REMARKABLE TO SAY THE LEAST

After my blog entries this past week regarding cemeteries and my

participation as a guide in the La Crosse Historic Society's Silent City, my friend Cheryl shared how visiting cemeteries as a child with her Grandmother was not an uncommon occurrence. She pointed out it was a good way to learn history, reflect upon one's own mortality and life choices. Cheryl also reminded me that Autumn itself is a reflective time of year. How very true on all accounts.

Our tour visitors to Silent City had these same opportunities as they heard about some of the "remarkable" women who preceded us here in La Crosse and their resting place, Oak Grove Cemetery, as both a beautiful park with its majestic oaks and historic site as well. 

We were blessed with perfect weather, a pleasant breeze, some cloud coverage but sun and no rain like the previous day.

Besides two early busloads for those that preferred not to walk, twenty folks made up each walking tour given every fifteen minutes between 11and 3. 
Clever outside bench seating at the 7 outside stops included long boards supported by bales of hay. Chairs would have sunk into the soaked ground and the hay can be returned to the farmer and the wood repurposed!

Guide couples

Two assigned guides accompanied each group. Guides could choose to wear black and white/ dress up. This dapper couple of 53 years volunteer being guides together. (He has one terrific melodic deep radio voice.) 

As you will see all the actors dressed in historic garb as they reenacted their characters.

Dorina Lukins as Fredericka Levy

Stop #1 : 
Fredericka Augusta Levy and her great niece
Fredericka with a heavy German accent, spoke of her disappointment of being welcomed by a dirty log cabin, not the beautiful homestead she had envisioned. Her great niece prodded her for stories and Fredericka shared her strawberry picking adventure when to her surprise she looked up to see her neighbor, an Indian.  Reenacting her shock, her scream resounded throughout the cemetery and we all started laughing. In her quick retreat home, she had forgotten her basket of berries but they were awaiting her return on the front porch.  Fredericka admitted the Indians were far better neighbors than those who helped themselves to her chickens. When her husband was off trading, Mrs. Levy ran the store attached to their house and the post office.  These early settlers were indeed strong women.

Lottridge played by Sara Slayton

Stop #2: 
Dr. Mary Elizabeth Lottridge (1826-1906) used to accompany her father, a physician, on his house calls.  Through necessity she became a practioner, being one of the first women in the US (She added after '3' courses to become a physician.) She not only received a degree in medicine but also was licensed to practice surgery.  Despite saving so many, she grieved being unable to save her own 2 children from the fever and when remarried, her husband's son who she cherished, also succumbed.

Jill Pein as Johanna Heileman

 Stop #3: 
Johanna Bantle Heileman
 (1831-1917) of German descent workedas a maid in the Pabst mansion where she met and married a fellow German immigrant with the surname Heileman. You know the rest, they started another brewery, raised a family with 7 girls and one son. They always fed all the single men in town. There must have been some ulterior motive, don't you think?  After Johanna's husband passed, she was named President of the brewery, tripling its business and running it until she was 80, remaining on the board for 5 more years. Johanna was one of the first women CEO's in Wisconsin. 

Stop #4: 

Dr. Abby Adams,1842-1924 & Rev. Nellie Opdale,1860-1941

Susan Fox (L)  as Dr. Abby Adams and Deborah Nerud as Rev. Nellie Opdale 

Dr. Abby Adams, came from a middle class New England family with little means but educated. She moved to La Crosse with her brother and sister and started a women's clinic. She became good friends with Nellie Opdale who was not only a great advocate for women's suffrage but active in the Temperance Society. Unfortunately Nellie was married to a real scoundrel, the first Wisconsin lawyer to be disbarred for impropriety which obviously didn't sit well with her views of alcohol.  Nellie's misfortune of losing both her husband and child and being in debt, led her to the pulpit.  She became La Crosse's first female minister after being asked to give a sermon. She found the set sermons so boring she wrote her first sermon incorporating her own story. Her success continued in the Universalist Church for many years as their Reverend.

Terry Visger as Leona Linker

Stop #5 :
Leona Linker
Leona met us in the 1912 Italian marble and cement mausoleum where she is laid to rest. Leona is responsible for the 'Leona,' a special ladies undergarment that combined the corset, camisole and slip, creating a slenderizing garment open at the bottom for the women's ease to use the toilet. You can imagine how the arrival of flappers affected the Leona's popularity. 


Stop #6:

 Sara Pilatzki-Warzeha

Mary Markos, a Syrian immigrant, living in Pennsylvania at 18 met the Markos brothers who owned a clothing business there. She married Salem, who according to her was the most handsome of the brothers. They moved here to La Crosse and she had 3 sons. Besides bringing the Levi brand of pants to town, Mary reminded us of a former Syrian community that was also not well received in the 1900's in north La Crosse like the Syrian immigrants of today. She spent her life working in civic organizations and fostering better relations between the Syrian and La Crosse communities.

*The Final Stop:

Wendy Mattison as Van Steenwyk

Grace Pettengill Hogan Van Steenwyk was a hoot as she told of the chaos created in the cemetery as her friend, the grieving Losey widow, asked Grace to use the car to transport the flowers from the cemetery so she could remain longer graveside. As Grace started driving off, her hem caught in the door as she opened it in order to free the cloth, the car started accelerating to a whopping 25mph and she lost control. She  holding on as long as possible until she was thrown. The electric car continued running without her, but no one knew how to turn the car off. Eventually it rolled over with its wheels still spinning. Grace's claim to fame which has never been exceeded of knocking down more headstones than anyone else. 31 to be exact. Truly "remarkable."

All of our actors did a phenomenal job portraying their 'remarkable' women as they transported us to a different time and proved something we have known all along which is strong women have helped make all our communities better.