Has it been twenty-five years?

Twenty-five years ago, Dee and I were married at Friedens church at 13th and Juneau in Milwaukee. It was a unique ceremony in the cavernous sanctuary and a reception following held in the next-door Guest House. All the guests seeking shelter were invited, along with our family and friends.

The rites were administered by Rev. John Helt. There was a native American element to it, with a dance by Marian Wasierski and the smudging of corn and juniper to the four directions of the earth, and the singing of Lennon’s IMAGINE performed by a shelter guest.

After the reception merriment ran its course Dee and I left Milwaukee for a rustic cabin near Crivitz close to the Menomonee River. Our honeymoon was spent huddled under the covers in the company of deer mice who climbed up the blanket and peered at us with their large ears appearing over the edge of the bed. To the mice, who "owned" the cabin, we were the strangers. A wood stove started us from zero degrees to 68 in a matter of several seconds. Several.

The cabin was let to us without charge by owners Bill and Jane Vollmer, former Friedenites. A fast friendship solidified when we sold their home at Hawley and Vliet quickly, allowing the Vollmers to move to Marinette County in retirement. The friendship included their 12 children, 11 boys, one girl.

That was how we spent our first few days, in the company of friendly mice who were the primary occupants of that little retreat standing in the middle of a 40 acre woods. And that 40 was bound by many other large tracts, making a large and continuous woods in that east-west stretch of Hy G to 180 along the Menomonee.

A lovely beginning to a quarter-century of excitement!

Dee and the "Bill Vollmer

Memorial Tamarack"

now late but uncut at 25 feet

........

(Bill Vollmer, the late)