 Well, hello, welcome back to Legislative Update. I'm Nenette Balabash, the host of this longest-running program in WSES TV's history. I'm delighted. Today, we are doing something a little bit different, but it is so much fun. My guest today is Bernie Markovich. He is Sheboygan's renaissance man, or I call him a great raconteur in the best sense of the word. I knew I wanted to do this show as much as two years ago when I attended a program at the Sheboygan County Historical Museum. It was packed. It was one of their third Saturdays, only they were having this in the evening, and it was just packed with people who wanted to hear stories from Bernie Markovich and Henry Young. The slide presentation was put together by a third guy, Steve Gallamore. Gallamore. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bernie's going to correct me when I make a mistake, but I was just entranced by the energy in the room, by the stories that Bernie and Henry were telling. It was just phenomenal. People all wanted to add their own stories, and I thought, we've got to do a show on this, one, because you're a great storyteller, two, because we have so many great stories about Sheboygan, three, because your memories are so wonderful, and before we started, you were just making this point about how when you were growing up in the 50s and the 60s, I moved here in 1976. I was 18 years old, and of course it looked different than it does now, but even 20 years before that, and you were making the point before we started. I wonder if you could repeat this, how when you were growing up, we all took it for granted. What do you mean by that? It's very simple. We thought it would always be there. It had been there for 100 years at the point of the centennial. I'm a member of Grace Episcopal Church. We have been on that block since before Wisconsin became a state, and when we wrote our Susque Centennial Remembrance Book, one of the things that we copied from a previous edition that Ruth Winfield had written was that if anyone from the 1840s would come back to Sheboygan in the current day and ask where the Episcopal Church was, it's right where they left it to be there for 150, and now it's almost 175 years. There's something to be said about that, and you look at other churches in town, holy name, who would ever expect a small town of 50,000 people to have this cathedral-like structure where there's no bishop, but it was the faith. And of course, the very first historical thing that I learned was at the time of the centennial, churches, chairs, cheese, and children, the city of the Four Seas. Well, there wasn't as much cheese as there is now. I mean, I think there was cheddar, and that was about it. But fewer chairs. A lot of chairs, a lot of chairs. So you know, the thing is that I've always felt that the schools had done students a disservice because they never left us with the idea that we were part of history, and that is the absolute essence. You can be a direct part or an indirect part of history, but you're still part of it, as long as you've lived through it. So the Kennedy assassination is probably the most significant thing in my memory. Of course, 9-11 would be significant because it affected that many more people, and we saw so much of it on television. But I can tell you, as a second grader, living out east, having to crawl under my desk at school because of the atom bomb and its constant threat, when we moved back to Wisconsin, my dad was in the army, we were living in Milwaukee. They had all those escape routes, all those diagonal streets to get you out of Milwaukee to go where? Right. You know, what would you have left? We didn't leave us so naive there. It was always there. Prangies was always there. Christmas came. The windows came. There was always something to look forward to. There was always something at the farmer's market. You started out with the strawberries, and then the peaches came and all that kind of stuff. So we had everything in its season, and there was always something to look forward to. Now, it's all there all the time, and we don't pay any attention to anything that's around us. Well, let's get to some of these photos. Okay. I have a whole bunch, and I want to give credit to the people at the Sheboygan County Historical Museum who put together these photos. Some of them came from the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center. Right. Those are both phenomenal resources people can go to. They both have Facebook pages. I also borrowed a couple photos from the State of Wisconsin Collection. It's a digital collection online and beautiful photos of the Cordettes, and we're going to talk a little bit about that. So we won't get through all the slides. I can tell you right now I'm going to have to keep interrupting Bernie because he knows so much, but we're going to get through as many as we can. Fine. So we're going to start out with a slide, so you're just going to hear our voices, and mostly let's look at these wonderful pictures, and Bernie's going to tell us about them. These were the people who were with the original show back in August of 2016 at the Museum. Yeah, I was like almost 250 people. You expected 50, and you had five times that much. And Tamara Lang, the curator there, she was afraid no one was going to show up. Oh, no. I loved it. I snuck in. I just, I was, I loved it. So okay, so this is a photo from the Centennial, which was 1953. Yes. Correct? It was like a poster, and we can't read it so well from where we're sitting, but if you were watching this on TV or on your screen at home, you know, they had a day every, every event. So you were there in 1953. Yes, yes. You were a young boy. I was nine and three quarters years, actually was probably nine and 11 tenths, because I remember the parade as being in August in my birthdays in September. But my mother, my brothers and I, we watched it from the corner of Sixth and Penn Avenue. Okay. It was the most glorious parade ever. I mean, because the floats were really beautiful. They were big. Bratwurst Day was one of the, one of the days that, that they celebrated the sausage making. I think there was a great big pageant someplace and, and there were church services to be any place for a hundred years. Yeah. You know, and the thing is, is that I remember reading somewhere that Sheboygan was supposed to have been Milwaukee at one time, but it all had to do with the railroads. Yeah. And so here we were, I mean, a great port and, and when you see the old photographs of all those ships in the port and what came and what went, you know. Okay. Next slide, Scott. These are some dignitaries. And I think you mentioned in the presentation, one of these is the actor, John Coleman, or am I getting that name wrong? No. Okay. No. All right. What do you think? But somebody, some young, Charles Colburn is one. Charles Colburn. Okay. And his oil portrait is, used to be sitting in the lobby at Urban Middle School because that's where community players used to be. And he was the famous character actor in Hollywood. We've had others. Forrest Tucker has been here and there used to be things that went on out at Elkhart Lake. Yes. He was involved with Cam Perrand, which I still remember too. Yes. The next slide has Jimmy Stewart, who wasn't here, we think maybe for the centennial or we're not sure. Yeah. But Jimmy Stewart is getting something from a Sheboygan dignitary and that was pretty exciting. Well, who was that? The dignitary. I... Because you know something? Did you play Billy Mitchell? Mitchell was... Oh, James Stewart. Yes. Was a Milwaukee. Right. His family was very prominent in Milwaukee. The old Wisconsin club that's just on Wisconsin Avenue. That was the family home. They had the grain exchange. Mitchell Street was named for them. Mitchell Field was named for him. Right. Okay. So, next slide is... Oh. The famous streets of Sheboygan. Yes. This is where they were changing the streets. The eighth street became Brotwurst Boulevard and the side streets. Onion Oasis. Onion Oasis. Mustard Mall. Mustard Mall and Semmelstrasse. Semmelstrasse. Yeah. Pickle Plus. And every one of these intersections had a broad stand on it that featured the sausage of one of the companies. You know, there's practically nothing left. You've got Johnsonville and you've got Old Wisconsin. And I think there's a couple of places who... Micefields? Micefields. Of course, Micefields. Okay. And then Henry Brockman on the south side. But you have Sheboygan sausage and Romer sausage and all that. So, everyone had their favorite brats. Henry Polethy used to make brats just down the street from where I grew up. And all these people were grilling them on all the street corners, as you said. Yes. And then a host of them in Fountain Park because that was the center place. And that was where they had the Miss Sheboygan pageant. That's where Mary Alice Fox came in, a year she graduated from Central High School in 1957. And she ended up representing Sheboygan in the Miss Wisconsin pageant two years later because the subsequent Bratwurst Queens had married and were no longer available. You had to be single. You had to be single. And she won Wisconsin. She went to Atlantic City and was the first runner-up there. She was a charming, charming girl. Now the next slide is a float with some very pretty ladies on it. Is she in there, you think? I doubt it. We don't know. But this is sponsored by the Elks El City Band. Yeah, but look at the quality of the float. Yeah. You see, the 4th of July parade, you've got every pickup truck in town that's there with a flag hanging on it. And you told me that you spent part of your career as a parade float designer. Yes. In Texas. San Antonio, Texas. One year I was down there and did every major parade in Texas. Did the Texas float for Jimmy Carter's inaugural parade, which was an event. And because there was this huge loose-leaf binder full of things that that inaugural committee would wanted. And one of the things was we were not to mention peanuts. Well, Texas is Texas and it's the Alamo and Cowboys and NASA and stuff like that. So the whole thing was actually based on the Alamo. But we built part of it in San Antonio, put it on a truck and then took it to Washington, D.C. and then worked out of a place there to finish it. But secret service people everywhere. And you told me you got that job because you could tell them that you grew up in Sheboygan helping to make parade floats. Growing up in Sheboygan didn't help. What cinched the deal for me was when the branch manager asked me if I was, if I'd ever done a parade float before, I could look them in the eye and say, yes, never admitting that the only float I ever worked on was something from the summer playground program, the 4th of July parade here, which was a big deal in those days. But we'd make rosettes and every school ground had its major float and then there were the bicycles and the wagons and all that. And then we had the lantern parade. So, you know, I left here with a whole lot of information. My stress, other than the love of history, was imagination. And so I had, I had Don Conn as a mentor, David Bryant, both of them deceased. But I mean, a major part of my life. I had the best education here. And, you know, we painted windows for unicef on Halloween downtown, every store on the main street would let us come in as students from the two high schools and paint these windows. And the traditions that we grew up with, it was just magical. I thought, why would anyone want to go to New York? Because I thought we had it all here. And we did until I went to New York. And then that was a whole different story. But you came back. Like so many of us came back. Yeah, well, but you know something, I think that's essential. If you're going to go away, coming back is the important part. Because as I would tell people about, you know, what I experienced growing up, the cultural events that we had, the distinguished guest series out in the Coler community concerts in town, community players, showing community players was the largest community theater in the country per capita. And all of this was waiting. So, you know, we've got 15 minutes left to talk about the other 99 and a half years. We have a couple more parade photos from the original Broward's Parade in 1953. Here's a truck. Cushion Kings, it's a shoe. It's a big, giant shoe. Well, that could have been anything. There's probably a work boot. That would have been Heine Young's family business, the Young Shoe Company, because their cousins, the Leverences, and Mrs. Leverence was a young, they did the men's dress shoes. So, you know, and it was amazing. Garten made the croquet sets. The toys. Well, yes, but it was Beemus that made the croquet balls. You know, and Beemus made the toilets, he's and Coler made the toilets. And these companies all worked together for the common good. You know, I mean, God, there were horrific fires and stuff like that. These businesses came back. They just came back. It's just that the country outgrew everything. And you can blame President Eisenhower and his interstate system, because that's what killed it all. Oh, gosh. I used to be able to take the train to Milwaukee or Chicago and come back the same day. And, you know, and it was nice. You didn't have to worry about parking or anything like that. Still do it on occasion. Well, at the museum, I attended one of their programs showing old film footage. And one of this films showed workers from Prangies who were driven out on a train to Elkhart Lake for their summer picnic. Yes, to the Prangie Cottage. Yeah. Yes. And there was a party. You could take a train from Sheboygan to Elkhart. The Peter Rice's had. And there's a band. Met them. Yes. Peter Rice had a great big farm in Sheboygan Falls. The house still is there. They used to go to Sheboygan Falls. Their dairy came from there. Their vegetables came from there and all that business. And they had a barn dance. They built this big barn. They took that inner urban out to Sheboygan Falls, like 800 people for a barn dance. I was amazing. So a couple more parade photos. And then we got to get on to, I think I have, and you can keep going, Scott. He's doing our slides for us here. Yeah, well, there it was, 8th Street. And how packed it was. Yes. From all the way down. All the way down. And so the parade started at 1 o'clock. And when the parade was over, they put barricades up at 8th and Penn and all the way up to Aeth and Erie. And so that was Bratwurst Boulevard. The park was part of that thing. And that whole of 8th Street, those five, six blocks, were all people eating and drinking and having a lovely time for the most part. But you know, it got to be big. Yeah, that's it. Too big. I heard that's widening and discontinuous. It became a haunt for college kids. Now, that fountain in the lower right-hand corner was the fountain that used to be in the center of the park. And I think they probably melted it down in World War II for scrap metal or something. Because there was a band shell built on the footprint of that fountain. And that's our next slide. Yeah. There it is. Yes. So that was in the center. Yes. Now it's on the lower west, southwest corner. Yes. And that was a Matt Warner was just hell bent to build that band shell there. Because for the summer band concerts. But I remember there was a time when those band concerts used to be in Kiwanis Park. And people would bring chairs or you could sit on the four hills and listen to those concerts. And now you've got the Leavitt concerts that are part of the Art Center's summers. It keeps growing. So there's another band shell downtown. And so now they're concerts at both Wednesday night for Fountain Park and then Thursday night for the Art Center concerts. So you're going to admit we are doing some great things in Sheboygan now, right? Well, yes. The Leavitt concert, you can argue with that. The spirit isn't dead yet. But boy, they've done everything to kill it, I think. Because back in the day, you could go from Michigan Avenue all the way down to New Jersey Avenue. And regardless of how much or how little you had to spend, there was a merchant there waiting to take it. There were five newstands on that street. And they all made a living. Because Mrs. Mao sold the chachkes and the cigarettes and the city news had hardbound books and social stationery plus the magazines. And then the drug stores all had the little magazine counters. And there were so many drug stores. And there were at least two places to eat at every block. So you could literally go from one end to the other and eat, eat, eat. And then there were all the other places in town. Well, you could also shop. So the next couple of things was our Prangies. And you could drink because there was always a cocktail lounge. OK, so here we have an early version of the Prangie Company. And we don't have time to get to the whole history of Prangies. But I know anybody of any age in Sheboygan of a certain age can remember going to Prangies. They had a wonderful coffee shop. There it is. That's the better slide. OK. Where you can see on the right-hand side? Yes. The big building, the big brown building, was Prangies. And across the street was Sheboygan Drygoods, which became Hill's department store. And next to it was the Alfred Young Company. Alfred Young Company was for the carriage trade. It had the first salon and all that stuff. Prangies became great in the Depression when they took all of that farm produce in and gave them shits in exchange rather than money that they could spend stuff there. And as one company went down, the other one went up. But I mean, it was amazing the stuff that you could buy here, the various jewelry stores and stuff, find China and things like that. The HC Prangie, the new part, that was the annex. That used to be a dime store. And they took all those big appliances and put them in there and the televisions and things like that. And Christmas would come and go. The seasons would change. Every department in the store had two major sales a year and they spread them out. It wasn't that everything was on sale every day. They didn't have the coupons and all that kind of stuff. But the thing is, Sarah Axel, who was a dear friend of mine, told us once that she had a cleaning lady who had never been in Prangies' store because she didn't think she could afford to buy anything in there. But she was comfortable across the street at the dry goods or she would go to Pennies or Sears. Pennies and Sears were right next to each other in the old cell department store building. But Pennies only sold soft goods, clothing. And Sears only sold the hard stuff, the tools, the paint and all that kind of stuff. Well, guess what? The 60s came and they decided they all wanted to sell everything. And that's how they ended up out at the mall. Right, so now they're not there. Yeah, no one's there. That's the sad thing. It's all gone. It's all on Amazon and stuff like that. It's unfortunate. So we have some interior shots of Prangies. This is a woman trying on a hat. They had a whole hat on her. Millenary upon second floor with better dresses, better coats, juniors, children's clothes. Here, this is what we were talking about earlier. This is annual signing. Look at that. High school students from North and South. North and South with their yearbooks. What, Prangies? Yes, in Prangies. In Prangies. In Prangies, they would clear all the counters off. And so you had the whole of the first floor. How fun. Did you do that? Did I? Yes, we all did. I'll sign your yearbook. And now they don't even sign annuals. Well, I'll sign it. They kept right. No, I'm serious. So we've got to call here some women or younger high school girls. Well, this is probably the team board. They used to have fashion shows and stuff like that. They had classes and makeup and how to dress properly. And I suppose how to walk and things like that. Because it was a very popular program. There wasn't anything like that for the boys. But I can tell you, when the state tax came, if a young man walked into the men's clothing department and bought a winter jacket, they used to call them ski jackets because they were like car coats, the ski jacket was not taxable if you bought it in the young man's shop. But if you went down to the ski shop, it was. Yes. That's crazy. Well, of course, it's the state and taxes. And if you bought one donut at the restaurant, you had to pay tax on it. If you bought a dozen of them at the bakery, you didn't because it was food. And I was working at Cannes at the time. And we had a line of soap and candle products and all that. We had to get from the company that manufactured it a list of the ingredients. Because if a certain ingredient was in there, it was taxable. And it wasn't. We would take, for a man in the hospital, an ashtray, taxable. And we would put a small flower arrangement in there with a package of his brand of cigarettes open with a little box of matches. The matches were taxable as well, until it became a vessel for flowers. And then it wasn't taxed. Oh, gosh. So, OK, the next one, the Cheboygan, the Volrath Zoo. And I have friends who grew up here who talked about the zoo. I don't remember when it closed. It must have been in the 70s, maybe? Volrath what? Bull? The zoo. The zoo in the Volrath Hall. Oh, yeah, that closed in the 70s. You can't really see the animals back here. But that's how it's labeled at the bottom. There were a pretty pitiful lot. There was a blind lion and, oh, I think a one or two very... It was a good thing that it closed. ...tired bear. For the animal's sake, OK. And there were some raccoons and maybe a fox or two. There were some monkeys. I remember graduation rehearsal in the bowl. Somebody had given one of the monkeys a cigarette. Oh, my. Oh, my. They had to be there. It was ours. It was a place to go. It didn't cost us anything to see the animals and all that. It was the thing to do on a Sunday afternoon. When everything was closed, if you ran out of milk, you had to get up so that you could go to the corner grocery store, which were everywhere. And by the milk then, there were no 7-Elevens or those markets that are open 24 hours a day. Nothing was open 24 hours a day, except for the hospital and the fuel parlors. So two more slides, and then I think we're almost we're out of time. So the next one, I think it's still another version of Prangies. It is. But look how big and magnificent it was. And then, of course, what they did is they remodeled it. And they covered it with a whole new surface. It was all white bricks. The windows was gone. There was a great big H.C. Prangies sign. They took one of the entrances out, and they put the air door in. That was a big thing, because they could open it up in the winter. And there were no doors to pull or anything like that. And it had to be a blustery blizzard. And the Christmas windows. The Christmas windows. Which you can still see at the museum. You can still, they've absorbed or required some of those old, beautiful things. But we've got people think we have it all. We don't. People are asking for certain things. The one that I keep hearing about is the grandmother that's spanking the little boy. We've never had it. God only knows where it went. But the thing is, all the magic of the holidays was there. And in the history of the Festival of Trees, I was looking for a theme for a tree that I was doing. And I went to the library and got the microfetches out for, I think it was 1953, because they wanted to see what Prangies advertising was like. There was a full page of advertising for ladies' handkerchiefs that sold for anywhere from $0.59 to $5. Wow. A page, a whole page. I mean, it made no sense, illustrations. I mean, it was just absolutely amazing. But I got my theme. It was the golden world of Christmas. And so it helped. And I just think that what we're used to, what you hear people talk about more often than not, is about what's gone. Do you remember when? You go to estate sales. And people are buying up any little scrap of Sheboygan history that they can find. Because they're people that saved all these articles that were in the paper. And they're sitting at some of these sales, about the centennial, whatever happened in the history. The colors strike. I mean, people are always looking for stuff like that. Anything that says Prangies on it. I have a book. There's a new department store in Milwaukee called Von Mower. It is a family-owned company. And there's two pages in the back of that book, of every family-owned department store that has gone out of business. And it's in small print. And we should be mourning all of that. Because what we remember of Prangies, somebody in Des Moines is remembering that about Yonkers or whatever was there, Marshall Fields, to walk into that building and see Macy's. I can't believe how much the time has gone. Bernie Markovich, rock and tour historian, costume set designer, catering business, chef, all these things, and fantastic storyteller. Thank you so much. We will continue this. This isn't an apple of ash. Thank you so much for joining us. Remember, you can find all of this at Sheboygan County Historical Museum. The Historical Research Center has tons of photos. You can find it online. Go to the historic Sheboygan Facebook page. There are tons of resources. And as long as we've got Bernie, we can learn more about him. Thanks for joining us.