Muellerstuff: A History of the Rest of my Declining Years: A Visit to Hustisford

29 June 2008

A Visit to Hustisford

This is a shot of the wooden stairs going to the second floor of the house on Mill St. Upstairs is where Mr Johnson lived. He was the high school history teacher as well as being in charge of all the music. Interesting guy. I guess it is now OK to say that he was gay. They did things differently in those days.

Patriotic Russ Mueller is exploring the basement of the house where there seemed to be a card game going on most weekends with Mr Schlicht, principal and superintendant of the schools, Mr Lehmann, assistant postmaster of the village, and Mr Mueller, County clerk for Dodge Co, the usual suspects present. This is where I learned to swear. Dad used to do fish fries down here on Fridays as well. I guess there were some things the Catholics and Lutherans agreed upon in those days. The smell of the fish is no longer there. I can't remember any Catholic friends except the Wills. I remember my paternal grandmother telling a story about some unexpected good thing a lady had done for her. The punch line was: "und dat lady vas a Catlick!"

Here are the two gigantic maples that grew from the little saplings planted by Walde H Mueller in the back yard of our house on Mill St in 1972.

A view of the back porch of the house. It needs a little work. We used to have a barbecue on that porch. It is a wonder we didn't burn it down.

One of the stained glass windows in the house on Mill St that Peg and Joan remember from their childhood visits. I only lived here about a year before leaving home for Carroll College. When we left for England in 1972 my father planted two little maple saplings in honor of Peg and Joan. See above for the result.

Here is the whole group of pilgrims. The present owners are doing a big job of rehabilitation and were very kind to let us tramp around the house and take pictures of everything. See above and below for more.

The Rock River was very high and running fast. It overflowed its banks as you can see here. The fishing won't be that good until the water settles down.

This is a more or less unchanged part of Main St in Hustisford WI. We lived in the two buildings at the left. The furthest left was the meat market my father owned from about 1947 to 1957. We lived in the apartment above. The second house we moved to after moving from my grandfather's house on the south end of the village where we lived during the war. (WWII that is). It was actually owned by Otto Hensel. When my mother excitedly called in a report of a chimney fire to the operator—our telephone # was 6, simply 6—who lived and worked in the next building down the street she said the fire was on the roof of the Hensel house so the operator sent the Fire Department to the south side of the village where Mr Hensel lived.