by Greg Koelker
As this once frosty, then warmer and now dam hot moon slips away into the moon of weddings and roses, No Mow May comes to an end. We are pushed over the edge and have to start mowing twice a week to keep up.
Here in the coulee, Ellen’s flock has been frantically skarfing up grape jelly while a small horde of hummingbirds belly, uh rather buzz up to the sugar bar.
It is graduation season and we hit a couple parties. I ate too much for sure. I wonder if high inflation or high gas prices might be the reason there were no lemon bars or rice crispie bars on the desert tables though and I had to make do with delicious brownies and cookies. It was good to see so many former students, parents, friends, and family.
Speaking of family, mountain kids Mark and Jen rolled across the smoldering great plains with fur babies Meatloaf, Mayday, and Marvin in tow to celebrate Ellen’s second 36th birthday on Saturday. While we talk and text often, it is good to catch up with them in person. Their lives are so busy and full.
Anyway, while it is relatively early and quiet this morning, I’ll tap something out. Ellen has been putting up with me for a couple of decades or so and I know we have shared a lot about our lives together over the last half century. But origin stories seem to be in vogue, so here I go with our love story:
When I first got to know Ellen in the spring of 1970, she was a sophomore and I was senior at Cassville High School. She had sweet dimples, freckles and beautiful deep green eyes with gold flecks in them. The band Sugar Loaf made the charts with, “Green-Eyed Lady,” and that’s what I started calling her – still do. She had a broad, inviting smile and an irresistible laugh. Ellen was cute and smart and funny and serious and always, always good.
Ellen was born to Marge and Walt Hauk who both grew up and lived in rural western Wisconsin near Cassville for most of their lives. El had what I kinda called a Waltonesque classic country upbringing with ten siblings, pets of all kinds including ponies and horses, calves, cats and dogs, surrounded by views of rolling farm fields, deep hollows, and the Grant and Mississippi Rivers, and she and her siblings had chores to do and had a lot of fun too. Her three older siblings, Joyce, Richard, and Tom attended a one-room country school just up the road. She told me she would sneak up there sometimes and peek in the windows when school was in session. Ellen and the rest of her brothers and sisters were sent to the nuns at St. Charles Elementary in Cassville for first through eighth grades.
While I didn’t really know the Hauks much when I was growing up, I remember driving by their farm with my parents one day and my mom said something like, “Oh, that poor girl! All those kids.” I figured it out much later that she meant Marge. I also figured out later that my mom was wrong. Marge didn’t really mind “all those kids.” They were her pride and joy.
Being the fourth in a line of eleven children – Joyce, Dick, Tom, Ellen, Barb, Mike, Brian, Kathy, Lori, Bob and Bill – Ellen had lots of company out in the country. The last two: Bob and Bill came as a matched set.
Their farm house only had one bathroom. Over time, I learned the routine, “Hey, I am going to take a shower. Does anyone need the bathroom first?” Another custom was to ask if anyone wanted anything when leaving the living room to go to the kitchen.
Ellen’s Uncle Mose, farmed and lived with them. Mose was a colorful character, playing the violin, and knowing famous rodeo cowboys, playing baseball, going on big game hunts with The Moose Hunters of Prairie du Chien, and finishing second in the 1937 National Corn Husking Championship. He loaned El and I money for the down payment on our farm home here in 1977.
Ellen’s sister Barb is her Irish twin; in fact at the annual Cassville Twinorama, the officials often wanted to sign Ellen and Barb up as twins for the contest when they showed up to register their little twin brothers, Bob and Bill. Barb and Ellen wore their hair the same and were the same size. They even rode in the parade with their little brothers. (Barb married my friend Chuck Wright in the fall in 1973 before Ellen and I got married in the winter of 1973. The four of us were and are close, vacationing together up north in Wisconsin and in Canada.)
The Hauk kids, their cousins, and many friends rode ponies (her older brothers even rode calves). Barb and Ellen and Lori had horses too. For a while (before my time in the family) they had a white horse that was alleged to be a stand-in for Silver on The Lone Ranger TV show. The kids canoed on the Grant River, hiked to the creek bottom, played croquet, badminton, softball and football after supper in their front yard, hunted mushrooms and picked flowers and later went sledding, ice skating and playing “jungle rules” hockey. They helped make hay and bring in firewood and do other farm chores too. They often went to nearby Burton to watch fast-pitch softball games under the lights and socialize on cool summer nights.
When they reached an age, they would participate in the annual November gun deer hunt. Ellen got the name, “Old Shoot ‘Em in he Head” from her Uncle Charles Uppena one year when she jumped up a buck and shot it on the run, right in the noggin.
Ellen was a serious nimrod, and a serious student, athlete (she ran track, the only team sport available to girls at Cassville High before Title 9), and an orator. She was elected president of her class and went to state Forensics in the Oratory category several times. She was selected by her teachers to attend Badger State. She played the piano and the oboe and bassoon in the concert band and the drums in the marching band. She got the nickname “Heckle” from her friend Joyce Adrian because of her laugh. Ellen was the perfect student with many friends, was respected by all who knew her, but she didn’t suffer fools (I know. What the heck was she thinking when she went out with me?)
I know some people were shocked when she started dating me. Absolute proof that opposites do attract. True story. And people were doubly shocked when they heard that she said, “Yes” a couple years later on June 19, 1973.
That summer we were both working as docents at Stonefield Village, a Wisconsin State Historical site north of Cassville. I was the blacksmith and she was the telephone operator and sometimes guide up at the Governor Dewey Home overlooking the quaint 1890’s village.
Full disclosure, she asked me to get married! Another True story. We were out for a ride on my 350 Honda motorcycle one evening after work and stopped by the Rattle Snake Creek bridge that was closed for repair. We were talking about how Phil and Diane, Dan and Diane, Dick and Betty, Barb and Chuck, and more were getting married. El said to me, “So when are WE gonna get engaged?”
Emboldened by that, I took out a loan and got a ring at Zale’s in Dubuque that week. I stopped at the farm to ask her dad if it was okay that I propose to Ellen. He was cleaning catfish. He stopped and kind of chuckled and said, “Why yes. I guess you gotta make hay while the sun shines.”
That evening we had plans to go to the Dugout Supper Club near Dickeyville for dinner. I was at the wheel of my $100 1963 Catalina when I said, “I have something for you.” and handed her a felt covered box. She realized what it was before she opened it and hit me in the arm because I was driving. (I’m a true romantic, huh?) Anyway, I pulled over and she said, “Yes.” We stopped at Bertha and Ed’s Supper Club near Potosi to share the news with Barb, who was waiting tables. Later the waitress at the Dugout brought us a cake with a sparkler on it for dessert and all the other diners gave us a round of applause.
Somehow things got out of hand. I got a call from friend Greg Lenz who was a television engineer at Channel 8 in La Crosse, telling me that they needed an art director pronto. I called and got an interview with the production manager, Matt Wadium.
On the day of my great Uncle Buck’s funeral, I went to Spic and Pearl’s Tavern in Cassville with my grandparents for a “snort” and to toast Buck. My dad burst in and excitedly told me to “Get your ass home and call that guy in La Crosse. You got the job!”
Ellen was excited for me, for us. I felt bad having to tell Mel Houghton I was quitting at Stonefield. I learned a lot from him and I loved being the blacksmith there.
A few days later I was back in school, learning from a new teacher, Matt Wadium. I got a whirlwind tour of my duties at WKBT and had to start finding a place to stay. Ellen was a sophomore at UW Platteville and we planned a transfer to UW La Crosse at mid year. We, mostly Ellen and Marge, planned a wedding for December 29.
Until next time, get out – Ellen and I will have been living here at Grouse Hollow 49 years next week. Crazy how time is sluggish and then starts to get out of hand before it seems like Captain Kirk told Chekov to go to time warp speed.
Happy Birthday Darlin’. Obladi.
Pray for peace.
Greg Koelker is a lifelong resident of the Driftless region along the Mississippi River. He is the acclaimed author of the “Grouse Hollow Journal,” a column that celebrates rural life, nature, family heritage, and the traditions that bind communities together. While technically focused on the “outdoors,” his writing often explores broader themes of community values and education.
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