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!”
There he was, front and center in the photograph, holding the championship trophy. My Dad, David D. Hanneman and his 8th grade Mauston teammates had just won the 12-team basketball tournament held at Wonewoc in the spring of 1947. It was no small feat, considering the competition from Camp Douglas, Cazenovia, Elroy, Kendall, Lavalle, Necedah, New Lisbon, Ontario, Reedsburg, Union Center and Wonewoc.
The Mauston 8th grade boys basketball team won the 1947 Wonewoc tournament.
The championship team photo includes, rear, left to right: Coach Bob Erickson, Bill Cowan, Morris Murray, Bernard Pelton, Gaylord Nichols, Tom Rowe and Coach Doug McKenzie. Front row, left to right includes: Harold Webster, Bob Firlus, David Hanneman, Bob Beck, Bob Randall and Whitey Post. Although the photo does not show jersey numbers, Dave wore No. 1 that day.
The 12 teams and players were listed on the event program from 1947.
Occasionally prints of this photo will appear on eBay, erroneously listing the team as from Wonewoc. That is understandable given how the photo was hand labeled, but to be clear, the winners were from Mauston.
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.
The 1947 football campaign was destined to be one for the ages at Mauston High School. The photo gallery below could be from that championship season, based on the youthful appearance of my Dad, David D. Hanneman (1933-2007). Dad was a starter for the Mauston Bluegold, even in his freshman year.
David D. Hanneman (center) played tackle, guard and on occasion, running back, for Mauston High School during the 1947-50 football seasons.
Dad played guard and tackle throughout his high school football career. But as is the case on small-town football teams, boys play both offense and defense. Many of the players would switch positions, depending on the opponent and game conditions.
Mauston ran up a 7-1 record in the 1947 football campaign, gaining them a share of the West Central Conference championship crown. Mauston was 3-1 in conference play. Midway through the season, Mauston ranked as one of the state’s highest-scoring teams. Here’s the 1947 season recap:
Sept. 12 Mauston 12, Reesdburg 0
Sept. 19 Mauston 25, Middleton 6
Sept. 26, Mauston 20, New Lisbon 12
Oct. 3, Mauston 13, Tomah 0
Oct. 10, Mauston 45, Westby 6
Oct. 17 Sparta 14, Mauston 7
Oct. 24 Mauston 37, New Lisbon 0
Nov. 1 Mauston 13, Viroqua 0
Dave Hanneman (at right) in one of his early years in Mauston football.
Bob “Jigger” Jagoe, who played quarterback for Mauston starting in the 1948 season, recalls how Dave’s mother, Ruby V. Hanneman, was zealous in her cheering.
You could hear her in the stands, shouting. She was so proud. Of course we used to kind of make a mockery of it, because she was so adamant, letting everybody know who her son was out there who made the tackle. They announced, ‘Tackle made by Dave Hanneman’ and she said, ‘That’s my Davey!’
In the 1950s, home football games were played at Veterans Memorial Park on the south end of Mauston. This locale looks much closer to downtown, so I’m betting these 1940s games were played in Riverside Park along the Lemonweir River. In several of the photos you can see the distant spire of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church.
— This post has been updated with quotes and other information.
Dave Hanneman can be seen in the last row at left, second in from Coach McKenzie. Bob Jagoe is on his left. Front and center (91) is Dick Hale.
Mauston coach Doug McKenzie and players follow the on-field action.
A great view of the crowd at Riverside Park in Mauston.
It’s not clear if this galloping ghost is David D. Hanneman. He usually played at the line.
The Mauston Bluegold huddle before the play.
This appears to be a victory celebration.
Game action from this 1947 football contest at Mauston.
A good look at the spectators at Riverside Park. Recognize anyone?
Game action from this 1947 football contest at Mauston.
Dad’s conference crown medal from the 1947 championship season.
Another group shot of the team. On this one, Dave Hanneman (back row left, second from coach) has his tongue sticking out. Front and center (91) is Dick Hale.
A U.S. Navy recruit, probably a graduate of Mauston High School, watches the action.
A Mauston game program from September 1950. Note the team plays at Veterans Park instead of Riverside as in earlier years.
I just learned with sadness of the death of my Dad’s older brother, Donn Gene Hanneman, who died in Minneapolis at age 88. Uncle Donn was the last of the Mauston Hanneman family to pass away. My Dad, David D. Hanneman, died in 2007 at age 74.
I have many memories of my uncle. He was foremost the father of nine wonderful human beings, my cousins Diane, Caroline, Tom, Jane, Mary Ellen, John, Jim, Nancy and Thomas Patrick (March 1-4, 1949). The cousins were raised by a saintly mother, my aunt Elaine Hanneman.
Donn G. Hanneman
Donn was a veteran of World War II and served as a seaman-second class on the USS Hoggatt Bay. The USS Hoggatt Bay (CVE-75) was a Casablanca-class escort carrier (crew of 860) commissioned in December 1943.
Donn G. Hanneman lounges outside his Grandpa Treutel’s home in Vesper, Wisconsin.
Donn was born on August 20, 1926, in Wisconsin Rapids to Carl Henry Frank Hanneman (1901-1982) and the former Ruby Viola Treutel (1904-1977). In 1936, the Hanneman family moved to Mauston in Juneau County, where Carl took a job as a pharmacist attached to the Mauston hospital and clinic. By that time, my father had come along (March 1933). In August 1937, the family expanded to include Lavonne Marie Hanneman Wellman (1937-1986).
As a boy, Donn had his share of illnesses and injuries. He spent more than a week in the Marshfield hospital in September 1929, then returned there in April 1930. Just before my Dad was born in March 1933, Donn was hospitalized in Wisconsin Rapids for more than a week, after an operation for appendicitis.
Donn Gene Hanneman sits in an indoor baby swing at the Hanneman home in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, ca. 1927. Carl Hanneman was a pharmacist for the Staeben Drug Co. in Fond du Lac at the time.
Just after his 11th birthday in August 1937, Donn was standing on the running board of a moving vehicle while leaving the Juneau County Fairgrounds when he fell and suffered a head injury. He was seen at the Mauston clinic and taken home, but soon after “lost his power of speech and all consciousness,” according to an account in The Daily Tribune in Wisconsin Rapids. “He was then rushed to the hospital.” Donn was diagnosed with a concussion and put on two weeks of bed rest, although that was extended. The September 8 edition of The Daily Tribune said Donn “is making a satisfactory recovery, although he will be confined to his bed for two more weeks.”
Back in those days, a family’s every move ended up in the newspaper. In the case of the Hannemans, it was thanks to the faithful correspondence of Ruby Hanneman. “Mr. and Mrs. Carl Hanneman and little son Don Gene were completely taken by surprise last evening when forty friends arrived to give them a house warming on the occasion of moving into their new home on Hale Street,” the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune reported on April 8, 1932.
Some of the most charming photographs in our library are of a 5-year-old Donn dressed up as a cowboy playing with friends on the sidewalks on the 1200 block of Washington Avenue in Wisconsin Rapids. We detailed those photos in a previous post.
Donn in his cowboy threads at Wisconsin Rapids.
As a youth Donn enjoyed books, and collected enough that his father built him a bookcase that held up to 175 volumes. Carl wrote to my then 6-year-old father about it in August 1939. Dad was staying with an aunt and uncle in Waukegan, Illinois. “Say David, I made a book case for Donn for his birthday, and you know that you still have something coming,” Carl wrote, “so what would you like to have Dad make something for you too, if so tell mother and I will try to start it as soon as I can.”
Donn G. Hanneman with Sister Emeric Weber of St. Patrick’s Catholic Grade School, 1948.
For a time Donn attended St. Patrick’s Catholic Grade School in Mauston, then run by the Benedictine Sisters. He was among the graduates attending the school’s 100th anniversary in 1995. At the event, he ran into one of his teachers, Sister Emeric Weber, who was just 19 when she started teaching at St. Patrick’s.
“Sister Emeric, I’m sorry I’m late,” he quipped, to which the aged nun replied, “What’s your excuse now? What’s your excuse?”
Like his brother David and father Carl, Donn was a longtime Fourth-Degree member of the Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal and service organization. He most recently belonged to Council 1013 in Rochester, Minnesota.
There are many others better qualified to provide more recent stories about Donn. And even though he tossed my father through the bay window of their Mauston home when they were boys, my Dad didn’t hold it against him. When he was ill with cancer in the fall of 2006, Dad put it simply and succinctly: “He’s my brother and I love him.”
Donn G. Hanneman (center) in his U.S. Navy uniform, with sister Lavonne and brother David in 1944.
David D. Hanneman and older brother Donn G. Hanneman, circa 1935. Read more about the photo: http://wp.me/p4FxQb-v7
Donn G. Hanneman lounges outside his Grandpa Treutel’s home in Vesper, Wisconsin, circa 1930.
Donn G. Hanneman in the world’s smallest swimming pool.
Donn at the family home in Fond du Lac.
Donn Gene Hanneman, son of Carl F. Hanneman (1901-1982) and Ruby V. (Treutel) Hanneman (1904-1977), sits in an indoor baby swing at the Hanneman home in Fond du Lac, Wis, ca. 1927. Carl Hanneman was a pharmacist for the Staeben Drug Co. in Fond du Lac at the time.
Donn in his cowboy threads at Wisconsin Rapids.
Donn G. Hanneman wears a convincing looking police uniform, perhaps a Halloween costume.
Donn G. Hanneman looks like a lonely cowpoke with his wagon, circa 1930.
David D. Hanneman on the shoulders of brother Donn.
Donn G. Hanneman towers over his little sister, Lavonne Marie, circa 1941.
Donn G. Hanneman at the Mauston rail station, circa 1944.
Donn G. Hanneman in his U.S. Navy uniform in 1944.
Few things in the American experience are held so dear by so many as the parade. From the smallest rural towns to the heart of New York City, Americans have long held celebrations by parade.
Members of the American Legion prepare to march in a parade in Mauston, circa 1942.
Reasons for parades are as varied as the communities in which they take place. Perhaps the most widely celebrated type of parade is the Independence Day or July 4 parade. New York has its St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the famous Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The Left Coast has its parades of bacchanalia and pride. America’s heartland gathers for high school homecomings, Memorial Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving and special-themed parades such as the old Circus World parade in Milwaukee.
The Wisconsin Dells marching band parades down State Street in Mauston, circa 1942.
High school and college marching bands are a frequent source of parade entertainment. Other favorite parade participants include brigades of toddlers on tricycles, doll buggies pushed by little girls and the myriad parade floats and displays honoring the nation’s military.
Parades have long been used as a way to project military might, such as the goose-stepping Nazis of Germany or the show of ballistic missiles in Communist Russia. In America, ticker-tape parades became a favorite way to welcome home troops and war heroes such as Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Admiral Chester Nimitz. The original ticker-tape parade was held in New York to celebrate dedication of the Statue of Liberty. A memorable parade in summer 1969 honored the Apollo 11 astronauts.
David D. Hanneman prepares to ride a horse in a Mauston parade, circa 1942.
David D. Hanneman (at right) and other boy scouts before a parade in Mauston in the early 1940s.
Mauston Boy Scouts enter the parade line, circa 1943. The town’s military honor roll can be seen on the side of the building.
A marching band in downtown Mauston in the late 1960s.
A fire truck heads down the parade route in Mauston in the late 1960s.
Residents of Mauston, Wis., mill about the downtown area during a parade or community festival in the mid-1940s. Smith’s IGA market is visible across the street.
David D. Hanneman (1933-2007), a member of the Mauston High School Marching Band, poses outside his Mauston home in 1948. Hanneman, who later in life became mayor of Sun Prairie, Wis., played bass drum and trumpet.
The Mauston High School Marching Band performs in a parade in downtown Portage, Wis., ca. 1948. In the foreground is bass drummer David D. Hanneman (1933-2007) of Mauston.
Sun Prairie Mayor David D. Hanneman waits to enter the parade route in Sun Prairie, circa 2003.
Sun Prairie Mayor David D. Hanneman rides in a local parade, circa 2004.
David D. Hanneman in what appears to be a drum and bugle corps uniform, circa 1948.
The Mauston High School Band after leaving the football field during a homecoming game in the 1940s.
Newly digitized Sanborn Fire Insurance maps of Mauston, Wisconsin, provide more detail of the sprawling Mauston Brewery complex that once covered much of the land at the corner of Morris and Winsor streets along the Lemonweir River.
We previously wrote about the Mauston Brewery as detailed in a book by Mauston native Richard D. Rossin Jr. The Wisconsin Historical Society recently digitized hundreds of maps from the Sanborn Map Company that show intricate detail of the brewery complex. “Sanborn Fire Insurance maps are meticulously detailed, large-scale lithographed, color-keyed street maps,” the Wisconsin Historical Society wrote on its web site. “Sanborn Maps helped insurance agents in the late 19th and early 20th centuries determine the degree of fire hazard associated with a particular property.”
The 1894 fire map shows two Mauston Brewery buildings near the home at 22 Morris.
The old Hanneman home at 22 Morris Street was built around 1893 by Charles F. Miller, owner of the Mauston Brewery. Many of the details he put in the home — stained glass, hand-carved woodwork — remain to this day. The Sanborn maps show that the land around the home once included a bottling works and another out building related to the brewery. It is interesting that Morris Street is incorrectly labeled as Main Street on the 1894 version of the Sanborn map. By 1909, the bottling building near the Miller home was gone.
Across Winsor Street, the map shows a malt kiln, mash kettles, a well, a granary, an ice house and other outbuildings. The map notes that the buildings area heated by a wood stove, and a brewery employee sleeps in the building. The 1909 version of the Sanborn map shows addition of a second ice house on the shore of the Lemonweir River. Brewery workers cut ice blocks on the river in the winter, then moved them on a slide to the ice house.
The 1909 version of the map shows a second ice house near the river.
Charles Miller died in 1907, ending that family’s involvement in the brewery. Charles Ellison continued operating the brewery. By 1916, the brewery had ceased operation, according to Rossin’s book. A pickle factory started operation on the property, but it burned to the ground in 1922. Dr. J. Samuel Hess Jr. bought the land and built a brick ranch home in 1928.
Sometimes a photograph will strike you in a certain way that makes it memorable. It has some intangible quality that makes it almost timeless. Of the thousands of images in our library, a handful qualify for this kind of distinction. Not for their physical clarity or skill of the photographer, but that certain look. You might describe it just a bit like looking at a Rockwell painting, or a black and white photograph by Ansel Adams.
This image has a Little Rascals look and feel to it. Originally thought to be toddler Elaine Treutel and the family dog on her tricycle, circa 1922. Turns out this was actually one of the sons of Harry Cole.
View the whole collection in the gallery below:
Elaine Treutel poses with the family dog in this ca. 1923 photo near Vesper, Wis. Directly behind her is older sister Ruby V. Treutel. Sitting on the bumper of the car is father Walter Treutel (1879-1948). The others are unidentified.
This image has a Little Rascals look and feel to it. Toddler Elaine Treutel and the family dog on her tricycle, circa 1922.
David D. Hanneman with his toe in the sand at Madeline Island, circa 1942.
Ruby V. Treutel (center) relaxes with the Sunday paper near Milwaukee’s Juneau Park in 1924. Ruby was visiting her fiance, Carl F. Hanneman (1901-1982), who was studying pharmacy at Marquette University. At front is Ruby’s sister, Nina H. Treutel (1914-2005). The woman near the car is unidentified.
A formal portrait of Elaine Treutel of Vesper, Wis., circa 1938. Born in January 1920 to Walter and Mary (Ladick) Treutel of Vesper, Elaine attented Lincoln High School in Wisconsin Rapids. She married Max Clark in October 1938. The couple lived for many years in Madison, then relocated to suburban Phoenix, Arizona.
Frank Herman Albert Hanneman (1895-1947) of Grand Rapids, Wis., posed for this studio photo with a shotgun, ammunition belt and even a hunting dog. The photo was taken ca. 1909. Frank was the son of Carl Frederick Christian Hanneman (1866-1932) and Rosine B. H. Ostermann (1874-1918).
Nina Treutel of Vesper, Wis., is about 18 months old in this circa 1916 photograph. Nina’s parents are Walter Treutel and Mary Helen (Ladick) Treutel.
A beautiful portrait of Lavonne Hanneman, circa 1955.
Ruby Treutel poses for an informal photo, circa 1922.
Ruby Treutel with her siblings Marvin, Elaine and Nina, circa 1921.
Carl F. Hanneman’s high school portrait, 1921.
Lavonne and David Hanneman examine a monument on a vacation trip to South Dakota in 1947.
Ruby Treutel holds her baby brother Gordon, circa 1910. Gordon died of pneumonia in February 1911.
Patricia Treutel is having a great time on the tree swing, circa 1943.
We don’t have an ID on this beautiful young lady. Photo appears to be from 1920s.
David D. Hanneman watches over his little sister, Lavonne, circa 1938.
David D. Hanneman and sister Lavonne Marie Hanneman, circa 1942.
People often talk about getting 15 minutes of fame. For the late Carl F. Hanneman, it was closer to 15 seconds in a new Wisconsin Public Television documentary on Juneau County, Wisconsin.
Carl F. Hanneman filed this story with the Wisconsin State Journal on December 8, 1942.
The hourlong documentary, produced as part of Wisconsin Public Television’s Wisconsin Hometown Stories series, includes a section on the death of Governor-elect Orland S. Loomis of Mauston. Loomis died on December 7, 1942 after suffering a series of heart attacks. He was to be sworn into office in January 1943. As a local correspondent for the Wisconsin State Journal, Hanneman filed a story on December 8 detailing Mauston’s grief at the loss of their hometown hero. His news clipping was used as a graphic during the Loomis portion of the documentary.
Carl’s ties to Loomis went beyond the 1942 political obituary. On election night, November 3, 1942, he was one of the only photographers at Loomis’ home as the election results came in and Loomis was declared the winner over Gov. Julius P. Heil. Carl’s news photo ran above the fold on Page 1 of the State Journal on November 4, 1942.
Hanneman’s election-night photo taken at Loomis’ home in Mauston ran on Page 1 of the Wisconsin State Journal.
Hanneman (1901-1982) had known Loomis since about 1936, when Carl came to Mauston from Wisconsin Rapids to be a pharmacist for Dr. J. Samuel Hess Jr. He sought Loomis’ help in 1937 in obtaining his full licensure as a registered pharmacist (an upgrade from his existing license as an assistant pharmacist). At the time, Loomis was Wisconsin’s attorney general. Hanneman also worked to help elect Loomis as attorney general and governor. In recognition of his efforts, Loomis gave Hanneman a large pastel painting that once hung in his office at the state Capitol in Madison. The large-format pastel, weighing some 100 pounds in its hand-carved ornate frame, hung in the Hanneman home in Mauston and later in the home of Sun Prairie Mayor David D. Hanneman, Carl’s son.
Orland S. Loomis gave this painting to Carl F. Hanneman for his help on the gubernatorial election in 1942. It still hangs in the home of the late David D. Hanneman.
The fascinating Wisconsin Hometown Stories documentary, which first aired in April 2014 and is now available on DVD, covers much more than Loomis and his political career. It traces Juneau County’s history from its early days, when towns like Mauston sprung up around grist mills on the Lemonweir River. It details the county’s cranberry farms, the massive Necedah Wildlife Refuge, the heritage of the Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) Indians, creation of the huge manmade Petenwell Lake, and development of National Guard bases including Camp Williams and Volk Field.
Carl F. Hanneman befriended a young Tommy Thompson in 1966 when Thompson first ran for state office.
A prominent section of the documentary focuses on former Wisconsin Governor Tommy G. Thompson of Elroy. Thompson takes viewers on a tour of southern Juneau County where he grew up, including an old gas and grocery run by his father. Thompson served as Wisconsin’s 42nd governor from 1987 to 2001.
When he first ran for Wisconsin State Assembly in 1966, Thompson stopped in Mauston and met a pharmacist named Carl Hanneman. Carl was so impressed with the young lawyer from Elroy that he closed up shop for the afternoon and took Thompson all over Mauston, introducing him to other businessmen. From that day on, Hanneman always referred to him as “my friend Tommy Thompson.” It was a kindness Thompson never forgot.
Somehow the story of Carl’s early politicking for Thompson got left out of the Wisconsin Public Television documentary. Well, there’s only so much you can fit into an hour of television.
It wasn’t such a curious hobby, collecting rocks, but more in how it was done. Ruby Viola (Treutel) Hanneman (1904-1977), simply could not resist picking rocks up off the ground wherever she went. And judging by the facial expressions of those around her, it became somewhat of a family joke.
Lavonne Hanneman can’t resist laughing as her mother Ruby bends down to pick up rocks on a trip to South Dakota in 1947.
Rock collecting was certainly a Hanneman tradition. Uncle Wilbert G. Hanneman (1899-1987) had a rock shop up in Wausau, from which many a Hanneman child procured varieties of colorful, polished rocks. I have a bag of them to this day. Ruby liked to get her collectibles the old fashioned way, by finding them. She’d bend down to grab the most interesting or unusual ones, and husband Carl F. Hanneman (1901-1982) was often nearby to capture the moment on film.
David D. Hanneman’s priceless facial expression says it all, as his father Carl snaps yet another photo of mother Ruby picking up rocks.
The best examples of this hobby (or habit) came on a family trip from Mauston, Wisconsin, to Williston, South Dakota in 1947. After getting caught all bent over on several photographic occasions, Ruby and the kids shot back. They put their heads together and gave old Carl Hanneman a two-cheek salute.
David and Lavonne Hanneman joined their mother Ruby in offering a rear-end salute to cameraman Carl F. Hanneman.This photo proves Ruby’s habit was not a passing fad. Here she gathers samples on a trip to Phoenix in 1959.
The Hanneman Archive 