MY STORY – IRENE LOUISE (NEE KUCKKAN) MUELLER
Written By Irene L. Mueller

Mom’s Autobiography – Chapter 2 – In Book, Page 3

Parochial Schools Days, St. Mark’s School – 1936 – 1944

PAROCHIAL SCHOOL DAYS – 1936 – 1944

While living on that farm (horses, cows, pigs, ducks, chickens), I started school. A neighboring farmer, who had a little girl, Ruthie (nee Maron) Hasslinger starting school too, picked me up and took us to St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran School in Watertown, Wisconsin. I’ll never forget how enthralled I was with school. As I told one of my grandchildren, it was “like a magic place”. There were crayons, books, plants, etc. I loved everything, and I loved my teacher, Miss Ruby Reich.

I attended St. Mark’s for eight years. All my teachers – Miss Ruby Reich, Miss Louise Fenske, Miss Hertha Sievert, Miss Ada Sievert, Mr. Lester Raabe, and Mr. Kurt Oswald were wonderful – cf. Page 9 of FACES & PLACES II – WATERTOWN AREA and – cf. Page 112 of FACES & PLACES – WATERTOWN AREA. My three sisters (Beatrice, Doloris, Janet) and little brother, Henry, also attended there, so we were all blessed with hearing about how our Savior died for all our sins so that when we pass away, we will go to heaven. My brother, five years younger than I, did pass away. He was only six years old, had started school, had said his first Christmas “piece” by himself in St. Mark’s church, but became very sick with rheumatic fever after Christmas. The angels carried him to heaven March 31, 1942. The fever had caused leakage of his heart. In those days heart operations were unheard of (how blessed we are in this day and age)! We know that he is with Jesus.

Coming back to St. Mark’s; at that time we were in the big old square building. There was no gym, but we had playgrounds on both sides of the school where we played baseball. I loved it, and really could hit and catch that ball. One of the Sievert teachers, I think it was Hertha, got hit by a ball and fell down. Thankfully, she was not hurt seriously. No, I was not the one who hit the ball. The younger children played in the blocked-up street just as they do today. At that time we played hop-Scotch, jump rope, jacks, pump-pump pull-away, and other games. In those days we did not have computers, televisions, and cell phones, and not as many organized sports.

One of my friends, Rose Marie – “Rosie” – (nee Storbeck) Wagner and I during a recess went away from the school to a filling station to its rest room. I climbed up on the sink, and down it crashed! Did we run, with the man at the station calling out and asking our names. Well, the next school day came, and no Rosie. Mr. Oswald called me to the office, and the filling station man was there. But all he wanted was to ask if we were hurt, which we weren’t…..whew! Rosie, now a greeter at Walmart, remembers what happened to us very well, and said to me, “you got me in trouble with my father.” I don’t remember that, but I most likely got a spanking at home for that. Lucille (nee Schmidt) Huber, also is a greeter at Walmart now. She was in my sister, Beatie’s, seventh grade class and remembers coming to our house. Audrey (nee Borth) Schwichtenberg, another schoolmate, gives out samples at Walmart.

When I was about nine or ten years old, we moved from the country to Watertown. It was wonderful! One of the houses (the middle of three houses) we lived in was on Cady Street across from what now is the City Hall, Police, and Fire stations. At that time Memorial Park – cf. Page 86 – FACES & PLACES – WATERTOWN AREA – was across the street. There was a band stand where band concerts were held every week. There was a beautiful statue of a little girl with a fountain, which I loved. It is now at the Octagon House. The park was a great place for my sisters, brother, and me to play. My father worked in the Waukesha Foundry as a molder until he retired at sixty-five years of age, and my mother worked in Mid-States Shoe Company, St. Mary’s Hospital, and Durants (when she retired at sixty-five). Both of them were very hard workers.

When we moved to 911 North Fourth Street, a very sad thing happened. My little brother, “Hennie”, became sick and was taken by the angels to heaven. At his funeral all the school children from St. Mark’s sang and passed by his coffin. Even now people at St. Mark’s come up to me, and say they will never forget that day. We miss him, but know he is happy singing with the angels

My sisters and I would walk to the Classic (now Towne) Theater in town and watch double feature movies. There was a very tall marquee with the word “CLASSIC” emblazoned in lights. Sometimes we would go to the Savoy Theater – cf. Page 48 –FACES & PLACES II – WATERTOWN AREA. Before the movies, there were newsreels, mostly about the Second World War, and cartoons (Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Porky Pig, etc.) We saw Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Clark Gable, Greer Garson, Ingrid Bergman, Ronald Coleman, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, Betty Grable, Judy Garland, and so many other great movie actors and actresses at that time. It cost only 10 cents, and the movies were continuous. Sometimes we would sit through the double features twice on a Sunday afternoon. My sister, Doloris (“Lotty”), three years younger than me, sat in the very front row of the theater.

We listened to the radio (no TV yet) a lot (The Shadow, The Lone Ranger, P-e-t-e-r Q-u-i-l-l – it was scary, Jack Armstrong (advertised Wheaties, The Breakfast of Champions), Jolly Joe (there was a drawing contest. I drew a picture of an elephant tearing the thatch off an African hut (God must have had a plan for me in Africa as a missionary’s wife even then) and won a windup train for my little brother). Pa liked the Joe Louis fights. Ma liked Stella Dallas, speeches of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) about the on-going World War II (there was a gold star in the window of a house if a service man or woman had been killed, a silver star if he or she was missing, or a blue star if a person was in the service), Heinie and his Grenadiers which was polka music, etc. We would listen to the radio every Sunday at noon after we returned from the St. Mark’s church service when Heinie and his Grenadiers was on. Watertown is known for polka music which was brought from Germany with the early settlers. Also, at that time the singing Borth sisters were quite popular on the radio.

The Christmas services at St. Mark’s church were beautiful with all the children, choirs, and congregation singing the old familiar Christmas hymns. When I was in eighth grade, we sang the “Hallelujah Chorus”. All of the parochial school children sang the hymns and recited the Bible passages telling about the birth of our Savior. (Mr. Kurt Oswald, the school principal, had much patience when teaching all of us – at least two hundred children – when to sing and recite). There was a huge Christmas tree in the middle of the front of the church. How they got it into the church is a mystery. There were beautiful ornaments, candy canes, popcorn balls, and lights on it. After the Christmas holidays the school children received the candy canes and popcorn balls. But, after the Children’s Christmas Eve Service, each child was given a bag with nuts, fruit, and candy inside it. How happy and thankful my sisters and I were to receive those bags.

Also on Christmas Eve we had our family Christmas. Each one of us got one very nice gift (I remember I received a little bedside radio, which I loved, one Christmas), besides the new clothes and shoes we wore for the Children’s Christmas service. We were so thrilled when we saw the beautiful tree at home after the service which all of us had picked out together, decorated beautifully with ornaments, and lit up. We were very thankful for our gifts, but most of all, thankful for the wonderful Gift of Jesus, our Savior.

Living at 911 North Fourth Street was great, too, because we could walk to Riverside Park where there were band concerts every week, church picnics, carnivals with rides, fireworks on the 4th of July, baseball games, etc. There were acts, one a man diving from high up into a small tank, another a magic act by “Fats Gritzner” (he and his wife had a great “root beer” stand on Third Street with the most delicious hot dogs, hamburgers, etc.). And then the swimming pool was built – cf. Page 54 – FACES & PLACES II = WATERTOWN AREA – and offered swimming lessons. Wow, what a blessing! We enrolled immediately in swimming classes and learned to swim. We had many happy hours there. There were three diving boards. I dove from the lower boards, but my first attempt at diving from the high diving board ended in a belly flop. So far I haven’t tried it again. There was a portable roller skating rink put up during the summers which we also loved. And there was ice skating on the Rock River, at Silver Creek and the Gondolier Club during the winter. We skated to the music of Ken Griffin’s organ music.

Pa and Ma would take us fishing. Once I remember Beatie, Lotty, and I walked into the Rock River near Ixonia to fish. We usually caught bullheads. Pa had strong fingers and could easily skin them – cf. Page 12 of FACES & PLACES II – WATERTOWN AREA. They were delicious when Ma fried them. We went bicycle riding with our cousins and Ma. My sisters and I loved to read comic books (one of my cousins, “Alice (nee Ebert) Fuchs” and I would go to Loeffler’s Nursery and read the “funnies” in the papers they used to wrap flowers in). My sisters and I attended a studio where we were taught ballet, acrobatics, and tap-dance. There was a recital, and I remember doing flips across the stage. My two sisters and I sang “The Pennsylvania Polka”, the “Marine Hymn” – cf. Page 9 of FACES & PLACES II – WATERTOWN AREA – and “Winter Wonderland” in the recital. We also sang for organizations in Watertown when asked. My sister, Beatrice, played the guitar, accordion, and piano by ear. I played the clarinet, and played it in a piano recital – my friend, Marion Vogt, playing the piano, and me the clarinet. I often wonder where Marion is. Her father was Theodore, the Police Chief, at that time.

The living room at 911 North Fourth Street was a couple steps above the dining room, so it was a perfect stage. My sisters and I put up a sheet, and put on plays and sang. Our friends and neighborhood children came, and it was a lot of fun. Ma even made popcorn!!! We played thick records on an old record player. I also played croquet, monopoly, and checkers, had slumber parties, babysat, and did a lot of walking with my friends, sisters, and cousins to wherever we wanted to go. We had a magnificent “pot-belly” stove to keep us warm. How cozy it was when we would come into the dining room with our friends and see the red-hot coals burning through the Isinglass windows. And how wonderfully warm our feet felt when we put them up on the stove after coming in from the cold. We did not have a bathtub (we did have a toilet) in the house, but would take a bath in a “washtub”, heating the water first on the stove. There was a black pump in the kitchen to pump water for our needs. There was a “cistern” under part of the house where the water came from. We had an “icebox”, so ice was brought to our house by the iceman. Milk (in bottles) was brought to our house by the milkman.

Confirmation Day, Palm Sunday, 1944, was a very important day in my life. It was the day I confirmed my faith in God. I was confirmed by Pastor William A. Eggert with two of my cousins, Alice (nee Ebert) Fuchs, and Louis Kuckkan. “Ali” and I were dressed in beautiful white dresses and “Louie” in a suit. Most of our classmates were going on to the public high school, and only six (two girls) of us went on to Northwestern Prep. One of my dearest classmates, “Ruthie” (Maron) Hasslinger, all through Parochial School, passed away from cancer eleven years ago. She was the daughter of the farmer who picked me up to take me to St. Mark’s to start first grade. She and I corresponded until a short time before her death. All my classmates were my friends.

There was a boy friend in eighth grade. My classmates would pass notes from him to me in the classroom. Sometimes in class he would wiggle his ears, and move his eyebrows up and down. Of course, I thought it was cute. He did turn out to be a Judge (he was very intelligent). He and I were together in the law course taught at Northwestern Prep by Professor T. Binhammer. Sometimes he would walk me home (we lived on Cady Street then), and play “Post Office” with my sister, Beatie. He was a year younger than me, and asked me to wait for him when I got to Northwestern, but God had other plans for me.