As I found out today, the college graduation of our firstborn son brought out great parental pride but also just a tinge of sadness at the quick passage of time. As I watched my son, Stephen Patrick, stride across the stage at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside to receive his diploma, my mind wandered to times long ago.
As Stevie shook the hands of the chancellor, the dean and the provost, I could see him climbing over my back as a toddler, wearing a rugby shirt and little blue jeans. I saw him in his flannel shirt and baseball cap at the pumpkin farm, riding in a wheelbarrow full of carefully selected pumpkins. I saw him, the proud big brother, holding his newborn sister,Samantha. I could hear echoes of Christmas 1996, with a new baby in the house. “You know what my favorite Christmas present is, Dad?” he asked eagerly. “Samantha,” he replied, beaming at his new sister. I saw him a few years later, pick up his baby sister, Ruby, and help us give her a bath.
Stevie with his girlfriend, Maggie, after graduating with a degree in computer science.
My mind wandered, but was brought back to the present for a moment. “Stephen Hanneman, bachelor of science,” professor Gregory Mayer called out over the public address system. Stevie, the young man, took his diploma cover from Chancellor Deborah Ford and strode back to his seat, the white tassel on his mortarboard dancing the whole way. How did this day arrive, watching my 24-year-old achieve one of the biggest of life’s milestones? How did he get here, one of 509 graduates in the Class of 2016? I realized that the golden-voiced soap-opera actor, Macdonald Carey, was right when he said: “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.”
Reminiscing might be one sure sign of aging, but graduations are good times to indulge in memories. Stevie overcame huge obstacles in his life to reach this day. We watched him pull his high school career from the clutches and turn things around. He killed it on the American College Test (ACT) and suddenly, a great future opened up. He put himself through school with student loans, working various jobs, and the unwavering help of his dear girlfriend, Maggie. How I wished I’d been able to provide more help and be there more during those years. But at the same time, how proud I am that he made it happen for himself.
Standing at the graduation reception in Wyllie Hall, I gave Stevie a big hug of congratulations. I knew, like the pumpkin farm and the bicycle rides and soccer games, memories of this day would be etched forever in my mind. I realized anew that as a parent, you do your very best, pray a lot, and then let them go.
Happy graduation, son. Your Dad is so very proud of you.
By Joe Hanneman
For more than 25 years, the University of Wisconsin-Parkside’s two duplicates of the famed “Sifting and Winnowing” plaques that memorialize the Richard Ely academic freedom trial sat in a corner of the archives, virtually untouched. On at least two occasions, efforts were made to put the plaques on display, but to no avail. Then in 1998, with the university’s 30th anniversary looming, Interim Chancellor Dr. Gordon H. Lamb decided the time had come to give the plaques their proper due.
Martha Glowacki and Mary Dickey do finish work on one of the plaques. (Duzynski Photo)
Old trophies line the shelves inside the former Madison Brass Works on the East Side of Wisconsin’s capital city. Just feet from where craftsmen over the years made everything from airplane parts to torpedo components sit icons of more leisurely pursuits: a bowling champion from 1949, boat-racing trophies from the former owner. They sit seemingly untouched since the day they were placed there nearly 50 years ago. Much about the wood-frame foundry seems in a time warp. Old foundry patterns hang along the side walls like suits in a closet. The floor is stacked with flasks and jackets for pouring and forming molten metal. A huge green muller sits in the center, used to mix sand and carbonite. It all looks straight from the 1940s.
It’s a good thing this place lives in the past. This building where the University of Wisconsin’s “Sifting and Winnowing” plaque was made in 1910 came to play a big role in UW-Parkside’s project to restore and display its versions of the 255-pound plaque in 1998.
The Madison Brass Works technically no longer exists. Now called Celestial Stone Foundry and Forge, the company and its one employee/owner helped repair and restore UW-Parkside’s two sifting and winnowing plaques and cast a rededication plaque using the very same pattern-maker’s letters from the original.
Tom Pankratz examines the original wooden form that could date to 1910. (Duzynski Photo)
In 1910 when UW-Madison student Hugo H. Hering made what he later called the “purely hand-made” wooden pattern for the sifting and winnowing plaque, he couldn’t have intended for it to survive much beyond creation of the one plaque.
Student Hugo H. Hering chaired the memorial committee.
His effort not only survived his time, but it may still exist today. When contacted in early 1998 about making rededication plaques, Tom Pankratz, the owner of Celestial Stone Foundry, located the old wood pattern buried under others at the foundry. He can’t be sure it is the exact version from 1910, but it is a distinct possibility it is original material from the Class of 1910.
“It was accidental that it survived to this day,” Pankratz said, surveying the old pattern, which was badly singed by a fire at the foundry in the 1960s. “It was buried under something.”
Dave Olson, a retired Madison Brass foundry worker who volunteered his time to work on the UW-Parkside project, said it was unusual for patterns to survive so many years. “Most places would either return it to the owner or get rid of it,” he said.
Pankratz pours molten metal into the form while Dave Olson watches. (Duzynski Photo)
Pankratz carefully lifted letters from the historic pattern to create a plaque for UW-Parkside that states: “Rededicated 1998.” It has the look and feel of the first sifting and winnowing plaque with the added historic flavor from the original letters.
Pankratz also found a master copy of the bronze anchor covers that adorn the original plaque on Bascom Hall in Madison. The ornate, 1.25-inch square tablets were used to cover the holes where the anchors were inserted to hold the plaque in place. Using the master, Pankratz created matching anchor covers for UW-Parkside’s plaques.
“Originally it was probably made by a hand carver,” Olson said.
Artists Martha Glowacki and Mary Dickey of Sylva Designs of Sauk City worked with Pankratz to repair and restore the two 4-by-4-foot plaques. The UW-Parkside plaques were cast in 1964. The holes drilled in the plaques when they hung at the old UW Centers in Racine and Kenosha were welded and new holes drilled to match the original plaque. The black surface under the brass letters was repaired and repainted. The brass surfaces were machine- and hand sanded and polished. At completion, the restored plaques had a luster probably matched only by the original sheen.
The anchor covers were used as give-aways at the 1998 rededication. (Duzynski Photo)
Glowacki also created plaques that include explanatory text briefly telling the sifting and winnowing story. Those exquisite bronze plaques have etched letters and an etched photo of the UW-Parkside campus. “We enjoyed the project,” Glowacki said. She, Dickey and Pankratz, all UW-Madison graduates, said it was a privilege to work on a project of such historic importance to the university.
In the case of the Sifting and Winnowing plaques, the third time was a charm. A committee of the 20th anniversary first attempted to find a suitable location for the plaques, but that effort was never completed. In 1992, UW-Parkside Interim Chancellor John Stockwell expressed desire to install the plaques, but the project didn’t happen before he left the university.
Dr. Gordon H. Lamb made the decision to restore and display the plaques.
In 1998, Interim Chancellor Gordon H. Lamb saw an opportunity to install the plaques, tie them in to the 30th anniversary and promote a longstanding tradition of academic freedom. “The plaques symbolize such tradition,” said Lamb, who went on to lead the University of Missouri System after leaving UW-Parkside. “I felt it was important the campus embrace the history and the tradition.” Lamb headed a committee that oversaw the restoration and planned for the new displays at UW-Parkside. The group included UW-Parkside Archivist Ellen Pedraza, who called new attention to the long-stored plaques in 1993.
The Sifting and Winnowing tablet along with commemorative plaque outside the UW-Parkside library. (Duzynski Photo)
At the rededication event held at UW-Parkside in late November 1998, new Chancellor Jack Keating expressed gratitude for the work to “free the plaques from the archive.” He said the plaques are an important reminder of free intellectual discourse.
Professor Emeritus of Economics W. Lee Hansen said the plaques are a “vivid expression” of the university’s search for truth.
W. Lee Hansen, professor emeritus of economics at UW-Madison, called the 1894 Regents report that led to the plaque a “forceful and vivid expression of a university’s commitment to the search for truth.” Hansen is editor of the 1998 book Academic Freedom on Trial: 100 Years of Sifting and Winnowing at the University of Wisconsin. The statement on the plaque, Hansen told the assembly, “affirms the right, indeed the obligation, of faculty and students to pursue the truth through the Sifting and Winnowing process.” (Dr. Hansen’s entire talk from the event is available on his UW-Madison web site.)
The plaques were installed just outside the UW-Parkside library near the portrait of founding Chancellor Irvin G. Wyllie, and outside of the Admissions Office in Molinaro Hall.
And the rest, as they say, is history. ♦
(A version of this article appeared in the winter 1998-99 issue of Perspective magazine at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.)
Pankratz and Olson prepare the form for the molten metal.
Pankratz moves the bucket of molten metal with the aid of a hoist.
The load is steadied before the pour.
Pankratz pours molten metal into the form while Dave Olson watches.
The anchor covers were used as give-aways at the rededication.
Martha Glowacki and Mary Dickey do finishing work on one of the plaques.
Tom Pankratz examines what is believed to be the original wooden “Sifting and Winnowing” plaque form.
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Postscript
After a year leading UW-Parkside during its search for a new chancellor, Dr. Gordon H. Lamb was named interim head of the University of Missouri System. He later founded his own consulting firm in Missouri doing executive recruiting. Dr. Lamb was a renowned expert on choral music and the author of Choral Techniques. As a music professor and choral conductor, he conducted concerts in 17 states and in Europe. He spent 10 years as president of Northeastern Illinois University, preceded by 16 years as a music professor and administrator at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Dr. Lamb was a skilled leader, a true gentleman and a great man — the best boss I’ve ever had. He died on February 6, 2012 in Columbia, Missouri.
Mary Dickey’s roadside shrine, “A Call to Beauty.”
Mary Dickey is curator for River Arts on Water, a gallery in downtown Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin. She recently designed and created a roadside shrine, “A Call to Beauty,” part of the Fermentation Fest Farm/Art DTour in fall 2014.
Martha Glowacki is recently retired from her role as curator of the James Watrous Gallery in Madison, part of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences Arts & Letters. She was previously director of the Design Gallery at UW–Madison. She and Tom Pankratz worked together on the 1999-2000 restoration of the World War I Doughboy statue in West Bend, Wisconsin. Pankratz sold his Madison foundry in 2014 and moved out West.
W. Lee Hansen, professor emeritus of economics at UW-Madison, has been conducting research on the UW System’s diversity programs. He is writing a book that will, among other things, examine the costs vs. benefits of diversity programs, arguing the university should have an admissions system based on merit and academic promise. He has also written extensively on the issue of academic freedom.
The Hanneman Archive 