Interview with Maribeth Kolarchek

Maribeth Kolarchek is a lifelong Manitowish Waters resident, living on Nazdar Drive right next to her brother Steve, adjacent to Little Bohemia. Little Bohemia and the grounds are very familiar to Marybeth and Steve, as they grew up there while mom cooked at Little Bow and dad tended bar as well as the grounds. Marybeth sat down with Frank DiLeonardi from the Manitowish Waters Historical Society to share her history and memories on March 11, 2025, in her home.

We listen now to that conversation.

Transcript

Frank DiLeonardi: Hello, this is Frank DiLeonardi from the Manitowish Waters Historical Society. I’m joined today with Maribeth Kolarchek, a long-time resident, lifelong resident, and a long-time friend, and I’m just very happy to have the opportunity to chat with Maribeth about her recollections of her time up in the Manitowish Waters area. So, hello Maribeth, thanks for having us.

Maribeth Kolarchek: I am glad to be here.

FD: Great. So, where and when were you born? You were born up here?

MK: Yeah, my mom and dad met working at Little Bohemia, and that’s how it all started. I was born in Ironwood, Michigan, because it was the closest hospital at the time at Grandview, and my grandparents on my dad’s side lived in Ironwood, so we went up there.

I’m the oldest of two children, but I’ve lived most of my life at Little Bohemia, because that’s where my mom and dad worked for 40 years for the Wanatka family, Emil Sr. first, then Emil Jr., and I guess I consider myself a resort brat.

FD: Yeah, yeah. So, your grandparents on your father’s side were from Ironwood?

MK: Correct. They were from Czechoslovakia originally. They moved to the United States, and my grandpa worked in the mines. My mother’s family was from down in Loyal, which is close to Marshfield, and my grandmother had, on her side, had a boarding house, and my grandfather was a blacksmith, and he treated all the horses from the farms around there, you know. And then my mother’s oldest brother moved up here and bought the Mitchell resort, because his wife was a Mitchell, and that’s across from the airport.

And then my mom and her mother moved up here after my grandpa died, and they needed help taking care of my mother, my grandmother on my mother’s side, so they came up here, and that’s how that started.

FD: Okay, so they were Mitchells first.

MK: Yeah.

FD: And how did your dad come down from Ironwood? What got him to Manitowish Waters?

MK: Little Bohemia. There were rumors, and I can’t say there were rumors, but I was, well, probably about 30 years old, and I was in a bar up in Hurley one night with the guys that I always rode horses with, and this guy said, I remember your dad. Your dad was a boxer. My dad, I guess, boxed in Chicago and whatever, and he came down here to work as a bartender one year.

I do think it’s true, not a rumor, because my dad could never, you know, if there was a bar fight or something, my dad could never get involved because of his hands, you know, so.

FD: What were your parents’ names?

MK: Marie and Steve.

FD: And you have a brother, Steve. Is Steve, Steve Jr.?

MK: Yes. Well, no. Dad was Stephen, and Steve is Steven.

FD: And tell me a little bit about your brother, Steven.

MK: He’s three years younger than me. I was the perfect child until he came along, but we both were raised by other resort people. Mom was way too busy cooking and waitressing at Little Bo, and Dad was busy bartending. It was hard for them to raise children as well.

So, we were more or less raised by the guests that came up, and, you know, we got to meet a lot of really nice people through that, and, you know.

FD: Yeah, we’re going to dive into that a little deeper in a moment. I still want to stay on your childhood, though. So, tell me about what you were like as a child. What were your interests? Who were your friends?

MK: The resort people that came up every year, I get to be, you know, closely acquainted with. Dorothy Dangle, who was from, they had the Thunderbolt camp over there. She would take me under her wing most of the time, and a lot of the babysitters I had came from up in the Ironwood, Bessemer area, and they came down here to work, but they also took care of us.

My greatest thing that I did, I loved animals. My dad was an animal lover, and the thing that I remember the most is, I was probably about four years old by then, but they had to get us tired, you know, so we’d go to sleep because they had to go back to work, and after dinner at night, my dad would walk the entire Little Bo property, which ends up way down there at that time, with the houses that they had, you know, ended up close to Little Star Beach, and he’d water all the plants in the window boxes that they decorated the things with. Grandpa Wanatka loved flowers, and so did Grandma Nan, and he’d get the water out of the lake, and I’d go along with them, and by the time I got back, I was exhausted. I’d go to bed.

My brother was little. He’d go to bed, and, you know, Mom and Dad had busy long nights, so.

FD: Got it. As you think back, what else do you remember about what the community looked like back in your childhood?

MK: It was the old LaPorte’s store way back then. Sure, not like it looks like now.

You know, I’m just trying to remember. My mother was Catholic, and I think we went to church somewhere around here. When we got older, we didn’t have our first car until I was probably 11 or 12 years old, and we would go up to Mercer then, to the Catholic Church, but that was a long journey.

That was, you know, that was a good 45 minutes to get to Mercer on Old 51. The road wasn’t the best, and a lot of times we’d pick up Mrs. Plunkett, who lives, you know, on the way up there, and she’d ride along with us, and, but like I said, it was a long way to, it was hard to get to all the places. To get to Minocqua was a long distance, so.

FD: You mentioned your love of animals and your father’s love of animals. What animals do you remember from your youth? Did you have dogs, cats, pet deer?

MK: We had, my dad always fed the deer, but as far as resort dogs, Grandpa Wanatka had Great Danes, and I was very small when the last Dane died, and then he got a Black Collie and a White Boxer, Frosty and Shadow, and we were with them all the time, you know. They followed my dad around. Those dogs did not eat dog food.

They ate scraps from the restaurant, but in fact, there’s a picture in there of me with the Boxer, but it was, they were always with us. I, at one time, Grandpa thought I should have goats, and they didn’t last very long. We’d have ducks that were in a pen down by the lake, and we’d raise them from little ducks on.

Oddly enough, they disappeared in the fall, and we had chickens, you know, for eggs, but just the standard stuff to help us get through the winter.

FD: But you enjoyed horseback riding, too.

MK: I started that when I was, horseback riding, I started when I was, I think, nine.

There was a guest that came up here, and he wanted, you know, me to learn how to ride horses, which I did, and I loved it. And after the years of horseback riding, I would go over there and I would spend time, you know, bucking stalls. Then I got to guide groups and stuff like that, but that was, that was a fun thing in my lifetime, and I did that until I went to college.

FD: And talk about going to school up here. Where did you go to school? Which school was it at the time?

MK: When I went to school, it was a little grade school on 51. It’s just almost across the road from here.

FD: That was convenient.

MK: Yeah, but we had to ride, not a school bus, but we had drivers.

John Hansen was a driver from the grade school going south, and Joe Dalle Ave was a driver going north. And I was on the last pickup in the morning going to school, and the last pickup coming out of there at night. So, you know, I mean, it was, it was, you could not walk to school or anything like that, or ride your bikes to school.

FD: What else do you remember about your school days?

MK: School days were fun. It was two rooms. It was, you know, just a two-room schoolhouse, four grades in each room. When I went to school is when I finally met Judy Bazso, who became one of my best friends, Judy Bauer now.

She became one of my best friends because our mothers got to be good friends, but we didn’t, you know, we didn’t socialize with other people because, in the summer, because you always had your guests and stuff, and in the winter you were busy, you know, just doing your stuff. We started at first grade. We didn’t go to kindergarten or anything like that.

It was fun. It was great meeting people. And then after, I think we were 10 years old when Cheryl, sorry, Holm moved up here, and then there was the three of us in the grades that we went all through in, you know, the school, so.

FD: Do you remember how many were in your class when you started first grade and how many when you graduated eighth grade?

MK: There were, I believe, five when, at least four or five when we started. And then it was, when I graduated, there were eight of us.

FD: Where’d you go to high school?

MK: Lakeland.

FD: And anything stand out from your high school years? What was, were you involved in certain activities down at high school?

MK: In those days you couldn’t, well, we couldn’t be because there wasn’t an activity bus. And during the spring and fall, when the sports were the sports that they were, and sports weren’t like they are today.

I mean, I lived to watch sports on TV. They never had sports on TV when I was a kid. We didn’t have our first TV until I think I was probably six or seven. And then it was, you know, snowy TV a lot.

FD: And so I assume you were a bus down to Lakeland and back up?

MK: Correct.

FD: Great. Anything about your—what was your, what were your favorite classes, your favorite teachers? What comes to mind?

MK: I think my favorite teacher in the entire time that I was at grade school was Mrs. Elz. And the Elz family, I don’t know if you have heard of them, but I’m sure you have.

They, Art and Elma Elz owned the gas station. And she was just the kindest. But, you know, she was, when she said, please be quiet, you were quiet. She was, she, she would not, I don’t think she’d kill an ant, but she was the kindest lady. But she was a very good person. And she was my favorite all through grade school.

And I think Forrie Johnson probably was my favorite one at high school. I had him for English literature and some other class. And he was, he was just American literature.

I mean, and he was just, he, he was just a sparkle. He, he always had something to say. So.

FD: Nice man. I was fortunate to be able to get to know him a little bit. Do you remember, do you have special holiday remembrances growing up as a child? Whether it was Christmas or 4th of July or anything in between?

MK: 4th of July was nothing back then. Because, you know, I mean, there, there wasn’t, not, I mean, there were no celebrations or anything because they just didn’t happen back then, I don’t think. I don’t think I saw my first fireworks at all until maybe I was a little bit older and had gone to Camp Thunderbolt and they had them one night.

But I don’t remember that. Christmas was always fun because we, we, you know, we were always surprised. So, but, and, and Dad would go out and get a tree and then Dad would go out and get another tree because it wasn’t the right tree, you know.

And that was another thing, Mom and Dad, Mom wasn’t quite an outdoors person, but she was, she was very talented in the things she did. She quilted with a lot of the women and they made wreaths and all that kind of stuff. But Dad used to love to snowshoe.

So, Steven and I learned how to snowshoe pretty young, you know, so.

FD: Speaking of snowshoeing, my next question was, I wanted to see if there’s some special remembrance, memory because of the weather up here, whether it was, you know, a lot of snow, a particular school getting called off or really hot summer and, you know, having to be in the lake all the time.

MK: The snow, I think, you know, it, it used to start the beginning of November and it was here until the beginning of May because I downhill skied and there was a ski hill called Muskie Mountain down in Sayner and I would have passes for that.

I babysat for the Bartling kids, so I would get to go on a lot of the journeys or go skiing with them. They’d pick me up and take them and then I’d come back and babysit for the kids when they went out for dinner that night or something. So, you know, it was always a fun thing.

I mean, I look back and my goodness, I look at, you know, Peter and Becky and Mike and Mary and it’s like they’ve all got grandkids and great-grandkids and it’s like, how did I get so old?

FD: Did you babysit for any other families?

MK: I babysat for Indermuehles every now and then, but, and, and McFarland every now and then, but I was pretty much so locked in at Bartling’s because they all would go out and they all used the same babysitter all the time.

I’d stay at, at, at McFarland’s when they’d go away, when John and Barbara would go away for like a month and I’d stay with their three kids and all their animals and everything, but it was just, it was money that I could make to buy stuff because you didn’t have, you didn’t have shopping in Minocqua, you had shopping in Ironwood. It was always very nice. I would go up there with, Judy and I, Judy Bazso and I would go up there with us, two older ladies from town, they would go up there once a month to get their hair done and to get this and that and we’d go out for a fancy lunch and it was just kind of fun, but it was, you know, it depended upon the weather.

If the roads were bad and going to Ironwood, that used to be a good hour and a half drive up there, so. Gotcha. I just want one other thing before we move on.

FD: One other thing before we move on, the notion of living at a resort, I mean, how did, did you feel like that was just a different life from your friends that weren’t, or were a lot of your friend Bazso was a resort, so, and so that, was that pretty common for you and for your, your friends here that growing up on a resort, it would seem very foreign to a lot of people?

MK: Growing up on a resort was very educational because you met people from all over the place. In fact, one of my babysitters, her name was Juanita, her mother was a waitress at Little Bohemia and her uncle was a chef at Little Bohemia and anyway, she always wanted to come back here and about 10 years ago, she came back and they call her Joanna now and her husband, she was going into dementia and she always said she wanted to go back and see northern Wisconsin.

I just happened to be at Little Bohemia at the right night and her husband, well, she and her husband met as a stewardess and pilot, which I guess is a common thing when you work in the airlines, was one of Donald Trump’s pilots for his special planes and John, his name was John Donovan and he told Mr. Trump that he needed a different plane and guess what Mr. Trump said? You’re fired! Exactly, true story.

FD: That’s great.

MK: But it was just weird because that was when he was running, that was when Mr. Trump was running the first time for president and that’s how I can imagine about how many years ago that was. But to see Juanita again, you know, and I said she will always be Juanita to me because I thought it was a beautiful name, but they were all from Switzerland and just, you met people like that, you know, because Grandpa Anetka traveled looking for his people to work for him and, you know, yes, the people that you were on the resort, he never knew anybody else.

I started meeting a lot of people away from the resort when I was riding horses, you know, like my friend Barbara Cartland, she was a slusky[?] back then and a lot of those people, but up until then, you know.

FD: Who’s the most famous person that you met at the resort?

MK: General Ginther, who was a general in the American Army, I think.

I remember he would come up several times, but I don’t, you know.

FD: Do you remember seeing other famous people at the resort?

MK: I saw people that, you know, some of the people would bounce back and forth because the places were all American planned and they’d bounce back and forth between Voss’s and us and I’d see some of those people, but I never really met them.

It was kind of like, get the kids out of here.

FD: Right. So obviously, you’ve mentioned a lot of the local family names that we all know and obviously there was a relationship, I assume the relationship between your father and Emil, both Emils, was a really close one. Does anything stand out in that relationship?

MK: Well, Dad and Emil both went into the Army at the same time, Emil Jr., and they were very close. They were real characters when they were together. In fact, we used to, they used to go up to Manitowish to pick up the meat that came up on the train. And I read that train, that thing, from cover to cover like three times.

But we’d have to go up there to get the meat that came up on the train, you know, it would be packed in dry ice and stuff like that. And then sometimes we’d have to go up to the depot in Hurley because that was a different line and some of that food came out of Chicago. And they’d take me along and I’d get to go up and be at the bar that is now Lazy Ace and wait for the train with them.

And they usually, Mom and Doreen would send me along with Dad and Emil when they went to Ironwood to get it because they knew that they had to bring me back by the end of the day. Because sometimes that got to be a little bit, a longer trip than it needed to be, you know.

FD: Were you there to keep them out of trouble?

MK: Yeah. Yeah. And it was fun because, you know, I mean, up there I met people like, oh, Sudsborgetti and some of them.

I do think at one time more of the Capones used to hang around, Little Bo Ralph and those guys and stuff, but I was a lot younger and like I said, we were just kept out of the way.

FD: What was your favorite recipe of your mother’s?

MK: Her liver dumpling soup.

FD: I was taking even money on that. Yeah. What other recipes do you remember?

MK: Her duck. I did have a picture, and I don’t know who’s got it now, I think Ruthie does, of my mom and Emil and Gypsy Rose Lee when she cooked a muskie for Gypsy Rose Lee that had guided her, and that was a big to-do. But mom would make soups and stews, that’s what we lived on because it was –you could make a lot of it and whatever.

It was nothing for us, don’t get grossed out, but we would, if there were deer hid out here on the highway, we’d be the first ones there.

FD: Yeah, I’ve heard those stories before.

MK: But we ate, my mother couldn’t stand venison, but we had venison and rabbit and squirrels and other things like that for meals, but I loved, she made stews that were so wonderful, and I could never get my meat to be as tender as hers, and believe me, I have tried.

FD: Do you remember stories that your parents and the Winnetka’s would tell about other famous people, maybe the most famous person to ever hit Little Bohemia, Mr. Dillinger? Did you hear them tell stories?

MK: I didn’t hear stories about any of that. I heard the stories about Dillinger through grandpa, but dad and Emil were both gone at that time in the service, but nothing else. Grandpa Wanatka would talk about that. Grandma Wanatka Nancy was a lovely lady, and naturally, I didn’t know what divorce was, but they divorced, but she had a Charlie McCarthy doll, and Marlene and I, Marlene LaPorte and I always talk about, whatever happened to that doll?

Whatever happened to that violin that Anna Mae Laporte used to play? Because Marlene thought for sure it was a Stradivarius, so they heard something. There was stuff like that that sits in the back of your mind, whatever happened to those things?

FD: When you finished high school, you went off to college?

MK: I went to Milwaukee, and I went to a place called Career Academy and became a dental assistant, and then I worked at Marquette in their children’s department in the dentistry field for a while before I came back here. I was a nanny for a family by the name of Sullivan’s, and I was a nanny for Greer and his family for a couple of years.

All was fun. I got to see the lights when I got down there. Things like that were fun.

FD: This was all in Milwaukee?

MK: Correct.

FD: What got you back up here?

MK: There was a chance my brother was going to be drafted, and mom and dad were, dad especially was taking that pretty hard. Even though he was working, he was at the right age that he could have been drafted. So I came home and started working at Little Bo again, and eventually moved over to Bavarian Inn, and eventually moved to the animal hospital.

Stephen never did get drafted, which was a good thing. I don’t think there were too many kids from around here that did, because he was in school with Dickie Sleight and Philip Maloff. I don’t think there were any girls in his class. I think they were all guys. Peter Reamer.

FD: And so how long did you work at Ehrich’s?

MK: I worked at Ehrich’s for about 20 years, and I was at the animal hospital for 30 years. I’m a creature of habit. I don’t have to be number one on the totem pole. I don’t look for change. I just take what’s handed to me.

FD: When you were at Bavarian Inn, was it Eric’s the whole time? It was Eric’s the whole time. Okay, so we’re desperately always looking for a picture of the Miner Bird. So I assume you remembered the Miner Bird.

MK: I remember the Miner Bird, and I remember the Miner Bird because when we were at the stables, we used to go out riding every now and then, and just go to visit to see, you know, to advertise it was called. We’d ride along the highway with kids and see the people on the horses and say, well, let’s go horseback riding, you know.

I got dumped more times in the middle of the town of Manitowish Waters because that Miner Bird would whistle. It was so sharp, and the horse that I, you know, it would spook the horse that I was on, and then off I’d go.

FD: We were going down the old stories and everything. This was going to be for you, but I’m sure there are still the vestiges of moonshining going on up here. Do you remember any stories about that?

MK: Oh, I remember one story about Grandma and Grandpa. They had gone to Chicago for a booze and they got caught in the middle of a parade in Milwaukee coming back up. And made it back up here without getting in any worse trouble. I do remember somebody saying that one time.

I can’t remember if it was Grandpa Wanatka or if it was Emil Jr. But those kind of things, yeah, there was that kind of stuff that went on, I’m sure.

FD: You said your dad had served in the military?

MK: Yes. With Emil,

FD: What war or conflict was that? It would have been Korea. Or it would have been World War II?

MK: I think it was World War II. Dad was stationed, well, it may be Korean. It was before the shootout, so it would have been probably 32, because the shootout was in 34. That dad went maybe 32, 33. And I know he spent time in the Pacific Ocean. Dad did not like to talk about it. He did not like to talk about war.

FD: Kind of looking back, who do you think had the greatest influence on your life, family member, local person?

MK: My dad, because my dad was a believer in if you can’t be nice, don’t be nasty, you know. And he’d always say that. He would, you know, if people talked about you, ignore them and walk away and don’t lower yourself to that view.

But Dad was like that, and I really hurt a lot after he died.

FD: When did he die?

MK: He died in 1986. My brother had had a hunting accident. And not really a hunting accident. It was just a spoof. And dad had a heart attack, was it before that? No, it was after that. And it was just, and then he had another heart attack in the winter, because he died on, last week was his anniversary of his death.

And he died, I don’t know, a couple weeks ago, but he died in the hospital. My dad used to shovel these roads by hand. He had an old tractor, but he’d clean up these roads, you know, by hand. And his heart just wouldn’t take it anymore. And when the doctors told him that, Steve, you can’t shovel and you can’t rake like that anymore. You just have to slow down.

And I remember going to visit him the day that he died, and he said, and he always called me sweetie pie. I was Joe until my brother was born. But he’d always call me sweetie pie, and he’d say, I don’t want to live like that.

And we got the call at 2 o’clock in the morning that he was gone. You know?

FD: Tough. And what about your mother? Did she die before him or after?

MK: She died two years after him.

FD: Kind of reflecting back, what’s given you the greatest amount of satisfaction? What are you most proud of in terms of what you’ve accomplished and done in your life?

MK: Well, I’m glad that I worked as a dental assistant, you know, down at Marquette University. I enjoyed that. It was a learning experience as well as everything else.

And I enjoyed working for Rita at Bavarian. She was a real character. She was my sister.

You know, she took me to Germany twice to see what that was all about. And then another time, you know, I mean, she was just very special that way. But then when she was leaving, I decided to go into the animal world. And I loved that. I really did. I was on the board for the wildlife hospital with Pete Rasey.

If you ever wanted to be on something with Pete Rasey, he was a character, and I loved him. Pete and Sue were two of the nicest people. And meeting all those people working in these restaurants and stuff after the fact that I had gone to college, you know, we were gifted with so many wonderful people.

You look back, you had the Races, you had the Cagneys and all of those people. And, you know, Al and Ann were people that I knew when we were younger, but I didn’t know them well. But it seemed as we got older and, you know, so.

FD: Yeah, a lot of wonderful people. And a lot of familiar names, even for me. I’m starting to push coming up here 50 years, and I still feel like the new person.

MK: You’ve been coming up here 50 years? Really?

FD: ‘76 was my first time up. And the summer Kelly worked at Little Bo, I remember she was staying at one of the little cabins until Ann and Al got up here. They wouldn’t let her stay at the house by herself. So, anyway, yeah.

MK: And I met my ex-husband at the Pea Patch, which I’m a member of an elite club there, I think, because there are more and more people that have met their husbands or wives or whatever at the Pea Patch.

FD: Was it over at pea water?

MK: Oh no, it was long before that. Well, I remember… Charlie and Inez were there when I was

FD: But I remember that was, that seemed, a pea water equated to some young family member becoming pregnant. So it was always kind of, the pea water itself was kind of the key to starting a family. And some of our family stories.

MK: Yeah, I remember going through town, you asked about town, and the old Winmar, it was called first of all, was on the opposite side of the street, and, street, highway, W, whatever you want to call it.

And there was a, down below there was the dam, and down below was the fish hatchery. And we used to love to go down there. We had school trips down there every year to see the, you know, how they worked that all.

And I took tap dancing lessons in the old hotel that was across from where Pine Barrens is now. So it used to be a big old motel there.

Or hotel. And there was somebody that lived there for a couple years. They didn’t go all through school there, with us there, but her mother taught tap dancing lessons.

So I was allowed to go to that. I was not allowed to wear my tap shoes at Little Bohemia, but I did take tap dancing lessons.

FD: Do you remember who your teacher was?

MK: It was the daughter, or the mother to the daughter that came to that. Gosh, no I don’t.

FD: Oh, that’s okay. You’ve come up with a lot of great names for this conversation, so I appreciate that. So, as you kind of keep going through town, what else, you know, the old hardware store, you said you remember the original Laporte. Was it the original Laporte store that you remember?

MK: The original Laporte store was where the, if I’m not mistaken, where that real estate office is, directly across from Manny’s now, which was Bavarian, which was Rudy’s. Rudy and Garnett, they had the best pancakes in the world.

I remember that. And George LaPorte, Grandpa George, would sit out there, just a neat man. He used to come in to, I worked at LaPorte’s when I was 16 for the summer as a cashier, and he would come in there and if we were busy at the front, we’d have to go in the back and get vegetables ready, clean vegetables to put out.

And I worked with Marty Rayala and Buzz Molesky, and old George would come in and he’d say, you be careful around those bananas because there’s tarantulas in there. And he’d take his cane and point at it, you know. I mean, he was just a character.

And you look at Cal. Cal was one of the nicest people, and he was a character. I mean, he always had a twinkle in his eye.

He always had something. But I was Mary’s bathtub, and they were just, Cal and Jim were just great people. I reported that fire.

Oh, really? The night that the newer place burned down.

FD: How did that come to be? Were you there working?

MK: Oh, no. I was on my way home from one of the local places. I think it was probably the Broken Knuckle, which is down on the other end of town. And I was taking some guys that worked at the riding stables with me back to the Flying Pea Guest Ranch, which was up on W. And the light in the barbershop was blinking. And one of the guys said, turn around and go back.

That place was full of smoke, and then we did. And we called it in right away.

FD: There was a phone booth right there?

MK: There was a phone booth there. And I called it in, and one of the guys ran over and knocked on Jimmy’s door. At that time, they were living where the flower shop is now, Jimmy and Marsha.

And he flew off that deck. I mean, Jimmy hauled off and slammed, you drunken kids, what the hell’s the matter with you? And then all of a sudden, at that time, they had the old phone system where they would pull out the plugs and fire at LaPorte’s grocery store, all this kind of stuff. And Emil said to my mom, he said, I think your daughter was just on the phone. What the hell was she doing on the phone? Calling in a fire. I mean, we sat there the whole night. The cops wouldn’t let us leave.

We had to sit on that stone wall that was across the way, and the cops were going to interview us. But that’s how we saw it, was that the barbershop was full of smoke because of that blinking light, the old barbershop light.

FD: Wow.

MK: Yeah, that was a scary night.

FD: Yeah, quite the story.

MK: And Cal came flying down the hill in his car and came over, and he said, what’s going on? He said there’s a fire there, and it hadn’t broken through the roof. It was just all smoke yet. And I don’t know whatever caused it. I really don’t.

FD: That’s interesting. So our little stroll through town is proving productive here. So take me going across the dam towards, was it the tower at the time?

MK: It was the tower, and there was a tower, the Garbers had had it. And he watched the fire tower that was at the top of the hill. That was the thing that we used to love to do as kids, too, is ride our bikes to town and go up the fire tower.

FD: I was just going to ask you if you ever did that.

MK: Oh, yeah, we went up there several times. But George Bazso and my dad would always take us kids, and we’d go down, and we’d fish down and ice fish in the wintertime. Because that’s the only time our parents had time to be with us.

We’d go down and go ice fishing down on the lake in front of the tower, and the women would all be up in the bar or someplace up there. But it was just, they were nice people. And we’d go fishing, and I can always remember Dad, we’d have to chase the otters away from our buckets of minnows.

Because you’d start catching fish, and then the otters, they would come down that little hill that’s there and slide over. I mean, they were from me to you away. And Dad would say, get those otters away from those minnows.

You know, well, they’d steal our fish, too.

FD: Was Little Bo open, did it have guests all year round?

MK: No, Little Bo opened, they used to open the first of May, and they’d close right around deer hunting season. There was a group of people that would come up, you know, that stayed there every year.

Different groups that stayed there, different people from different areas. And they would come up and hunt. And Grandpa Wanatka was good friends with the guy that had John Earth’s Cafe in Milwaukee, which was a big German restaurant.

And John and his wife would come up and pick up venison. You know, from the DNR that had illegally shot deer or different things like that. And they always came up, that’s when they’d close.

During the winter months is where we could do things, you know. Dad loved ice fish, and we’d fish out here, and it was just always something for us to do in the winter. That was the way it was.

I’m trying to think of going south. I just had one going south, and I missed it. There was, Mom and Dad were good friends with the people that used to have Twin Pines.

And Marty Cain, and Ethel was my high school gym teacher. In fact, we were in class with her the day that John Kennedy was shot. Because somebody said, do you always remember that? And I said, yeah. Because our principal from the high school had died just before that.

But there was another place in there. And Kerner’s, Virgin Timbers Inn. Was that VTI when you started coming up here or not?

FD: Well, at least I don’t remember it.

MK: It was right on the corner. And it burned down, well, no, it burned down when I was in high school.

Because I remember going south on the school bus and seeing what was left of it. And Deer Park was there. But most of the places, like I said, as I can remember, were American planned back in those days.

FD: Can we take a look at your scrapbook?

MK: Sure.

FD: And I’m going to let it continue to roll. Because we might see something that might elicit a story or a remembrance.

MK: That scrapbook is falling apart. That was a boathouse that used to be down in front of Little Bowl years and years ago. And this is Dad and Angel and one of Grandpa’s trucks. Grandpa’s trucks were immaculate. God, he had them repainted every year. That was Willie that Dorothy Dangle and Grandpa Wanatka brought me for my third birthday.

And he was a boxer. He was a neat, neat dog. And he went through the ice.

FD: Last thoughts, things that we haven’t covered?

MK: Can’t think of any.

FD: Well, I really appreciate it.

It’s been a treat. I appreciate your time and your stories and your remembrances. So thank you very much.

MK: This is a great place to have grown up.