St. Vincent de Paul Parish & Ascension Lutheran Church, Milwaukee

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The church participants in Doors Open Milwaukee typically provided visitors written descriptions of the church and the church’s history, on actual sheets of paper. Good for them, in this over-digital age. I picked them up for future reference – as in, right now – and the one for St. Vincent de Paul Parish was rather long on the various priests associated with the parish (and two Congressmen who went to church there), with less about the church building, though it does say that the current one was completed in 1900 in a Renaissance Revival style by architect Bernard Kolpacki (d. 1900, so this was probably his last project among a number in Milwaukee).

This church, too, was originally for a Polish congregation.

The sheet offers information about Rev. Wincenty Lewandowski (d. 1900), who founded St. Vincent de Paul Parish. He had felt it expedient to leave the German Empire in the 1870s due to Kulturkampf and all that jazz, making his way to Ohio at first. When he got there, he got to work. The sheet notes the following glimpse of something that could use a little more detail:

Bishop Richard Gilmore sent him to Toledo, Ohio, where he would found St. Hedwig Parish in October 1875, and St. Anthony Parish in 1882. For reasons unclear in the surviving records, many were opposed to Lewandowski at Saint Hedwig, his multiple reassignment requests to the bishop were denied, and the situation devolved in June 1885 into a bomb being discovered under the rectory and a riot breaking out between parishioners. Lewandowski resigned and departed for Milwaukee.

Other sources mention the 1885 church riot in Toledo, and the fact that St. Hedwig in that city was torched the next year. Religious-inspired violence is one thing, but church riots are considerably rarer on these shores. Yet Toledo isn’t the only one I’ve encountered while visiting churches – there’s also the story of the former Cathedral of All Saints of the Polish National Catholic Church in Chicago, which not only involved an ecclesiastical riot, but schism thrown in mix for that extra volatility.

Impressive stained glass.

For the items below, I had my AI program remove the glare. This is one of the genuinely useful things that it can do, but I have to be careful to tell it not to change anything else in the image, because it has a tendency to “improve” things. Sometimes it does so even if I tell it not to, but for these two, nothing was changed.

Next door. Probably the rectory. An ivy-covered rectory.

The last church of the day was Ascension Lutheran Church.

Services in English and Spanish, as you’d except. And that third one? Hmong, it turns out.

On the door.

I don’t know that DHS goons would specifically be looking for Hmong – which would be an act of base ingratitude, among other things. Probably just the usual brown folk. Raiding churches: what a good way to win hearts and minds.

Ascension Lutheran dates back to the 1850s, in this case founded by Norwegians. The current sanctuary dates from 1923.

The church sports a number of memorials, as churches often do, but this pair was a little unusual.

Good to see a presidential site, however minor. United Spanish War Veterans: not an organization one hears much about anymore, but it lasted until 1998, a few years after the last veteran member passed, namely Nathan Cook, U.S. Navy, who died in 1992 at 106. A successor org, Sons of Spanish American War Veterans, is still around.

St. Anthony Parish & St. Hyacinth Parish, Milwaukee

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Rain coming tonight, then a cooling trend, as they say in the weather biz. For me, that meant lingering on the deck in the upper 60s F. early this evening, while I can, eating dinner outside, drinking tea. In the background, blending with the sound of crickets, were the pleasant sounds of a youth-league baseball game, which also happened to be visible in the park behind my back yard. All sensations that will disappear with oncoming fall.

On Saturday, a nice warm early fall day, we first made our way to St. Anthony Parish in Milwaukee as part of the Doors Open event. Once upon a time, a German congregation.

Wonder how many buildings are still around whose development was delayed by the Panic of 1873? There must be some. St. Anthony at least is one, not being consecrated until 1882, and even then the interior wasn’t completed until around the end of that decade.

The Germans built something suitably German, a Gothic Revival Hallenkirche, whose nave and side aisle ceilings are roughly the same height.

The last mass in German must have been sometime. These days, one Sunday mass is in English and two are in Spanish.

Not far away at all is St. Hyacinth Parish.

In this case, a legacy of a Polish congregation, an Italian Renaissance style done in Milwaukee’s Cream City brick, and another development of the 1880s.

Henry Messmer [d. 1899], a Swiss immigrant, did the design.

These days, three masses are in Spanish, one in English, none in Polish. Time flies, neighborhoods change.

St. Joseph Chapel, Milwaukee

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For a mid-sized city, Milwaukee has a remarkable number of historic churches. Every late 19th- and early 20th-century ethnic group of any size supported a number of churches, in the case of Catholics and Protestants both. Germans, for instance, built both Catholic and Lutheran edifices in quantity, as did Poles, without that Lutheran component. Many of their Catholic parishes are now majority Hispanic, and it these that we largely focused on during our visit to Milwaukee.

We managed to visit five such churches on Saturday during the most recent Doors Open Milwaukee.

As fine as all of these churches were, one stood out: the recently restored St. Joseph Chapel, a Romanesque Revival structure on the grounds of St. Joseph Center, a convent that’s the international motherhouse of the School Sisters of St. Francis, which was founded in the 1890s. The chapel is tucked away in the convent complex, which itself is tucked away in a Milwaukee neighborhood.

All those churches built ca. 100 years ago or more needed to be designed, and in the case of St. Joseph Chapel, the sisters tasked Peter Brust and Richard Philipp, two of the busiest architects in Milwaukee at the time, to do the job. And what a job they did.

st joseph chapel

Of course, any building of this kind is more than the work of talented architects. Unnamed artisans in Austria contributed the mosaics on the walls, such as Christ Giving Peter the Keys, which is behind the altar, or the Parable of the Ten Virgins, one of the side mosaics. My photos do them little justice to their intricacies and especially the artful use of the color gold for flourishes that enliven the images. I haven’t seen mosaics of this caliber since the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, though these aren’t neo-Byzantine.

The floor mosaics are also worth a good look.

Behind the main altar is the Chapel of Perpetual Adoration. A chapel within a chapel, I suppose. It is every bit as sumptuous as the nave.

Depicted under the angels surrounding the monstrance are notable Franciscans, I understand, including Sts. Francis and Clare kneeling. Yuriko asked about the fellow in red, and it took a while to work it out, but that seems to be St. Bonaventure, who was a cardinal too, and a writer of considerable energy, which might account for the book in his hand.

Return to Mars

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I’ve now been to Mars Cheese Castle about n times. I pass its way often, and while I don’t always stop there, visits over 40 years have added up to n. Like Wisconsin itself, or Milwaukee, or a healthy number of other places.

After much of a day in Milwaukee, for the latest Doors Open Milwaukee event, we stopped at Mars, mere miles north of the Wisconsin-Illinois line on I-94. First thing, I decided to document the sticker situation at the base of the highway sign.

I don’t see you-know-who from a much larger chain of retail establishments whose mascot is known to dam streams and sue alleged lookalikes. There are no locations yet in Wisconsin, but he is waiting, biding his time.

At 80 feet, the sign is a story unto itself, with the Wisconsin legislature specially allowing the store to keep it when the whole complex had to be moved in 2011 to accommodate the expansion of the highway. By that time, 80 feet was too tall for a modern roadside sign, but Mars was grandfathered in. Could be that Wisconsin respects its ’50s roadside heritage.

Inside, the mouse is still around. I don’t know that he has a name. Maybe Mario Mouse, after the original owner of Mars Cheese Castle, one Mario Ventura Sr., a gas station owner who pivoted into cheese in 1957 after his gas station burned down. Pivoting into cheese is a thing you can do in Wisconsin. Eat Cheese or Die.

Tom recently sent me by email — out of the blue, coincidence or synchronicity? — a picture of us with the mouse from our ’22 trip around Lake Michigan. A favorite photo of us, he explained, and it is a good one.

Of course, I’d been there before, such as in ’15. The mouse seems to have moved since then.

Cheese hats and other extruded yellow shapes are for sale, along with edible cheese, sausage and other meat, candy, beer and many other comestibles, plus knickknacks, gimcracks and gewgaws galore.

Mars apparently has its own line of wine.

Lore associates mice with cheese – who’ll eat pretty much anything in your pantry – so why not wine? Another version of the mascot could be sprawled nearby, a wine bottle in his hand.

The Jerusalem Tilt

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When I was busy doing one thing and another today, I got distracted by a short video that depicted a state-border-lines-only blank U.S. map, a short stock clip on a site I use sometimes. As the video played, the states were filled in, in various colors, as you see on maps. They were filling in by tiers nationwide, northern tiers down to southern tiers. Roughly. Very roughly.

So I wanted to create my own animation of the states filling in. That’s a novel reaction for me, supported by AI tech that just might be up to the task. Or is it? Jury’s still out on that, but only because the jury is lazy. Anyway, I would have the states color up in order of their accession to the union (and the Dakotas can both change at the same moment), or ratification of the Constitution in the earliest cases.

I’m also too lazy (at the moment) to check for such videos that already exist. I don’t need to check, I’m sure they are out there. I don’t want to see another one, I want to create one.

More than that, I want a twist: east should be up on the map. So the parade of state accessions would fill (very roughly) top to bottom, though of course there are certain exceptions to that, such as the West Coast states. Still, the growth of the U.S. would trend downward as the eye registers it. Why not? Think of it the original orientation, or maybe the Jerusalem tilt.

I imagined that at least drawing such a simple map wouldn’t vex the young, energetic AI programs loose in the world now. Why, I could do that with a simple natural language prompt. Or at least that’s what I thought.

Prompt:

blank map of united states, no words, tipped so that east is facing up.

Some results were perfectly acceptable maps, or a little flawed, but still with east to the right. As usual.

Note that the aspect ratio is narrow. I figured that would give the map room to expand in an east top/west bottom direction, rather than have a conventional north top/south bottom squeezed into the frame. Oh, well.

Other generated images inexplicably closeups of west or east.

With geographic features. Because I didn’t specify all of the United States? Because I didn’t specify no geographic features, though I’d think, using natural language like I do, that “blank” covers that pretty well. And, come to think of it, United States pretty much means the whole thing, unless otherwise specified. This is the sort of nuance that, so far, eludes AI, making image generation a sometime crap shoot.

This one — what to say?


I ran that phrase through a couple of search engines (manually) in case it was something I missed, since I miss things all the time. But it doesn’t seem to be, which means my imagination can run with Bussers for Mitich. Could it be that a class of sentient robot servants — nicknamed Bussers from one of their first jobs and proudly calling themselves that — finally won the right to vote, and are supporting Mitich in the 2076 elections?

Back to the maps I wanted to be oriented with east up. These below were giving it the old electoral college try, with east clearly trying to point upward, but no go.

They kept getting stranger. Or rather, to be completely accurate, the odd maps were mixed in seemingly at random.

At least that one is east/up. I think. But it isn’t a map of the United States. Some united states, maybe, but in some other reality.

Then there were the smash maps, I call them.

Which have their own interests. You can imagine they were the result of a different North American map created by the last ice age. Or you can image some alternate universe United States. Man, Virginia really got dismembered by the war in that last map, didn’t it?

This is just part one of my efforts to create a map with an east orientation. From here, I’ll try modifying the less eccentric maps. Or I’ll make one myself by tilting a pre-drawn map with my basic image editing program, and then see if AI can handle filling in the states in historic order. This will have to wait, though. I have a life to live this weekend.

Blessed Jurgis Matulaitis Lithuanian Catholic Mission

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By chance today, I heard part of a radio report about basketball in Lithuania. Seems that Lithuanians are keen on the sport, at levels of devotion usually seen for soccer in other countries. There is also a basketball program at the Lithuanian World Center on this side of the Atlantic, namely in suburban Lemont. Not a surprise, since the center is home to about 50 Lithuanian organizations.

We encountered the remarkable Hill of Crosses at the center in July. Within sight of the hill is a church building of a distinct modernist cast.

One of less-known works of Charles Murphy (d. 1985), Chicago modernist, whose highly visible portfolio includes One Pru Plaza, McCormack Place, the Daley Center, and the original terminal in O’Hare and some of the later ones, too.

Looking every bit 1964. Not built for Lithuanian World Center – that was still more than two decades in the future – but as part of D’Andreis Seminary, a Vincentian Catholic seminary.

After the seminarians bugged out, the Lithuanians bought the property and invited the Blessed Jurgis Matulaitis Mission to use the church, where they say mass and administer sacraments and so forth. Apparently the Diocese rents the structure from the center.

The stained glass might be in English, but masses are in Lithuanian, I understand. It’s all very Chicago, even if it’s in the suburbs.

Back Yard Equinox

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A solar lamp in our back yard.

I went around the yard taking pictures just ahead of sunset today, around the time of the fall equinox. The solar lamp translates energy from the sun into light, so in a real physical sense, this is sunlight by other means. At least for a while. It peters out after a few hours.

There’s an even deeper connection to stars, if not the sun. The lamp is partly iron. As one nonfiction book I read years ago put it – and I can’t remember where I read this – bits of iron are “shards of ancient suns.”

Another lamp, this one of the insect-theme variety.

The air has already decided that fall is underway, cool but not quite chilly. Still, you know chill isn’t long in coming. With a few more warm days sprinkled in, I hope.

Golden rod, which hangs out with the wrong crowd – pollen-heavy ragweed – and so is blamed for seasonal sneezing and other respiratory upsets afflicting us primates.

Other flowers.

Zinnias, as it happens – hardy September flowers doing well near the fence.

More Bashful Bob

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Every now and then someone reads something here and sends me a message via the comments. On the September 18 posting, I got a surprise message. As follows, though spaced into paragraphs by me:

Hi Dees,

RE Bashful Bob, Robert George Wombacher Jr, from Proctor MN near Duluth, my father, yes his rates in ’99 were probably $29/suite!

He refused my pleas to raise them. He liked to give people a good deal and was generous and giving to a fault! He was very creative, musical, fun-loving, sharp as a tack (longtime Mensa member), a walking/talking joke encyclical (if there is such a thing lol). He spent most of the year on his houseboat, The Maverick.

Thank you for you nice article,

John Wombacher, Liberty NY and on behalf of my brother Robert George Wombacher lll, Madison WI

PS if you give me an email address I would be happy to send you a few candid pics of my Dad

Wow. I posted about Bashful Bob’s Motel in Page, Arizona, more than two years ago.

Bashful Bob

It has a special place among the many, many places I’ve stayed, as a tourist court sort of place in a world that doesn’t have very many of those any more. Even nearly 30 years ago that was true. A place with hands-on ownership: namely the personable Bob Wombacher. I don’t remember what I paid in 1997, but it must have been a pretty good deal, which of course is an essential part of the tourist court experience. I thought of the place in ’22, when we stayed at the former Bashful Bob’s. It was a nice enough acommodations, renovated and all, but not the same sort of experience.

So I sent John Wombacher an email message, and he replied in short order. With images of Bashful Bob himself.

Dees,

Bashful Bob’s in Page came into existence during the mid- to late-eighties… he had owned a motel in Redstone CO, prior to that for about 8 years, Crystal Valley Motel, I think it was called.

Robert George Wombacher Jr,
Robert George Wombacher Jr. Image courtesy John Wombacher

Oddly enough in the late 60s he owned and operated a drive-in hamburger joint outside of Madison WI where I grew up (I was his chief cook and bottle washer, all 10 or 12 years of me). The name of that joint was… drum roll please… Bashful Bob’s!!!

Robert George Wombacher Jr. Image courtesy John Wombacher
Robert George Wombacher Jr. Image courtesy John Wombacher

Wish I had some photos. I lived later in Albuquerque and would venture out to Page frequently, also worked at the Glen Canyon Dam for one year around 1980.

Robert George Wombacher Jr. Image courtesy John Wombacher
Robert George Wombacher Jr. Image courtesy John Wombacher

Here are a couple pictures, thanks again!

John Wombacher, Liberty NY

Wool & Co.

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Saturday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Can’t forget to note that, though some years I do, like National Gorilla Suit Day (January 31). Supposedly Long John Silver’s, the fish joint, was giving away fish for Talk Like a Pirate Day if you said something pirate-y, and even fish meals if you dressed like a pirate. Naperville – the nearest LJS after the one in Hanover Park closed – was too far to go for that, and it drizzled most of the day anyway.

As it did today, with bursts of stronger rain. Good to listen to drifting off to sleep, especially when the rain doesn’t come with dangerous winds or close cracks of lightning. Or, for that matter, when the volume of water doesn’t seem enough to overwhelm local drainage. So it proved. Your house is always the second-best place to experience a storm, anyway. The best place to enjoy a more vigorous storm is always a rental property.

After we were done in Elgin last week, at Yuriko’s suggestion, we went to Wool & Co. in South Elgin, out at the edge of the suburbs in new-looking development.

The entrance doesn’t much hint at the colors within.

I don’t knit, but I do like the colors.

I thought the shop might be part of a chain, but no. The South Elgin location is it, for now. As its web site puts it: “Visiting Wool & Co. is akin to being at a friend’s house… a friend with over 10,000 skeins of yarn!!!”

A Few More Elgin Houses

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Saturday was warm and we finished the day after seeing the Elgin Castle. That left three more houses on the tour unseen. Elgin is only about 20 minutes away, half an hour in thick traffic, so we decided to return on Sunday for the last three houses, since our ticket was still valid for them. The weather had turned overcast with periods of light rain.

1100 Spring St.

My own favorite among the three, tucked away between its street and a slope leading down to the Fox River, though that view was mostly obscured by greenery this time of the year. Its yard is lush, especially near the front-yard sidewalk.

Influenced by English and Dutch Colonial designs, the booklet notes, and owned by a series of well-to-do Elginites since 1902, including a bank president, a doctor, an attorney, other local company presidents and an opera singer (the booklet doesn’t offer more detail on that last one, alas). More recently, as in now, the house belongs to an Illinois state rep and her teacher husband.

1100 Spring has a terrific picture window looking down toward the river – or will, when the leaves fall – which is a testament to expertise in glass production, and whatever kind of glass-cleaner the current residents use. Another only slightly smaller window faces the back yard. That space itself was the picture of comfort, a part-flagstone, part-grass turf punctuated by a sizable hammock strung between a couple of mature trees that lord over the yard.

259 River Bluff

Not a FLW. But Prairie Style was a popular style in 1915, and it does echo a lot of FLW.

That FLW vibe applied inside as well in the long, straight lines and Wright-like geometry of the walls. We saw only the first floor, since the stairs don’t have handrails of any kind. But the first floor was enough to show that the current owner, a retired airline pilot, has put a lot of effort and money into its restoration.

1044 Center St.

Dutch Colonial Revival, a fair way from New Netherland, both in space and time, but it does have a Dutch sort of shape.

Also tended for with great care by its current owners, only there a few years now, an architect husband and pastor wife.

What’s this?

We had exited 1044 Center by way of a back door and the small backyard, partly taken up by a modest, but handsome garage. Near the sidewalk, but still on the property, was an iron disk embedded in concrete.

An enthusiastic docent, seeing us looking down at the object, told us from the screen porch not far away, “That’s a cistern. You know, to capture rain water,” she said. Adding, “They were ahead of their time. Something we should all be doing,” in a pleasant but authoritative voice.

L.A. Baker & Co., Elgin. Something else to look up. An AI search offered some reasonable but not-too-hard to figure out speculation, namely that the company was one of the ironmongers down near the Fox, when the valley was alive with manufacturing, and providing at least one non-bogus link to a newspaper of the 1890s mentioning the company. A short but not too shabby Google search doesn’t turn up much. I expect his name lingers here and there in local legacy ironwork, and is seldom noticed.