There are several great things about this image of my Dad and his two siblings, taken in 1956 at Nekoosa, Wisconsin. The colors from the Kodachrome slide film are vivid, from the blue sky to the slicked-back black hair. The clothes are natty and the hairstyles are so 1950s. Right to left are Donn Gene Hanneman (1926-2014), Lavonne (Hanneman) Wellman (1937-1986), and my Dad, David D. Hanneman (1933-2014).
The photo was taken at the home of the trio’s uncle and aunt, Marvin and Mabel Treutel. The occasion was a Treutel family reunion. Their mother and my grandmother, Ruby V. Hanneman (1904-1977), was a Treutel before marrying Grandpa Carl F. Hanneman (1901-1922). It’s sad to think all three of them are gone, but I find comfort in the hope they are together in Heaven.
“Stentorian Voice.” Of all the notations in the Mauston High School yearbooks of David D. Hanneman, those two words truly stand out. In the “Report of Condition of the Students of Mauston High School” in 1950, David Hanneman’s asset is listed as “stentorian voice.” Not a common adjective, “stentorian” means “of powerful voice.” It can also mean “booming” and “loud.” No doubt the years 1947-51 were stentorian years for Hanneman, for he and his singing buddies at MHS earned accolades and medals for their singing.
David D. Hanneman’s medals from the Wisconsin Centennial Music Festival in 1948.
Mauston High School at the time was known for its quality vocal and instrumental music programs. The boys’ double quartet or octette was among the highest profile examples of that quality. The barbershop group regularly competed at the state level in competition sponsored by the Wisconsin School Music Association (WSMA).
The group included Hanneman and Roger Quick at second bass, Bob Jagoe and Dick Shaw at first bass, Clayton “Ty” Fieneand Bob Beck at first tenor, and Alan Banks and Arthur Volling at second tenor. Self-dubbed the “State Men” for annual appearances in competition, the group had its own cartoon likeness drawn into the Mauston High School yearbook, The Hammer.
Members of the Mauston High School boys double quartet.
In the many WSMA competitions, David Hanneman also sang bass solos, duets and mixed quartets and double quartets. According to one of the judge’s score cards, a Mauston quartet was rated “excellent” for tone, “good” for intonation and “good” for technique. Another judge rated Hanneman “excellent” for his bass solo and noted “maturity of quality” as his greatest singing asset. Hanneman kept the dozens of medals he won at these competitions for many decades after high school.
The “State Men” had their own page in the Mauston High School yearbook in 1951.
Singing wasn’t Hanneman’s only musical interest, however. He played the trumpet for a time and was in the Mauston public school band. He appeared in numerous parades playing the bass drum for the band.
David got his love of song from his mother, Ruby V. Hanneman. As a youngster, Ruby often performed onstage at theaters in Wisconsin Rapids. The Hanneman home in Mauston had a beautiful pump organ and a Victrola record player with a large collection of music. Later in life he appeared in a number of community musicals and sang in the choir at Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Catholic Church in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. His deep voice could carry the entire parish in song, with enough volume to almost lift the church off its foundations.
United States Marine Cpl. Almeron A. Freeman was scheduled to finish his three-year military service in just a matter of months. After nearly 1½ years in Korea with the 1st Marine Division, Freeman was headed for California aboard a U.S. Navy transport in March 1955. He never made it home. The Douglas R6D airplane slammed into a mountain peak on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. All 66 aboard were killed.
The Bakersfield, California paper from March 22, 1955.
My father, David D. Hanneman, played football with Freeman at Mauston High School. Although Freeman was a year behind Dad in school, he was the same age. Freeman played left guard and wore No. 64 during the 1950 season. Dad played left tackle and wore No. 66. They were both muscular and athletic. Freeman’s death left a deep impression on Dad. In 2006, when planning the Mauston High School Class of 1951’s 55th reunion, Dad made sure Freeman’s photo was included in the program.
U.S. Marine Cpl. Almeron A. Freeman.
Freeman enlisted in the Marine Corps on August 27, 1952, directly after his graduation from Mauston High School. He was an infantry rifleman with the First Marine Division. He landed for duty in Korea just four months after an armistice ended Korean War combat and began a tense “peace” along the 38th Parallel.
At the end of his tour, he flew from South Korea to Tokyo, then to Hickam Field on the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands. Just after 6 p.m. on March 21, 1955, Freeman was onboard a U.S. Navy R6D transport that left Hickam for Travis Air Force Base in California. Some 3½ hours into the flight, the plane developed radio problems and turned back for Oahu. Just after 2 a.m. on March 22, the plane was seen roaring low over the Navy’s Lualualei ammunition depot. Marine Pfc. Joseph T. Price, on guard duty at Lualualei, said the pilot turned on the landing lights and discovered the plane was headed straight into the Wai’ane Mountains. At the last second, the plane made a hard right, but slammed into the mountain about 200 feet below the tip of Pali Kea Peak. The explosion “lit up like daylight for about a minute,” Price said.
Almeron Freeman (farthest right in middle row), played for Mauston High School with David D. Hanneman (No. 72 in front row).
The resulting fire was so hot that it took rescuers nearly two hours to get close enough to confirm there were no survivors. The 66 killed included nine Navy crewmen and 57 passengers: 17 U.S. Air Force, four Navy, 12 Marines, 22 U.S. Army and two civilians (a mother and her baby daughter). It was the worst air disaster in Hawaii’s history. The U.S. Military Air Transportation System, which operated the flight, had flown 1.12 million passengers and crossed the Pacific nearly 42,000 times between January 1951 and March 1955 with no fatalities. The crash was caused by crew error. The plane was 8 miles off course when it struck the mountain.
Freeman’s junior class portrait.
Almeron Arthur Freeman was born February 3, 1933 in Dresbach Township, Minnesota, the son of Irvin M. Freeman and the former Lilah Jenks. Prior to 1940, the family moved from Houston County, Minnesota to Mauston. Irvin worked as a service station attendant. In addition to being a starting guard on the football team, Almeron was a member of the highly rated Mauston boxing team.
Freeman (at left in first row) pictured in 1951 with other letter winners in the M Club.
He came from a proud family military tradition. His great-grandfather and namesake, Almeron Augustus Freeman, served in the Civil War with the 1st Independent Battery, Wisconsin Light Artillery. The battery served under General William Tecumseh Sherman and General Ulysses S. Grant at the battle of Vicksburg, the battle of Port Gibson and later in defense of New Orleans. The elder Freeman later married and became a river pilot moving lumber on the waterways of Wisconsin.
Almeron Freeman (No. 30) played basketball for Mauston High School with David D. Hanneman (second from left in front row).
Marine Cpl. Freeman was buried May 17, 1955 at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis. Due to the nature of the crash and fire, the remains of 40 service members were buried in a group grave site containing nine caskets. A memorial service for Freeman was held at Mauston High School on May 15, 1955.
The tragedy of the March 1955 air crash extended beyond the immediate victims and their families. Air Force Staff Sgt. Marion “Billy” Shackleford was scheduled to be on that flight, but because he forgot his travel papers, he was denied boarding. He was spared the fate of the 66 crash victims and returned home to Alabama to report for a new assignment. On April 19, 1955, the car he was driving was hit head-on by a Trailways Bus. He was killed instantly. His father, working on a nearby construction job, witnessed the accident. Like Freeman, Sgt. Shackleford was the great-grandson of a Civil War veteran.
Nothing was bigger news in the fall of 1950 in central Wisconsin than Mary Ann Van Hoof and her claims of receiving visions from the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Van Hoof farm near Necedah. Members of the Hanneman family of Mauston, had great devotion to Mary, and they were among 50,000 people in Necedah on October 7, 1950, when Van Hoof received the eighth of her reported visions of Mary.
The front page of the Wisconsin State Journalthe next day recounted the alleged vision this way:
Mary Ann Van Hoof at her farm near Necedah, Wisconsin.
“Mrs. Fred Van Hoof said she saw the Virgin Mary in a vision for the eighth time Saturday and was told in a ‘last warning’ to pray for peace. The gaunt farm wife, who said last August that the Virgin would appear to her Saturday noon in a blinding light, walked from her shabby home at the appointed hour, knelt in prayer and raised a crucifix to a statue of the Virgin. At that moment, the sun burst through rain clouds which had hovered over the humble farm most of the morning, and a murmur swept through the crowd estimated by state police at 50,000 persons.After a few minutes, Mrs. Van Hoof arose and addressed the mingled throng of curious and claims to have done on previous visitations. ‘This is the battle for peace for all of you,’ she said. ‘Prayer, my dear children, will bring you peace.’ ”
Rev. Father Victor A. Fortino
A priest from Watervliet, Michigan, who was also in attendance that day befriended the Hanneman family. Rev. Father Victor A. Fortino of St. Joseph’s Church in Watervliet, cautioned 17-year-old David D. Hanneman to wait for Catholic Church authorities to approve the alleged visions before he placed too much stock in them. “I hope that what transpired at Necedah will receive the approval of the Church authorities,for without it, we simply cannot believe Mrs. Van Hoof’s claims even though you and I enjoyed the same experience during the alleged apparition of Oct. 7,” Fortino wrote in a letter dated October 27, 1950.
The Van Hoof farm near Necedah, Wisconsin, was the site of reported visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Father Fortino warned that Satan has appeared to Saints and sinners alike posing as the Blessed Mother and as the Crucified Christ, so it is crucial that the Church rule on the Van Hoof apparitions. “I want to warn you about something,” Fortino wrote. “DO NOT AS YET ACCEPT THE NECEDAH STORY AS TRUE. WAIT UNTIL THE ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITIES HAVE DECIDED ON THE CASE.”
As it turned out, Fortino’s words were almost prophetic. In June 1955, Bishop John Treacy of the Diocese of La Crosse officially rejected Van Hoof’s visions.“Because of the continued promotion of the claims made by Mrs. Mary A. Van Hoof of Necedah, Wis., we, by virtue of our authority as bishop of the diocese of La Crosse, hereby declare that all claims regarding supernatural revelations and visions made by the aforementioned Mrs. Van Hoof are false. Further more, all public and private religious worship connected with these false claims is prohibited at Necedah, Wis.” As early as August 1950, Bishop Treacy had said Van Hoof’s claims “are of extremely doubtful nature.”
Father Victor Fortino urged David Hanneman: “be very careful.”
Father Fortino may have suspected the Necedah claims would turn out to be false, but he wrote that some good could come from the gathering that week in 1950 no matter what. “It seemed to me that Our Lady brought us together for Her own good purposes,” Fortino wrote. “What She intends for us, I do not know. But I hope that much good will come out of our chance meeting and our mutual experience in Necedah.”
Despite the controversy over Van Hoof and her claims, the Hanneman family maintained strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Carl and Ruby Hanneman kept a beautiful porcelain statue of the Blessed Mother in their Mauston home. After their deaths that statue found a place at David Hanneman’s residence in Sun Prairie. And it sat in front of the altar at his funeral Mass on April 19, 2007.
During his nearly six decades as a pharmacist, Carl F. Hanneman got to know a lot of people. He forged good relationships with the many sales reps who called on him at the Mauston Drug Store. Some came to dinner at the Hanneman home, and a few even stayed at the house while in town. One of the long-lasting perks he received from Parke, Davis and Company was a stunning set of lithographs depicting the history of pharmacy. More than 30 prints still exist from Carl’s 1950s collection.
Parke-Davis commissioned artist Robert Thom to produce 40 illustrations for the series, “A History of Pharmacy in Pictures.” Each print came with a history article that explained the depicted scene and its place in history. Launched in 1957, the series was developed in cooperation with the Institute for the History of Pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin. Druggists were encouraged to display the artwork in their stores.
The series depicted such early topics as scientist Galen in the second century to later developments such as chemotherapy, antibiotics and pharmaceutical research. Parke Davis also commissioned Thom to paint a series of illustrations on the history of medicine. Thom (1915-1979) was well known as an illustrator of historical subjects, including great moments in baseball and the history of Illinois and Michigan.
The paintings from Carl Hanneman’s collection are in the gallery below, including the explanatory text from each image.
— This post has been updated with additional Thom paintings.
Man learned early of the prestigious advantage of trademarks as a means of identification of source and of gaining customers’ confidence. One of the first therapeutic agents to bear such a mark was Terra Sigillata (Sealed Earth), a clay tablet originating on the Mediterranean island of Lemnos before 500 B.C. One day each year clay was dug from a pit on a Lemnian hillside in the presence of governmental and religious dignitaries. Washed, refined, rolled to a mass of proper thickness, the clay was formed into pastilles and impressed with an official seal by priestesses, then sun-dried. The tablets were then widely distributed commercially.
In the evolution of all successful and enduring systems of knowledge there comes a time when the observations of many men, or the intensive studies of one, transcend from the level of trade or vocation to that of a science. Pedanios Dioscorides (first century A.D.), contributed mightily to such a transition in Pharmacy. In order to study materia medica, Dioscorides accompanied the Roman armies throughout the known world. He recorded what he observed, promulgated excellent rules for collection of drugs, their storage and use. His texts were considered basic science as late as the sixteenth century.
Of the men of ancient times whose names are known and revered among both the professions of Pharmacy and Medicine, Galen, undoubtedly, is the foremost. Galen (130-200 A.D.) practiced and taught both Pharmacy and Medicine in Rome; his principles of preparing and compounding medicines ruled in the Western world for 1,500 years; and his name still is associated with that class of pharmaceuticals compounded by mechanical means – galenicals. He was the originator of the formula for a cold cream, essentially similar to that known today. Many procedures Galen originated have their counterparts in today’s modern compounding laboratories.
Twinship of the health professions, Pharmacy and Medicine, is nowhere more strikingly portrayed than by Damian, the apothecary, and Cosmas, the physician. Twin brothers of Arabian descent, and devout Christians, they offered the solace of religion as well as the benefit of their knowledge to the sick who visited them. Their twin careers were cut short in the year 303 by martyrdom. For centuries their tomb in the Syrian city of Cyprus was a shrine. Churches were built in their honor in Rome and other cities. After canonization, they became the patron saints of Pharmacy and Medicine, and many miracles were attributed to them.
During the Middle Ages remnants of the Western knowledge of Pharmacy and Medicine were preserved in the monasteries (fifth to twelfth centuries). These scientists are known to have been taught in the cloisters as early as the seventh century. Manuscripts from many islands were translated or copied for monastery libraries. The monks gathered herbs and simples in the field, or raised them in their own herb gardens. These they prepared according to the art of the apothecary for the benefit of the sick and injured. Gardens such as these still may be found in monasteries in many countries.
The Arabs separated the arts of apothecary and physician, establishing in Bagdad late in the eighth century the first privately owned drug stores. They preserved much of the Greco-Roman wisdom, added to it, developing with the aid of their natural resources syrups, confections, conserves, distilled waters and alcoholic liquids. The apothecary is examining logs of sandalwood offered by a traveling merchant, while children indulge their taste for sweets with stalks of sugar cane. When the Moslems swept across Africa, Spain and southern France, they carried with them a new pattern of Pharmacy which western Europe soon assimilated.
Among the brilliant contributors to the sciences of Pharmacy and Medicine during the Arabian era was one genius who seems to stand for his time – the Persian, Ibn Sina (about 980-1037 A.D.), called Avicenna by the Western world. Pharmacist, poet, physician, philosopher and diplomat, Avicenna was an intellectual giant, a favorite of Persian princes and rulers. He wrote in Arabic, often while secluded in the home of an apothecary friend. His pharmaceutical teachings were accepted as authority in the West until the 17th century; and still are dominant influences in the Orient.
In European countries exposed to Arabian influence, public pharmacies began to appear in the 17th century. However, it was not until about 1240 A.D. that, in Sicily and southern Italy, Pharmacy was separated from Medicine. Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, who was Emperor of Germany as well as King of Sicily, was a living link between Oriental and Occidental worlds. At his palace in Palermo, he presented subject Pharmacists with the first European edict completely separating their responsibilities from those of Medicine, and prescribing regulations for their professional practice.
The idea of a pharmacopoeia with official status, to be followed by all apothecaries, originated in Florence. The Nuovo Receptario, originally written in Italian, was published and became the legal standard for the city-state in 1498. It was the result of collaboration of the Guild of Apothecaries and the Medical Society – one of the earliest manifestations of constructive interprofessional relations. The professional groups received official advice and guidance from the powerful Dominican monk, Savonarola, (seated, foreground) who, at the time, was the political leader in Florence.
Trade in drugs and spices was lucrative in the Middle Ages. In the British Isles, it was monopolized by the Guild of Grocers, which had jurisdiction over the apothecaries. After years of effort, the apothecaries found allies among court physicians. King James I, flanked by two “Beefeaters” wore heavily padded attire because of fear of stabbing. Upon persuasion by the philosopher-politician, Francis Bacon, the King granted a charter in 1617 which formed a separate company known as the “Master, Wardens and Society of the Art and Mystery of the Apothecaries of the City of London” over vigorous protests of the grocers. This was the first organization of pharmacists in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Young Parisian Apothecary Louis Hébert answered the call of the New World in 1605, when he helped de Monts and Champlain build New France’s first settlement, the Habitation, at Port Royal (Nova Scotia, Canada). Hébert looked after the health of the pioneers, cultivated native drug plants, and supervised the gardens. At the waterfront, he examined specimens of drug plants offered by Micmac Indians. These included Arum, (Jack-in-the-Pulpit), Eupatorium (Boneset), Verbascum (Mullein), and Hydrastis (Golden Seal). When the Habitation was destroyed by the English in 1613, he returned to his Parisian apothecary shop. The lure of Canada was strong, however, and in 1617, he and the family returned with Champlain to Quebec, where Hébert’s “green thumb” gained him lasting fame as the first successful farmer in what is now Canada.
Many Europeans “of quality and wealth, particularly those who were non-conformists in religion” were attracted to the possibilities of the American Colonies. From Britain came John Winthrop, first Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony and founder of Boston. Governor Winthrop, unable to induce professionals to the Colony, sought advice from English apothecaries and physicians, and added to his small store of imported drugs those derived from plants native to New England. In his home (about 1640), he made available as best he could the “art and mystery” of the apothecary for his citizens.
Christopher Marshall, an Irish immigrant, established his apothecary shop in Philadelphia in 1729. During 96 years, this pioneer pharmaceutical enterprise became a leading retail store, nucleus of large-scale chemical manufacturing; a “practical” training school for pharmacists; an important supply depot during the Revolution; and finally, it was managed by granddaughter Elizabeth, America’s first woman pharmacist. Christopher earned the title of “The fighting Quaker” during the Revolution; his sons, Charles and Christopher, Jr., (shown as youths with their father, about 1754) earned individual fame and carried on his fine traditions.
Colonial America’s first hospital (Pennsylvania) was established in Philadelphia in 1751; the first Hospital Pharmacy began operations there in 1752, temporarily set up in the Kinsey house, which served until the first hospital building was completed. The ingenuity of Benjamin Franklin was helpful in both. First Hospital Pharmacist was Jonathan Roberts; but it was his successor, John Morgan, whose practice as a hospital pharmacist (1755-56), and whose impact upon Pharmacy and Medicine influenced changes that were to become of importance to the development of professional pharmacy in North America. First as pharmacist, later as physician, he advocated prescription writing and championed independent practice of two professions.
During his few short years, Carl Wilhelm Scheele gave to the world discoveries that have brought its people incalculable advantages. Yet he never forgot that he was, first of all, a pharmacist. Encouraged by enlightened preceptors, all of his discoveries were made in the Swedish pharmacists in which he worked, as apprentice, as clerk, and finally as owner, in Köping. He began in a corner of the stock room of Unicorn Apothecary in Gothenburg. With rare genius, he made thousands of experiments, discovered oxygen, chlorine, prussic acid, tartaric acid, tungsten, molybdenum, glycerin, nitroglycerin, and countless other organic compounds that enter into today’s daily life, industry, health, and comfort.
The first man to hold the rank of a commissioned pharmaceutical officer in an American army was the Bostonian apothecary, Andrew Craigie. His duties included procurement, storage, manufacture and distribution of the Army’s drug requirements. He also developed an early wholesaling and manufacturing business.
Swedish pharmacist Scheele paved the way for isolating organic plant acids; but it remained for a young German apothecary, Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner, to give the world opium’s chief narcotic principle, morphine; and to recognize and prove the importance of a new class of organic substances: alkaloids. His first announcements challenged, Sertürner in 1816 conducted a new series of bold, startling experiments in his apothecary shop in Einbeck, including a series of physiologic tests on himself and three young friends. Recognition and fame followed. Relocating in an apothecary shop in Hameln, Sertürner continued organic chemical experimentation and discovery throughout his life.
Taking their cue from Sertürner’s alkaloidal experiments, two French pharmacists, Messrs. Pierre-Joseph Pelletier and Joseph-Bienaimé Caventou, isolated emetine from ipecacuanha in 1817; strychnine and brucine from nux vomica in 1818; then, in their laboratory in the back of a Parisian apothecary shop, they tackled the problem that had baffled scientists for decades – wresting the secrets of the Peruvian barks that were so useful against malaria. In 1820 Caventou and Pelletier announced the methods for separation of quinine and cinchonine from the cinchona barks; prepared pure salts, had them tested clinically, and set up manufacturing facilities. Many other discoveries came from their pharmacy-laboratory; high honors were accorded them.
Faced with two major threats; deterioration of the practice of pharmacy, and a discriminatory classification by the University of Pennsylvania medical faculty, the pharmacists of Philadelphia held a tempestuous protest meeting in Carpenters’ Hall, February 23, 1821. At a second meeting, March 13, the pharmacists voted formation of: an association, which became The Philadelphia College of Pharmacy; a school of pharmacy; and a self-policing board. Sixty- eight pharmacists signed the Constitution of the first pharmaceutical association in the United States; American Pharmacy’s first educational institution, bearing the same name, opened November 9.
First U.S. industry in medicinal herbs was carried on by the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, commonly known as the Shakers. Begun about 1820, and commercially important by 1830, the medicinal herb industry grew, hit its peak in the 1860’s, then waned at the close of the century. The Shakers gathered or cultivated some 200 varieties; dried, chopped, and pressed them into “bricks”; wrapped, labeled, and sold them to pharmacists and physicians world-wide. Tons of solid and fluid extracts also were produced. The Shaker label was recognized for reliability and quality for more than a century.
Need for better intercommunication among pharmacists; standards for education and apprenticeship; and quality control of imported drugs, led to calling of a convention of representative pharmacists in the Hall of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, October 6 to 8, 1852. Under leadership of its first President, Daniel B. Smith, and first Secretary, William Procter, Jr., the twenty delegates launched The American Pharmaceutical Association; mapped its objectives; and opened membership to “All pharmaceutists and druggists” of good character who subscribed to its Constitution and to its Code of Ethics. The Association continues to serve Pharmacy today.
Over the years, no real discord has existed between representatives of European and American Pharmacy so far as ethical and scientific aims are concerned. But when the groups met for the first time, at the Second International Congress of Pharmacy in Paris, France, August 21 to 24, 1867, there was a great divergence of opinion on the subject of compulsory limitation of pharmacies. William Procter, Jr., leading the delegates of The American Pharmaceutical Association, told the international body that “Public opinion is in America a forceful agent of reform,” and that, in his country, “there is not the slightest obstacle toward a multiplication of drug stores save that a lack of success.” His declaration vividly documented the American Way of Pharmacy.
Rarely has a titular distinction been so deserved. William Procter, Jr., graduated from The Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1837; operated a retail pharmacy; served the College as Professor of Pharmacy for 20 years; was a leader in founding The American Pharmaceutical Association; served that organization as its first secretary; later, as its president; served 30 years on the U.S.P. Revision Committee; was for 22 years Editor of the American Journal of Pharmacy. In 1869, though retired, Procter continued to edit the Journal in a small publication office located beside the College’s Tenth Street building. From retirement he returned to P.C.P.’s chair of Pharmacy in1872; literally died “in the harness,” in 1874.
When Dr. Albert B. Prescott launched the pharmacy course at the University of Michigan in 1868, critical attention was aroused because he abandoned the traditional requirement of pregraduation apprenticeship. At the 1871 convention of the American Pharmaceutical Association, he was denied credentials and ostracized. However, the Michigan course pioneered other major changes: laboratory pharmacy, a definite curriculum that included basic sciences, and a program that demanded students’ full-time attention. During the next thirty years, Dr. Prescott had the satisfaction of seeing his once revolutionary innovations generally adopted by pharmaceutical faculties.
The first “United States Pharmacopoeia” (1820) was the work of the medical profession. It was the first book of drug standards from a professional source to have achieved a nation’s acceptance. In 1877, the “U.S.P.” was in danger of dissolution due to the lack of interest of the medical profession. Dr. Edward R. Squibb, manufacturing pharmacist as well as physician, took the problem to The American Pharmaceutical Association convention. Pharmacists formed a “Committee on Revision” chairmanned by hospital pharmacist Charles Rice, assisted by pharmacist-educator Joseph P. Remington, and by Dr. Squibb, their indefatigable collaborator. The “U.S. Pharmacopoeia” surged to new importance.
Despite the professional skill and integrity of 19th-century pharmacists, seldom did two preparations of vegetable drugs have the same strength, even though prepared by identical processes. Plant drugs varied widely in active alkaloidal and glucosidal content. The first answer to this problem came when Parke, Davis & Company introduced standardized “Liquor Ergotae Purificatus” in 1879. Dr. Albert Brown Lyons, as the firm’s Chief Chemist, further developed methods of alkaloidal assay. Messrs. Parke and Davis recognized the value of his work, and in 1883, announced a list of twenty standardized “normal liquids.” Parke-Davis also pioneered in developing pharmacologic and physiologic standards for pharmaceuticals.
Scientific explorers opened vast new horizons for Pharmacy late in the 19th century. Sent in 1885 to Peru, Dr. Henry H. Rusby crossed South America amid incredible hardships. He returned with 45,000 botanical specimens, including Cocillana Bark.
The French retail pharmacist, Stanislas Limousin, introduced many devices to Pharmacy and Medicine. His greatest contributions were invention of glass ampoules, the medicine dropper, and apparatus for inhalation of oxygen.
Biological products (made from micro-organisms) got their discovery of diphtheria antitoxin by the German, Behring, in 1894. Pharmaceutical manufacturers since have constantly improved serums, antitoxins and vaccines, which have saved countless lives.
One of the successful researchers in the development of new chemical compounds specifically created to fight disease-causing organisms in the body was the French pharmacist, Ernest Francois Auguste Fourneau (1872-1949), who for 30 years headed chemical laboratories in the world-renowned Institut Pasteur, in Paris. His early work with bismuth and arsenic compounds advanced the treatment of syphilis. He broke the German secret of a specific for sleeping sickness; paved the way for the life-saving sulfonamide compounds; and from his laboratories came the first group of chemicals having recognized antihistaminic properties. His work led other investigators to broad fields of chemotherapeutic research.
Research in some form has gone hand in hand with the development of Pharmacy through the ages. However, it was the chemical synthesis of antipyrine in 1883 that gave impetus and inspiration for intensive search for therapeutically useful compounds. Begun by the Germans, who dominate the field until World War I, the lead in pharmaceutical research passed thereafter to the United States. Research in Pharmacy came into its own in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s; has grown steadily since, supported by pharmaceutical manufactures, universities, and government. Today it used techniques and trained personnel from every branch of science in the unending search for new life-saving and life-giving drug products.
Pharmaceutical manufacturing as an industry apart from retail Pharmacy had its beginnings about 1600; really got under way in the middle 1700’s. It developed first in Germany, then in England and in France. In America, it was the child of wars – born in the Revolution; grew rapidly during and following the Civil War; became independent of Europe during World War I; came of age during and following World War II. Utilizing latest technical advances from every branch of science, manufacturing Pharmacy economically develops and produces the latest and greatest in drugs in immense quantities, so that everywhere physicians may prescribe them and pharmacists dispense them for the benefit of all mankind.
Antibiotics are not new. Their actions probably were first observed by Pasteur in 1877. However, the second quarter of the 20th century marked the flowering of the antibiotic era – a new and dramatic departure in the production of disease-fighting drugs. Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in 1929 went undeveloped and Florey and Chain studied it in 1940. Under pressure of World War II, the pharmaceutical manufacturers rapidly adapted mass production methods to penicillin; have reduced costs to 1/1000th the original. Antibiotic discoveries came rapidly in the ’40’s. Intensive research continues to find antibiotics that will conquer more of men’s microbial enemies.
Pharmacy, with its heritage of 50 centuries of service to mankind, has come to be recognized as of the great professions. Like Medicine, it has come through many revolutions, has learned many things, has had to discard many of its older ways. Pharmacists are among the community’s finest educated people. When today’s retail pharmacist fills a prescription written by a physician, he provides a professional service incorporating the benefits of the work of pharmacists in all branches of the profession – education, research, development, standards, production, and distribution. Pharmacy’s professional stature will continue to grow in the future as this great heritage and tradition of service is passed on from preceptor to apprentice, from teacher to student, from father to son.
Her look of delight really tells the whole story. Little Jane Patricia Hanneman, beholding a cake on her third birthday, shows a priceless expression. She celebrated her birthday in October 1958 with her paternal grandparents, Carl F. Hanneman (1901-1982) and Ruby V. Hanneman (1904-1977) at their home in Mauston, Wisconsin. In the background of the photo is her aunt and my Mom, Mary K. Hanneman. She could not have known it at the time, but Jane’s birthday falls on the same date as the 1819 wedding of her great-great-great grandparents, Matthias Hannemann and Caroline (Kuehl) Hannemann. The couple were married at Meesow, Regenwalde, Pomerania.
My Dad, David D. Hanneman, also shot some 8mm film at the celebration, which can be viewed below:
In the first half of the 20th century, druggists in America were often called on to literally fill prescriptions, placing medications into gelatin capsules and then counting out the order. Mauston pharmacist Carl F. Hanneman was very efficient at the task. Maybe too much so, opined The Mauston Star in a rather humorous article in December 1953.
“Joe Dziewior and this muser, watching ‘pestle and mortar’ Carl Hanneman throw a prescription together the other evening, now know why pill or capsule counting machines not not necessary to the registered pharmacist,” read the article on December 11, 1953. “With bottle in hand, Carl was pouring capsules into his hands and counting them faster than an adding machine.”
Carl F. Hanneman taking his suits to the cleaner at Janesville, Wis., on April 5, 1926. Carl and his wife, Ruby V. Hanneman, were on their way to dinner. Carl was a druggist at McCue & Buss Drug Co. at the time. He later moved to Mauston, Wis.
Carl was the registered pharmacist at the Mauston Drug Store on Division Street in Mauston. He had been the druggist there since moving his young family to Mauston in 1936 from Wisconsin Rapids. A graduate of Marquette University, Carl started as an assistant pharmacist, but obtained his full registered pharmacist license in the 1940s.
“After watching him for some time, we entertained a doubt as to the accuracy of the counts and Joe was inclined to agree with us,” the article continued. “But Carl said he could count pills time on end and whistle a tune at the same time, and still come out the a correct count. ‘Come, come, Carl!’ we exclaimed. ‘Isn’t that pulling our leg a bit?'”
Judging by Carl F. Hanneman’s vials from McCue & Buss Drug Co., registered pharmacists packaged both pre-made pills and medicine capsules.
Carl told the men a story of a “kindly old lady” who regularly came in for prescriptions and doubted the counts doled out by the druggist. “It never failed, but that after we wrapped up her prescription, she’d sit in the chair out there, undo the package and count the pills in the box,” Hanneman said. “To this day, she hasn’t demanded a recount!”
The article concluded: “Maybe registered pharmacists should be made ballot clerks. Recounts wouldn’t be necessary!”
While scanning my grandfather’s old slide collection, I came across two stray images from 1957 marked “Gein’s House.” I couldn’t get the slides on the scanner bed fast enough. It turns out the photos were indeed of the ramshackle farm house of the notorious killer and grave robber, Ed Gein.
For Carl F. Hanneman, the trip to Plainfield would have been a minor detour on one of the family’s many trips from Mauston to Wisconsin Rapids, Wis. He, like thousands of other Wisconsinites in the late fall of 1957, just had to see for himself the home where the unimaginable occurred from 1945 to 1957. For in that decrepit structure at the corner of Acher and 2nd avenues a few miles southwest of Plainfield, the handyman bachelor Gein committed unspeakable acts.
The boarded-up house of Plainfield handyman Ed Gein, who robbed nearby graves and made macabre souvenirs from the stolen remains. The house was burned to the ground by an arsonist in March 1958. (Carl F. Hanneman photo)
The day of Gein’s undoing came on November 16, 1957, the opening day of the gun deer hunting season in Wisconsin. Gein made the trip into Plainfield to buy some anti-freeze at Worden’s hardware store. While there, he took a .22-caliber rifle from the store display and shot to death the owner, Bernice Worden, 58. After slitting her throat, he dragged her body out the back and put it into a truck. Later that day, sheriff’s deputies from several counties were searching for Worden, a well-known local who had run the Plainfield hardware store since her husband’s death in 1931.
Gein’s car had been spotted in the village that day, so police twice stopped at his 160-acre farmstead to talk to him. He wasn’t home. On the second trip, Waushara County Sheriff Arthur Schley peered into a shed that Gein used as a summer kitchen and was shocked. “My God, there she is!” he shouted. There was the body of Worden, hung upside down by the ankles, gutted and dressed out like a deer ready for the butcher. “There was a body hanging in the woodshed by the ankles,” said Captain Lloyd Schoephoester of the nearby Green Lake County sheriff’s department. “Tendons in the ankles had been cut and a rod and been placed through them. The body was drawn up in the air by a block and tackle. The body was dressed out and the head was missing.” Sheriff Schley went outside and vomited.
Police found the remains of nearly a dozen women in Ed Gein’s farmhouse near the village of Plainfield, Wis.Worden’s head was later found in a burlap sack nearby. Her internal organs were in a bucket. If that sight wasn’t enough to sicken responding police, a search of Gein’s home would put them over the edge. Inside the filthy and cluttered home they found five human heads wrapped in plastic bags, four skulls and 10 “death masks” made by removing the face and hair from a human head. “Some of them have lipstick on and look perfectly natural,” said Wood County sheriff’s deputy Dave Sharkey. “It you knew them, you’d be able to recognize them.”
There was more. Police found chairs and lampshades fashioned from human skin, four human noses, two sets of lips, a belt made of female nipples, and a collection of female genitals. Two of the vulvas in Gein’s collection belonged to teenage girls, and authorities concluded he likely murdered these girls. On the stove was a saucepan containing a human heart, later identified as belonging to Worden. There was a wastebasket made from skin, and skulls fastened to Gein’s bedposts. Bowls were made from the tops of human skulls.
At first, police thought they might be dealing with a prolific serial killer. After his arrest, Gein admitted killing Bernice Worden, but he said the grotesque artifacts in his home were from grave-robbing visits he made to the nearby Plainfield Cemetery, the Spiritland Cemetery in Portage County and the Hancock Cemetery in the Town of Hancock. Gein also admitted shooting and killing Portage County tavern keeper Mary Hogan on December 8, 1954. Her face was found among Gein’s collection of death masks.
Police were not initially inclined to believe Gein’s tales of grave robbing. On November 25, 1957, they exhumed the caskets of Eleanor Adams and Mabel Everson at Plainfield Cemetery. Both caskets were empty. In the soil above one casket they found dentures and a wedding ring. That was enough to convince police that Gein was indeed a grave robber. He told authorities he made the moonlight grave-robbing visits while in a daze. On some occasions, he awoke from the daze and stopped what he was doing. He said his grave robbing occurred between 1947 and 1952. He said he returned some bodies to their graves after experiencing remorse. Police did not dig up other graves, and ultimately don’t know just how many caskets Gein might have opened.
When interviewed by Wisconsin State Crime Lab officials, Gein said he would dress up with the women’s body parts. He would wear a death mask, a tanned skin shirt including women’s breasts, and a vagina placed over his own genitals, covered by a pair of panties. He would go out in the moonlight and prance about the farmyard in this sick getup. Although Gein was not a deer hunter, he was known to have given packages of “venison” to people in the community, who became sickened after Gein’s arrest at their unwitting cannibalism. Authorities became convinced that Gein practiced cannibalism, among his other grotesque crimes.
After a brief court hearing in January 1958, Gein was committed to the Wisconsin Central State Hospital for the criminally insane at Waupun, where he remained for 10 years. In early 1968, Circuit Court Judge Robert H. Gollmar ruled Gein was able to stand trial for the murder of Bernice Worden. In a November 1968 bench trial, Gein was convicted of first-degree murder for Worden’s death, but in a separate hearing found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was sent back to Waupun. He later was moved to the Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison, where he died of cancer on July 26, 1984. He was buried next to his mother in the same Plainfield Cemetery that he plundered.
Gein suffered from schizophrenia. The death of his mother on December 29, 1945 apparently pushed him over the edge. Doctors said he had an unnatural Oedipus complex attachment to Augusta Gein. The women he killed and the graves he robbed represented substitutes for his mother. The women were plump and middle aged, doctors said. Gein had nursed his mother through two paralytic strokes. Gein’s father George died on April 1, 1940. His brother Henry was found dead after a marsh fire on the Gein property on May 16, 1944. It is widely believed that Gein killed his brother.
Based on the Worden convinction and Gein’s admission to killing Mary Hogan, Gein could not be considered a serial killer. But he was suspected of killing at least four other people. The teenage genitals found in his farmhouse might have belonged to Evelyn Hartley, 15, of La Crosse, and Georgia Jean Weckler, 8, of Fort Atkinson. Hartley disappeared in October 1953 and Weckler was abducted in May 1947. Neither crime was ever solved and the girls’ bodies were never found. In his 1982 book on the Gein case, Judge Gollmar wrote that if Gein did not kill these girls, then the abducted and killed two runaways, since his grave-robbing could not explain the presence of genitals belonging to young girls in Gein’s home. Gollmar also wrote that Gein might have killed two men who disappeared after visiting a Plainfield tavern. The disappearances of Victor Travis and a male companion were never solved. Travis’ jacket and his dog were found near the Gein farm, and neighbors noted a stench coming from Gein’s garden at the time.
Gein’s gruesome story created a cottage industry in macabre spinoffs. It was the inspiration for the book Psycho by Robert Bloch. The book was adapted into the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name. Gein was said to be the inspiration for fictional characters in films including The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Silence of the Lambs.
The Hanneman family has one link to Plainfield other than the photos of Gein’s house snapped by Carl Hanneman. Lisetta (Treutel) Moody (1861-1931), aunt of Ruby Hanneman, moved her family to Plainfield after living in Vesper in Wood County. She and her husband, Lewis Winfield Moody, are buried at Plainfield Cemetery. She testified at the trial of Frank Hinz after the 1902 shootout between the Moody and Hinz families.
This post has been updated with details from the 1982 book on Gein by Circuit Judge Robert H. Gollmar. The book, Edward Gein: America’s Most Bizarre Murderer, is a fascinating insider’s account of the Gein case.
Before embarking on his long sales career, David D. Hanneman (1933-2007) briefly owned and operated a Standard Oil gasoline station at the corner of Union and State streets in Mauston, Wisconsin. Newly discovered color slides show Hanneman working at the Standard station, most likely in the summer of 1951 after his graduation from Mauston High School.
David D. Hanneman poses outside of his Standard Oil station in Mauston in 1951.
The photos show a dapper young attendant (think Clark Kent) posed outside the station, leaning on the soda cooler. Another image shows him cleaning the windshield of a customer’s auto, part of the “full service” treatment that disappeared long ago. The station featured the classic pumps that delivered Red Crown regular and White Crown premium gasoline.
During the 1950s, Standard Oil was the dominant domestic oil company in the United States. Its torch-and-oval logo was instantly recognizable to millions of Americans (even after Standard became Amoco). The Mauston Standard station stood at the busiest intersection in the city. A Kwik Trip station occupies the land today.
Detail shows “Hanneman” on the north side of the Standard Station.
After owning and managing the station, Hanneman realized the job was not for him. He went on to take classes at La Crosse State (now called University of Wisconsin-La Crosse) and worked as a salesman at Dahl Motors in La Crosse, before his career in pharmaceutical and veterinary medical sales.
The Hanneman Archive 