NEWSLETTER: AUGUST 2007

Previous issues of the newsletter are posted on our website at http://my.core.com/~riponhistsoc.

Most of our programs are recorded and may be watched on Channel 19 or borrowed from the Society.

Website and Newsletter Editor: Jean Woolley, riponhistsoc@yahoo.com

 Clarification on Dues, Membership, and Donations

Our membership year runs from November through the following October, though new members can join any time. Since 2008 dues will be payable soon, this seems a good time to request your help in making sure our records are correct. When you send a check, please indicate if all or a portion of the money is to be considered as membership dues. Sometimes people who have no interest in becoming members make donations in appreciation for services we have provided. On the other hand, an individual or family might make a donation thinking it will automatically make them members. It doesn’t. You are only a member if you indicate the amount that is to be applied toward membership dues. We operate entirely on dues, donations, and volunteer labor, so your dues are important and your additional donations are greatly appreciated!

Individual Membership

$10 per year

Please send check to:

Treasurer, Ripon Historical Society

PO Box 274

Ripon, WI 54971

Family Membership

$15 per year

Student Membership

$5 per year

Individual Life Membership

$100

Life Membership for a Couple

$150

Members receive our newsletter in the mail four times a year. In addition to reporting on business and activities, we try to include interesting information about people, places, and events that figure in Ripon’s history.

New Member

Darren Mueller of Oak Creek, whose hobby is postal history, has used our archives in his research and has, in turn, contributed copies of his work to the Society. On one of his recent visits, he accepted our invitation to join.

Farewell, Alice

 

Alice Stroinski, life member and past volunteer as a typist of artifact catalogue cards, died on July 30, 2007. Her faithful weekly service until her move into assisted living at Maplecrest and her good sense of humor were always appreciated. We have periodically displayed and will continue to display on the Pickard House dining room table the dinner set of pink glass that Alice gave us. Alice purchased it as a bride in the 1940s. It is typical of what a couple starting housekeeping could have afforded.

Our Unusual Button Collection


Ripon College Student Katie Roeptke, Joyce Rudolph, Michelle Benson, and George Miller sort Belle Lawson’s button collection

Belle Lawson’s mother collected buttons. In 1941, Belle took up the hobby and worked on it until her death in 1973 at age 98. Some of her buttons date back to the Revolutionary War. Friends also gave her interesting buttons, which she organized according to family and sewed on cards. She kept a journal with notes on the families and the buttons. The display team decided to feature Miss Lawson’s button collection in a special exhibit for the June 17 open house. They discovered that we have 115 cards of buttons and their corresponding documentation. While the buttons themselves are fascinating, the notes are an invaluable contribution to the history of Ripon and its families.

 The Garden Report

Welcome back to your garden with the bird bath and Christmas roses, Don Amsden. Appreciation goes to Audrey Wesner, who has been a volunteer typist and now has adopted a Lawson House garden as well. Thank you to Barbara Scott, Katie Wild, and Arlynn and Bonnie Sanders for continuing to keep the rest of our gardens colorful and well cared for.

 April 19 Program Features Ripon Printers

Forty-three people came to the Society meeting on April 19 to hear the story of Ripon Printers told by current President Andy Lyke and his mother, Audrey Lyke, who founded the business with her late husband, Doug. With Doug’s journalism degree in hand and a young family to raise, Audrey and Doug were looking for a hometown newspaper to buy. They found Ripon’s Commonwealth Press and never looked back. They have become a major printer as well as a newspaper publisher, continuing to win quality awards for both aspects of the business. Several members of the audience were part of the history of “The Printers,” and they also shared stories. Pictured are Jim Konkel, Audrey Lyke, Tom Montag, Shirley Zentner, Andy Lyke, and Dave Gray. Tim Lyke was part of the program as well, but he left before the picture was taken to cover another story.

 May 17 Program Features Restoration of Little White Schoolhouse

Little White Schoolhouse committee members Joan Karsten, Bill Woolley, Paula Price, and Peter Kasuboski related the story of the restoration of the Little White Schoolhouse. Joan was the chairperson for the planning and fund drive that made the restoration possible. Bill wrote the illustrated history of the schoolhouse that is now on sale at the site, designed a layout that would show the schoolhouse both as a one-room school and as the birthplace of the Republican Party, and created the displays. As Executive Director of the Ripon Area Chamber of Commerce, Paula has been and continues to be responsible for the ongoing operations of the schoolhouse as a tourist attraction and a source of local pride. Peter led his team from Ripon Area Builders in a restoration project that retains the building’s historic integrity while making it structurally sound, safe, and usable.

Memories of a One-room School by Arden Gatzke

Arcade School was a one room schoolhouse with grades one through eight located 200 feet west of the north end of Arcade Glenn Road. A woodshed was attached to the west side for the stove’s firewood. There were two wooden outhouses behind the school, one for boys and one for girls. I don’t think there were ever over 20 students at a time. I started first grade in 1920. Hazel Hunger and I were the only ones in our class. Our teacher was Miss Louise Wepner until she got married one summer and became Mrs. Arndt. She taught all of us how to play the harmonica. She had to start a fire in the big wood burning stove at the rear of the room so it would be warm in the room before the students got to school. At noon she would take the cans of soup we had brought for our lunch and put them in a pan of water on the stove so we would have a hot lunch. Students were assigned to keep the wood box full of wood. The students with desks away from the stove wore heavier clothes than those closer to the stove. The well for water was across the road at a farm house. Two boys would fetch a can of water each day to fill the pail for our drinking water. The pail would be on a bench with a dipper hanging on its side. The dipper was like a cup with a long straight handle, similar to a soup ladle. We would dip the dipper into the water, drink from it, and then hang it back on the side of the pail so the next student could use it. Later we got an earthen jar with a tap on it and we each had our own glass to drink out of. On each side of the entry way was a cloak room, one for boys and one for girls. The teacher’s desk was at the front of the room with a United States map on the south wall behind her. When we looked at the map, east and west were on the wrong sides. I think all maps should be hung on the north wall. At one end of the school yard the land sloped down at about a 45 degree angle toward Silver Creek. When snow was on the ground we would go to the city dump and find something with a rounded edge that would make a sled. Model T front fenders were the best. Sometimes the ice would break while we were crossing the creek and we got wet. One day I had nothing to slide on but discovered if I just sat down my new sheepskin coat was long enough to make a nice sled. My mother was not too happy when I got home with a white spot on my brand new coat where the snow had rubbed against it. For our Christmas plays and other plays a wire was stretched across the front of the room with blankets as a screen. Santa always came to the Christmas party to give out presents. One year I became a little suspicious. He pronounced my neighbor’s name as it’s spelled, Kal wit ter. The German W is pronounced V so it’s Kla veet ter. Santa should have known a child’s correct name so I started wondering. In the middle of my 5th grade year the school districts changed and I went to Ceresco School. Having heard all the lessons, I didn’t have to study until I got to the 9th grade.

Society Receives Admanco History and Artifacts

In 2007 Society member Gordon Minch gave us an extensive collection of new products manufactured by Admanco, a long-time major local industry that is no longer in existence. He had been the president and then chairman of its board for twenty-nine years. The artifacts included caps, yardsticks, aprons, pot holders and more. Some are duplicates and in quantities which the donor encouraged us to sell for the benefit of our collection fund. Mr. Minch also provided a written history of the company, part of which is included in this newsletter. This collection adds a valuable broad picture of the late 20th Century that is significant to local history. It’s a welcome addition to our archives and artifact holdings.

The Admanco Story

The Admanco story began in 1919 when the Ripon Shirtwaist Company was founded. The company manufactured the shirtwaist, which was an exotic blouse and a short-lived fad. The shirtwaist company went out of business in 1922. With all of the sewing equipment on hand, the owners started to manufacture carpenter’s aprons, grocer’s aprons, potholders, danger flags, and ladies’ dust caps and put advertising copy on them. They named the new company Advertisers Manufacturing Company. Later that year they introduced the painter’s cap. Many of these items remained the core products of Advertisers into the 1980’s. Ironically, some of the company’s most prosperous early years were during the Great Depression. Budgets were tight, but corporations saw the value of a painter’s cap. It was useful and highly visible, and the advertising message lasted for years. Some of the largest orders ever, over a million units, were received from Coca Cola, Shell Oil, and Johnson’s Wax. The company continued to expand the product line to include many styles of caps, aprons, shoe cloths, cellulose sponges, yardsticks, news bags, flags, pennants, and vests. They moved several times before settling into a 150,000 square foot facility located in the Ripon Industrial Park. In 1984 the company name was shortened to ADMANCO Inc. By that time ADMANCO employed over 500 people working on two shifts. The company enjoyed the reputation of being one of the world’s largest manufacturers and imprinters of cloth promotional products, having added to the product line tote bags, barrel bags, portfolios, briefcases, amenity kits, and towels. These items were sold nationally and internationally through a network of approximately 14,000 promotional products distributors. A primary goal of the company throughout its life was to provide its customers with the best possible service. As a result, Admanco received several Supplier Star and Supplier Achievement Awards for outstanding quality and service. The last award was received in 1999. In 2000 the management of Admanco was assumed by the second generation of the ownership family. By this time the company was competing with ever-increasing numbers of low-cost products imported from the Far East. The inability to cut costs and personnel produced a severe drop in sales and profits in the next three years. It was only a short time before the company closed its doors in December 2004.

Ripon Second Graders and Laconia Special Ed Class Visit

 
Sarah Colonna and Shirley Williams dressed in period clothing for the second graders

A Laconia High School special needs class enjoyed working through our Everyday Life in Ripon: Past and Present curriculum on April 11, 2007. On May 9 and 10 Ripon’s six classes of 2nd grade came for their annual visit. For the first time this year, they spent an hour at the Historical Society and an hour the newly restored Little White Schoolhouse for an old-fashioned arithmetic lesson with schoolmaster Bill Woolley.

Docent Training Workshop, Summer Open House, and Guided Tours

Participants in our first docent training workshop, conducted by Joyce Rudolph, George Miller, Mary Brandt, and Michele Benson, have already put their skills to work at the June 17 open house and in several guided tours. The numbers of people attending our open houses and programs, both as workers and guests, continues to increase. Docents who have participated in the training so far are Clarence Bemis, Alan and Joyce Bonsen, Sarah Colonna, Joan Dorsch, Arden Gatzke, Barbara Scott, Gary Wetzel, and Shirley Zentner. To volunteer as a docent, call Joyce Rudolph at 748-6834. To take a guided tour, come to the front door of the Pickard House any time between 1:00 and 3:00 on these Sunday afternoons:

August 26

September 9

September 23.

 Fall Program Schedule

The program committee—Mary Brandt, Audrey Conant, and Gary Wetzel—have announced an exciting program schedule for fall.

Thursday, September 20, at 7:00 PM—Thomas Griffith’s Reminiscences as a WW II Doolittle Raider, a DVD presented with commentary by member Bob Royce, a docent at EAA

Thursday, October 18, at 7:00 PM—One Room Schools presented with commentary and a display by member Opal Griffiths, who was a one room school teacher in the Ripon area

Thursday, November 15, at 5:00 PM—Soup supper, annual meeting, and election of officers for 2008, plus a program presented by Michele Benson and Joyce Rudolph on the history of some of the Ripon families who contributed to the Belle Lawson button collection.