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Location, Location, Location

When I began researching “The Big Cheese” in 1998, scrolling microfilm was the only way to do a newspaper search. You then printed from the reader, sometimes printing in sections to later piece together. As the internet grew I was able to add a few additional articles to the story, but one detail eluded me – WHERE in Appleton, Outagamie, Wisconsin was this massive cheese built?

This past weekend, a comment on my post, The Largest Cheese in the World! prompted me to take another look. And much to my dismay, the answer was right there all along. To be fair, the new articles I was finding repeated the location over and over, hitting me in the head with the fact. 

I now know that the cheese was manufactured at the Charles Clack warehouse. The warehouse located at 715 Clark Street (pre-1925 address number change), was “a brick and concrete cabbage store house” built in 1910 and measured “30 by 80 feet, one and one-half stories high. The walls are of concrete, brick-lined, and the floor of cement.”1

Clark Street

The Sanborn map tells us that there were six buildings on this block of Clark Street, four dwellings, and an office with a lumber shed behind it. The cabbage warehouse was right at the railroad sidetrack, making it the perfect place to create, store and then load a massive cheese.

In the upper left corner of the photograph is a home with a very distinctive roofline, while the home visible in the upper right-hand corner has a more traditional roofline. The home visible on Division Street is the home that Charles Clack, his wife Anna, and their daughter Edith were living in when the 1920 U.S. Federal Census was enumerated on 3 Jan 1920. This home, now numbered 414 North Division Street, still stands, and while the treeline has changed over the past 100+ years, the house is still visible from the warehouse site. According to the Property Search Report at appleton.org, the home was built in 1900 and has a total living area of 2,234 sq. ft. It does look as though a dormer has been added to the south side of the attic as it is not visible in the 1911 photograph.

In the map, you can clearly see what was once four lots moving south down Clark from Packard. The southernmost house was built in 1870. The house next to it was built in 1879. Then a vacant lot just before the home fronting on West Packard, which was built in 1885. The home has a wrapped porch as shown in the Sanborn map.

One item has now been removed from my to-do list! The question remaining is, how many times did I park at the Post Office or drive through to drop a letter in the mailboxes visible below? So many days as I wondered where the cheese had been built, I was right across the street.

Google Earth view, October 2024

SOURCES:

  1. “Two New Buildings Nearing Completion,” Appleton Evening Crescent, 11 Oct 1910, Tuesday Evening, p. 1, col. 5; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 10 Oct 2024). ↩︎

A Family Flag

The Cook family provides me with an unending supply of stories to tell. In 2015, I wrote a post about the Cook family and the members who had served as a Wisconsin Postmaster. It still amazes me that my great-grandfather, Lewis, his father, Alfred, and his uncles, Jacob and Samuel, all served as postmasters in Marathon County, Wisconsin. 

Lewis was 46 years old when President Calvin Coolidge appointed him postmaster for the city of Wausau on 30 June 1923. He served the city until his death on 4 September 1934, at the age of 57. 

We have a family flag, which according to my father, measures 5’ x 9’6.” On 11 Nov 2001, my mother wrote a note sharing my father’s memory of how the flag came to be in the family. “As Bob (Robert D. Sternitzky) remembers his mother telling him: The flag was flying at the Wausau Post Office the day he (Lewis) died. (They might have run up a new one, then took it down). It (the flag) was given to his wife Effie at a service — funeral, memorial service; Bob isn’t sure.”

The flag just before being archivally boxed in 2024.

Years ago, I scrolled microfilm at the Wisconsin Historical Society library and found no reference to the flag, but now I can sit at home and search online as the paper has been made part of an online newspaper collection. While I have not found any reference to the presentation of a flag, I have amassed a lot of information about Lewis and his career as a Postmaster. 

In 1929, the Wausau Daily Record-Herald reported, “a job that carries with a heavy responsibility and a great deal of work, is that of Lewis H. Cook postmaster of Wausau.” “Wausau’s postmaster must have tireless energy, patience and executive ability and Mr. Cook is well-suited to the position.”1

The Wausau Post Office

The post office had a twelve percent increase in the sale of postage, money orders, and parcel post over 1927. The post office employed 45 people, which included 14 mail carriers in the city and seven rural carriers, distributing 400 sacks of outgoing mail and the same number of sacks of incoming mail. What surprised me the most was what people sent through the mail at that time. “The wholesale grocers and farmers send much of their food parcel post as it gets to its destination more quickly than when it is sent by express. Mr. Cook said that often there are as many as half a dozen roasted chickens in the postoffice, which are to be sent to friends and relatives in other parts of the state.” Live baby chicks were also sent through the mail, and Lewis told the newspaper that “the recipients are notified at once of their arrival, and if they are unable to call for the chicks, the postoffice makes every effort to deliver them.” 2Roasted chickens and live baby chicks!

Also, in 1929, Lewis strongly encouraged the use of a “return card” on each piece of first-class mail. Up to this point, a return address was not standard, and if the letters and packages were undeliverable, they went to the dead letter office. During the 1929 Christmas season, the amount of mail that did not reach its destination due to the removal of an address or the use of an improper address was “enormous.” “Assistant Postmaster Becker believes that a million dollars in postage could have been saved patrons throughout the United States for the holiday season alone if more care had been used in addressing this mail or if a return card had been used.”3

I imagine Lewis felt that dealing with roasted chickens, live baby chicks, and the dead letter office was just part of the day-to-day job. I can also imagine the excitement in 1927 when the post office was placed “on the federal building program.” Then, frustration as the project experienced “postponements, rejection, revisions of plans and a host of other obstacles.”4  It wasn’t until March 1931 that he was given the go-ahead to procure the property needed to construct the new building. The land was secured, and the buildings were demolished, yet delays continued. In June 1934, he recommended the property be “turned over to the Chamber of Commerce to be fitted up as a parking place” to ease traffic on the main streets during shopping hours.5 The new post office would not be constructed until 1937.

On July 16, 1931, Lewis was interviewed by the Wausau Daily Record-Herald, explaining a new program he was putting into place, where “Veteran’s Caskets To Be Draped With Government Flags.6 The seventy-first congress had passed an act that stated: “Where a veteran of any war, including those women who served as army nurses under the contracts between April 21, 1898, and February 2, 1901, who was not dishonorably discharged, dies after discharge or resignation from the service, the director shall furnish a flag to drape the casket of such veteran and afterwards to be given to his next of kin, regardless of the cause of the death of such veteran.” “Regulation burial flags, size 5 feet by 9 feet 6 inches, may be secured upon application at any county seat postoffice, or at the nearest U. S. Veterans’ hospital, regional office, national home or other field station of the veterans’ administration. For use in Wausau and vicinity flags may be procured from Postmaster Cook.” The article goes on to state: “The term ‘veteran of any war’ shall mean any person, who is not dishonorably discharged and who served ‘in the military or naval forces of the United States during any period of the Mexican war, Civil war, Spanish-American wark, the World war, those women who served as army nurses during the Spanish-American war, the World war, and also those women citizens of the United States who were taken from the United States by the United States government and who served in base hospitals overseas’ and also all other wars, disturbances, insurrections, battles, expeditions, etc., in which the United States forces were called into duty.”

Finding this article has me asking this question: Is the flag we have in our family one of these flags? The size is correct. Lewis did serve in World War I, albeit on the home front, as part of Company C, 10th Infantry, Wisconsin State Guard (see the blog post: Company C, 10th Infantry, Wisconsin State Guard). If I were to guess, I would say yes, this is a government flag and not one that flew over the post office at the time of his death. 

Hotel Wausau

The 32nd annual convention of the Wisconsin Association of Postmasters was held in Wausau on June 19, 20, and 21, 1934. Postmaster Lewis H. Cook served as the convention planner and host. “…the local committee has made arrangements for one of the greatest conventions the men in charge of Wisconsin’s mail have ever had. The city streets are decorated with American flags and welcome signs,” and the Hotel Wausau was ready to welcome the “Postmasters of Wisconsin’s cities, villages, towns and hamlets” who “were converging on Wausau.”7

Activities for the convention included “a tour of inspection of Rib Mountain. A dance at Rothschild park,8 and an “added attraction will be the presentation of moving pictures showing the Fromm Brothers fur ranch in the town of Hamburg. A trip to the ranch is slated for Thursday afternoon.”9

Lewis at the Fromm Brothers Fur Ranch

The convention was a huge success, but the planning and hosting of the event had taken its toll on Lewis’ fragile health. He had been suffering from diabetes for the past ten years, and the disease had slowly taken away his eyesight. So much so that he relied heavily on Effie to be his eyes, and his daughter, Anola, had left high school without graduating so that she could assist him at the post office. Family lore states: “His vision was severely impaired by the diabetes, to the point that he needed his daughter, Anola, to drive, and work as his personal secretary during his later years as Post Master. His wife Effie, would let him know who was approaching them during a social situation so that he could greet them by name.”

Lewis passed away at his home at 125 Sturgeon Eddy Road, on September 4th at 8:15 p.m.

His obituary includes this biography of his public life: “Mr. Cook, a leading Republican for about thirty-five years was a former Marathon county clerk, state assemblyman and member of the county board of supervisors from Unity…Mr. Cook entered politics when twenty-one years of age, his first office being that of justice of the peace at Unity. Later he served in various official capacities in that village and in 1903, to promote the interests of the Republican party and agriculture, established the Marathon County Register, a weekly newspaper of which he was the owner and editor until 1910 when he came to Wausau after disposing of the weekly.  He was a member of the county board of supervisors during the time he published his weekly at Unity. In 1912 he was elected Marathon county clerk, a position he held for three terms, serving until the end of 1918. In 1920 he was elected on the Republican ticket to the state assembly from the second county district. While at Madison he served on the legislature’s finance committee.” He also served as president of the Marathon County Agricultural society, and was a director of the society for 25 years. During World War I he was secretary of the local exemption board, served on the local school board.”

His funeral was held at his home on Tuesday, September 6th. He was buried in nearby Pine Grove Cemetery,  and the “local mail carriers marched in uniform from the Cook residence to the cemetery.”10

Today is my dad’s birthday. He was born September 18, 1934, 14 days after the death of his grandfather, 90 years ago. 

It was not a long walk from the residence to the cemetery.

SOURCES:

  1. “One Man’s Job,” Lewis H. Cook, Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 16 Mar 1929, Saturday Evening, p. 6, col. 5; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 2 May 2024). ↩︎
  2. ibid. ↩︎
  3. “Wausau Postoffice Completes a Most Outstanding Year,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 31 Dec 1929, Tuesday Evening, p. 6, col. 3; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 2 May 2024). ↩︎
  4. “Contractors Asked To Enter Bids on Wausau Postoffice,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 16 Mar 1929, Sunday Evening, p. 1, col. 1; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 5 May 2024). ↩︎
  5. “Parking Space,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 11 Jun 1934, Monday Evening, p. 2, col. 2; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 27 Apr 2024). ↩︎
  6. “Veteran’s Caskets To Be Draped With Government Flags,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 16 Jul 1931, Thusday Evening, p. 1, col. 4; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 30 Apr 2024). ↩︎
  7. “State Postmasters Arrive for Annual Convention in City,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 19 Jun 1934, Tuesday Evening, p. 1, col. 1; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 27 Apr 2024). ↩︎
  8. ibid. ↩︎
  9. “State Postmasters Arrive for Annual Convention in City,” Tuesday Evening, p. 13, col. 3. ↩︎
  10. “Cook Funeral,” Obituary, Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 8 Sep 1934, Saturday, p. 2, col. 4. ↩︎

Jennie Cook. A Portrait

Last week, I was in Indianapolis, Indiana, with my daughter, for the 10th Annual Eucharistic Congress. Indianapolis is a one-hour drive from Alexandria, Madison, Indiana. Alexandria, the home of the Alexandria Paper Company, the Cook House on South Park, and the portrait of Jennie Cook. 

Samuel A. Cook, 1896

I have known about the portrait of Jennie since 2001, when my mom contacted the Alexandria-Monroe Township Historical Society via email. I do not have a copy of Mom’s email to the society, but she kept a copy of the response. The response states: “We have a large picture of Mrs. S. H. Cook [sic], painted in 1917.”1 In 2016, a cousin visited Alexandria and took a photo of the portrait that she shared with me, telling me that she had been told that the portrait had been saved from the dump and was then donated to the historical society’s museum.2 “The back of the 1917 painting indicates the portrait was created from a photograph.”3

Other than comparing the image to the only known image we have of her daughter, Maud. I filed the electronic image for later consideration.

The time for further consideration has come. On Wednesday, 17 Jul 2024, we traveled to Alexandria to see the portrait that now hangs in the Alexandria-Monroe Public Library. 

The following are my thoughts, musings, speculations, my considerations. 

Samuel Andrew Cook, the husband of Jennie Christie Cook, a serial businessman, had his first taste of politics in 1889 when he was elected the mayor of Neenah, Winnebago, Wisconsin. He went on to serve in the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1891 and 1892 before being elected on the Republican ticket to the Fifty-fourth Congress (March 4, 1895 – March 3, 1897). In other words, we have many images of S.A. taken through the years but no image of Jennie or their children, Henry Harold (Harry) and Maud Cook Lancaster.

Walking into the library, we were met by board members Vickie and Jenny and were led upstairs to where the portrait was hung. There she was—Jennie Cook, or as she is labeled, Mrs. S. A. Cook. The portrait is large, about 3 feet wide by 4ish feet long. She stares out at you with a bit of a side-eye. The artist has chosen to color her dress black; her face glows out from her black dress and background. The frame is beautiful. Elaborate in a refined sort of way. 

I am speculating that the original photograph was taken in 1895, possibly in Aurora, Ontario, Canada, while she was visiting Yule relatives.4 It was during this trip that she fell ill and passed away on 19 Sep 1895 at the age of 46. Her body was brought back to Neenah, Winnebago County, where she was buried on 23 Sep 1895 in Oak Hill Cemetery. She left behind her husband, Samuel, age 46, daughter, Maud, age 17, and son, Harry, age 14.

If the painting was made from a photograph in 1917, this date coincides with Harry’s marriage to Martha Wheeler Paine on 30 Jun 1917. While the couple had grand plans to enlarge the house beyond the expanded footprint that was achieved through the remodel that Edwin Yule had done at the time of his marriage to Georgina Lemon, the current living room at 28’x 15’5 was large enough for entertaining, and to support a large portrait. 

If Harry had commissioned a portrait of his mother for his home, then it stands to reason that he would also have commissioned a portrait of his father – the founder and head of the Alexandria Paper Company. I imagine the two portraits hung side by side in the living room.

Harry contracted sleeping sickness in January 1920 and never returned to Alexandria to live full-time. The house sat empty for almost a decade. In early 1925, it was broken into, and “every room had been entered, and the contents of all drawers, wardrobes, closets, pantries and even the attic had been rummaged.”6 In 1928, Harry and Martha divorced, and Martha received a “portion of the furnishings.”7

There is no record that Harry returned to the house. He passed away on 25 Jan 1931 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. We know that at some point, the house was cleared of its contents, as in June 1934, the home opened as the Colonnade Inn.

I would like to add one additional speculation. It is just a thought. In September 1931, Maud presented “a large and beautifully done oil portrait” to the S. A. Cook Armory board. The portrait was hung in the main hall of the armory.8 No image of the portrait was included in any of the newspaper accounts telling of the donation. Could this have been the companion piece to the portrait of Jennie? Had Maud removed both portraits, hanging her mother’s likeness in the Ed Yule home and donating her father’s to the Armory? Was it at the time of Ed’s death in December 1970 that the portrait made its way to the dump? We may never know.

While the portrait of Jennie now hangs safely in the library, her husband’s portrait is missing. In 1970, the S. A. Cook Armory was sold and became a mini-mall known as The Armory Shops. The portrait stayed with the building “mounted on the main floor…near the North Commercial Street entrance.” About 18 Aug 1982, the portrait was stolen. I find the following statement odd. The “Cook portrait was taken about a week ago. The theft was reported to police on Wednesday.” This newspaper report was dated Thursday, 26 Aug 1982. Why did they wait a week to report the painting stolen? The portrait was described as being 3’ x 5’, believed to date from the early 1900s. No image of the portrait was included in the report of the theft. The frame was estimated as weighing 25 to 35 pounds and was “constructed of heavy ornately carved wood painted over gold. The carving includes scrolls and other designs familiar to the early 1900s period.” “Despite intense efforts…the Cook portraitist has never been identified.”9 The portrait was never recovered. 

I am grateful to the Alexandria-Monroe Township Historical Society for their care and consideration of Jennie Cook’s portrait. It would have been so easy to set her aside. Rightly asking why they should care about this large image of a woman who never lived in Alexandria and whose family’s impact on the community is but a distant memory? Thanks must also be given to the Alexandria-Monroe Public Library for agreeing to prominently hang the painting at the top of the stairwell. The Cook family thanks you.

  1. Nancy Draper, “Cook Family,” email (Alexandria, Madison, Indiana, United States), to Emmie Lou Sternitzky, 23 Mar 2001.  ↩︎
  2. Sharon Cook, “more from Alexandria,” email to Susan Sternitzky Fassbender, 29 April 2016. ↩︎
  3. “Alexandria-Monroe Township Historical Society portrait hung in Alexandria-Monroe Public Library,” Jenny Corbett, Editor, T he Alexandria Times-Tribune, 3 May 2023; digital images, (alexandriatimes-tribune.com : accessed 2 Jul 2024), a CherryRoad Media Newspaper. ↩︎
  4. CarolAnne Prentice Chepurny, “Jennie Cook,” email, to Susan Sternitzky Fassbender, 9 Jul 2018. ↩︎
  5. Zillow listing, (https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1515-S-Park-Ave-Alexandria-IN-46001/97338853_zpid/) : accessed 23 Jul 2024). ↩︎
  6. “Bold Thieves Break into The Cook Home,” The Times-Tribune, 10 Jan 1925, p. 1, col. 7; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 24 May 2016). ↩︎
  7. “Life Insurance Policy $25,000 to Mrs. Cook,” The Times-Tribune, 21 Feb 1928, p. 1, col. 2; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 24 May 2016). ↩︎
  8. “Cook Portrait is Given to Armory,” The Daily Northwestern, 25 Sep 1931, Friday Evening, p. 16, col. 2; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 20 Jun 2016). ↩︎
  9. “Historic Cook portrait stolen,” Neenah-Menasha Edition of The Post-Crescent, 26 Aug 1982, Thursday, p. 1, col. 1 and p. 3, col. 2; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 9 Jul 2024). ↩︎

Cars of the Past

State of the art 113 years ago
https://reedbrothersdodgehistory.com/2016/03/12/lewis-reed-photo-1911-speedwell-touring/1911-speedwell-series-11-50hp/

  1. “Gets New Speedwell,” The Lake County Times, 24 Apr 1911, Monday, p. 5, col. 1; digital images, GenealogyBank (www.genealogybank.com : accessed 17 Apr 2024), Newspaper Collection. ↩︎

A Call from the Packers

1925 Wahiscan. Bob is in the back row, 1st from left
Bob stood 5’8″
1924. Bob is in the 3rd row, second from right
  1. vs Tomahawk 14-7
  2. vs Marshfield 7-7
  3. vs Stevens Point 7-7 “Butts Sternitzky scored the lone touchdown on a plunge through the line after a sensational fifteen yard sprint by Kieffer to the enemy’s four yard line. The men in line played a fine contest, opening many holes for the backs, while the ends and tackles were down the field fast on the punts”
  4. vs Eau Claire 15-7
  5. vs Rhinelander 14-7
  6. vs Antigo 0-0
  7. vs Merrill 7-0 Homecoming
1925 Wahiscan
1924 Wahiscan

Sources:

  1. “Local Swimmers Repeat Victory Over Eau Claire,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 20 May 1924, Monday Evening, p. 8, col. 5; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 5 Apr 2024). ↩︎
  2. “Local High Tank Men Lost First Meet to Wausau,” The Eau Claire Leader, 17 May 1924, Saturday Morning, p. 2, col. 6; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 5 Apr 2024). ↩︎
  3. “Local Swimmers Repeat Victory Over Eau Claire,” Monday Evening, p. 8, col. 5. ↩︎
  4. “Favor Wausau to Win Game and the Title,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 22 Nov 1924, Saturday Evening, p. 1, col. 7; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 5 Apr 2024). ↩︎
  5. “Wausau High Defeats Tomahawk at Basket Ball, 24-21,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 12 Dec 1924, Saturday Evening, p. 11, col. 1; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 5 Apr 2024). ↩︎
  6. “Sport Chatter,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 03 Mar 1925, Tuesday Evening, p. 11, col. 2; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 6 Apr 2024). ↩︎
  7. “Sport Chatter,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 13 May 1925, Wednesday Evening, p. 5, col. 3; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 5 Apr 2024). ↩︎
  8. “Students Given Merit Emblems for School Work,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 23 May 1924, Friday Evening, p. 3, col. 1; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 5 Apr 2024). ↩︎
  9. “R. Sternitzky Rites Thursday,” Obituary, Twin Cities News-Record, 18 Feb 1952, Monday, p. 3, col. 6; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 8 Oct 2018). ↩︎
  10. Letter, 14 Jan 1952, from David M. Regan, M.D. to Robert H. Sternitzky; Sternitzky Family Memorabilia; privately held by Susan Sternitzky Fassbender. Robert H. and Anola J. Sternitzky Family Archives, 1950. ↩︎

Bank Robbery

The Hammond Times, 24 Dec 1964

RESOURCES:

  1. “2 Bandits Rob S&L,” The Hammond Times, 3 Oct 1968, Thursday, p. 1B, col. 1; digital images, NewspaperARCHIVE (www.newspaperarchive.com : accessed 2 Feb 2006). ↩︎
  2. “Police Seek 2 Robbers,” The Hammond Times, 4 Oct 1968, Friday, p. 1B, col. 2; digital images, NewspaperARCHIVE (www.newspaperarchive.com : accessed 28 Apr 2004). ↩︎
  3. “Robbers Get $2,200 Cash in Hammond,” The  Palladium-Item and Sun-Telegram, 4 Oct 1968, Friday, p. 27, col. 1; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com: accessed 1 Apr 2024). ↩︎
  4. “Arrest Made,” The Terre Haute Tribune, 9 Nov 1986, Saturday, p. 14, col. 2; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com: accessed 1 Apr 2024). ↩︎
  5. “Bandit Gets $1,509 At Savings-Loan,”The Hammond Times” 26 Oct 1964, Monday, p. 1, col. 6; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com: accessed 31 Mar 2024). ↩︎