mom and I always watched the gas gauge and made Dad stop before it got empty.

MY FIRST CAR

When I turned 16, I asked Mom take me to town to get my driver license. Mom said she would take the day off of work and bring me to the license office.

I was up at 6am driving around the yard, around all Grandpa’s apple, cherry & pear trees in the large orchard, without hitting any. I was ready.

My appointment was 10:00 am. I spent the morning washing and cleaning out the car and checked all the lights with Larry, my 6 year old brother, who liked to help, but usually was more in the way than helpful.

My parents had a big Ford LTD that was easy to drive with power everything. I passed the written test easily and then passed the driving test, although when it came time to parallel park, I told the guy “If you want me to do that, we will be here all afternoon.” He let me skip that part.

Mom was waiting as we drove back into the office parking lot. She couldn’t believe it when I told her I passed! “WOW,” she said, and then asked, -- how did you do so well?” I reminded her I had been driving the tractor around the farm since I was 9 years old for Grandpa and using it to get the cows in the pasture.

When my Dad got home from work, I ran out and said, “ I got my license, let’s go buy a car tomorrow.”

He asked “How much money do you have?”

I had been thinking that he would buy me a car when I go my license. “Oh,” I replied disappointedly looking at the ground, “I have $10 from babysitting”

“Well,” he said, “you get one more year of high school, then work a year or so and save all your money and then we will see.”

So I graduated, got a factory job and after a year and a half I had $500.00 saved for a down payment, and I figured the total cost would be about $3000 for a new car.

Dad and I sat down and figured out what it would cost me every month for car payments, Insurance, gas and maybe some left to see a movie. It looked like I could make the payments.

He looked at me and asked “Are you sure you want to buy a car?

“Oh yes,” I replied enthusiastically.

We went to the Ford dealer where Dad and Mom bought their cars in the nearby small town Newburg, Wi. The first car I saw was a brand new 1968 red convertible Mustang, WOW I loved that one. This was a 1968. I drove it home to show Mom before I signed the papers. Of course my brother came ran out and said WE got a convertible. I looked at him with daggers in my eyes, WE!!!

Mom said I don’t like the idea of you two driving around in a convertible. I thought to myself, thanks a lot little brother. Well, I took it back and got the 1968 Mustang that was parked next to my red one. It was hard top, Acapulco Blue color, with a V8 engine and it could go 120 miles an hour, something I only tried once.

I had it until around 1989. By then the rust got the best of it. It was a very sad day to see it go.

Volunteering at the Luck Museum

By Margo Hanson

Why do I volunteer? First let’s go back to 1966 when I was a senior in high school. I had a work experience class that put me as a volunteer at the Washington County Museum in West Bend, WI., for my last month of school. Who would have thought that 52 years later I would be again volunteering at a museum.

I started volunteering for the Luck Historical Society about 10 years ago, first helping at the Aebleskiver breakfast when we did it at the Cardinal Shop in their back room and basement with my husband Russ.

Russ volunteered on Mondays at the Museum’s Ravenholt Family History Research Center (RFHRC) to help folks get started in genealogy, and sometimes I came along and acted as the greeter for the museum even though I was not from the area and didn’t know much about Luck.

Over the past three years I have learned a lot about Luck and local history from visitors, reading local history, from other volunteers. I enjoy learning from the visitors as they all have a story about Luck. This summer, on the Saturdays I spent at the museum, I had visitors from all around the US and some from foreign countries including Sweden and Denmark. I even visited with folks from my home town of West Bend, WI.

Bob & Dianne Dueholm donated left over inventory from the Cardinal Shoppe, including many Dept. 56 and other Christmas villages buildings and accessories, to be shared with the Luck and Cushing history societies. Rachel and I decided to do Black Friday and Luck Santa Day sales of the items along with other items donated to the museum including knitted hats, art, books, yo-yos, rocks, jewelry and more. The two sales brought in about $800, money that will go to help keep the Museum thriving.

Recently I have taken on the role of President of the Polk County Genealogy Society, and will be volunteering with the RFHRC and local family history research.

Fall of 2024 Margo, president, with the Polk County Genealogical Society visiting the Amery Museum.

Rachel, director of the Luck Museum, with Margo who volunteered and was a long time board member.

Thanksgiving Turkey

I grew up on a farm in SE Wisconsin, although my parents quit dairying when I was still young, they continued to raise chickens and sometimes turkeys. Mom convinced Dad to buy 25 turkeys one year, and raised them in the old chicken coop, making a snow fence pen for them in the yard. As they grew older, they were given free run of the 5 acre yard. Whenever Mom went outside they came rushing up to see if she brought them anything.

Russ and I were living in Minnesota at the time, about a 5 hour drive away. We visited several times during the summer and got to see the turkeys thriving and getting bigger each time.

“I sure would like a turkey for Thanksgiving,” I hinted to Mom at one of the visits, “Maybe we could stick one in the trunk and bring it to MN.” I joked.

Mom and Dad butchered all of them in November, before Thanksgiving, and froze most of them. A week before Thanksgiving, Mom called and said “there is a surprise coming in the mail for Thanksgiving,” but didn’t tell us what it was. Several days later, a big package was delivered to our house.

I opened it up, and wrapped in white butcher paper inside was a full turkey! It was a little dry looking and smelled of smoke. I called Mom and thanked her and asked about it. “The butcher smoked it and said it should be good for a few days, but put it in the refrigerator to be sure.”

We were at home that year for Thanksgiving, and the turkey was the main course for the meal. I and Scott ate several pieces of the salty, smokey turkey dark meat and some of the breast. Russ tried a little of the white meat, but said his mom’s turkey was much better and so he ate only a small piece.

By evening, Scott and I had very upset stomachs and visited the bathroom often while Russ had no problems. It appeared that the turkey’s trip of 300 miles through the post offices had spoiled it. We never told Mom that we got sick from her turkey, but decided next year we would go to Mom’s where she could cook a frozen turkey instead of a smoked one!