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Hello everyone and welcome to our summer season of In
Wisconsin. I'm Patti Low.
We're joining you from lovely downtown Mount Hora, a
vibrant community in Western Dane County of about 6,000
people featuring trolls and tick-malls and mustard.
This week meet a couple of Swiss Patriots who stand
silently and testament to a Hollandale farmer's unique
passion. Travel to a family run bakery in Milwaukee
and discover the poetry to be found in a loaf of
bread. And here from some of Wisconsin's World War II
veterans, is they describe the bittersweet post-war
experience of coming home.
All that plus a trip to a place that will tickle your
taste buds in Wisconsin.
Major funding for In Wisconsin
is provided by the people of a lion's energy who brings safe,
reliable and environmentally friendly energy to
keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running
smoothly, a lion's energy, offering energy saving ideas on
the web.
And by the University of Wisconsin Comprehensive
Cancer Center providing cancer research, education and
treatment, UW Comprehensive Cancer Center, comprehensive
as designated by the National Cancer Institute.
Information available on the web.
The people of Mount Hora are proud of their Scandinavian
heritage. In fact you could say it's carved into
the culture.
That's a fitting introduction for the man in
our first story.
In the early 1900s Nick Engelbert
was a dairy farmer in Hollandale, but pride in
his heritage led him to leave a different legacy.
Years before anyone thought of pink flamingos, Hollandale
dairy farmer Nick Engelbert mastered the art of lawn
ornamentation. There are dozens of statues made during
the 1940s of concrete and broken glass.
Engelbert's house even got the
treatment. Grandview is an artistic attraction.
Lisa Stone brings students from the
Art Institute of Chicago by on a field trip of
Wisconsin's folk art sites.
Because Engelbert in building the tabloas, in many of
them he was representing the people that immigrated to this
area. Engelbert's art was significant enough that the
Kohler Foundation of Shaboygan purchased the site in
1991 to save it.
In 1997 Grandview was transferred
to the Peccatonic Foundation of Hollandale.
Rick Rolfsmart now oversees the
preservation of Engelbert's creations.
What do you think he would say if he
knew that his sculptures were the subject of scholarly
visits from the Art Institute of Chicago and wealthy
industrialist foundation is paying good money to to
rebuild his stuff.
If he saw the kind of effort going into
this, I think he would be very proud, but I think he'd
also be very amazed too, because I don't think he
ever meant this to be an institution.
But simply a place that was a lot of fun.
Grandview is a fun place.
It serves as a community center of sorts in the summer.
Kids come from all over the Peccatonic of Valley to
learn everything from bike repair to egg decorating.
But Grandview isn't as grand as it used to be.
It's losing the battle with the elements.
A statue of Neptune was smashed by a
falling tree.
Snow White is swooning backwards due to
frost heaves.
Duarves stand by silently fearing the
worst. These statues standing under a Swiss flag may
have suffered the greatest insult.
They stand only with the help of two by fours.
German speaking Swiss up the road in New Glarest
referred to the statues as the dry eyedgenosen,
the three patriots, Albert Nordzvai, but only to
remain. It was depressing to me to see the incomplete
sculpture and the dedicated to a plaque has a photograph
of the original sculpture.
You could see what was and then to see what remained
of the sculpture sort of cried out to be dealt with.
Buzz Holland of New Glarest says he'd been driving past
the statues for years while making the rounds as a
lumber salesman, but he never paid much attention until I
had moved from Madison to New Glarest in 1968.
And the year that I moved to New
Glarest I became involved in the Wilhelm Telltale.
Their names are rally thousands in the lodge.
New Glarest puts on the Wilhelm Telltale
play every Labor Day weekend.
Wilhelm Telltale is the legendary figure who
refused to salute the head of the sheriff, the local
representative of the emperor of Austria.
After being forced to shoot an
apple off his son's head, tell then, Shatha Sharah.
Tells heroic act spurred the founding
of Switzerland in 1291.
This was the moment commemorated when these
three representatives of the Cantons, Orish, Wreaths
and Unterwald and Swornorth of Confederation.
Victory and defeat in life and death.
And in life and death.
When he came back to explore the site, Holland realized
the roadside statues depicted the same historical
event. He was disappointed to see not the famous
hand-class, but stumps of limbs.
A buddy year ago, Holland and others decided
Swiss history, along with Snow White, Neptune and the
rest of Nick Engelbert's creations deserved a better
fate. They started a campaign to rehabilitate
the statues.
It's beautiful cultural expressions from
an seemingly uncomplicated countrymen.
It's the beauty of the human spirit.
Over the course of the summer,
Don Howlett of Spring Lake worked to recreate the
missing patriot and restore other statues at Grandview.
Well, there were a remnant parts of the sculptures
that were in storage in the basement.
And by going through and organizing those,
I was able to define what was left of this
particular sculpture.
Tubes protrude from the Patriots' legs.
It looks like Howlett's been doing
Verico's Veins' Regerie Unconcrete.
What you see is ports that I'm able to put
in here to put a material inside that will help neutralize
the corrosive concrete as well as literally fill
up the ankle area to give it much more strength.
In a shed are the beginnings of the new third patriot.
I had one leg left.
That's the original leg that was salvaged.
Whatever happened to the rest is unknown.
And next to it is a molded casting of that
leg. This will be a new hand.
Here's the base of the wrist and the original.
Two weeks later, the steel frame
of the third statue is in place minus its head.
Howlett was spot welding internal
support, the class, pan, symbolizing confederation, have
been reattached.
I don't know if I'm going to get it apart.
Well, I should.
Later in the day, Howlett was able to check
on the progress of the mold for the new Patriots head.
Howlett pulled the mold from a model he had carved from wax.
Using photographs, I had to recreate the smithing head and
there is only a profile shot and a back of head shot.
So I had to rely a lot on the existing
sculptures to get the dimensions and then finally to get the
characters of their ears from some of the other pieces.
The mold will be used to make a concrete casting.
Success. There's the new Swiss Patriot head.
Two weeks later, the head is cast and is in
place. The statue, still gray and unpainted, looks
like an English schoolboy.
Buzz Holland watches Howlett trowel
the final layer of mortar on the statue's tie.
Howlett then applies pieces
of broken pottery.
Again, using the tile pattern on the other Patriot, trying to
keep as close as I can, perhaps what Nick Angover would have
used. Howlett tries not to let his own artistic ability show.
My input here should be nonexistent.
All I am is a sculptural technician.
The restoration was dedicated at the end of
July. I adjusted for time zones.
It was Switzerland's birthday.
I believe this site and other sites like it, it
was gone some concrete parks certainly in the spot of
Grotto. They're all about the celebration of the
people who have settled these areas and their
statement of actually its love.
It's a pure appreciation of the environment
they came to with remembrances of things from the past.
You can tour Grandview and check out Engelbert statues for
yourself. For more information, just visit our website
at www.org/inwisconsin.
We move now from a story about Swiss Patriots to
one about Italian bakers.
A few months back in our poems about places series, we sent
one of our videographers Wendy Woodard and one of our
state poets Bianca Spriigs to capture the flavor
of Peter Chorino's bakery in Milwaukee.
At Peter Chorino's bakery, I can smell them baking
beyond the mosaic of wheat that tiles the outside
of the building.
Beyond the seafoam interior and
the strings of lights and vines that illuminate Maria
del Lume and Porto cello.
The votive candle that burns, blurs into maps of home and
the beaming faces of original owners.
Their faith is fragrant.
Has kept the Chartino name outside for almost
60 years.
Has kept the display cases with their
sliding doors so a customer may gave at the sweet
sins and indulgences alike.
Cream puffs, amaretti, cheesecake, pinwheels,
strudel batons, casadas, croissant, macaroons, muffins,
made to order freshly filled canole and hundreds
more, Lume and Swellter beneath a patron's gaze.
But I can smell them baking beyond all of this in the metal
hum and heat of the kitchen.
They rise before the bread to mix and roll and march,
legions of vanilla biscotti onto metal sheets to join the
baking rolls with the precision of a percussion ensemble.
Scraping and slicing and stacking they paste from
the ovens to the work tables over hardwood floors.
Their four arms are the size of loaves and a glint of gold
glimmers from their third left fingers beneath the flower
and dough.
They remain a family recipe of prosperity.
I can smell them baking from the street, the warm
blast of yeast and sweet, the scent of home and time
but dons the walls.
Here at Peter Chartino's bakery
I can smell more so much more rising than the bread.
, but no, I don't know.
Na per ogni acrite mori, ista legi duria mare,
alim fami smac kokori, non dovittio sap nenti,
volatio me preyesanti, ogul pebulion nucenti.
More than 300,000 Wisconsin men and women served their
country during World War Two and after the war they
couldn't wait to get back to hometowns just like this one.
In a new documentary, Wisconsin World War Two stories, legacy,
we learn that coming home was sometimes bittersweet.
Listen, the time is getting close when GI Joe will
come home.
In fact he's been coming home already.
Are we in the home front ready to face him
to help him become readjusted, to help him regain his
foothold in society?
You say we are?
Remember the veteran who comes home
is a social problem, the major social problem of the
post-war world.
Not always, but often he's a problem
because he's maimed crippled, destitute, cold and and
hungered. These things he is from no fault and
notice are of his own, but solely because we've used
him up, sacrificed him.
The first time that I got weighed in Osaka weighed
90 pounds and I swear the best time I got to San
Francisco must have weighed almost 200.
Eventually those of us from the Midwest are around
here, they put us on a hospital train and we came to Gail's
Burgular Noir.
We pulled in at night next day
being Sunday they weren't ready to take us to the
hospital. So I think the nurse in charge of our
car, we talked to her and to letting us go downtown,
Gail's Burgular Noir, Saturday night.
She even called some taxes for us and
we didn't have any money, and the nation money
had. But the taxi drivers wouldn't take any money.
We went down to tell them, went into a bar and
couldn't buy anything but nobody would let us go
thirsty, believe me.
Of course we were in Northshade,
you know, two beers and we were drunk and that's
exactly what happened.
We got back to the railroad
car and about that time they were going to take us
in to doctors that do us.
They were drunk, we can't examine them.
So they put us back on the car again.
We slept it off and waited until the next day.
And then finally I was able
to get back to Madison Wisconsin and Lord and behold
I found out that my girlfriend before we had gone in was still
single so I found her and won't be who she was
willing to go out with me.
And one of the things they did for us when they gave
us our discharge as P.O.W.
as they gave us vacation to a city of our choice
and a couple of hotels of our choice with all
expenses paid for two weeks except for liquor they
wouldn't pay for any liquor.
By that time I had proposed to my dear wife and she
had accepted and so we got married and we had
two weeks honeymoon in Chicago.
Our room number was 1215 and that's the total
amount of my bill after two weeks because most
everybody with my uniform on could see this I had been
P.O.W. wouldn't let me buy drinks occasionally we could
buy drinks and that was at 1215.
Maybe we're just about the same guys who went away.
I'm sure most of us are and we both ought to be
glad we are because we've got to live together all
of us.
It's just that well some of us have spent a
few weeks or months or years living with fear and
horror that's all it it did something it was bound.
Yes you were there while we've just gone on living
on Main Street no wonder all of our thoughts and
ways must seem small and narrow to you.
No I wasn't going to say that but it's
a little bit true maybe yeah except that don't forget
it was that same Main Street I wanted to get back to
so much I could taste it.
All right back to the farm I had a home to go to we
got back here to Stoten area and of course we
were kind of at loose ends I didn't know just what
we wanted to do but I stuck with it for a while
and my folks were pretty lenient because we didn't
behave too well because I suppose part of it was
celebrating being alive so some of our weekends
got to be pretty hectic.
Most every Saturday night at least we'd have to go
out and make their rounds.
We got to be kind of clannish.
You learn to sort people out up on the
front line you just about knew who you wanted to
have alongside of you that you could depend on.
There were several cases a few
out on the farm you know where the boys were kept
out of the draft by picking up an extra farm or
something like that you know and we didn't appreciate
that. We didn't make any difference they wouldn't
be in a good anyway but in general we were treated pretty
well. Most of them were glad that you came back and showed it
but some of the families you know that had lost somebody
were a little bit jealous.
You can't blame them and you could tell that and
you tried to kind of ease over it you know and
that was an undercurrent there.
How come he came back and my boy didn't.
You can watch the entire documentary Wisconsin World War
II stories legacy on Wednesday, August 31st at 8 p.m.
on Wisconsin Public Television.
You can also find more information about the
special by logging on to our website at www.org/inwisconsin
here's a little spicy number in Mount Horab.
The mustard museum has been
around for decades but not always at this location.
Back in 1992 we packed up our hot dogs and soft
pretzels and headed to its original home for a tour.
This week in honor of National Mustard Day we once
again pull this Wisconsin Retro segment out of Wisconsin
Public Television's video vault.
Sit back as museum founder Barry Loveinson
loads us up with all things mustard.
Hi welcome to the Mount Horab mustard museum North America's
showcase for cruel and unusual condiments.
Come on in!
I'm the curator Barry Loveinson and if you like
mustard you have come to the right place.
Just take a look around and what do
you see?
That's right, Mustards, lots of Mustards.
How many do we have here?
Last time I counted 1,212 different Mustards weighing
in at more than 600 pounds.
Quite a collection isn't it?
We think it cuts the mustard.
We have Mustards from across the nation
and around the world like these.
From Israel, from Turkey and from Denmark.
Oh and we even have this one.
Mustard from Germany in a tube.
On the home front we have Mustard from 46
of the 50 states.
We're only missing Mustard
from Alaska, Delaware, Mississippi and Nevada.
Why do I collect Mustards?
Six years ago I was walking down the aisles of an
all night supermarket.
I turned down the condiment
aisle. As I passed in front of the Mustards I
heard a voice say "if you collect us they will come."
I'm not the only one to have been inspired by
the condiment of kings.
William Shakespeare wrote about Mustard in several of his plays.
From Henry IV, part 2.
His wit is as thick as Tukesbury Mustard.
From the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland the
mad hatter says "Mustard, Mustard, don't let's be silly."
Mustard in music?
Absolutely. Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers danced to the song too much Mustard
in the story of Vernon and Irene Castle and one of my
favorites by The Beatles, Me, Mr.
Mustard. Which is what the neighbor kids call
me but that's another story.
Why has the Mustard Museum become the mecha for mustard
lovers around the world?
It could be because Governor Tommy Thompson proclaimed
the opening of the museum "Mustard Appreciation Day."
See? Tommy's done something right.
Maybe it's our newsletter, The Proper Mustard.
With hard-hitting articles like "Mustard, Miracle
Diet for the 90s."
The cow who cut the mustard.
And mustard in the law, featuring
the story about New York City's mustard chuckers, pick
pockets who squirted mustard at their victims and then
stole their wallets as they pretended to wipe up the
mess. Do I ever want to eat this stuff?
As a matter of fact, I have mustard every day.
I love it.
I like mustard so much I even make my own.
We call it slim and none because
that's what my wife said our chances are of making
it in the mustard business.
We even have to put a warning on the label.
This mustard should not be used as a
flotation device on any foreign or domestic
aircraft. Which mustard has traveled the farthest
to be part of the collection?
Hmm. Well, we do have this mustard from hell,
but I don't know about that one.
Are most unusual mustard?
Well, this one's a little hard to swallow,
mustard with young nettle leaves.
In the bizarre name category,
we have Fuggle Mustard.
And from the rainbow collection, we have pink raspberry mustard,
bright green herb mustard, and English hot black
mustard. From our animal collection, we have Mrs.
Dog, Mucky Duck, and the Beaver.
Well, that concludes our tour, but before you go,
I'd like to invite you to share with me a special
mustard moment.
Premium Wisconsin ice cream smothered
with cinnamon honey mustard.
Oh, does this look good?
Hmm. Well, it's an acquired taste.
Since that story first aired, the mustard museum has moved
a couple of times.
In fact, this location on Main
Street is actually its third home.
There are 4,358 mustard on display, and
you can buy 500 of them.
That's our program this week.
Thanks for joining us from Mount Horop in Dane
County. We leave you with a visit to Kettle-Marine
State Forest in the southeastern part of the
state. For in Wisconsin, I'm Patty Low.
See you next time.
[Music]
Major funding for in Wisconsin is provided by the
people of Alliance Energy who brings safe, reliable,
and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes,
neighborhoods, and life in Wisconsin running smoothly.
Offering energy-saving ideas on the web.
And by the University of Wisconsin
Comprehensive Cancer Center, providing cancer research,
education, and treatment, UW Comprehensive Cancer Center,
Comprehensive as designated by the National Cancer
Institute, information available on the web.
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